Movies You Should Watch!

[Gotthammer]

Thread for movies you think are awesome and need more love! I love movies, I personally own hundreds of them and wish I had more time to watch them. Since I don't I'll instead share with you the ones I have and why I think they're great. I"ll be doing everything from Kurosawa to Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

But this thread isn't just for me to spout off (though that is a large part of it)! If you have one of your own, please share it - but don't just give us a title, tell us why you love it!

First up we have:


Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) (http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CDQQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0087544% 2F&ei=LDhSUPWmIOiQiQeK4IGACg&usg=AFQjCNHMu9BERNdJ1ZSZLswqPdfbN6sstA)

By Hayao Miyazaki


http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r314/Gotthammer/movies/NausicaaoftheValleyoftheWind.jpg


Princess Nausicaä lives in the peaceful Valley of the Wind, one of the few sanctuaries left in the world where humans can survive. The rest of the world is an ever expanding toxic wasteland ruled by fierce insects, but this does nothing to sate man's lust for power. When war comes to the Valley, Nausicaä must struggle agianst an ancient power and her own inner demons.

This is probably one of my all time favourite movies. I first saw it many, many years ago and have loved it ever since, so I am extremely biased here!


Why it's Awesome

An imperfect protagonist - Nausicaä is stubborn, fiery, impulsive, selfish and even a bit arrogant at times. She has serious anger management issues, as evidenced below:

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r314/Gotthammer/movies/large_nausicaa_valley_wind_blu-ray_2.jpg

Those dudes on the ground? Yeah, she just beat them to death...

But she also is smart, wise, thoughtful and compassionate. She's not a one note, one dimensional archetype.


Great bad guys - or rather, no 'bad guys'. Kushana, arguably the main antagonist, is doing some pretty bad things but for what could be seen as the right reasons in the long run. You actually get to know her and her motivations, and may even agree with her in some part...

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r314/Gotthammer/movies/tumblr_m9r9z77sqV1rv6s83o4_1280.jpg

And she's probably the reason I've got a thing for girls with robot arms...


An amazing world - There is a rich background behind the things we see - the toxic jungle has a planned out life cycle, the castle of the Valley of the Wind includes little details like one turret is for the men, the other for the women and so on.
The creatures and plants feel like they belong together, rather than sticking a weird bug in a 'normal' jungle.


Princess rescues the prince:

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r314/Gotthammer/movies/NausicaaoftheValleyoftheWindavi_003588213.jpg


The Not So Awesome:

The environmental message is about as subtle as a sledgehammer - the movie opens with an endorsement from the WWF. It does occasionally detract from the film a bit.

It made me spend waaaay too much money on an original mint condition film poster (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cJCuPFLfl94/TcLPXhCeZMI/AAAAAAAABA0/xa3IFSBb_I0/s1600/Naus1.jpg).

I'm possibly going to change my middle name to Nausicaä...



http://youtu.be/vJdQtnhKAtU


So that's why I love it!

[DarkLink]

Princess Mononoke
Also by Miyazaki, one of my favorite films of all time. It's also apparently like the only environmental film ever (well, most of Miyazaki's films have environmental theme, but this one is much more subtle than Nausicaa) than doesn't follow the Pocohontas/Fern Gully/Avatar/Dances With Wolves plot cliche. It's also the movie I always show to people who "don't like anime", as education. It hasn't failed yet.

[ img]nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mh/mononoke_poster.jpg (http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mh/mononoke_poster.jpg)[ /img]

Prince A****aka wakes up one day to find his village under attack. He manages to defeat the demon, but is cursed in the fight. A mark appears on his arm where the demon touched him. Every time he feels hatred or fear, the mark will spread, eventually killing him painfully. On the plus side

The only way for A****aka to lift his curse is to travel far away, to "see with eyes unclouded by hate". His travel leads him to a complex conflict between a mining village, the spirits of the forest being cut down by the mining village, a samurai lord who wants the iron from the mining village, and an opportunistic monk with shady friends and mysterious objectives. In the midst of the fighting, A****aka might just be the only one who can save everyone.



The hallmark, in my opinion, of this film (aside from the great animation) is the realism of the plot and characters. There are no bad guys, and there are no good guys (except maybe A****aka). Everyone has their own unique, believable, and reasonable motivations. There is no good versus evil, no heavy-handed anti-whatever message that environmental films tend to contain. Everyone is just fighting to make their own life.

Plus, A****aka is a badass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ4pxURy5-I

Edit:
They seriously censor A****aka? WTF?

[Gotthammer]

Good going BoLS word filter :rolleyes:

Ash!taka is a badass. The english dub voice cast is pretty far out as well - Claire Danes, Gillain Anderson, Billy Cruddup, Minnie Driver, Billy Bob Thornton, Admiral Anderson and more.

Mononoke is sort of like Nausicaa plus - Miyazaki had clearly honed his writing and narrative skills. It is a much more stripped down affair and as you say the message is less in your face despite the films basically being the same plotwise (protagonist must deal with own issues whilst trying to stop a war and dealing with man vs nature).



As a note, if people want to embed images you need to manually type the [ img] [ /img] tags in instead of using the [ATTACH=CONFIG ] ones.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, I was trying to figure that one out. The image and video inserts don't work very well, and something was up with the editing feature, too. It took like six tries to get the edit to actually show up.

Edit: Screw it, if the forum doesn't want to work then you can just click the link. Won't let me post images and videos, won't let me edit things without having to try multiple times...

[Gotthammer]

Delete the [ url] tags around the first link.
If it's a youtube video it needs the short link to be entered in the dialogue box (youtu.be or whatever) generated by the 'share' button under the video to work.