My biggest objection to this mini series was Mira Sorvino. I never realized how bad her acting was untill I saw her centerstage in this one.

Traditions should not be followed simply because they are traditions was the basic premise of this movie. It was not my favorite Yimou Zhang movie, but still worth watching. I found this to be an interesting contrast in theme to the thought in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, that future generations will fail because they did not have to struggle to achieve and simply follow or fail to follow traditions because they exist, without understanding them.

I suppose the logical conclusion is to use your brain to do what is right. :)

I watched this film with my wife on Fathers day and thought it was great. What happens when a group of mobsters run for the hills and take refuge in a buddist monestary until things blow over? Well that is what you find out. What I really enjoyed about this movie in addition to the humor is the fact that both the monks and gangsters are more complex that simply gang member or religious person. The monks and criminals find things they have in common and others that they are opposed on. You see both monks plotting revenge and mobsters keeping their word in this thoroughly enjoyable film.

Just seeing that people who have gone through so much and still are going out there every day and living bigger than most people is amazing. Makes me feel like I’ve been a lazy, whiney bum all my life. A true testament to hard work and determination.

I caught this on AZN the other night with my wife purely by accident. It turned out to be a good movie. With both happy and sad moments it deals with human topics using technology like good sci-fi should.

A beautiful blend of Western and Persian music.

Vas makes the best relaxing music, and between this one and In the Garden of Souls this is the better on in my opinion. If you like Enya or any relaxing music you should listen to this!

Spoiler Warning

This movie was a complete waste of time. The main character has bad parents and turns out screwed up. This doesn’t really manifest itself until she is in Harvard and wins an award for her writing. The rest of the movie is her making bad decisions and acting completely insane.

At the end, literally the last few seconds, we find out that the prozac she started taking was helping her to be able to handle her depression. Her life goes back to normal and we see some stats on people taking anti-depressants. Now this may have been meant to leave me coming away feeling that there is something wrong because everyone is depressed. It didn’t. It made the movie seem like a really long public service announcement to make sure you take prescription drugs for your depression.

Unless you have never been sad, or are curious to know if depression can really screw up your life, which this movie says it most likley not the case, skip this movie.

I’m not sure if I like Howl’s Moving Castle or Spirited Away better, but it makes no diffence since they are both wonderful films. There are many likable characters in this, but calcifer and the boy were my favorites.

One thing that I like about both Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away is that they both not only have a touching moral, but also there is no true villian. No matter how awful you think the bad guy is, you find out that they only appear that way because of a personality flaw or something that has happened to them. This seems so much more real and ultimately redeemable than the strict antagonist.

Howl’s Moving Castle centers on themes of love, beauty, war and maturity. I would recommend it to both kids and adults.

I made some excellent whole wheat cinnamon rolls with this.