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- [00:00]
Zach Lowe
Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama. The playoffs are coming up and now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen. Listen to your podcast. Let's go.
- [00:35]
Sean Fennessey
This episode is brought to you by the Dark Ages ID Software presents Doom the Dark Ages. A dark fantasy sci fi shooter that delivers searing combat and over the top visuals in an epic cinematic story worthy of the Doom Slayer's legend. Dominate demon infested battlefields with bone crunching. Tools of mayhem Take flight atop the fierce mecha dragon or pummel enemies in a 30 story Atlan mechanical. Stand and fight on Xbox series X&S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Available now. Rated M for mature.
- [01:09]
Amanda Dobbins
This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever finish a movie and the next thing you know you're totally obsessed. Like I'm talking about ordering a book about 70s film lighting or buying the soundtrack on vinyl. Kind of obsessed. Whatever it is, prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or get getting into. Head to Amazon.com prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes.
- [01:44]
Sean Fennessey
I'm Sean Fenasey.
- [01:45]
Amanda Dobbins
I'm Amanda Dobbins and this is 25.
- [01:47]
Sean Fennessey
For 25, a big picture special conversation show about Spirited Away. We finally have an animated film on our list. Amanda, how are you feeling about that fact?
- [01:58]
Amanda Dobbins
I feel great. Jack, our producer was like, I don't know what the argument against Spirit Away would be. And that's not the point of this series that we're doing.
- [02:07]
Sean Fennessey
No arguments.
- [02:08]
Amanda Dobbins
There are no arguments. What a beautiful film.
- [02:10]
Sean Fennessey
We've had some complicated conversations about animation on this show over the years, but recently, well, it means that Chris doesn't watch them and you will watch them, but not. But not with intensity.
- [02:21]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, it's, I mean it's not my preferred like format. What would we call it of, you know, style of filmmaking? Genre. Yeah, style of filmmaking. But I think it's pretty hard to argue with this as a, as a visual masterpiece and as a, you know, a way of telling a story that could only be told through animation.
- [02:45]
Sean Fennessey
That's, I think, the biggest reason why I will, I'll spoil the fact that this is our only animated film on the list.
- [02:50]
Amanda Dobbins
And so you've been getting a little, like nervous about spoilers in the last few.
- [02:55]
Sean Fennessey
Well, some things I want to share and some things I don't. So anybody who's earmarking a space for a film like Wall E or a film like up or the Incredibles, you know, like Coco out, you know, never.
- [03:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Even on the short list or the.
- [03:10]
Sean Fennessey
Long list, I. I have a soft spot for Ratatouille and I think there was a version of this list where I would have made a bid for it, but I would never have made it at the expense of a Hayao Miyazaki film. And Miyazaki's made a few movies in this century. If I had my druthers, I think my neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke would be your picks. My all time Miyazaki picks. But those are films that predate the 21st century.
- [03:38]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, those are not eligible for this. I do think when we were putting the list together, my inclusion was any Miyazaki film that you want, but I assume it will be Spirit to Black.
- [03:50]
Sean Fennessey
That is what you wrote. And that is where we landed.
- [03:52]
Amanda Dobbins
And that was where that was like the only animation slot that was available.
- [03:57]
Sean Fennessey
Miyazaki, one of them maybe at the top of the inarguable leaderboard of filmmakers along with like Spielberg and Coppola and a very short list of filmmakers for whom the industry has kind of rallied around him over the last 40 or so years since he's been making films. Somebody who is widely acknowledged to have pushed the style of filmmaking forward, storytelling forward, but also somebody who's heavily indebted to the 100 plus year history of cinema and even the hundreds of years history, centuries, history of storytelling. And I think he's kind of an interesting person in the aftermath of our classics conversation.
- [04:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Amanda.
- [04:32]
Sean Fennessey
Classics, because this movie is very indebted to the story, the history of fairy tale. So Spirited Away is a film that came out in 2001, but not in America, in Japan. It came out in 2001 and was very quickly became the highest grossing movie in the history of Japanese cinema. It only recently, I think in 2020, got knocked off by a demon slayer film which I know you saw in theaters during COVID And this movie was an absolute phenomenon, which on the one hand I think makes sense because it's arriving at that moment. You could probably compare it to sort of like the Jurassic park moment in Steven Spielberg's career where it's like he's Done this five or six times in a row now, and there was a lot of anticipation for the film. The film's also hugely defined by its point of view on Japan at that time in history and its relationship to sort of like where it was in the 80s and 90s and what it was becoming in the 21st century. And it's also a movie that appeals widely to very young people, all the way to very old people. It's a movie literally about life and death and everything in between those spaces. So this was a huge movie in Japan, and I think it's a fitting movie to add to our list, because even though it is not the first film that was brought to America, Miyazaki Film was Brought to America is kind of the signature movie that was brought to America. You know, John Lasseter, who was working at Pixar at the time, was a massive fan of Miyazaki, and a friend and Michael Eisner encouraged him, hey, maybe we should distribute this movie. And they did. They brought it over to America and made a good amount of money, and it won the best Animated feature at the Academy Awards. And I think that not that win specifically, but that conversion makes it a nice, tidy entry into our list, because I think it. Without a movie like this, I'm not sure if we get to the place where Parasite wins Best Picture, for example. You know, I see it as an interesting link in the chain of the globalization or internationalization of cinema in the United States, because even though this movie was dubbed when it was released here, the storytelling style, the way that it looks, the names of the characters, this was an introduction to a lot of people at a very young age to Japanese storytelling.
- [06:39]
Amanda Dobbins
I was gonna say the other part of it is really the generational aspect, because I do think, like, Miyazaki films became so huge to kids about 10 to 15 years younger than us.
- [06:52]
Sean Fennessey
Exactly.
- [06:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Hi, Jack, you know. Hi, Bobby.
- [06:53]
Sean Fennessey
Bobby Wagner, of course. Yeah.
- [06:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Who were experiencing them at a very particular age, and an age where many of the characters are their age as well. But so it opens up not just animation to them, but also world cinema and even a little bit like being a film bro, you know that you're going in with a.
- [07:15]
Sean Fennessey
The cult y quality movies. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that persists. Miyazaki and the Studio Ghibli films, I think, exist in this unusual, liminal space between Disney and filmbroke cult. Like, there is an entire amusement park dedicated to the world of Studio Ghibli. There is all kinds of merchandise that you can buy and yet these are still sort of boutique films and they're not serialized in any way. They're inspired by stories, but they're not necessarily adaptations of stories. It's not Marvel or Aladdin and Aladdin 2 and then the live action Aladdin. There is something kind of, you know, contained about the individual movie experiences of them. And yet there is a stylistic thing about Miyazaki's hand drawn animation and even the animation of the other filmmakers who work at Ghibli that does feel like it is part of like an industrialized machine, you know, even though it's humans that are making this work for the most part.
- [08:15]
Amanda Dobbins
Right. But it's like it is a house style that has become readily identifiable and like, forgive me for bringing corporate terminology into this, but like a brand on its own. And there are people there like they are heavy into the merchandising, speaking of the Disney of it all. But it is, it is like boutique or like art house merchandising for whatever reason. It's a funny. It's a funny. Especially given the topic of most of the films, you know, that they're straddling those worlds just so.
- [08:46]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I mean the, the why of this film on the list is pretty wide ranging. I do think that this happened after we determined that this movie would make the list. But the AI Studio Ghibli style that emerged just a few weeks ago, we're recording this in May of 2025, was a reminder of how these like the co optation I think of art into these like machine like systems persists is relevant. Is obviously a little bit gross and dangerous. The idea of like the. The office of the President using the Studio Ghibli AI transmitter to create versions of the stories that he wants to tell is kind of unfortunate and probably would make Miyazaki want to kill himself, but is also kind of an inevitability of the power of the work that he was making. That it found its way across the world, across generations. Yeah, all over the place. And I find that really fascinating because while I've always, you know, enjoyed Miyazaki films since the first ones I saw, and I would imagine this is one of. If this is probably the first one that I saw, I probably saw this in college, but not in a movie theater. But since I've been watching these movies, I don't mean this in a pejorative way at all, but these are weird movies. Yeah, yeah. You know, I know that you were getting more acquainted with them when the Boy in the Heron came out and Miyazaki had this kind of huge second wave in America and won another Oscar.
- [10:10]
Amanda Dobbins
And then Porco Rosso came into my house. And then Porco Rosso, you know, I like, I live in the world. And that is a far less weird movie than this movie.
- [10:18]
Sean Fennessey
Yes.
- [10:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Which is like fantastical and like, it's. I think it's okay that it's weird. It is supposed to be like a strange and exciting fairy tale. And so all of the creatures and the things that the creatures do and the way that they. The way that the main characters make their decisions or interact in the world is supposed to be a little unusual. You know, it has some like, you know, Grimm's Fairy Tale. You know, those things are weird too. Like, the imaginary world does not always have to be this, you know, Disney pink. Like everything's happy things. You know, your imagination can get funky too.
- [11:01]
Sean Fennessey
It's true. I think the film is really firmly rooted in a handful of other Disney classics. Alice in Wonderland, of course, and Lewis Carroll's writing is obviously a huge influence on this movie. Pinocchio and the kind of transmogrification of children, the like, the thin line between human and beast that movie really explores. Peter Pan, I think is obviously also hugely important just in terms of kind of flying, the transporting to a Never Neverland kind of space, and also the sort of creatures that can communicate in ways that you would never expect them to in the human world. The one thing that separates I think those movies from this one in particular is this is a movie that even if it is not explicitly about death, it is very much about the space between life and death, the spirit world, and that is very heady. And as the parent of a toddler, you know, we've had a couple of death conversations recently. And a movie like this kind of confronts you with some of those concepts because of the loss of parents early in the story.
- [12:04]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [12:04]
Sean Fennessey
And we should say that this is a story about a young 10 year old girl named Chihiro who is moving with her parents to a new home in a new town. She's left her school, she's left her friends, they're on a car trip. At the beginning of the movie, they pass by this sort of collection of stones that represent past lives and they're headed off to their new house. And on their way, her father takes a shortcut and they go into this kind of backwoods area and they come upon an abandoned amusement park. But then, strangely, at the abandoned amusement park, there's food, right? Seems like food that has recently been prepared and her parents as representatives of the metaphorical, greedy, Westernized.
- [12:40]
Amanda Dobbins
Her parents drive an Audi.
- [12:41]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. Post 80s Japanese gorge themselves and transform into pigs. And when they transform into pigs, this world becomes a new world. It transforms into the spirit world. And Chihiro is. Goes on a magical adventure that is sometimes gross, sometimes scary, sometimes beautiful, sometimes profound.
- [13:03]
Amanda Dobbins
But sometimes random.
- [13:06]
Sean Fennessey
It's odd. I mean, I think it's very, very. I think that's sort of what I'm getting at is that.
- [13:09]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. That the rules don't follow any sort of basic real life logic. And you're like, oh, so that's how this is like.
- [13:17]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, yeah. And that's also true.
- [13:20]
Amanda Dobbins
That's okay.
- [13:20]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. It's also true in other Miyazaki movies, but this one in particular I think feels like a head trip. It feels like someone is having a dream, you know what I mean? Where there's like, there's, there's blank spots in the dream, there's blank spots in the logic of how the world works. And the more times that you watch it, the more you can kind of see how what the connective tissue is for each storyline and what each character represents and it can be understood as a deeply metaphorical movie. But Miyazaki has said this is a movie for 10 year old girls. He wrote it for 10 year old girls that he knew at a time, at a certain time in his life that he was inspired by the manga books that those girls were reading and that he wanted to kind of transport some of his interest in fairy tale to those girls. But Chihiro is not like a typical girl character. I would say, like, what do you make of her as a figure in this story?
- [14:12]
Amanda Dobbins
You know, I just want to hug her the whole time because as the parent of toddlers you immediately put yourself into this. But she's, she is willful. But like to me she was a little less, just a little more scared and a little more uncertain than the like typical Hardy like YA protagonist that like we've been sold for the last 15 years. Like, she is, she's, you know, vulnerable even at the same time as she is like really focused on getting her parents back and doing whatever task she needs to do and observing the world and making the connections and I guess sticking up for herself in the right moment. But there's a lot of like, I can't and I don't know how to do that and what am I supposed to do? And this sense that this really is like a small kid who doesn't totally know how to function without her parents.
- [15:04]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, she's kind of has some of the. The defiance and petulance that you'll find in a young girl. You know, like, I really identify closely some of the stuff that she is doing, but also that sense of confusion. Yes. And some frustration and being taken advantage of in certain experiences and basically like learning what it's like in the real world even while it's happening inside of a fantasy world. One of the things that distinguishes the movie is Miyazaki's animation style is widely claimed, but this movie, maybe more than any other, is like the pinnacle of what he does in terms of like, color, things that are happening. I wanted to talk to you about this specifically. You have identified athletic filmmaking as like potentially a bit of a crutch for.
- [15:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Certain filmmakers right there being too showy. Well, they're like, the camera's their toy and they're more interested in like, what they can do with their toy and like, where the camera can zoom and go than actually using it to create an image or to further a story in like, a meaningful way. Like the camera is the story.
- [16:08]
Sean Fennessey
Right. And animation is different in that respect. Obviously, the camera can move and does move in animated features, but in Hand Drawn, he's more often focused on the frame, on the still space, and then everything that he can fit inside of it. So you can watch this movie a few times and see something different in every corner of every action. And this isn't essential to enjoying the movie, but when you think about the amount of work that goes into making a movie that feels that way, that is drawn by hand, this is like a huge achievement. You know, most animated movies that you watch in the pre Computer Generated era, it's a flat surface, it's almost a 2D surface with characters moving inside of it. And this is one that feels like it is like background, foreground, life in every frame.
- [16:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, I mean, the thing about it, it's obviously a huge, like, technical, like, application of skill, achievement, but like, whatever, it is absolutely beautiful like that. It is just straight up art. Like the color especially and. But you know, either the. The hand strokes or the brushstrokes, the creatures. It is a feat of imagination. It is a feat of composition. It is a feat of just something that you want to look at. And because an animator, I guess, has even more control over the frame, I guess you could then term it as athletic filmmaking. Cause he's really showing off. But I don't care if you can do this. It's not showing off. It's just making something beautiful.
- [17:38]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I think it is also useful in terms of pushing the story forward. Cause it's kind of showing us whether it's a literalization of the spirit world or just a literalization of everything that is in Chihiro's head where she can kind of like imagine.
- [17:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [17:53]
Sean Fennessey
What would be in a space like this. That this is a true story. My daughter woke up this morning and she came out of her bedroom and she said, dad, I think I had a dream. And I said, what was. What did you dream about? And she said, I dreamed that you got me a present. I was like, I know this game. I know what she's doing here. And then I was like, well, what was the present?
- [18:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [18:16]
Sean Fennessey
And then she started describing something that is not possible. Not logical, not real.
- [18:22]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, yeah.
- [18:23]
Sean Fennessey
It would be like it was an alligator, but it was alive, but it was friendly. You know, like that kind of thing. And the movie is like a representation of that. You know, you see these creatures. You see the little soot bugs, or you see the eight armed man, or you see all of the various, like, frogs and walrus people and all the various creatures.
- [18:45]
Amanda Dobbins
Is it a turnip or a radish? So spirit who hides her in the elevator?
- [18:50]
Sean Fennessey
Turnip. I always get those confused as well.
- [18:53]
Amanda Dobbins
He's. Whoever he is. Or she. I guess I shouldn't.
- [18:56]
Sean Fennessey
There's also a critical figure in this movie which feels like the most childlike logic of all time. That is a dashing young man, but that is also a dragon.
- [19:11]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [19:12]
Sean Fennessey
But that is also a river spirit.
- [19:14]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [19:15]
Sean Fennessey
And the spirit of a river that has been damaged in some way. It's been toxified. And it doesn't realize it's a river spirit anymore because of what we have done to this planet.
- [19:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [19:28]
Sean Fennessey
It's a pretty tangled metaphor, but it also is weirdly representative of how it feels to be a kid, I think. I think that's one of the things I like about the movie is, is that it's just unbound. It feels like it feels unbound. Unstuck on a lot of the things that we come to expect when we're watching a movie. And we're like, why does this not connect to this? And why does that not connect to that? And in some ways, I think that can be frustrating for some viewers. But for the most part, I think if you turn yourself over to. Can be very beautiful.
- [19:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. But there's something. It doesn't insist upon its own logic also. It gives into that fantastical quality. And there is something that is like, much like a child, like the movie or Miyazaki, whoever really believes that what you're seeing is the way that it is. And this is just like this is what's going on. And so you find yourself more willing just to kind of be like, I'm in this dream world and I'm going with it.
- [20:26]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. There's no smugness, there's no irony, no characters turn and look at the camera and wink. The other thing is that even though this film and all of his films are very influential on the Pixar storytelling style, this isn't a kids movie made for adults. And it isn't a kids movie made for kids. It's like a movie that Miyazaki made for himself that is somehow universally understood, which is I think, actually the way that we tend to locate like our favorite auteurs, like our favorite filmmakers. People that are important to us on the show are kind of like, this person made this because it mattered to their soul, not because they were like, I have to meet the expectations of what the Disney board wants in Q4.
- [21:08]
Amanda Dobbins
And we'll be able to sell this little widget guy.
- [21:12]
Sean Fennessey
Exactly.
- [21:12]
Amanda Dobbins
Or also I this is what I think of 10 year olds or 8 year olds.
- [21:16]
Sean Fennessey
Yes, exactly.
- [21:17]
Amanda Dobbins
What makes them laugh versus what makes me feel something. And like you And I know that kids also actually they know when they're being talked down to and they actually respond much more to just someone's expression of what they want to say.
- [21:34]
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- [22:52]
Unknown
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- [23:16]
Sean Fennessey
I don't know if brave is not the right word, but it's cool that Miyazaki is so committed. I mean, he's famously like a very, a curmudgeon and sort of like, very difficult and very like, I have my idea and we're sticking to my idea.
- [23:26]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, you can tell that too, right? Like, it's singular. It's just like you are in someone's very, very specific and playful and soulful and strange in a great way. Specific brain. And it can. Only if it's. If it were farmed out to a lot of different people, you would feel it. There is something about one person's journey of it that makes it work.
- [23:55]
Sean Fennessey
It's funny because pre the Boy and the Heron, he hadn't made a movie for a very long time. And during that time, I think his cult grew pretty significantly. I think the episode we did around Boy and the Heron was Bobby, Andy and Charles. And that's really like, yes, you know, different age experiences, different life experiences, people from different parts of the country. And they all had really, really strong feelings about his films. But I think that we had forgotten a little bit, like, how Dougian he is on his strong point of view until we saw the Boy in the Heron, because a lot of people who saw it, it's a wonderful movie. It's not one of my favorites of his, but that it's, it's, it's kind of aggressively him. He wasn't trying to satisfy his audience or he hadn't, like, softened in his old age. He was like, I'm gonna make the teeth on this heron disgusting, and you're gonna be forced to look at it for 35 minutes. And this movie has the same thing where there's like a sludge monster and no face is kind of vomiting up living creatures. Like, there's something quite, quite gnarly, quite gross about his vision of the child's mind or these fantastical worlds that he builds, which is great. Like you don't. There's no. I've now watched every Disney animated feature ever made with my daughter. Never really goes there. It never really goes there.
- [25:14]
Amanda Dobbins
We talk a lot about how and now we just sound like two really old parents. So, you know, put us on the glacier. But back in our day, you know, you walked uphill both ways. And they did make kids entertainment that was like slightly gnarlier. It was never this. Well, sometimes it was this gnarly in its own way. Like not this particular favorite. Cause only Miyazaki is Miyazaki. But again, the kids know when they are being condescended to and it like flattens. Like the world is wild and children need art to help them understand it as much as we do.
- [25:49]
Sean Fennessey
I totally agree. I find Lassiter to be an interesting character in this story in part because I never really felt. Feel as much Miyazaki specifically in his movies, like in Cars. I don't really feel Miyazaki maybe a little bit in terms of the kind of generational, the generation gaps, which is a big theme as well in Miyazaki movies. But if you look at some of the later Pixar movies, certainly some of the soulful stuff in up, some of the soulful stuff in Ratatouille and Wall E, but even more specifically in Soul and in Turning Red. Those are the movies that are these existential crisis films.
- [26:24]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [26:24]
Sean Fennessey
One about a 13 year old girl, one about a much older guy, but they're explorations of something deep and they're trying to use like basically a child's format to convey something really powerful. They're not quite on this level, but you know, you know what I'm trying to say?
- [26:38]
Amanda Dobbins
No, I do. I mean, I think but they are a little bit stuck in that. Is this a movie for kids? Is this a movie for adults? You know, and some of that is just because in 2022 or whatever you have, you have to satisfy 18 different audiences and, and, and corporate boards. But they, I. They're definitely influenced by it. I mean, Domy Shi, the director of Turning Red was like, this is my favorite film or one of my favorite films of all time.
- [27:08]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [27:08]
Amanda Dobbins
So I mean, and that's another thing where like we said all, all of the kids, all of the young people who are into movies grew up on Spirited Away and then all the rest of the Miyazaki films. So the influence of this movie is not just in like the other animated films, but in how all the Young people watch movies.
- [27:26]
Sean Fennessey
It's very true. And that idea of the perfect movie.
- [27:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [27:30]
Sean Fennessey
Is one that we haven't brooked too much so far in our conversations. Came up during Children of Men. That was probably the last time we were like, God damn. Yeah, this is really tight. You know, like, there's not a lot to quibble with. There's favorite and then there's like a mastery.
- [27:46]
Amanda Dobbins
Right, right.
- [27:46]
Sean Fennessey
And we've got a lot of favorites on this list and we've got a.
- [27:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Lot of Melan Colliers.
- [27:49]
Sean Fennessey
Perfect. I'm not making any critical judgments in this conversation, specifically about other films.
- [27:54]
Amanda Dobbins
And I think Keanu Reeves and Something's Gotta Give is a well developed and perfect character.
- [28:00]
Sean Fennessey
I'm not litigating anything with you, I promise. We stand together on this list. However, I'm interested in the idea of the perfect movie, of the way that people will identify something and say, this is magnificent. Because I don't know, like, what is the imperfect version of Spirited Away? You know, like, what's the version that fails? Like, it's. I think it's singular. And that's probably like the more appropriate way to define the fawning admiration for it is that there is just nothing like, you know, Steven Spielberg very famously said, I think this is better than any Disney movie ever made. And that's high praise from somebody who understands what it's like to reach for a perfect movie. And I find that interesting that it has gotten to this place in this 25 year period. It may have gotten to this place more than almost any movie on our list. Can you think of another movie that's even coming that you think would be defined in that way?
- [28:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, for us, yes. I can think of a couple set us on the list.
- [28:54]
Sean Fennessey
Unknowable Universal canon. I can think of a couple on our list. Yeah, I can think of a couple that we purposefully excluded. Well, sure, that would be deemed as such.
- [29:04]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, that's fine. But once you're asking me to speak for the people, you know, that becomes dangerous, risky territory. Complicated. I'm trying. I mean, it is so generational. You know, there are some movies that we think are perfect and the younger kids are like, what are you doing? You know.
- [29:25]
Sean Fennessey
Like the Princess Diaries.
- [29:26]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure, it's. That's a great, great film.
- [29:29]
Sean Fennessey
Sure.
- [29:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Princess Diaries 2 is very early in Chris Pine's career. We wouldn't have him without it.
- [29:34]
Sean Fennessey
Haven't seen it. So how does it stack up to Spirited Away?
- [29:38]
Amanda Dobbins
They do have to go to a fictional place and then learn its rules. And regulations.
- [29:43]
Sean Fennessey
Okay. Or is everyone there dead?
- [29:46]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, it's really dead. How many of them turned into dead on the inside?
- [29:50]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, yeah. No, no parents who've been turned into pigs in that film.
- [29:53]
Amanda Dobbins
I actually don't know what happens to Anne Hathaway's parents. Well, I guess her mom's in the first one. I don't know whether she makes the trip to Genovia. I don't remember that. Her grandmother is Julie Anders. Jack, am I right?
- [30:05]
Sean Fennessey
No idea.
- [30:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, come on.
- [30:07]
Sean Fennessey
Does Genovia border Sokovia in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Okay, good to know this film. Part of what is amusing to me about some of that, like, merchandising and the iconography of the movie is like, what is being. Coming? Iconography?
- [30:23]
Amanda Dobbins
The meaning of this movie, you know, which is what? Rewatching it, I was like, oh, that still and that still and that still.
- [30:29]
Sean Fennessey
You know, there's the famous Chihiro and no Face on the subway boat. That's like them sitting together. That's it. That's the one. I didn't even know that was. That was the image. But that image of the sort of like me and my NYX fandom, you know, sitting together on the train. Which is funny because, you know, this character is complex and mysterious and indebted to like 1960s horror spirits in Shinoda films. Like, it's. It's very unusual kind of figures for them to have been like subsumed into our Internet life. But they very much have been. And to me, they're not the same. Like in my neighbor Totoro, there's a. A light heartedness to the imagery to Cat bus.
- [31:15]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [31:16]
Sean Fennessey
This movie is much more severe.
- [31:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [31:18]
Sean Fennessey
In terms of the stories. No, she's not okay.
- [31:20]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [31:20]
Sean Fennessey
I just feel like it's too soon. Yeah. I think it's way too early. And I think it's instructive that Miyazaki says that I made it for 10 year olds. And I'm sure if you were 7, 8 and 9, you could watch a movie like this. But it's not for toddlers, you know, it's not Ponyo. It's not even Porco Rosso, which is like, hey, that pig is flying a plane. Like any kid can kind of like lock into it.
- [31:37]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, just also the planes, Right?
- [31:39]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. I mean, this does have Rivercraft of a kind. It's got flying dragons. It's a lot of things kids like. Yeah, but it has so many things that I think would be confusing to extremely young kids. But it'll be interesting. Like revisiting all of the Miyazaki films with her. Like, she did watch. What did she watch? Howl's Moving Castle. And I think it was a little too soon for that. You know, that's a fierce story about warriors. And Miyazaki also excels at those kinds of stories. Those are really the. There's three strands. There's like, grouchy old men. You know, like the Wind Rises. Porco Rosso is like, there's some guy smoking a butt who needs to, like, get on a mission.
- [32:22]
Amanda Dobbins
Lives in a beautiful, beautiful lagoon.
- [32:24]
Sean Fennessey
Absolutely. And then there's young girl or young boy who's been confronted by a traumatic experience and needs to find their way through a complex emotional world. And then the third one is, like, young guy with a sword who meets another young gal who needs to climb a castle in the sky. This one falls into that young, childlike zone. But it is arguably the most adult of his movies, short of the Wind Rises. So it occupies a very unusual space.
- [32:55]
Amanda Dobbins
But it's a coming of age story in a lot of ways, as well as being a fantasy story. And so those are technically about younger people, but we consume them through all ages of life.
- [33:06]
Sean Fennessey
You never moved as a kid, right?
- [33:08]
Amanda Dobbins
I moved houses, but not cities.
- [33:10]
Sean Fennessey
Okay. I never moved as a child, but I had. Certainly had friends who moved and kids who moved, like, into my life from other places. And you often hear of this movie, that this is one of the most profound representations of the emotional turmoil of being torn out of your adolescence in one way and placed into another environment and being forced to look at what your future could be and just how disorienting it is and how upsetting it can feel. And there's something amazing about this. I mean, at the time he made this movie, I think he was in his late 50s. And for him to tap into that sensibility is very powerful.
- [33:47]
Amanda Dobbins
He seems to maintain a childlike wonder.
- [33:49]
Sean Fennessey
He does. He does. While also, like, smoking a lot of butts and being mad about everything.
- [33:53]
Amanda Dobbins
You know, we all contain multitudes.
- [33:54]
Sean Fennessey
We do. What else? Anything else you'd like to share about Spirited Away?
- [33:59]
Amanda Dobbins
I had forgotten that I basically have a big baby of my own now. You sure do. I mean, Psy and Bo are really.
- [34:07]
Sean Fennessey
They got a lot in common.
- [34:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Sai's allowed to go outside, though. But otherwise I was like, oh, I see what's happening here.
- [34:12]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts about Yubaba in this film or her twin sister?
- [34:20]
Amanda Dobbins
Her twin sister seemed nice.
- [34:22]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it's kind of Zeniba. Yeah.
- [34:24]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Zeniba.
- [34:25]
Sean Fennessey
What happened there between them, some sort of falling out. There's. I think there's some Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked Witch of the West, Witch of the east stuff going on there.
- [34:32]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. But it's not like. It's not really explained in a way that.
- [34:35]
Sean Fennessey
No, that's. The other thing is we're not too bound up in the lore. We don't need to understand too much.
- [34:39]
Amanda Dobbins
About how this stuff works. I don't know if we need that many rings on our fingers, would be my styling note to her, but obviously it communicates a lot.
- [34:48]
Sean Fennessey
How do you feel about her as a representation of the kind of westernized grotesquery of, like, fabrics and prints and all of these, The. The colorful style that is kind of in opposition to the, you know, more historically staged Japanese style?
- [35:03]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, respectfully, I think she has a pretty sick, like, penthouse apartment. Yeah, I thought it was tough on grandmas. Yeah, yeah. You know, grandma's, they can be tough. I was like, I. I see both sides.
- [35:15]
Sean Fennessey
Weird grandma stuff.
- [35:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. Yeah. But I was more thinking about it's like a tough day for grandmas. What are your thoughts on becoming a grandma? Not anytime soon, you know, so when do I start giving those speeches, chat.
- [35:28]
Sean Fennessey
With Knox about that? You know, I think that, as I said at the beginning, this movie is a really important bridge for generations of movie fans to be more open to international stories. But I think it's also a huge bridge for animation at large, being accepted beyond your typical Disney storytelling style. Now, there's obviously huge other studios that exist. DreamWorks, Illumination, those. They've released dozens of huge movies over the last 25 years. Those are usually movies for the masses, for really young children. But then in addition to that, you've got Aardman in England and the Wallace and Gromit films and Chicken Run and all of those stories. And then you've also got Laika and the stop motion animation style that they use. And this film maybe more than any other, like, signals the dawn of a new golden age, Whatever, a platinum age. You know, if you think like the 30s and the 40s with Disney and then you get this fascinating kind of like mid century, all the way through the mid-80s. It's not a fallow period for Disney, but it's not as strong as you would want it to be. And in fact, most of the interesting animation work that's happening is usually like, on the outer edge of culture, like Ralph Bakshi or folks like that. And then in the 90s and the late 80s, they were like, disney really takes the crown back with, like, Little Mermaid and Aladdin and the Lion King. And then this is the one that kind of kicks down the door for anybody who isn't Disney to be mainstream in some ways. And I really like that about it. I think it makes it a really elegant inclusion in this list.
- [37:03]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [37:04]
Sean Fennessey
And Miyazaki, we gotta appreciate him while we got him. So apparently he's making another movie, right?
- [37:09]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, it was one of those. He's retiring. And then reports of my retirement have, you know, been greatly overestimated. This seems to be a pattern with him. Right. I was being like, I'll never do this again. And then like, here's another masterpiece.
- [37:23]
Sean Fennessey
Same with me in podcasting. You know, every time I'm like, I'm done. I can't do any more. And then next week, Banger after this is Final Destination week. You know, got to step up. Got to make my the Wind Rises recommended, if you like. So we've already mentioned a handful of these titles. I mentioned Alice in Wonderland. I feel like that's the most significant companion. Pinocchio up. I would recommend the Secret World of Arrietty if folks haven't seen it. It's a studio Ghibli movie that I believe he wrote. I think he's the screenwriter on that film and has a somewhat similar tone. I also added into the spider verse.
- [37:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [37:56]
Sean Fennessey
You know what I mean?
- [37:57]
Amanda Dobbins
That's the first one, right?
- [37:58]
Sean Fennessey
That kind of. The first one. Yeah. That sort of like, almost like the noisiness of the frame. The idea of so many things happening at once in the movie feels super informed by the end of colors and.
- [38:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Like, the relationship of, like, the. To, like, to classical art, for lack of a, you know, of like, of all but Japanese as well as, you know, the Western canon. But that. I do think it looks like something recognizable that you would see hanging in a wall in a museum.
- [38:26]
Sean Fennessey
100%. A lot of the images are taken directly from historical Japanese art from this film. And you can see the huge influence on that in all modern animation. I also mentioned Watership down, which I think just the sort of, like, mournfulness of that story, like, the gravity of that story, which is so unusual in animation to convey that, and also just.
- [38:45]
Amanda Dobbins
A whole other world of creatures who have life and rules of their own, exactly how they live. I added Narnia and the Golden Compass. And the books are probably closer than whatever film adaptations exist. I haven't seen Greta's yet, so I'm not gonna pass judgment.
- [39:03]
Sean Fennessey
Recommend it if you like Greta's Unmade.
- [39:05]
Amanda Dobbins
Chronicles of Narnia trilogy, but both places, you know, instances of a young person passing through, like, a doorway or a cabinet door or some physical structure into another spiritual world.
- [39:23]
Sean Fennessey
Great recommendations. Okay. That's the only animated film. That's it on the list.
- [39:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, you got anything else that you want? Ratatouille is like, I'm sorry, but I like it a lot.
- [39:37]
Sean Fennessey
It's a wonderful film about.
- [39:39]
Amanda Dobbins
That's great.
- [39:40]
Sean Fennessey
The act of creation.
- [39:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. So is this.
- [39:44]
Sean Fennessey
Sure. And yeah. Yeah. I don't think they're redundant.
- [39:47]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [39:48]
Sean Fennessey
But I'm sure there are some listeners who may be disappointed. We won't. We won't speak too much about Pixar.
- [39:53]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. I feel okay with that. I know they're very important, but this seems more important.
- [39:59]
Sean Fennessey
This is more in line with the. Oh. Tourist nature of this project and our tastes. Yeah. Miyazaki and Pixar are pretty neck and neck for me in terms of, like, what kind of a movie do I want to watch if I'm going to watch it?
- [40:13]
Amanda Dobbins
But Toy Story is not eligible.
- [40:15]
Sean Fennessey
Toy Story is not eligible. And if it were.
- [40:17]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Then we would be having that conversation. But it's not, you know.
- [40:21]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I think there is something to that. That there was, like, a wild act of creation in the making of Toy Story, because there had never been a movie like that before. That isn't true, specifically of this Miyazaki movie, but it felt like the culmination. So that's our pick. I can't even remember what 18 is. What's 18? Don't say it. What is it?
- [40:37]
Amanda Dobbins
It's a good one.
- [40:38]
Sean Fennessey
Is it?
- [40:39]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [40:40]
Sean Fennessey
Imagine if you're like, it sucks. One of the worst ones we've seen.
- [40:42]
Amanda Dobbins
It's one where it's a director, where there could have been several entries, I think, prolific filmography, but for us, there was never a question.
- [40:53]
Sean Fennessey
I like that tease. I can't even remember what the film is. Stay tuned to the Big Picture if you want to find out. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Later this week, we'll be talking about Lilo and Stitch, speaking of animation come to life and a world of wonder. We'll see you then.