Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and with special guests Graham Day and Bríd Martin, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.
This year, we are proud to continue the tradition of Anime May, a fortnight looking at two of the animated Japanese films on the list. This year, we watched a double feature of Hayao Miyazaki’s Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta and Hauru no ugoku shiro. We’ll also be covering a bonus on a recent entry on the list next week, Naoko Yamada’s Koe no katachi.
This week, the second part of the double bill, Hauru no ugoku shiro, Miyazaki’s first film after the breakout success of Spirited Away.
Chance encounters with both a mysterious young wizard and spiteful old witch find Sophie Hatter cursed. The eighteen-year-old young woman finds herself trapped in the body of a ninety-year-old crone. Never one to be defeated or outwitted, Sophie embarks on an adventure to lift the curse that takes her into the wilderness and to the heart of a majestic ambulatory castle inhabited by a fascinating bunch of misfits. As war simmers on the horizon, Sophie finds herself drawn to the temperamental but sensitive young magician Howl, but can they ever find peace?
At time of recording, it was ranked 134th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Show notes:
- Recorded 29th April 2020.
- Anime May is an annual tradition on The 250, picking up from Anime April, with our anime experts Graham and Bríd Martin. This was Graham’s idea, and prompted in large part by our satisfaction with the episode that we recorded on Your Name. 2018’s installments were Isao Takahata’s Hotaru no haka and Hayao Miyazaki’s Tonari no Totoro. 2019’s installments were Hayao Miyazaki’s Kaze no tani no Naushika and Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s Akira.
- Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
- Hauru no ugoku shiro at The Internet Movie Database.
- The IMDB Top 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
- Read Graham’s reviews at Scannain.
- Hear Graham on Speaking Geek.
- Read Graham’s guide to Irish Gaming at Gameir.
- Follow Graham on Twitter.
- James Clayton at Den of Geek ruminates on the legacy of Hayao Miyazaki, May 2014.
- Hannah Ewens at Vice argues for the global importance and significance of Spirited Away, July 2016.
- Charles Solomon at The New York Times on the triumph of traditional animation at the Academy Awards, January 2006.
- Rebecca Nicholson talks at The Guardian about watching Rear Window for the first time in the midst of a global pandemic, April 2020.
- Constance Grady celebrates Diana Wynne Jones as “the fairy godmother of children’s fantasy” at Vox, November 2019.
- Christopher Priest offers a touching obituary for Diana Wynne Jones at The Guardian, March 2011.
- Imogen Russell Williams at The Guardian celebrates the variety and versatility of Diana Wynne Jones as an author, May 2009.
- Diana Wynne Jones talks to The Telegraph about Hayao Miyazaki’s adaptation of her book, September 2005.
- Em Nordling at Tor.com reflects on Studio Ghibli’s troubled adaptation of Tales of Earthsea, November 2018.
- Anthony Gramuglia at Comic Book Resources explores Tales of Earthsea as Studio Ghibli’s weakest film, February 2020.
- Diana Wynne Jones talks to Publishers Weekly about returning to the world of Howl’s Moving Castle after the release of the film, June 2008.
- Elyse Martin at Tor.com compares the interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and Hayao Miyazaki, May 2020.
- Hayao Miyazaki talks to Variety about his planned retirement from animation, September 2013.
- James Vincent at The Verge reports on Hayao Miyazaki’s work on Boro the Caterpillar, February 2017.
- Mary-Ann Russon at International Business Times on Hayao Miyazaki’s refusal to use artificial intelligence and computer-generation animation, April 2017.
- Nick Romano at Entertainment Weekly reports on Hayao Miyazaki’s next project, How Do You Live?, May 2020.
- Hayao Miyazaki talks to The Los Angeles Times about his complicated relationship with the United States after the Iraq War, July 2009.
- Hayao Miyazaki discusses Howl’s Moving Castle with Newsweek, June 2005.
- Margaret Talbot profiles Hayao Miyazaki as “the auteur of anime” for The New Yorker, January 2005.
- Mamoru Hosoda talks to Polygon about how he was fired from his job directing Howl’s Moving Castle, October 2018.
- Mamoru Hosoda talks to The South China Morning Post about the question of who will succeed Hayao Miyazaki, August 2018.
- Mark Schilling at Variety asks who could replace Hayao Miyazaki, February 2016.
- Matthew Dale writes at Medium about the succession crisis within Studio Ghibli, July 2018.
- Wilfred Chan at CNN discusses the challenges facing Studio Ghibli without Hayao Miyazaki, August 2014.
- Alex Martin at The Japan Times reports on the difficulties that anime studios face in the twenty-first century, March 2009.
- Robert Ito at The Independent looks at the recent struggles of Studio Ghibli, January 2019.
- Mari Ness at Tor.com looks back on the failure of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, and what that meant for hand-drawn animation, June 2016.
- Julia Alexander at The Verge writes about the first marketing push for HBO Max, February 2020.
- Jason Morgan at Daily Billboard looks at the advertising campaign for HBO Max, May 2020.
- Matt Baume at Hornet argues for Howl’s Moving Castle as Hayao Miyazaki’s truest anti-war fable, July 2018.
- Hayao Miyazaki talks to The New York Times about what he watches on television, June 2005.
- Hayao Miyazaki talks to SoraNews24 about his problems with anime, January 2014.
- Hayao Miyazaki names Howl’s Moving Castle as his favourite of his own films to Den of Geek, September 2013.
- A.O. Scott discusses Sophie as the ultimate Hayao Miyazaki protagonist in The New York Times, June 2005.
- Gabrielle Bellot writes at The Atlantic on Hayao Miyazaki’s distinctive female protagonists, October 2018.
- Yuko Takeo and Hannah Dormido discuss Japan’s ageing population in Bloomberg, September 2019.
- Dan Kopf at Quartz on the demographic time bomb in Japan, June 2018.
- David Cox at The Guardian on how older audiences are becoming increasingly important to cinema, March 2012.
- Scott Mendelson at Forbes on how the male action hero is getting older, but their female co-stars remain the same age, July 2016.
- Kate Harveston at Headstuff on “nice guys” in popular culture, October 2017.
- Arthur Chu writes at The Daily Beast about pop culture’s depiction of women as trophies to be won with determination and effort, May 2014.
- Hadley Freeman at The Guardian discusses revisiting a variety of classic film romances in the age of #metoo, April 2018.
- Constance Grace at Vox discusses the rape subtext seeded through Sixteen Candles, September 2018.
- The cast and crew of Revenge of the Nerds discuss the film’s legacy with GQ, July 2019.
- Genevieve Hammang at Anime Feminist discusses the differences in how the film and book of Howl’s Moving Castle approach the romantic story, December 2018.
- Tonya Gold at The Guardian on the sexual appeal of Edward Cullen from Twilight, November 2009.
- Darren Mooney writes about American Psycho at the m0vie blog, April 2020.
- Charles Burress at The Los Angeles Times writes about the complicated morality of Hayao Miyazaki’s animations, August 2009.
- Matthew Reed Baker at Boston Magazine looks at the development and evolution of “wicked” as a slang term, October 2017.
- Hayao Miyazaki talks to The Guardian about how much he loves the dub of Howl’s Moving Castle, September 2005.
- The Japan Times discusses the debut of the dubbed version of Howl’s Moving Castle, June 2005.
- Female First reports on Disney’s use of “stunt grunters” for the dub of Howl’s Moving Castle, June 2005.
- Jean Simmons talks to The Washington Times about dubbing Howl’s Moving Castle, December 2005.
- Nobuko Tanaka profiles Akihiro Miwa for The Japan Times, September 2013.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: ageing, animation, anime, antiwar, batman, brid martin, christian bale, graham day, Hayao Miyazaki, howl's moving castle, jean simmons, love, nice guys, romance, war |
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