TheRetroCritic

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In this 66th episode of  The Big Rewind , we review The Jungle Book & The Huntsman: Winter's War , talk about Prince, superhero movie sequels and Studio Ghibli. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher ,  Soundcloud  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

As the doors of legendary animation empire Studio Ghibli slowly close (though hopefully only for a short time), much to everyone's chagrin, here is yet another example of just how good and important these guys are to the medium. The Tale Of Princess Kaguya may sound like just another surreal folktale on paper but one look at the stunning watercolour/charcoal-style animation used here by visual maestro Isao Takahata ( Pom Poko , My Neighbors The Yamadas ) and you'll find yourself instantly mesmerised by this tale of a baby born out of a bamboo tree. While Hayao Miyazaki was and is a genius at bringing to the screen all-around great-looking, often epic stories, Takahata's forte seems to be to bring an off-beat artistry to the animation and tell predominantly emotional, melodramatic, affecting stories. Case and point: Grave Of The Fireflies . And, to a certain extent, this movie which shows us a young woman's entire life flash by her put-upon parents' eyes as the

In this 45th episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review  Interstellar  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

Well, Anime Month (and a half) finally draws to a close so here's a list of all the anime-related reviews we've had over the past month (and a half). A couple more will be written before Christmas, anime series will be reviewed over the next year (sorry I couldn't get around to those) and live-action anime Vlogs will become a regular thing and will be posted on our Youtube channel every so often so stay tuned! Thanks again for all your support ;) Spirited Away Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade Howl's Moving Castle Millennium Actress Battle Royale My Neighbor Totoro Dr Slump Arale: Ncha! Bycha (Game Review) Tokyo Godfathers Origin: Spirits Of The Past Devilman City Hunter (Game Review) Golgo 13: The Professional Guyver: Dark Hero Porco Rosso Ponyo Casshern R.O.D: Read Or Die Sailor Moon (Game Review) Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind Speed Racer Psychic Wars Fist Of The North Star (Game R

Watching Spirited Away at the cinema upon its release was something of a personal event for several reasons. For one thing, it was the first anime feature I'd ever seen on the big screen but it was also my first Hayao Miyazaki film and it was, on top of that, really bloody good. Coming at a time when 2D animated films looked like they were on their way out with Disney focusing its attention on CGI animation, the anime was a breath of fresh air and proved once and for all that this kind of animated feature more than deserved to stay. The film follows a young girl called Chihiro who is about to move into a new house with her parents. She's reluctant to leave her old life behind and start a new one. Her father drives towards what he believes to be a shortcut but instead finds an abandoned old fair accessible through a creepy tunnel (as all the best fairs are). They wander aimlessly until Chihiro's parents decide to stuff their faces with random food they find lying arou

Spirited Away sure must have been a tough act to follow so you would have expected Hayao Miyazaki to take it easy and release a lighter, smaller film before bringing us another substantial effort but that didn't happen. Instead, we got Howl's Moving Castle , one of the director's most creative works to date. Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the film follows 18 year-old Sophie as she is turned into a 90 year-old woman by a witch because the latter was jealous about the young hatter meeting some wizard called Howl, which she herself had her eye on. Sophie then wanders the land in search of the witch, potentially the only one who could reverse the spell at this point, but instead she finds some weird-looking scarecrow who ends up leading her to the titular castle. There, she meets Calcifer, an adorable fire demon, voiced by Billy Crystal in the English version, who agrees to help turn her back into her old... well, young self, rather, if she can help break his own c

It's about time that plane-flying Italian pilot pigs got their own movie! Set between WWI and II, Porco Rosso follows an ex-fighter pilot-turned-freelance bounty hunter, who was cursed some time ago to physically look exactly like a pig, as he befriends a young mechanic called Fio and faces off against a bunch of moronic air pirates. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, this one's not too dense in terms of story but it does have a lot of subtleties about it which help make the film's straight-forward plot a little fuller and more interesting. This is more of a character piece, the film slowly but surely letting us discover the real man behind the pig (yes, I realise how silly this sounds) and, like Fio, we get to eventually filter out the introverted character's true humanity. It's a sweet, mature movie with some top notch animation which really starts showing off during the exciting and beautiful-looking action sequences. Porco Rosso thankfully

After the world-dominating Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle , Hayao Miyazaki decided to go back down the My Neighbor Totoro route and create a work of ultimate cuteness. A film so adorable it's like a kitten made it FOR kittens. I'm talking, of course, about Ponyo . This one took me a little by surprise, despite me having no expectations going in except for it being good, which it was. I didn't think it would be geared towards a younger audience but, luckily, Miyazaki's smart enough that people of any age can usually enjoy his work and Ponyo's no exception. The plot is like a weirder version of The Little Mermaid as a goldfish princess somehow makes her way to the shore, befriends a small boy and starts wanting to become human, which she slowly does, through a bizarre process of her looking goofier and goofier then less and less goofy. Ponyo's father Fujimoto, voiced by Liam Neeson, meanwhile, tries desperately to keep the ocean in balance si

An early-ish Hayao Miyazaki effort, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind  followed The Castle Of Cagliostro and was based on one of his own mangas and, although it was produced pre-Studio Ghibli, it opened the door for more classic anime features from the legendary director. The film is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure in which a princess called Nausicaa, who flies around in a weird little portable surf glider... thing and has a special bond with nature, becomes Earth's saviour in the middle of a potentially devastating conflict. Her people are taken over by the Tolmekian kingdom who are planning to use some weapon to destroy all the mutated giant insects in the land. Nausicaa, whose father is killed in the struggle, sets out to stop this disaster since pissing off the insects would only result in yet another global disaster. The last of which was caused, you've guessed it, by Man's greedy bullshit. As you can tell, this plot's all pretty environment-themed, whic

Here's the trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's final (?) film The Wind Rises , which should be out early next year:

Here's one Studio Ghibli film which was basically completely different than what I expected. And, seeing as it's one of the only films from the studio which didn't do all that well at the Japanese box-office, I'm guessing I wasn't the only one to expect something different from it. From looking at it vaguely, I thought My Neighbors The Yamadas would follow one goofy family as they embark on some crazy adventures. In fact, this is a much more artistic and reflective creation more akin to a deadpan comic strip. The humour isn't cartoonish at all, it's actually pretty subtle and restrained. Here we have an ensemble character study about everyday Japanese family life in which everyone looks really weird, like caricatures, and which promotes an overall cosy, poetic vibe. Our focus is entirely on this one family as we pop in and out of their lives depending on what mini-theme the movie wants to tackle. It can be about something really small, like the mother

A live-action Kiki's Delivery Service movie?! For real? Yup. Apparently it's happening and it should be out next year! It'll be directed by Takashi Shimizu, known for horror film  Ju-On: The Grudge (and its lesser sequels), and will star Fuka Koshiba as the titular witch. The film will be based on the novel and will essentially re-tell the story told in Studio Ghibli's classic animated feature. There's a teaser trailer (see below) but it shows nothing so I shall keep y'all updated should anymore news about the production arise! Any thoughts on why this movie's being made? Are you looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @TheRetroCritic ;)

Back when I first heard about this one, I kinda just wrote it off as a lesser Studio Ghibli effort purely because it sounded a bit too silly and, not being one of Hayao Miyazaki's very own works, I didn't feel the need to actually sit through it properly. I was an idiot. The Cat Returns is actually tons of fun and way more charming than I expected. Yes, the premise is ludicrous and the first time you see a cat stand up on its back legs and talk it's... insane but the film knows it, which is why Haru, our main character, lives through this whole mad ordeal completely wide-eyed and practically in shock. Anne Hathaway, who plays Haru in the English dub, does a terrific job at capturing those reactions. The plot sees Haru save a cat's life before being introduced to some hidden Cat Kingdom and being rewarded with a place on the throne if she agrees to marry the Prince. She is advised by an unknown voice to find something called the Cat Bureau where she befriends a b