Blambo

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Posts posted by Blambo

  1. Posted

    I think miyazakis thesis on that is that in posterity, art can survive the death of its context, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing isn't really treated in the film. The Mitsubishi Zero is actually a really interesting piece of engineering divorced from its being used to further a brutal war effort, but you really have to try hard to tear yourself away from its history and connotations to view it as one would view the pyramids.

    And I guess my attitude toward art is different from yours. I feel like you can divorce it from its use and context if you approach it from a certain mindset, and that one perspective or context doesn't define a work universally. That said "divorcing" a work from its context also isn't universal, it's just that a specific, subjective viewing of the work can be like that. It's important to consider art from every angle you can.

    Also I don't think that Miyazaki argues in the film that human suffering for the purpose of great works is preferable, but he sort of lightly brushes off the issue.

    I had read somewhere that Jiro was actually a nationalist, so I wonder how much that factors into his representation.

  2. Posted

    What specifically do you dislike about the plotting? I'm mean as you say the efforts they aimed at children definitely share a common core of theme's and tropes that they build their narrative around, but I'm not sure how much of a problem I feel this is(or else every single western film based on some variation of the heroes journey is in deeeep trouble), I mean it's entirely possible to do interesting things with tropes  and some of the little ways Ghibli did subvert them feel significant both considering their intended audience and when they were produced. Many of those strong, capable, young protagonists are female, and it was rare their conclusions were unambiguously happy, often featuring concepts like loss and death which you still don't see much in works aimed at children.

     

    Is there one of them you think is a "prime offender", one which you think hits all the red marks you mention? 

     

    Because I don't feel you're wrong at all, it just feels like perhaps they are no worse in their reliance on tropes than 99% of the works that address a similar audience, and better in some important ways.

     

     

    Ah the feeling is very vague I guess, and now that I think about it it's the same feeling I get for a lot of media aimed at children. I think it's coming from fantasy for fantasy's sake, or having a fantastical setting or elements eclipse the need for a coherent artistic goal. The Cat Returns is a big offender I think. It just strikes me as the story of Spirited Away tacked onto a cat world shtick. Not to say that Spirited Away had a bad plot, it's just that the nuances in its representation and art really fit the story's themes and texture in a way that feels like it has more value beyond its story. Howl's Moving Castle feels similar.

     

    Also yeah I think I like where it deviated from and transcended traditional children's media as well. The moral ambiguity and female presence is amazing. It feels like they impart a lesson of empathy/considering perspective without being explicit about it, and I wouldn't be surprised if this had a greater effect on me as a kid than now.

     

    And as Tegan says, #NotAllGhibli. I think I'm expecting the same out of every film from that studio based on the one I like the most at the moment, which is Only Yesterday. I saw it once when I was younger after seeing Porco Rosso and thought it was boring, and now I saw it again and think that Porco Rosso is shallow and flashy. But that's just me.

     

    But anyway. Miyazaki's last effort, The Wind Rises, is pretty baller and definitely in my top three or so of his films. It does kind of sweep the moral quandaries of war under the rug though, which is pretty out of character.

  4. Posted

    I'm trying to figure out why I like ghibli films so much. In general their stories are really badly plotted and paced, basically the same characters and plots appear in each movie (young protagonist goes on a coming of age journey with a cute animal/cast of eccentric yet empathetic characters, usually including an gentle parent, boistrous townspeople, an enthusiastic younger character to look after) and sometimes the entire premise is weird and bogus, usually serving to give a shade of a reason for the occasionally interesting designs. Save for the films by Takahata (Only Yesterday is the most non ghibli film in the ghibliverse and is amazing), the only thing that's left for me is the mystery, world building, and art/animation. Also I guess the thing I most like about them is their attention to mundane detail and focus on little moments of character, even in the most sweeping fantastical pieces.

    What do you guys think of this kinda stuff?

  9. Posted

    I find new things in The Great Gatsby every time I read it, but from my most recent venture, the criticism is squarely of the American Dream, which Gatsby is punished for believing so blindly (although, does a poor boy from a nowhere state have a choice but to believe in it?). No matter how much money you have, you're never going to be "rich" like the Buchanans are rich, not even if you throw parties every night and are famous among the famous. Wealth is more than money, and if you have to ask what else, you'll never be wealthy your whole life. Likewise, no matter how much you love a girl, she's never going to love you like she loves her husband/daughter/wealth/position in society, not even if you have the most torrid and decadent affair with her. Daisy was never going to leave Tom, not for a second, because she has a child and a life with him. It's callous, but love is meaningless at some point without any of that. Gatsby, who has borrowed and stolen his life in order to feel like he deserves Daisy, cannot understand that, just like he doesn't try to understand her beyond the understanding he already has as a onetime teenager on a weekend tryst, but still he tries to make her his own. He dies for it, whereas the acceptance of the status quo, however brutal, allows for the convenient disposal of affairs by both Tom and Daisy. Nick's unreliable narration aside, the events of the book hardly touch the Buchanans, while we see the best-case scenario with Nick and the worst-case with Gatsby, when someone pretends to be a part of society that they're not.

    There's also a strong critique of living in the past, which I'm not sure has a historical or societal dimension to it. Nick tells Gatsby right out that he can't repeat the past and Gatsby treats him like an idiot for it, failing to the end to understand that in passing up on Daisy once in favor of wealth and fame to have her later, he's actually passed her by forever. Trying to recapture it at best wastes his time, money, and feelings, and at worst gets him killed. That's part of why Nick explicitly says that he found him such a disappointment at the end. Gatsby seemed to be so great, but he was really some nobody living in a past that he shared with no one.

    Ah so Gatsby's downfall was in assuming his guaranteed success based on a delusion, either thay wealth means acceptance into this society or that flashing his feathers and appealing to a long gone connection will win over Daisy. He thinks that the only thing keeping Daisy from him is this wealth, when it could simply be that she no longer feels empathy or love for him or is held back by another life. His unnuanced idea of how things work thwart him. He can't move on because he assumes that love and social status are inert and always within his reach rather than chaotically shifting and passing.

    Though when I read it, I felt that much of the last few parts of the book seem to exhalt or at least pity the naïve, optimistic mindset that Gatsby held, especially the last paragraph and line:

    "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning ——

    So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

    I read it as a lamentation of the death of naïve optimism. I dunno. I really don't know what to think of this last bit

  10. Posted

    I reread gatsby and

    What was Gatsby's fault? I thought that he certainly had an idealized understanding of how Daisy would exist in his life that did not take into account their actual circumstances, and that this showed that this primitive, prescriptive romantic love is flawed. But what does that say about idealism in general? Should people revolve their lives around grand ideals? I can't reconcile the narrative's punishment of Gatsby with its criticism of accepting power structures.

    This (kinda off topic but dealing with the same themes) reminds me heavily of a manga I read recently called Oyasumi Punpun in which

    a girl, faced with the realization that her romantic love held no actual empathy and was simply a holdover from her childhood, commits suicide. The two main characters revolve their lives around absolute truths, standards, and romantic love but end up having completely incorrect perceptions of reality. The dissonance leads to depression and suicide.

    Both stories deal with how romantic love and absolute ideals can end up crushing people, but also simultaneously lament accepting things that could be changed. My reading is incredibly shallow though, so I'd appreciate if someone with more knowledge could advise me.

  13. Posted

    It's definitely something that you need to take breaks in between chapters to appreciate properly/retain your sanity. It's a coming of age story with amazing attention to detail, in art, continuity, and writing of a specific time in a person's life to the point that I'm sure I've had thoughts prior to reading it that are verbatim written in the narration. Though I'm pretty young so its philosophical themes are probably way more affecting to me than someone who's already gone through their 20s.

  16. Posted

    EDIT: Also how has Mass Effect come up twice without anyone mentioning the race of non gendered bisexual blue ladies that will literally mate with any species of any gender to "gather useful genes from any source."

     

    I love Mass Effect but the creativity behind the characters is the worst.

     

    Did they ever give an actual application of "gathering useful genes"? I really would've been more cool with an Asari walking around with an insane Krogan physique or Hanar mind powers. Instead I guess they settled on "sexy human lady" as their genetic makeup of choice.

  25. Posted

    Somehow, the only one from the new series I didn't like is in fact "The Gamer".

     

     

     

    Wouldn't mind getting him just for the controller, though.

     

    Most of my childhood was spent justifying to my parents why I needed to buy a $30 set just because I wanted the cool 5 mm knife piece it came with.

     

    Which is the spoiled brat version of Grayson's second story.