Spirited Away a Studio Ghibli Film

My third favorite and most recent film. Directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki released in July 2001 spirited away is a tale about a little girl who wanders into a land full of spirits and gods. No surprise here Miyazaki usually uses a young girl as the heroine to his stories...generally in disarray and surrounded by something chaotic.



 

The story starts out with a small family of three. An over manly father, a little dainty wife and their little girl. The father apparently got a new job in a new town so the family just got uprooted and moved. They apparently get lost trying to find their new home...and imagine that the father decides to take a path through the woods that he thought was a shortcut....He starts to drive faster and faster until he has to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting a statue.
The statue is is front of the entrance to a tunnel...a tunnel that leads to an abandoned amusement park. Its truly a beautiful place. The adults decide to explore while the little girl screams in protest. Eventually they start walking down a street with vending shops on either side. There is no one around, but food is laid out on counters. The adults start to stuff themselves with no regard, but the little girl does not want to anything to do with the food. Her parents wont hear anything of it and they keep eating and eating the father even says "Don't worry Daddy's got cash and credit cards."...how American of him. The little girls goes off to investigate a while more. She discovers a bridge leading to a large building, and there is smoke billowing out a large stack. There she meets another boy, who looks human, who tells her "You shouldn't be here" ...she goes back to find her parents have turned into large pigs and there are odd spirits working all of the little shops. There are lights being light and the sun is setting...the little girl, Chihiro, races back to the tunnel but there is a vast sea of water separating her from the human world.
Chihiro starts to freak out and begins to turn transparent. The boy she met earlier, Haku, appears to help her by giving her a small piece of food form the spirit world.






Chihiro has wandered into the world of the spirits, more specifically a bath house where spirits of all sorts are able to rejuvenate. If she wants to stay in the spirit world she must get a job at the bathhouse, which is owned by a very mean witch named Yubaba. Chihiro has to sign her name away in order to get the job, everyone who works for Yubaba has to sign their name away...that is how they are all controlled.
Chihiro has a few minor adventures after that....she lets in a mysterious spirit called "no face", she frees a great river spirit from pollution and she falls in love with Haku. Eventually she even gets her parents back, they of course have no idea what happened during the time they were pigs.

Game of Thrones - A song of Fire and Ice

This series is defiantly interesting...it was slightly difficult to get through the first book for me...with all the introductions of all the people of the realm. My goodness so many knights and highborns...so many so many names, but after the second book I realize why we started with so many people. The first book immediately grabbed me when the children discovered a certain companion one day in the snow.

Spoiler alert at this point.....so if you have not read any or seen the series.....do not continue. If you would like a more in depth review click the post and continue on!
Either way....always remember
Winter is coming

Eragon the Dragon Rider series

Dragons and Riders

I love dragons and I love magic but all and all this entire series didn't quite do it for me. To be fair the tale is long and epic with many twists and turns along the way....however the flow of the story is slightly obvious. The first book was a simple story of a boy who finds something extraordinary and because of it his life changes. The main conflict starter for many books like this.....after the boy loses his 'family' ties he runs away for vengeance with his real father Brom....a little twist there that was unexpected but still a little obvious. 

Then when the main character is finally learning something and making moves forward his teacher is ripped from him ....so now the boy and young dragon are all on their own....running away from the past and blindly into the future. A future the boy cannot hope to attain at his current state. Anyhow....the first book ends with a small victory for the boy and his dragon, but the main character comes to learn he has made a great deal of mistakes along the way.

Eragon and Saphira

He fights more battles and walks to more places.....fights more battles, talks to many people, fights and talks and travels and fights....until he meets up with his half brother at a final battle and gets whooped by the anti hero. It is not a fair fight however because the anti hero has a secret weapon that is giving him an enormous amount of power.







The main character and his dragon go to spend time with the elves. The hero gets a super ability upgrade from an ancient ritual for the dragons. He travels and fights and talks and travels and fights some more....and some more and the he travels and talks and fights again.
Until eventually we get to the very end battle....where he is still terribly over matched by the main villain that the battle is pointless until the very end where the hero just wants the villain to understand why he is doing a bad thing....and the villian is overcome with bad feelings making him falter for just a moment, long enough for the hero and his allies to attack and end the battle forever.

Eragon the Dragon Rider Series