Now, I don’t think it was the most entertaining, mind you.  That would have to go to Ratatouille for my money.  Very close though.  But geez…have you heard the reports of the people crying within the first 20 minutes?  What kids movie does that people?

This one.  And it is very, very good.

It is rated a whooping PG, hang on for a ride!

I still kinda go through an emotional rollercoaster throughout the entirity of this track. And it is strange.  The part that gets to most people…we know its coming.  You can’t have avoided the trailers for Up…and when people see the Married Montage unfold, we know where it is headed.  It still wrenches our emotions….along with the trailer cutting up just exactly the circumstances of Carl deciding it was time to go on an adventure.  Up, literally, doesn’t take off for for quite a chunk of the movie, but it works fantastically.

Carl was the reason I wanted to see the movie.  I’m not sure if that’s true for most.  I loved his crumedgy-ness that the trailers expressed.  In that, he didn’t disappoint. Gruff and endearing, and perfectly voiced by Edward Asner who I still think of fondly as Lou from the Mary Tyler Moore show. You need a guy who can pull off the grumpy old man talk and tenderly…and in Mr. Asner I trust.  In fact, all the voicework stood out…but none so much as the lead character.

Another thing that really worked in its favor, I think Pixar found a great way of making a movie with a minimum of dialogue in Wall*E.  But in a movie that is often about solitude and loneliness, they manage to keep up the pace of the movie and find other vehicles for moving things along.  Well done again Pixar, I tip my cap.

I suppose I already touched on the soundtrack…but I really do enjoy it.  Particularlly the main theme is very simple, and often repeated, but never over used or inappropriately used.  Of all of Pixar’s work, the score for this movie was the best.

The narrative is where this movie shines though.  Through touching moments, comedic moments, and everything in-between, the movie plots along with less of a over-handed moral than Wall*E.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s great.  While there are strong, central themes to this movie that are very much note worthy, they are more general and less political than Wall*E.  In fact, the only thing that I would question was that some of the central themes are very, very heavy…and its a kids movie.  But I can’t genuinely question this, as I couldn’t help but look around me and try to gauge the interest of the surrounding kids in the theatre.  They were all enthralled.  And why not?  It’s a brightly colored movie with plenty of cheery moments to go along with the heartbreaking bomb shell they start the movie with.  So I guess I can’t have a legitimate complaint on that note.  There are actually MANY moments that could get people choked up though.  And they do.  Carl and his company are all too easy to relate to in terms of their highs and lows…and the movie draws you into those highs and lows.  You get caught up.  We are constantly bombarded with hope and disappointment.  And of course, squirrels.  Good times, good times.

I wish I could put my finger on what it was that truly makes this movie outstanding.  The relatability surely scores high.  The comedy is great.  Characters are great, in particular the antagonist and Carl.  Everything is…great.  And it almost shocks me.  In a world of easy money grabs, particularly for summer kids movies, that Pixar once again steps up to the plate and delivers a movie that currently ranked in IMDBs top 20 (atleast today) and has one of the most insane Metacritic scores I’ve ever seen.  Nothing in the red.  So much green.  Sooooo much green.

Again, if this is spoilerish, I’m shocked…but this paragraph will talk about previous Pixar movies with a few early spoilers.  Both Finding Nemo and this movie pretty much start with the death of a could-have-been-leading female character.  My buddy Matt pointed this out to me, and it got me curious.  The only two Pixar movies that I have are Ratatouille and and…well, I guess I don’t have UP yet, but I will.  So for anyone of you with a bit larger of a collection, refresh my memory…how does Monsters Inc start, or The Incredibles?  Does Pixar actually have a morbid tone to the beginnings of many of their movies?

Two final thoughts.  An article that is very touching.  Thanks Anne.

Also, I’ve heard mixed reports from people about whether or not they thought the 3D was worth it.  I’m firmly in the “very much worth it” camp.  Drive a little farther if you have to, spend a little more if you have to, but check this one out in 3D.  Pixar’s attention to detail is apparent, and a great great to us viewers.  So if you haven’t seen this movie yet, you are only cheating yourself.  Plus, its easier to pretend you aren’t crying.  Not that I had to worry about such things…>cough<…anyway.

Again, I find myself behind on the times and talking about a movie that everyone has already been talked to death about.  This is what happens when you start a second blog…but that one has already run its course.  So I’m going to stop talking and you should go see this fine craft of a movie.  Find a little cousin or someone to take with you if you are feeling weird about it being a “kids” movie.  But go see it.  Right now.  I don’t care that its summer and nice outside.  Bike to the movies if that is the case.  But if you haven’t seen this, you are missing the movie of the summer, as well as what should be a no-brainer for Best Animated Feature come Oscar season.

You cannot say to the sun, “More sun.” Or to the rain, “Less rain.” To a man, geisha can only be half a wife. We are the wives of nightfall. And yet, to learn kindness after so much unkindness, to understand that a little girl with more courage than she knew, would find her prayers were answered, can that not be called happiness? After all these are not the memoirs of an empress, nor of a queen. These are memoirs of another kind…

This post requires some preface before I start behaving along the lines of a giddy fanboy.  First off, I believe in two ways of approaching of genres.  One is a more factual, universal genre.   These are things such as labeling this movie as romantic comedy, or that movie as an action movie.  While there is some debate (I still recall finding Princess Bride in some very strange locations at various Blockbusters) as to where some movies fall, it is still fairly quantifiable.

The other genre is the personal genres.  The ones you make up, or share.  These genres are the “I can pop this one in anytime,” or “My comfort movie,” or “My brain-dead movie.”  Or in the case of the genre of movies I was referring too…I call them “throwing rock” genre.  This requires deeper explanation yet again, and is totally skippable.  The short version is, these are the movies that you heard the hype, and you knew that it could never live up to the hype, so you actually lowered the bar when you heard it was good.  So you put off seeing it, and finally get around to seeing it with those low expectations, only to find the hype worthwhile.  The longer version will make sense if you read this:

Now consider the same game of RPS with unequal (but clearly defined) payoffs. If you win with rock, you win $10. If you win with scissors, you win $3. If you win with paper, you win $1. Which move do you play? You clearly want to play rock, since it has the highest payoff. I know you want to play rock. You know I know you know, and so on. Playing rock is such an obvious thing to do, you must realize I’ll counter it ever time. But I can’t counter it (with paper) EVERY time, since then you could play scissors at will for a free $3. In fact, playing scissors is pretty darn sneaky. It counters paper–the weakest move. Why would you expect me to do the weakest move? Are you expecting me to play paper just to counter your powerful rock? Why wouldn’t I just play rock myself and risk the tie? You’re expecting me to be sneaky by playing paper, and you’re being doubly sneaky by countering with scissors. What you don’t realize is that I was triply sneaky and I played the original obvious move of rock to beat you.

That may have all sounded like double-talk, but it’s Yomi Layer 3 in action. And it had quite a curious property: playing rock was both the naive, obvious choice AND the triply sneaky choice.(taken from here)

The article this was taken from is an extremely interesting but nerdy analysis of video games.  So I shared this with a friend, and “throwing rock” became synonymous with anything in media that got to the point where you could over-analyze it so much, that the hype and the talking about it and everything surrounding it almost makes you numb and gives whatever the piece of media is a fresh chance in your mind.  I’d draw an equivalency to, I don’t know, if you haven’t seen Dark Knight yet, I imagine that for all you heard about it, none of it is fresh with you.  You could watch it now without voices in your ears talking about Supporting Actor or pencil tricks.  

Really, the only reason I put this on here is because I want to know what movies have done this for you.  Because as much as I am about to babble about Memoirs of a Geisha and how much I supremely enjoyed it, I’m curious to all of your experiences as well.  And of “all” I guess I just mean Garrett.  But if you read this, feel free to prove me wrong.  So if you have an experience where you finally got around to seeing a movie numb to all the hype, only to have all the hype make sense, give it a shout out.  In the mean time, my actual post.

Wait, one more thing.  Because we need to set the mood.  Head here and “play all” on the soundtrack.  C’mon, when John Williams is involved, how can you go wrong.  Ready?  Now you are in the mood.  

Mameha: [in voiceover] Remember, Chiyo, geisha are not courtesans. And we are not wives. We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word “geisha” means artist and to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art. 

My goodness!  This movie just had it all.  Great story filled with crazed scenes of energy and the subtle tension of passive aggressiveness that still gets you on the edge of your seat.  A few laughs, a few tears, great plot, great characters, incredibly scenery/imagery/cinematography, and hopefully you’ll soon agree a heartfelt and well composed soundtrack.  Some obvious but not in your face symbolism.  It’s rich, its complex, its potent.  I’m babbling again.

The cinematography is a nice foundational point, I think.  When you win Oscars for costume design, art direction, and (of course) cinematography, you gotta be shooting something right.  Throughout much of the movie, the mood is set with the misty gray softened light.  The set itself  seems to capture the mood as well.  I was never in 1930s Japan.  And there are some who complain about the authenticity (we’ll get to this later) of it all…but for my money it does what its supposed to do.  It puts you in pre-war Japan.  I mentioned the obvious symbolism earlier, and I might as well start going with it.  Rain and water are continuously coming up.  And why not, every other movie does it.  Water can be peaceful and tranquil, water can be fierce and deadly.  It has always worked on many levels, and always will.  But the despairing drizzle on the transforming Chiyo to Sayuri.  For the sake of this article, we will speak of the main character by her geisha name, Sayuri.  

Sayuri Nitta: She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret. 

What makes all of the gray, overcast tones in lighting and mood pack so much punch, and what I can only imagine the academy fell in love with, is one word.  CONTRAST.  When everything melts away, and we have scenes like the snow dance or cherry blossoms in the garden…superb.  The colors pop out at you, and a beautiful world is opened to us and Sayuri at the same time.  It’s mesmerizing, though as we learn with Sayuri, not without its own perils below the surface.  So three cheers for the visuals…from the breath-taking, the haunting, and everything inbetween. You guys nailed it.

Some people complained about the accents and the acting.   And one could understand why when you look at the facts…we are talking about multiple main characters who didn’t speak English about to make an American movie.  However, I don’t really understand the issue.  Maybe I’ve grown attuned to it, but for all of you who also have this problem, its a simple matter of turning on the subtitles for a few minutes, getting used to hearing voices pronounce things, and you’ll be ready to rock and roll for the rest of the movie.  

While we are on the subject of accents, lets clear something else up.  Yes, that is a primarily Chinese cast playing an entirely Japanese character base.  Supposedly, they opened casting up to Japanese actresses first, but no one showed up that could pull off the part.  So, critics of the world, would you have them no make the movie due to its lack of authenticity?  The film works as is, get over your high horses.  And its true, Japanese people don’t often have as blue of eyes as Sayuri does.  But I do believe that’s the point made throughout the movie…Sayuri is unique.  And maybe they went a little over the top with the contact lenses, Sayuri’s specialness needed that bit of eye color.   Final point being, no, I doubt that if you bring a genuine geisha from the period back to critic the movie, she’d give 5 out of 5 stars for hitting the mark of genuineness.  But this is a movie.  And while part of the movie was of course to capture the “Memoirs of a Geisha,” it is simply a movie.  Not a history text book.  Enjoy the movie for the merits that it creates, and if it inspires you to go and learn more about the culture, what they did right and what they did wrong, all the better.  But enjoy the movie for what it is, and please don’t harp on what it isn’t.  Now let us all move on.

How far have you got in the soundtrack?  Potent, simple stuff.  Oscar nominated, but no victory.  Still worthy of notice though.  It’s not the best of the year, and it certainly isn’t the best ever to carry the name of John Williams, but I believe is still significantly enhances and moves the movie, which is what I think counts.  For a movie that really replies on capture a mood, and bringing you into it, you need a soundtrack that is going to work hard for you and not just fill in voids.  And for that, this soundtrack works remarkably well.  

The plot, is cliche’d to the point of being a classic.  It’s your typical Cinderella with a twist.  The characters all play their parts in the narrative, the good characters being very good and the “evil” characters being “evil.”  So while I know some who didn’t enjoy this movie for the lack of depth in character, again I really emphasize the importance of working with the movie with what it is giving you.  If you don’t mind the lack of depth in Cinderellas step-sisters, why mind the lack of depth from Sayuri’s competition?  Lots of feel good moments, lots of set backs, and a pretty good ending.  For as clear cut as everything else is, the question often come up of how to define happiness in the world of geisha, which is probably one of my favorite themes of the film.  Ending is different in the book, so if that intrigues you, check it out.  

A final thought on the dialogue…while I already mentioned the accents, I didn’t really speak to the script.  Maybe its just because I am a weird person, but I adore the passive aggressive ones-up-manship constantly going on.  Again, there really is no lack of subtly.  The act or the word may be subtle (one thinks of the scene in which it is discussed that a simple turn of the naked wrist will really get the men in the tea houses going) but in reality the world knows what is going on.  Yet you keep appearances, and you play out the customs, and you talk as you should.  The dialogue captures these sentiments with simple statements that made for powerful, overhanded, blows.  I may have even laughed a time or two inappropriately, but whatever, it was brilliantly enjoyable.  

I’m so glad I waited to check this out a few years later.  And its inspired me to go back and check out all those movies that were heavily hyped but I have long since forgotten. Who knows what else the critics had right, but has become over shadowed by more recent films?  

Though speaking of recent, I am a freer man now than I have been.  Hopefully get a posting of Up before the middle of the month.   And yes, I will be giving I am not worthy of trying to explain how great that movie is.  I’m still gonna go with it.  And no, obviously, the blog is not dead.  If you want to write for it so that I don’t have to change the name of my blog, that’d be just plain…spiffy.