Cogwheels and steam engines and secrets, oh my

I watched two movies yesterday and today, Howl’s Moving Castle and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. What I think they have in common is that their really strong point are the visuals, but maybe that’s just me liking steampunkish stuff (it’s blatant in the Moving Castle, in Lemony Snicket it’s more of a slight flavour).

Lemony Snicket was way more weird and interesting than the book blurbs I read led me to believe, so that was a positive surprise. There were two points or themes that rubbed me the wrong way at the time, but both - people not taking anything the children said seriously, and the aunt’s ridiculous fears - were at least somewhat addressed in the movie. I spotted one big “wait, what?!” moment which might be a plothole (how did the aunt get there?), but in the general weirdness it doesn’t stand out too much.

Not a new favourite, but quite nice. I don’t think it’s suitable for having running in the background while doing something else, since, again, the visuals were what made the movie for me. I did like one theme of the soundtrack a lot: the one played when the extended family showed something impressive to the children - the reptile room, or that big window overlooking the lake.

Howl’s Moving Castle… Honestly, the story doesn’t hold up for me. It’s too soppy. I mean, Sofie gets turned into an old woman by a curse. A bit later she gets an offer from a demon that if she finds out the secret of the contract between that demon and Haoru (I guess that’s Howl in the English version), he will lift the curse. And then she never makes any attempt to find out; she’s too busy cleaning house, enjoying the scenery, pining after Haoru, and forming a family with Haoru’s apprentice, fetchmonkey, or whatever the little kid was.

Haoru didn’t seem very interesting, either,for my taste there were just too many questions left open.

The scenes showing the castle looked awesome, and I liked Calcifer the demon, but all in all I got the impression there were too many plot threads for the time.