Children Bond Amidst Bleak Industrialism in Castle in the Sky

I’ve been working my way through the films of acclaimed Japanese writer-director Hayao Miyazaki, and after the isolated, bucolic beauty of My Neighbor Totoro, I was startled by the industrialism and violence of Castle in the Sky, originally from 1986 but recently released by Disney in America with dubbing by English-speaking actors. This movie is considerably darker and longer than Totoro and involves an epic quest to discover a legendary floating city along the lines of Atlantis but concealed in the clouds.

Our heroes are Sheeta (Anna Paquin), a mountain girl whose mysterious amulet makes her the target of kidnapping by two different groups of unsavory characters, and Pazu (James Van Der Beek), the working-class boy who finds her floating above the quarry where he lives after she escapes her would-be captors. It doesn’t take the children long to realize that the necklace is the reason she is endangered, and they soon make the connection between it and the lost city that Pazu’s father, an explorer, once claimed to find. Both seek the city for answers about their heritage, but they will have to contend with slimy government official Muska (Mark Hamill) and his minions, who are after the knowledge and power the island houses, as well as a ramshackle band of pirates led by cantankerous matriarch Dola (Cloris Leachman), who has her eye on its fabled treasure.

This is a bleak movie. It has a futuristic feel to it, as so much of it takes place in the sky aboard “airships.” Given Miyazaki’s love of nature, I expected to see more of it, but we are offered only fleeting glimpses. Granted, what he does show us, particularly in the pristine garden that greets the children after they finally reach the island of Laputa, is stunning. Mostly, however, it’s cold fortresses, crumbling mines and lots and lots of propellers. Unlike Totoro, the world of this movie was not one I wanted to visit, particularly since explosions seem to rock the landscape about every ten minutes.

Hamill is flat-out creepy as he voices the slick Muska. For the most part, his manners are genteel, but underneath that cajoling exterior is roiling malice. It doesn’t take too long to realize that of the two villainous factions pursuing Sheeta, his is the more malevolent. Leachman is hilariously ornery in her role as the unkempt pirate queen who reminds me of hillbilly Ma Gogan in Pete’s Dragon. The pirate family is ultimately a twinge more warm-hearted than that dastardly crew, and Dola, her husband, who usually wears only an undershirt above the waist and whose build and enormous mustache make him look like the Lorax, and their many borderline dopey sons are consistent sources of much-needed comic relief.

The heart of the movie, however, is the deep friendship that develops between the elegant, ethereal Sheeta and the earthy, rough-and-tumble Pazu. They bond quickly, particularly during their time with a slightly daffy elderly miner Pazu calls Uncle Pomme (Richard Dysart). It is at this point that they realize just how strong Sheeta’s connection to Laputa is and what a potentially dangerous object she carries. Shades of Lord of the Rings entered my mind as Uncle Pomme uttered dark warnings about the amulet’s powers falling into the wrong hands. While Sheeta feels guilty for dragging Pazu into a dangerous situation, he seems to thrive on the adrenaline rush, and the movie includes an amusing number of instances in which he falls, dangles or crash-lands. He has great physical strength and little foresight. It isn’t really until the climax that he learns to think things through a minute before he leaps.

My Neighbor Totoro left me feeling warm and fuzzy, wanting to run out in a rainstorm and twirl around or give someone a great big bear hug. Castle in the Sky has a very different tone to it. While there is happiness in the conclusion, it is elegiac, and the final image strikes loneliness into the soul, as does the state in which the children find the island and the assertions Muska makes about it. The film seems to be largely a fable about the dangers of superior power unchecked by compassion. The central friendship brings it down to a more relatable level, while the antics of the pirates keep us from getting too bogged down in despair. Hope does peer out through the crevices of this movie. However, at times it feels almost as elusive as the titular castle.

Love Blooms Between Fish and Boy in Ponyo

I’ve been a fan of The Little Mermaid since the Disney version hit theaters when I was in second grade, and I’ve heard many accolades directed at Hayao Miyazaki, the man who helmed such critically acclaimed films as Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke. Hence, I was very curious about Ponyo, a Japanese re-imagining of the Hans Christian Andersen tale of a mermaid who dreams of becoming human.

I’ve seen foreign films dubbed into English before, but one thing that makes Ponyo different is the fact that so many of the voice actors are familiar, including Liam Neeson, Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett, Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin and Betty White. Meanwhile, the children at the heart of the movie are from famous families; Frankie Jonas is brother to the Jonas Brothers, while Noah Lindsey Cyrus is Miley Cyrus’s sister. Having so many well-known voices in the movie was fun, albeit slightly distracting as I tried to figure out which actor was attached to each of the characters.

One identification that never eluded me was Neeson as Fujimoto, Ponyo’s overprotective father who has the force of the ocean at his command. He is similar in many ways to King Triton, his counterpart in the Disney film, but the character I kept thinking of was Bryan Mills, the distraught, dangerous dad in the 2008 thriller Taken. Like Bryan, he goes to extraordinary extremes to retrieve his daughter after she vanishes, causing me to conclude that whether he is in live-action or animated form, you simply do not mess with Liam Neeson’s daughter. In Ponyo, the whole town must pay the price for Ponyo’s disappearance as he subjects them to horrific flooding while he searches for his little fish-girl, even though she clearly is on land of her own volition.

Ponyo bears only the most basic of similarities to The Little Mermaid. The headstrong daughter of an undersea monarch escapes her humdrum underwater existence after befriending a human boy. The main characters are much younger in this instance, so while there is still an element of romantic love at play here, this is not a movie that’s going to end in a wedding. Sosuke and Ponyo are still just small children, so it’s little wonder that Fujimoto is so concerned, though his determination to punish all of humanity, whom he already loathes for their ecological carelessness, is a tad excessive.

The Little Mermaid’s Prince Eric is one of the more interesting of the traditional Disney princes, but he’s still not exactly a fully realized character. In this film, Sosuke is much more fleshed out than the princess. A lively, compassionate little boy, he delights in visiting the elderly ladies at the nursing home near his school and operating the beacon in his lighthouse to signal to his seafaring father that he is on the lookout for him.

When he and Ponyo first meet, she is still a “goldfish” - though she looks like no goldfish I ever saw. She doesn’t even look like a fish. Rather, she is a strange blob with a humanoid face and four appendages that vaguely resemble human limbs. But Sosuke loves her instantly and scoops her up out of the water to claim for his pet. Ponyo doesn’t mind being snatched up; she returns Sosuke’s affection and quickly develops a taste for human food as she snatches some ham from his sandwich. This simple act is an essential component in her later transformation into a little girl of few words who really, really LOVES ham, as she loudly proclaims on several occasions.

There is an environmentalist thread that runs through this film as Miyazaki uses the wild-looking Fujimoto to express discontent with the excesses of humanity and demonstrate how people might come to pay for disregarding ecological matters. But mostly, this is a story of love, pure and simple. Ponyo and Sosuke are as open-hearted as children can be, embracing each other and everyone around them with expansive enthusiasm and kindness. Among the voice actors, intimidating Neeson, harried Fey and affable White make the biggest impression, with Fey having a particularly hefty role as Sosuke’s devoted but frazzled mother.

Ponyo is beautifully animated, though some of the visual elements of the movie are strange indeed, particularly the various sea creatures who aid or hinder Ponyo in her quest. In addition to looking exceedingly odd, Ponyo sounds quite crazed most of the time, causing me to burst out laughing at nearly all of her dialogue. Equally silly is the bouncy end-credits song that starts in immediately after the movie concludes. Meanwhile, my mom was horrified at the erratic driving habits of Sosuke’s mother, which, like several aspects of the movie, are exaggerated to a rather absurd degree. There’s an element of strangeness to the film that makes it hard for me to embrace completely, but for the most part, I found Ponyo to be a fresh and very sweet twist on an old tale.

I Go Bananas for Herbie!

Among my Christmas presents this year was a gift card to Target, which I used to buy the game Apples to Apples. Last year, I also got a Target gift card, with which I purchased a four-pack of Herbie movies. I spread out my viewings of the movies, leaving the last for this year. The title: Herbie Goes Bananas. What can I say? I'm a fruitcake! You almost have to be to get such a kick out of the idea of a little Volkswagen beetle with a heart of gold and an ability to drive himself around town. Herbie sure seems to know what he's doing, despite the nerve-racking nature of some of his death-defying stunts; I wouldn't mind having him as my own personal chauffeur. Especially if he came with that nifty theme song.

But a lot of people don't agree with me. The movies, made during the 70s and 80s, back when Disney was still churning out innocuous live-action family films, are very G-rated, heavy on the corny special effects, marked in some cases by gaping plot holes (beyond the obvious "Wait! Cars aren't alive!" deal). I made the rather grievous error of semi-forcing Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo on my brother over the summer. He was not impressed. In fact, his string of cynical comments left me so jaded that I gave the movie three stars. Poor Herbie! If I wrote the review today, I'm sure I'd rate it much higher, but I'll leave my original rating as a reminder to myself that some movies are best enjoyed only in certain company.

My mom was the only one I subjected to Herbie Goes Bananas. We popped it in late the other night and fell asleep watching it. Tonight I skipped ahead and watched the ending I missed the other day. It's all gloriously cheesy, with hardy little Herbie always saving the day, much more in control of the situation than his human counterparts. It obviously was geared toward children, probably more than the other installments because this one features Paco (Joaquin Garay III), an adorable Spanish-speaking scamp whose pick-pocketing skill is unmatched and whose affectionate nature is wasted on such a cut-throat living. He just wants somebody to love, and he finds that someone in "Ocho," the name he chooses for Herbie when he stows away inside him early in the movie. After they are reunited later, a chorus of children sing a syrupy song about friendship whose lyrics include the cheerful line "I bet you a banana manana you'll have a new friend!" If Nathan had been watching with me, I think he would have hit the mute button.

Even I admit the song is a bit much, but the rest of the movie is pretty solid entertainment. Jim Douglas has passed Herbie on to new owners again; I don't know why he bothers, since Herbie somehow always seems to end up back with him. But the boys who inherit him are a good couple of chaps. His nephew Pete (Stephen Burns) is a dreamboat and a mighty soft touch, easily taken in by Paco's practiced routine, while his toothy compadre D. J. (Charles Martin Smith) seems just a bit more world-wise. It had been so long since I'd seen this movie that when we first started watching, I couldn't recall if they were the good guys or the bad guys, but their actions soon showed them to be men of character.

They're also men of ambition, having traveled to South America to pick up Herbie and drive him to victory in a major Brazilian race. Too bad for them that they get mixed up with Paco, who tangles with a group of troublemaking treasure seekers led by the sinister Prindle (John Vernon). Herbie takes it upon himself to protect the kid, which leads to several embarrassing situations for the lads, particularly when Herbie arouses the ire of the overbearing Captain Blythe (Harvey Korman), captain of the ship on which the young men appeal to their flirtatious aunt Louise (Cloris Leachman) for funds to back their entry into the big race. Problematically, Herbie's antics so enrage the captain that he forces the little car to walk the plank, of all cruel things. But we all know that's not enough to keep a good car down!

Interwoven into the plot are two love stories, neither of which is too prominent. The first involves Aunt Louise's rather ridiculous crush on Captain Blythe, an overdramatic sea dog whose only true loves are the open water and a fine vessel in full sail. The second is between Pete and Melissa (Elyssa Davalos), a severe young doctoral candidate who always keeps her hair up tight in a bun and her eyes shielded behind enormous glasses. While the first never seems to be reciprocal, the second could be, except that it begins merely as a means of winning Aunt Louise's favor, as she is determined to play matchmaker for her traveling companion, who has the capacity to be both pretty and vivacious. Once Melissa finds this out, she is none too pleased, feeling as though she has been used, even though Pete's feelings toward her have changed.

The main action involves Herbie, though, getting himself out of close scrapes while getting the humans closely associated with him into them. He zooms along at top speed. He floats for miles in the water, becoming covered with rust. He plays chicken with a bull - and wins! And of course, as per the film's title, he allows himself to be decorated with bananas in hopes that will throw the bad guys off his scent; later, when the scoundrels show up anyway, he resumes his attempts to thwart them, this time lobbing bananas at them as they try to get away with a massive wheel of pilfered Inca gold. It's quite the slippery spectacle. Other than those small scenes, plus that line in the song, there's little in the movie to suggest the title in any literal sense, but he certainly does "go bananas" throughout the movie if we're talking about acting in a crazily silly way.

We never actually get to see Herbie's big race; the film ends just before it's about to start, with Paco in the driver's seat in a shiny racing suit, having just explained to D.J. that he calls Herbie "Ocho" because "five and three make eight - everyone knows that"! The closest thing to an actual race is the bullfight, but that doesn't bother me much since every major Herbie race tends to play out pretty much the same way as the climactic event in The Love Bug. Herbie's most interesting to me as a sort of metallic Lassie, exuding friendship and coming to the rescue of an assortment of disaster-prone humans. We get plenty of that here, plus the sprightly theme song, so who am I to complain about a few corny moments and pesky plot holes?