Movies

Yes, after all I am one of the people who added to the visitor-count for that movie.

The hype seems weird, but over all it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, after some things I'd heard.

Some spoilers following, in case you're even more slow finding your way to the cinema.

Chronicles of Narnia
It had some nice visuals, which, no doubt, were even better on the big screen. There were some nice moments in it.
But, damn, the whole "prophecy tells us to make a bunch of children war leaders to save the world, and it works" is so bloody, painfully stupid. As was dividing the good and pad people in Narnia along species lines, and putting the good guys in mirror-polished armour and in one case on a white unicorn, while the bad guys had black iron and were all in all more on the "ugly" goblin-and-troll side.
The movie also once again made me wonder if there is a fantasy stereotype saying that women in positions of power must be evil, or if my memory is selective there.

The Dark Crystal
Yeah, I saw that a short while ago for the first time, so no nostalgia for me here (same as with the Narnia movie; I never read the books).
Suffers from the same "prophesied hero with no clue whatsoever" as the above, but marginally less grave in my mind, because the scale is smaller... Or maybe I just like the rest of the movie more and thus am more forgiving.
The trying-to-figure-out-myths part of the story was rather interesting, even if it should not have been neccessary, if the gelfling's teachers were so damn wise. The ending seemed rather predictable to me, but, eh. I really loved the strange creatures all through the setting.

Labyrinth
Same as before, was new to me.
How refreshing! A story about "personal" problems rather than saving the world. Like in The Dark Crystal, I think the strongest point are the creatures and setting, though it got a bit very random at times, and I probably would have liked it better without that swamp full of farting arseholes.
Jareth's little "I did it all for you" speech was interesting. It's also one of the rare examples where I like the translation better than the original. From the German version, I expected the line that turned out to be "You cowered before me, I was frightening" to say "You wanted to fear me, so I was fearsome", which is just a better line.

All in all, I don't consider any of those a must-see.

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.