Adventures in media consumption.

[owlectomy]

-I watched Ponyo! Not one of my absolutely favorite Miyazaki movies but I enjoyed it greatly. I even got used to the dub once I got over "That's not Sosuke's mother! That's LIZ LEMON!"

Sosuke's mom is pretty great. If I ever fear that Miyazaki is too nostalgic towards a rural idealized past, and all the baggage that brings with it, it's kind of refreshing that here is a mother who drinks beer, yells at her husband in blinky-light code, serves her kid cup noodles, and leaves her very young child alone in a ferocious thunderstorm to go check on the people at the senior center -- and none of that makes her a bad parent.

Also I cried.

-I've been watching old episodes of Futurama on Netflix streaming! Some I didn't remember at all, which is great. Being a science fiction comedy in the way that Futurama is a science fiction comedy means you can do pretty much whatever you want and not have to justify any of it with ridiculous things like "logic," and sometimes that actually seems to be what's necessary for the very finely honed storytelling of the best episodes. Real life is messier, and you don't usually want that kind of tidiness in a novel, but in a short story it works, and I'm glad to grand them the concessions to make it work.

Fry's old neighborhood is very near where I live (we're both by the Newkirk subway stop). I find this AWESOME.

Also some of the episodes were really getting to me, emotionally, and I thought I'd better not watch the one about Fry's dog. And then I did. It was a bad choice.

-I meant to see Harry Potter today but I didn't realize it was 2 and a half hours long and I didn't want to get home that late. Will try again another day! I haven't been watching the movies -- I just saw the first and second -- but I feel like seeing the last two.

-What major work of modern Japanese literature should I make a resolution to read next year? I was thinking The Makioka Sisters / Sasameyuki but now I'm not so sure. I don't really want to make it my 5th try reading Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

Comments

[laceblade]

Sosuke's mom is the shit!

I find poor memory to be ideal for TV re-watching.

[owlectomy]

My memory is too good for reruns of most things, but I've rarely had cable for the past ten years, which has its up-sides!

[deborah]

I love how YOUNG Ponyo is. So many movies for small children are snarky, sarcastic, full of winks to the adults. They rely on cheap jokes about the sidekick character. Ponyo is the rare movie I've seen for a very young audience which is entirely for a very young audience but is still enjoyable for adults.

[owlectomy]

That's so true.

I remember one of Disney's direct-to-video Aladdin sequels, where Jasmine's father said something like "The earth isn't supposed to move until after the wedding" -- who is that FOR? The pop culture references in Disney's first Aladdin movie, who are those for? Children who don't stay up late enough to watch Arsenio Hall? The premise seems to be that kid's movies, no matter how good or how terrible, require undercover sex jokes to make them interesting.

Totoro has aged much better than the Disney animated movies of the same time period.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Life is surely too short to read Mishima?

Sasameyuki is something I'd like to have a crack at myself, just to see what the fuss is about. I liked it well enough in translation, but I never got the impression of minute detail my profs all assured me was the great point of the book. But it's long. What about Yama no Oto?

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

Yama no Oto it is! I have not read any Kawabata at all, even though I've had Snow Country on my shelves for the longest time, and he's close enough to contemporary that it's not too much of a headache to read him.

[bnharrison.livejournal.com]

I am not getting over the part where Ponyo's father is Liam Neeson. I mean--you know what I mean. He played Aslan, and everyone nodded and said, "of course he's playing Aslan, he's Liam Neeson." Ponyo's Dad = not Aslan.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

Liam Neeson, for real? I am so bad at recognizing voices! (That and probably the last thing I saw with Neeson in it was the first Narnia movie when it was in theaters). It's true he didn't fit the part too well.