Probably.

I did enjoy the first and third Harry Potter movies (somehow I skipped the second one in its entirety but I’ve seen bits), the first one especially.  After all that it probably seems pretty clear that I’m going to pan the fourth installment.  The movie was entertaining, and for the 157 minute run time it didn’t drag.  That’s all the nice things I’m going to say.

 How can you have four people very nervous about fighting dragons, talk about them being nervous, show the dragons, fire the big cannon leading into the dragon fights, and then skip the dragon fights.  To be fair there was a dragon chase, but that’s hardly a dragon fight.  I’d much rather have watched dragon fights than a high school dance.  I’d also very much like to have a miniature pocket dragon.

The movie falls into this trap a lot, the trap of enticing me with promises of something interesting and then showing me something devastatingly uninteresting.  I don’t know about you, but I go see Harry Potter movies because I’m a dork and I like magic and wizards and those sorts of things.  If there’s a tri-wizard tournament that will make its winner a legend for the ages, and the participants are chosen by a goblet of fucking fire that’s what I want the movie to be about, not about pubescent wizards dealing with harsh realities of being a teenager.  During the movie I was on high alert to avert my gaze during the scene where Harry “magically” sprouts his first pubes.  If I were attending “magic high school” and instead of the dance involving, I dunno, maybe FUCKING MAGIC, there is some weird goth band singing DragonForce lyrics over pop-rock music I’d pack my bags.

I know Harry and his friends are kids and thus subjected to the same real world problems as you and I, but it’s also a movie and about MAGIC.  The other movies had no problem circumventing all that other horse shit.  When everyone gets together to play some weird version of flying soccer, that’s what you see.  Not everything leading up to said game and then cut to a gay little singing and dancing party full of awkward teens.

It’s sad that the story of Harry Potter is so compelling.  Sad in that I have to imagine what it would be like it decent actors were to be telling that story.  I understand that it would be hard (and probably would incite riots) if the actors were changed mid-stream, but I don’t think acting lessons should be out of the question.  Some moments are so rigid and fake that I think blame falls more closely on the shoulders of the director than on the actors.  Newell has directing some decent movies in the past, but I think Columbus and Cuaron did a much better job with the series.

Academy Award®-winning director Hayao Miyazaki ("Spirited Away") takes moviegoers on an amazing new animated adventure that celebrates the power of love to transform and the resiliency of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Brimming with a blend of imagination, humor, action, and romance, "Howl's Moving Castle" recently played to great acclaim at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, and has become one of the biggest blockbusters of all time in Japan – earning more than $193 million at the box office and still counting.

A distinguished cast of actors, under the direction of Pixar's Pete Docter ("Monsters, Inc."), lend their vocal talents to this English-language version of the film. Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer), an average teenage girl working in a hat shop, finds her life thrown into turmoil when she is literally swept off her feet by a handsome-but-mysterious wizard named Howl (voiced by Christian Bale), and is subsequently turned into a 90-year old woman (voiced by screen legend and two-time Oscar® nominee Jean Simmons) by the vain and conniving Wicked Witch of the Waste (voiced by screen legend and Oscar® nominee Lauren Bacall). Embarking on an incredible odyssey to lift the curse, she finds refuge in Howl's magical moving castle where she becomes acquainted with Markl, Howl's apprentice, and a hot-headed fire demon named Calcifer (voiced by Billy Crystal). Sophie's love and support comes to have a major impact on Howl, who flies in the face of orders from the palace to become a pawn of war and instead risks his life to help bring peace to the kingdom. Extraordinary characters, inventive imagery, and stunning artistry make this latest masterpiece from the visionary Miyazaki an unforgettable filmgoing experience.

Let’s preface this by saying I’m a big fan of cartoons, especially the Japanese import kind. Not quite to the level of “fan boy” but certainly more than a casual viewer. With that in mind I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Miyazaki’s work does begin to run together a little with this latest piece, but when excellence starts to imitate itself it’s hard to wag a finger and say “Bad director. No,” and rub his nose in it. Much of the symbolism and stylization of figures will seem very familiar to fans of Spirited Away. I don’t feel that picking into specifics of this movie alone will do you, the reader, or myself much good. I suggest you watch this movie. That’s about the most I feel I can say about it in and of itself. So let’s back away a little and see how dropping a nuclear bomb on a country can rather fuck up that country’s self-identity - in a surprisingly good way of course.

I’m speaking mostly out of personal analysis of the genre with little research beyond the movies themselves, so if you tend to disagree I can’t really blame you. But you can’t disagree with what you haven’t read and what I haven’t yet written… You don’t have to read very deeply into most Anime to see a culture whose every pore is drenched with nuclear fallout. Princess Mononoke where the sinews of war transform creatures into hideous mutations which spread poison everywhere they go. A similar theme in Spirited Away. Grave of the Fire Flies is quite on the point of the nuclear bomb. Akira and its ultra sleek future filled with genetic freaks, the result of scientific tampering. Big O (an anime series) involves an entire city devoid of its memories, somehow destroyed all at once. The list goes on and on. With an event as horrific and all encompassing as the atomic bomb(s) it’s a bit redundant to say that it heavily influenced their culture. I simply find that if you look at an anime film, series, graphic novel or comic in that particular light it could perhaps help you to understand more of the motivations behind the themes of the medium.

To boil it down further, this whole argument formed in my mind because I became tired of watching these beautiful films and constantly saying to myself “What the fuck is going on?” In our culture whenever you hear a music cue “Ba dum. Ba dum ba dum ba dum” you immediately remember Jaws and a million references and feelings go through your mind helping you to better understand a scene simply by the cultural reference. I am constantly getting the feeling that I’m missing out on those sorts of references anytime I see an anime movie. Is there something culturally significant about evil blob creatures? Does every Japanese child understand that there are some people who can fly and some who cannot and that’s just the way it is? These things and others come up so often throughout the entire body of anime work I’ve seen that I find it difficult to believe that there aren’t some archetypes we Americans have missed out on.

I find it helps my understanding of these movies to view things at least partially through the filter of atomic holocaust. No matter where the characters live or in what fantasy world they inhabit they all seem to have experienced some great catastrophe in their past, spoken or unspoken, that effects their behavior. Seems as good a coping mechanism as any for a culture to cope with tragedy.