Mary and the Magic Flower
I went to see Mary and the Magic Flower which is put out by Studio Ponoc, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi formerly of Ghibli. Studio Ghibli is world famous, and if it’s not on your radar it should be.
Spirited Away is probably one of the most famous Ghibli movies internationally and one of my favorites. It’s visually stunning, but I what I really like are the interesting characters and unique creature designs, providing something truly different. Another good one, especially for small children is My Neighbor Totoro. It revolves around two sisters and their father who move out into the country when their mother is ill and hospitalized. It’s a rather bleak premise, but those themes are handled well and they meet a creature known as the Totoro. Check it out.
So, anyway, Mary and the Magic Flower is based on the book The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart. Mary is a young girl who goes to stay with her grandmother. She meets a mysterious young man and his pet cats and stumbles upon a magic flower. Without giving too much away, the flower does give her magic abilities-with limits-and she discovers a magic school. Fear not, it doesn’t fall into the magic school trope and I won’t tell you the ending. It does not go in the direction you think it will, it’s actually all kind of weird, and that was too its benefit.
I felt it was a decent film. It didn’t blow me away, but it was entertaining family fare. It started a bit slow; younger viewers got fidgety in the first half hour, but it picks up speed. It definitely has the Ghibli influence and the animation is BEAUTIFUL. The problem is it is a bit too much like Ghibli so I found myself feeling like just watching Spirited Away or Princess Momonoke again. I felt like the new studio is going to have to work harder to really distinguish itself as different from Ghibli.
****In other news, apparently its the 30th anniversary of Star Cops. I did a post about Star Cops some time ago. A Chris Boucher project that focuses on a police unit (or starting one) set on the International Space Station. It didn’t last long or catch on with the audience, unfortunately, but it now somewhat of a cult classic. The expensive DVD set is available as well as a book by Boucher which covers the first few episodes as he conceived them.
A very good podcast Time Vault-The Podcast of British Cult Classics (https://thetimevault.wordpress.com/) covers it all very well.
****And speaking of crime in space, I recently read SIX WAKES by Mur Lafferty. A group of clones in space wake up to discover themselves murdered. Who? Why? Read it. I really enjoyed it. Amazon.
****And Andy Weir, author of The Martian has a new book out in November, ARTEMIS, which is apparently about crime on Mars. Space crime is everywhere.
THE ECHO ZONE 