I also really like Castle in the Sky and, once I got used to it's early style oddness, became rather fond of The Castle of Cagliostro.


The one Ghibli I couldn't stand, despite it's Mononoke-like mythos genre, was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Bleh. Oh, and yeah, Grave of the Fireflies was meh.



Hmmm, "Bleh" and "Meh" ... maybe I ought to give "Nine Borneo's Out of Ten" a run for its money in the film critiique biz.

Slight momentary movie derail:

I watched Miami Vice last night on DVD. I'd never seen the TV show, so I've no idea if they were linked in any way other than the characters' names. It was an OK cop actioner, but that's not what I'm here to say about it.

Ultra-fast speed boats played an important role in the story ... and one such prominently-featured boat was called Mojo.





That is all.

or Jim Carrey.

Although, I did love Batman Forever, which had both of them, and Val Kilmer (hubba hubba), to boot.

My 2 words are Jim. And. Carrey.

In light of Oscar-reminded comics who've been MUCH better at serious roles (i.e. Will Farrell in Stranger Than Fiction and Jack Black in King Kong), I'm willing to give Jim Carrey a shot at this. In fact, he's already proved himself to be a fine seriouser actor in Eternal Sunshine ..., so I will avoid his comedies like the plague, but give anything halfway serious he's in half a chance.

Is it OK if I use all four words? I hear this one is a particular stinker.

Will Ferrell is one of the few people I've changed my mind on in the whole funny/not funny debate. Though I can't say he did a bad job in them, I absolutely hated every single one of his recurring skit roles at SNL. They were all from the era when SNL writers would pick out some weird grotesque they'd run into somewhere and beat them to death week after week without doing anything funny. Ferrell started to win me over when he played a politician who kept running negative campaign ads about his opponent long after he'd won the election. He's now become one of those actors who, when I see him, I want to laugh.

So whos do you stiffs thinks is funny, anyways?

Saw a press screening of Wild Hogs last night. I have to review it for MousePlanet so can't share my thoughts on it yet.

But I did discover something, when you're sitting their waiting for the movie to start and things have pretty much filled up, the last thing you want to hear from the person sitting in front of you is an exclamation to another person that "we're going to be all Jerry Spring in this section."

The audience ended up being mostly invited guests from local Harley-Davidson motorcycle clubs. It maybe goes without saying that such an invitation in Oakland does not really produce the yuppie weekend rider class of people that maybe resulted in other towns.

Strangler Lewis: I find Jim Carey to be funny when he's reined in. Balls to the wall slapstick and he's awful though. Steve Carrell has proven himself though his style could get old after another 10 movies. Sandra Oh amuses me (though it is more often a dramedy type thing). I liked Jerry Lewis in many of his movies.

Outright comedic acting frequently doesn't appeal to me, though. I prefer something more subtle and generally more ironic and unlike dramatic actors I find that a consistently comedic actor is much more likely to be inconsistent.

Will Ferrell is about 50/50 for me now. Like SL, I loathed him on SNL save for one or two shining moments. Stuff he's done since then has softened me on him, but even when I like him, he still can't resist going for the screaming/crying moment that he thinks is hilarious and that just makes me want to hurt him.

Ferrell rocks my socks in his new pic, and that isn't even colored by the fact that we worked on the site. [work plug] bladesofglorymovie.com [/work plug] But I enjoyed him far more in Stranger than Fiction than ever I had before; it was a subtler brand of comedy, which I generally prefer.

Steve Carrell also amuses me pretty constantly. His Daily Show work, The Office, 40-Year-Old Virgin... all I enjoyed immensely.

Colbert is forever good for a laugh. I watched a lot in a row, though, and I'm a little burned out for the time being.

Charlie Chaplin. Buster Keaton. Harold Lloyd. These are a few of my favorite things.