Studio Ghibli screenings @ FACT Liverpool (November)

[greenman]

It's 1979, way before Studio Ghibli formed in 1985 though. Miyazaki only directed it. It is a good film (one of the best anime feature films by far) but it's better to consider it separate (unlike Nausicca which for all intents and purposes brought the studio together)

To be fair though when people talk about Ghibli most of the time there talking about Miyazaki and Takahata rather than it being some massively diverse studio during its best years. I'v not seen much of his TV work but Cagliostro does seem like it previews a lot of Miyazaki's latter ideas in a more straight forward action adventure.

I must admit I do find his films post Mononoke I have increasing moved towards thinking Miyazaki's films overall became a bit patchy, some of his best work in terms of individual sequences/scenes but a bit too convoluted overall.

Laputa, Porco Rosso and Mononoke would probably be my favourites.

[Brian Freeze]

Did anyone go?

We're heading over sunday.  Could do with any suggestions of where to park for the day. Planning on getting there in the morning and mooching about the city first but have two kids with us so ideally nearer the cinema would be best for after the show, otherwise we'd have got the train.

[Sin Agog]

I'd suggest not parking in the path of the giant rampaging insect.

[buzby]

Did anyone go?

We're heading over sunday.  Could do with any suggestions of where to park for the day. Planning on getting there in the morning and mooching about the city first but have two kids with us so ideally nearer the cinema would be best for after the show, otherwise we'd have got the train.

Don't go to any of the Q Parks as they are fucking ripoff. [ur=http://kingpark.co.uk/l]King Park[/url], in King's Dock St  just off the Dock Road opposite King's Dock  is pretty good value if you can get in - £4 for 12 hours. Just make sure you have the right coins (though you can pay by phone I think). it's on the southern edge of the city centre though - you have to walk through the Baltic Quarter (euurhhg, I hate that name) to get to the main bit of town and up to Wood St for FACt. It's near the Kings & Albert Docks though ,so you can have a mooch round there and admire Jesse Hartley's architecture and then head into town through the temple of Mammon that is Liverpool One.

[Brian Freeze]

Many thanks Buzby,  a fifteen minute walk afterwards is perfect. Looking forward to our visit.

[phantom_power]

Not sure where to put this but all the Ghibli films are coming to Netflix, in 3 batches starting on the 1st of February

[Jerzy Bondov]

All of them except Grave of the Fireflies for some reason.

As a massive pathetic idiot baby I will be interested to see which dub they use on Kiki's Delivery Service. The original Disney dub had Phil Hartman ad libbing and English language songs. They did a new edit of the dub to cut back on Hartman and reinstate the Japanese score - which I prefer, even though Hartman is great - but for some reason they fucked up and all the voices sound like they're speaking through an electric fan. They haven't fixed it on any of the subsequent Blu Ray releases. Wonder if it'll be fixed here or if they'll go back to the original one or if they won't bother. Supposedly Ghibli have approved the fucked up dub so I suspect they don't really care. I'd watch the subbed versions but my 2 year old loves Kiki and he can't read because he's 2.

[Thursday]

*whispers*[nb]extra quietly[nb]I actually prefer the English language song on the opening of Kiki's Delivery Service to the original. I know I'm really sorry, I find this troubling but inescapable[/nb][/nb]

[Jerzy Bondov]

It's alright. I'd prefer it if they had just rerecorded the vocals in English rather than changing the whole song. Works great on Ponyo and Totoro. HEY LET'S GO! HEY LET'S GO! I'M HAPPY AS CAN BE!

[bgmnts]

Genuinely cant wait to watch a fat pig monster vomit up flowers onto a cute little girls happy face while hippos dressed in tuxedos look on.

[idunnosomename]

i've never seen anything other than the bog standard Kiki and as I say it's one of my favourites. I think Hartman brought a lot to the role of the cat and he wasn't phoning it in with wisecracking by any means. It might be a very broad translation and localised but I think it works. you dont want to be translating everything literally in a dub.

Grave of the Fireflies has slightly awkward licencing in that it was produced for the publisher of the original short story rather than Tokuma Shoten who distributed all their other films. But it has been on Film 4, because that's how I've seen basically all of the Ghibli canon

i think it's also genuinely sad when Hartman's cat goes mute at the end :(

[Jerzy Bondov]

Jiji talks at the end of the original Disney dub. They took his line back out for the revised version. I agree it's sad though. I think Miyazaki is making some point about growing up or something but I don't care I like the talking cat. I'm fine with that change. Generally the Disney dubs are really good. Some people hate the Mononoke one - written by Neil Gaiman -  but as you say just because it's not very faithful doesn't mean it isn't good.

[Endicott]

Grave of the Fireflies has slightly awkward licencing in that it was produced for the publisher of the original short story rather than Tokuma Shoten who distributed all their other films. But it has been on Film 4, because that's how I've seen basically all of the Ghibli canon

They showed it in the middle of the night, the weirdies, if I remember right. During a Ghibli season where everything else was on during the day.

[Josef K]

Annoying omision of Grave of the Fireflies as that's the one I most want to see but they're showing it at the Prince Charles next Saturday so all is not lost

[Jerzy Bondov]

If anyone was wondering about Kiki, Netflix have used the 1998 Disney dub with the English language songs and the full Hartman, but the video is the remastered Blu Ray release, which looks stunning (like all the Ghibli Blu Rays). That makes this the only official way to watch the HD remaster without a choppy dub. Personally I would rather they fix the audio on the 2010 dub but this is a very good way to watch a brilliant film.

[idunnosomename]

i have no idea why i loved that film so much but phil hartman genuinely did add a lot to it imo

[Sin Agog]

Annoying omision of Grave of the Fireflies as that's the one I most want to see but they're showing it at the Prince Charles next Saturday so all is not lost

No Whisper of the Heart either.  Netflix must have figured there's too much violins in that movie for the weans.

EDIT: Oh, they're staggering their releases in blocks?  Probably a smart move, though it would have been cool seeing every Ghibli movie ever cockblocking their Trending list.  Would have been funny if the first block was just Pom Poko and its gobs of giant squirrel balls.

[Chriddof]

No, no - they're pouches.

[popcorn]

Today I watched a YouTube video of a nerd complaining about how Netflix "replaced" the English songs in Kiki's Delivery Service with the original (beautiful) 70s Japanese songs by Yumi Arai. The entire premise was that the film had been "Lucas'd", because it wasn't the version they grew up with on DVD.

I'll be cross for days.

[Sin Agog]

Today I watched a YouTube video of a nerd complaining about how Netflix "replaced" the English songs in Kiki's Delivery Service with the original (beautiful) 70s Japanese songs by Yumi Arai. The entire premise was that the film had been "Lucas'd", because it wasn't the version they grew up with on DVD.

I'll be cross for days.

But they didn't.  At least not in the English language track.

That Disney redub really was heartbreaking, and this was my first time hearing it.  My favourite moment of Kiki is when she says these lines:



It's turned into nondescript nothingness in the Disney dub.  Despicable and dreary doodling on Da Vinci from Disney all over that dub.