Hayao's in da house!

Well, this is awkward. Rewind to last week and I was all “blah blah blah go watch Laputa: Castle in the Sky on SBS as part of their Hayao Miyazaki tribute it should be great blah blah blah I’m so excited”. For those wishing to imitate me in the future that is exactly how I speak. Exactly. Cut a long story short I was not a fan of good ol’ Laputa and (just quietly) it barley holds a candle, let alone a flame, to its awesome predecessor Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The problem is it crossed the fine line between mind blowing fantasy and ridiculous nonsense. And what was with the sexual subtext? The two lead characters are, like, 8-years old! A friend happened to point out various parts of the dialogue which are unintentional hilarious due to the said subtext.. In its defense, the animation was still incredible and repeatedly took my breath away to the point where a ventil puffer was my companion on the couch. James Van Der Beek did a sturdy job vocally in his role as the male lead BUT who would Anna Paquin still can’t act, even when she’s not on the screen! So, after enduring two hours of Laputa action I wondered . . . can I ever trust Miyazaki again?
HELL YES! The next night I rented Howl’s Moving Castle and fell in love with the beautiful plot, animation and characters.

I thought Howl’s brilliance even exceeded Nausicaa which is saying a lot because I’m a big, big fan of that film. Tonight SBS are again screening the next Miyazaki film called Kiki’s Delivery Service which I’m very curious about. Released in 1989 it’s a coming of age story about 13-year-old witch-in-training Kiki (FYI that’s cutting a long story short but I’m trying to keep this semi-brief). Miyazaki’s films seem to centre around a teenage female heroine and he handles this character type extremley well. You could say it’s what he’s at home doing, like Scorcese and bio-pics or Michael Bay and shit-house films.Anyway, I’m interested to see what Kiki is like and am keen to hear your thoughts. It’s on tonight, SBS, 10.05pm.