Acorns and Lightning

I was reading Jeff Green's blog about how he had just watched Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and I thought I might re-watch some Miyazaki movies for myself. I remember Princess Mononoke was the first one I had seen, and it's probably my least favorite. I think Nausicaa delivers the same theme but better/weirder. So I decided to go with Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro.

I watched Spirited Away yesterday morning with a very mild hangover. It was perfect, actually. The movie provided a workout for my imagination that I desperately needed and it made me feel like I was an observer to events within a dream instead of just watching a movie. It's probably my favorite movie of Miyazaki's.

Then, last night I watched Totoro before I went to bed. It's the kind of movie that I want to show my children someday. It's also a portrait of the kind of father I'd like to be. If I could make it so that nothing scared my kids and make everything seem like an adventure, I think I would be very satisfied with myself. But as for the movie, I think it's only flaw is it's ending. It kinda seems like the team ran out of money and they had to abbreviate things considerably. Still, it's a wonderful movie. Even Roger Ebert loves it.

Now I've got plans to watch Howl's Moving Castle, which I have not seen before. A point of contention that I wanted to bring up, though, was wondering if people watched these movies subbed or dubbed? I believe that Studio Ghibli's dubbing quality is of the highest caliber, so I completely enjoy watching the dubs. I'm not so anal retentive that I have to watch everything in it's "purest" form. I mean, I love Pan's Labyrinth and Amelie, so subtitles do not deter me from watching a movie at all. But I also think that if you're going to be watching these movies with children, it'd be stupid of you to call them "n00bs" because they can't read subtitles.

But as for why I'm writing this (I certainly don't need to evangelize Miyazaki anymore than creepy nerds already have), I'm not really sure. Ever since the semester ended, I've felt like I needed a project to do. First off, I need to get my exercise bike fixed. Then at least I could waste my time with movies and get a bit of a workout in the process.


Last night I also saw the trailer for Guitar Hero: Metallica. Now, I have to come right out of the closet and say that I loved metal from middle school to high school. Megadeth, Opeth, and Dream Theater were my favorites, but Metallica (specifically James Hetfield) was one of the reasons I picked up the guitar and why it continues to be a passion of mine. Now, I don't want any haters on here saying that Metallica sucks ever since they cut their hair. (That'd be a misnomer. It was actually on the Black Album that they starting "sucking.") They do have a lot of songs that are great fun to play. Granted, I could play most of them on a real guitar, but this new Guitar Hero SKU is making me ponder buying some more stupid plastic instruments.

The plan is to get the full bundle for Guitar Hero: Metallica since I hear that World Tour's drum kit is superior in build quality to the Rock Band 2's and I also hear that it's quieter to boot. Then, I'd get rid of every plastic instrument I have except for my Guitar Hero III guitar and I would pay the $5 to transfer Rock Band 1 to my 360's hard drive and buy a stand-alone version of Rock Band 2. So then I would have Rock Band 1 & 2 along with Guitar Hero: Metallica until Rock Band's Beatles game came out. I believe with that setup I'd be completely satisfied with rhythm games for years to come.

Speaking of silly plastic drum kits though, at work we had one of those crazy $300 Ion kits for Rock Band 2. The thing is, it's broken now, because some stupid kids decided to use it as a chair. Just thought I'd throw that out there: teenagers are idiots... Well, most of them anyway.