Throwback Thursday #2: Spirited Away (dvd)

In need of a great movie to watch over the weekend, I asked around... And was given Spirited Away. I've seen some of the films to come out of Studio Ghibli (I especially loved When Marnie Was There), but this, perhaps the studio's most well-known, somehow eluded me.

Until now.

Spirited Away is about a young girl who, along with her parents, gets trapped in the Spirit Realm. Chichiro is upset about having to move away from her friends and us reluctant to follow her parents when they stop to explore a seemingly-abandoned village. Good thing she does, though, because her parents are transformed into pigs when they stop to eat at a mysterious, but also deserted, restaurant. The whole family is trapped when the sun sets and the village comes alive (?) with ghosts and spirits. Chichiro learns the only way to rescue her parents and escape is to outwit the evil sorceress who oversees the village. Something that is much harder than it seems.

Spirited Away ranks right up there with the Strangest Movies I've Ever Seen... and I've seen some odd ones! (The most bizarre being Stalker, a Russian-language film I watched at a friend's house because her BF liked to show guests odd movies...just to mess with them. I'm told Stalker actually inspired the Jeff VanderMeer book Annihilation. Having read this book and watched the movie, I can definitely see the influence) Overall, I'm not sure if I liked Spirited Away or not. I'm sure much was lost in the translation, being that this is not originally an English-language movie, and several cultural differences added another level of foreign-ness to the experience. But I can see how the film is as popular as it is...especially among Anime fans. If nothing else, it was certainly entertaining and kept me guessing right to the end.

So thank you to the kid who recommended Spirited Away (you know who you are). Now I can say I've seen it. 

--AJB

Throwback Thursday: Ten Miles Past Normal, by Frances O'Roark Dowell

Sometimes it's fun to re-read books you read when they were new and see how they stack up. Sometimes these books are still great. Sometimes.... Well, sometimes they lose something in the re-read, whether they're no longer timely or they're just not as good as you thought they were.

Fortunately, Ten Miles Past Normal, by Frances O'Roark Dowell (originally published 2011) is pretty much just as great as the first time I read it.

Ten Miles Past Normal stars high school freshman Janie Gorman, a former suburban kid whose parents moved to the country to try their hand at goat farming (it's a long story). Janie wants nothing more than to blend in with the rest of her classmates. Not be Miss Popularity. Just... blend in. Something that's hard to do when you sometimes come to school with goat poop on your shoe or hay in your hair (OK, so these things don't happen every day, but their single occurrences live in infamy in the hallowed high school halls).  To complicate things, Janie's friend group got split up and she and her BFF Sara have been growing apart. 

Ten Miles Past Normal begins with Janie acting very uptight and restrictive about all things that could cause her to stand out any more than she already does: Refusing to try new things, not wanting to associate with people who could be considered "weird" or "different"... that sort of thing. She's absolutely humiliated by her family. In particular, her mother, who has a popular blog about life down on the farm. Actually, Janie is a bit of a brat when we, the reader, first meet her.  And I really didn't like her much. 

Gradually, though, Janie begins to loosen up. She makes friends with Verbena and Monster, two students who are just the sort of people she would have avoided at first. She joins the school's Jam Band as the sole female bass player. She even starts to be OK with farm life. And when the story finishes, Janie has become a really awesome character.

No more spoilers, though. 

I first read Ten Miles Past Normal when it was first published. It was a book I checked out solely based on the awesome cover and ended up loving. And I was so happy to discover the book was just as great the second go-around...almost 10 years later. The plot development and the character growth are handled so well. It's a great coming-of-age story. There were a couple bits that gave me pause (the "Just Say No" moment felt really random and forced and After School Special, and it didn't at all fit with the story), but otherwise it was pretty much the perfect book.

--AJB

Sorry I Ruined Your Childhood, by Ben Zaehringer

There's no denying it's a serious world out there right now. Between global pandemic panics, pre-election political warfare, and enough celebrity drama to keep the tabloids in business until the dawn of the next millennium, it's hard to avoid being brought down by it all. 

That's where humor comes in.

Sorry I Ruined Your Childhood, the new comic collection by Ben Zaehringer, is filled with enough laughs to brighten even the darkest, most worrisome day. Or at least provide a decent break from it all.  Sorry I Ruined Your Childhood is filled with short comics that poke fun at everything from Santa Claus to pop culture to alien abductions (Spoiler: Space Roomba). Nothing is immune. The drawings aren't particularly complex. In fact, the characters are pretty much stick figures, but that makes the humor all the better (think South Park). 

Overall... Awesome! 

--AJB

She Ra and the Princesses of Power: Legend of the Fire Princess, by GiGi D.G.

Not gonna lie: I am so loving all these graphic novel reboots of cartoons I watched as a child back in the 1980s (yep, guys, I'm that old). While I don't remember She-Ra as well as I do Jem and the Holograms, I still had fun revisiting the story and its colorful (literally) cast of characters.

Legend of the Fire Princess, by GiGi D.G. is the first graphic novel in the series. The story opens with a conference among the Princesses. Their leader warns the ladies (and Bo, don't forget Bo...the one and only guy in the whole story) of a growing power in the nearby wastelands. Legend tells that those very wastelands were once a rich and beautiful kingdom. But the ruler got hold of the powerful Fire Runestone. Mistakenly thinking she could control it and use its powers for good, the ruler attempted to wield it. She thought wrong...and destroyed her entire kingdom in the process. The Fire Rune was thought lost to time. But recently there have been stirrings where the stone was last seen. So Adora (a.k.a. She-Ra) and friends are sent to destroy it. But not all of the company think the stone should be destroyed. In fact, some think they are powerful enough to use the stone against the enemy Horde.

So it seems we have a very Lord of the Rings theme going on here, don't we Precious?

The ladies (and Bo) find the Stone...but so do Horde minions, Scorpia, Catra and Entrapta. An epic battle ensues. Complete with battle bots. And magic swords. And elemental powers. Pretty much, it could be anyone's win... But then Entrapta somehow activates the unstable and terrible power of the Stone, forcing everyone to evacuate empty-handed. The enemies flee back to the Horde H.Q., where they're sure to catch it from The Boss. Meanwhile, the Princesses (and Bo) use the power of Friendship to neutralize the stone and pretty much render it useless (I think). 

So no giant Eagles swooped in to save the day. But there were friendship hugs. So. Many. Friendship. Hugs. 

And a shocking little plot twist nugget that hinted at Adora's possibly dark past. Which I hope is expanded upon in future issues. I also hope the authors indulge my Scorpia-Catra ship (because there totally is Ship Potential there).

Overall, Legend of the Fire Princess was a quick and fun read. I 100% enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next one!

--AJB