Freddy Goes to Florida

Altogether, Walter R. Brooks published 26 Freddy the Pig books. I'd never read this one before I picked it up on a momentary whim while waiting for my kids in the children's section at our public library last week.

Recently I had re-read Freddy the Detective, and while it was at least interesting, and amusing in spots, it didn't rekindle any warm childhood memories or feel particularly fulfilling. Not a disappointment, exactly, but not what I had hoped for.

Freddy Goes to Florida, on the other hand, felt more like the genuine article. The first in the entire Freddy series, it was originally published in 1927 under what must be a contender for Worst Title of All Time ("To and Away"). In it, Freddy is only a bit player among the many animals involved; in fact, here his name has a comma. (Having to remind the reader about which animal is which, they keep referring to him as "Freddy, the pig.") On the whole, this book was a satisfying read. Lots of adventures--crocodiles, bad guys, buried treasure--kind of like a road trip movie, only with richly-drawn humanized animal characters.

Howl's Moving Castle

In earlier days I felt that detectable changes from one frame to the next were a hallmark of cheap animation. This was especially true in animations produced for television: Hanna-Barbera may have been the most commercially successful animation studio ever, but for Heaven's sake! Do they HAVE to keep lowering the bar so @#$%#@$ far?

Once they had lowered the standard, they were copied and things only got worse. Watch an episode of Pokemon, for example, and the technique is--well, I'll just say that the cutting of corners to make the animation process cost-effective is plainly evident.

The previous result for me has been a knee-jerk dismissive reaction anytime the animation wasn't perfectly smooth. If they were putting fewer than 24 fps on the screen, somebody didn't care enough.

But then I started watching Miyazaki films. Quite often--maybe always--the transition from one frame to the next is evident. But if the drawings are beautifully executed with great care, does it matter so much? In this case, since so many of the drawings are executed by only one person--and since the result is soulful and thoughtful and magnificent in so many other pleasantly surprising ways--I'm finding a new ability to ignore frame counts.

This film, in particular, is beautiful. I found the story rather convoluted and a little disappointing in its complexity, but that's my only complaint. It's definitely on my to-own list.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Kiki's Delivery Service was the first Miyazaki film I ever saw, and we just got it from the library again. It's been a couple of years since we first saw it--the twins didn't remember it at all--and I found it even better the second time around.

The film begins as Kiki, a young witch, decides that it's time for her to leave home and try to make her way in the world. The rest of the film is about her trying to get settled in her new life, and the adventures that happen to her along the way.

One of my favorite things about Miyazaki is the way that he will stir together disparate elements from past history and, because the story is already dreamlike, the elements seem to fit effortlessly, as if they always belonged together. The cars in Kiki's new town all seem to be from about the mid-1930s, and there is a dirigible in the story, but there are also transistor radios, and television. The locals regard Kiki as more of a remarkable surprise than a fright; nobody is horrified to see her flying around on a broom. And the message behind the film is a powerful favorite of mine.

The only downside to this movie is that Kiki's cat, Jiji, was voiced by Phil Hartman. I never heard of Phil Hartman until he became famous for the wrong reason, and I can't listen to his work here without being saddened by that. Sigh.

Castle In the Sky

I feel as if there's not much to say about this film. Anyone who enjoys animation probably already knows about Hayao Miyazaki and all the things that make his stuff wonderful:

- unpredictable storylines in fantastical settings

- traditional (i.e., hand-drawn) animation, with computers used only rarely

- magnificent artwork

and that, until recently (due to age), he drew many of the frames and usually checked every single frame himself (over 100,000 for a single film). And people who aren't familiar with Miyazaki are not likely to appreciate his stuff until after they've seen a couple.

If you haven't seen his stuff before, this is a good one to start with; also, Kiki's Delivery Service or My Neighbor Totoro. He won a richly-deserved Oscar for the stellar Spirited Away, but some might find it less accessible than the others.

One other item: we just got this one from the library, and it was wonderful, but it's from 1986 (not released in the US until much more recently). I confused it with his more recent Howl's Moving Castle, which we haven't seen yet.

The Sea of Trolls

Young adult fiction. If you enjoy reading about Saxons & Northmen in 793 - and runes, trolls, beserkers, druids, bards, skalds, and frost giants, then you will love this book. I thought it a lot of fun and I've already started the 2nd book of the series, The Land of the Silver Apples.

There's a lot of action, a lot of fantasy and I found it well-written.