Spirited Away is the first movie of his I've seen. Howl's Moving Castle looked interesting and I meant to go see it but it didn't stay at the indie movie house long enough so I missed it. Which is why it's next on the list.

There were some things about Spirited Away that sort of confused me - I never really understood about No Face, like why he was eating all the creatures but the girl said the bathhouse made him "bad" (at least in the subtitles) so I accepted that. I thought maybe there was something that got lost in translation about the character.

There was a line in the subtitled version that provided a semi-explanation (although not complete because it's all dream-logic), askye, but I've forgotten what it was. I remember it, though, because that was something that had always bugged me, and I couldn't understand why they wouldn't have translated it into the dubbed version.

I watched the Sub-version and the only thing was that one line. I was wondering if there was something that got left out between the spoken Japanese and the written subtitles or maybe it was some kind of cultural thing, that if you were Japanese you'd understand.

I think something did get a bit lost in the cultural shift, but I thought the deal was that he was a tabula rasa, until he ate the frog, and then he took on the personality of the frog...and everyone he ate at the bathhouse was "bad" or of weak, greedy, gluttinous character, so he kept getting more so, the more he ate.

Loved Spirited Away. Bought it on DVD as soon as it came out. However, I couldn't even finish Princess Mononucleosis, and I thought I would really like it. Howl's Moving Castle is in my queue.

We just watched The Cell. I skipped it back when it came out because everybody said it was awful, but I thought it was decent. I may have even kind of liked it.

I may have even kind of liked it.

I liked it. It was gorgeous to look at, at least, in a freaky way. And I didn't mind Vincent D'Onofrio chewing the scenery.

I didn't mind Vincent D'Onofrio chewing the scenery

His physicality was great for the role. It's kind of retro-wrecked for me, though, since a friend said, "Oh, The Cell? Wasn't Philip Seymour Hoffman the bad guy in that?"

Fred and Kathy: Hmmmm, will have to seek out the DVD. We've had the VHS since as long as I can remember. Hooray for non-frelled versions.

I bought that VHS tape after getting the urge to see the movie more than every 7/4, but was bummed to discover it was only availabe in pan&scan format. When the DVD came out the next year, I was all over getting it. The commentary is okay (with both the writer and director), but at least one of the guys has a tendency to recite the lines along with the characters instead of saying anything worthwhile about the filming/creation/stage version.

My Miyazaki list:

1. Spirited Away (so gorgeous and imaginative it made me cry - this may be in my top 10 of all time)
2. Princess Mononoke
3. My Neighbor Totoro
4. Howl's Moving Castle
5. Kiki's Delivery Service
6. Nausicaa
7. Castle In the Sky

Mononoke was my first. I saw it in a theater in Boston when I was there for a summer during high school, one of my first exposures to indieish cinema (my hometown being barely large enough to support a "normal" movie theater.) A slightly odd, occasionally creepy, very dorky Asian guy convinced me to go with him.

I loved it.

The only other one I've seen is Spirited Away, which I also bought on DVD the day it came out. I should definitely put the others on my netflix queue.