House of Dioxin

Over the weekend we watched Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Wonderful, of course. Very intense -- probably more violent than any of his movies, altho maybe not as graphic as Princess Mononoke. If you're familiar with Miyazaki, it's similar to Laputa except it's got more of the girl's adventure story feel of Spirited Away (or even Kiki's Delivery Service altho it's much darker). I was struck by the parallels and similarities to Princess Mononoke (the "environmental" themes in particular) Sarah even noticed some visuals that seemed to anticipate the later Mononoke. I don't remember many mentions of Nausicaa in the Mononoke reviews, but that might be just me -- I wasn't as familiar with Miyazaki then as I am now. Also, at that time Nausicaa was essentially unavailable to US audiences so that's maybe another reason why it wasn't cited in those reviews. It's also interesting to see just how much better, and more detailed the animation has gotten from Nausicaa (which is plenty amazing) to the more recent films like Mononoke or Spirited Away. Even though the animation's not quite as good maybe, I think I enjoyed Nausicaa a bit more than Mononoke, altho I'm not sure I could quite say why. Spirited Away is still my favorite, altho I have a special fondness for Kiki's even though it's clearly not in the same class as his best work. Still haven't seen Porco Rosso which also seems slight but, hey, pigs in biplanes... what could be bad?
(aside: I've been doing my best to avoid all reviews of Howl's Moving Castle which has already opened in NYC and other major urban centers. with any luck it will be playing in the Triangle before too much longer)