Tag: Vanessa Williams

Hayao Miyazaki, remember that guy? Famed animated director at Studio Ghibli who made a shit ton of great animated films and then retired after The Wind Rises?

Well, Studio Ghibli was basically all up on that Miyazaki hype train, so the didn’t really know what to do. Yes, they did The Tale of the Princess Kaguya which was incredibly different (and still amazeballs), but they decided they should take a break to figure out what the hell they were going to do.

Right after When Marnie Was There, which was already in development. Yes, after that, THEN they would take their break and figure shit out.

So here we are. Ho hum. Feels like a filler movie knowing these details.

When Marnie was there, Anna was still a good steps from the finishing line.
That slow running bitch.

Anna Sasaki (Hailee Steinfeld) is a 12 year old girl, a bit of a loner, and a lot of a tom boy. She isn’t going to the mall or teeheehee-ing it up with the other girls. She just wants to draw and be left alone (thus my use of the term loner). Either way, she has an asthma attack, so her Foster mom (Geena Davis) sends her to her relatives over the summer to get a refresher on life.

There she stays with Setsu (Grey Griffin) and Kiyomasa Oiwa (John C. Reilly), still feeling weird. Anna gets in a fight with a girl about her blue eyes (not knowing her real family), so she runs off to the mysterious mansion across the Marsh that used to have foreigners live there. It is not abandoned. JUST KIDDING. Marnie (Kiernan Shipka)is there, and so is her whole rich family. Funny, it used to look abandoned and shit.

Marnie and Anna agree to keep each other secret, so they can be friends but let no one know.

Overtime, with Marnie, Anna is able to find out the truth about her life and her family, even though she doesn’t know it yet.

Also having the voices of Ava Acres, Vanessa Williams, and Catherine O’Hara.

When Marnie was there behind the bushes, we could see everything. EVERYTHING.

Just so we are clear, I totally watched the English Dub, thus the actors/actresses tagged. I couldn’t even find a subtitled version if I wanted it.

And just so we are clear again, this film was nominated for an Oscar for Animated Films, as the Studio Ghibli movies tend to be. But this one just doesn’t do it for me on any level.

Ghibli in recent movies have had the sexiest animation, although going in many different directions (see the two movies I tagged in the intro). This one just felt so bland and old. It felt stylistically like a step back in the wrong direction. It wasn’t completely shit, it just wasn’t up to the standards that I have become accustomed to.

The voice acting from the English cast felt pathetic. The first half of the movie, everyone seemingly just talks in a monotone voice. It makes the story drag on and on. By the end, I didn’t give a crap about the mystery of who Marnie was. It felt like the characters were bored with it all, and the emotions were just pitiful. I wonder if the voice work was all done in one take with never any context.

As I already mentioned, the story was a big meh from me. It could never grasp me or make me care about those involved. It felt way too long, without enough happening to push the mystery closer to its conclusion. The entire mystery is told by the end of course, but if there were clues along the way to let you know what was happening, I didn’t see any of them.

Ghibli is taking a break to figure shit out. This is good. I am sad they ended the note on this film, which I almost feel like was nominated because the Academy is used to their films being so much better.

It has come to the point that if I see a preview for a movie that features a predominantly large African American cast, I assume it was made (or produced/presented) by Tyler Perry. I had that thought when I first saw the trailer for Temptation: Confessions Of A Marriage Counselor, and again when I saw Peeples, which looks like a Meet The Parents remake.

And it pisses me off.

Why? I am mad that Tyler Perry is apparently the ONLY person doing this. There is a lot of (justified) dislike for Tyler Perry movies in general, but if anything we can say he is doing a lot for his community in the entertainment industry and he should be rewarded for it. But please, please, someone else join it too. Maybe take the reigns from him. Then I won’t have to see movies like this one.

I know all there is about temptation. Just throw in some eyebrow waggles and you are good to go.

The movie begins at a government office with a marriage counselor, and a couple coming in to possibly divorce. Why? Well, secretly, the wife has found another and is making her man miserable. Well, girlfriend, you need to hear the story about the marriage counselor’s “sister”, Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell. She grew up with Brice (Lance Gross, fell in love with him, and they have been married for years! Him, a pharmacist, her, having a masters in something or another.

With that degree, all she did was land herself in some high class match making firm, helping come up with the matching algorithms, through psychology and shit. Harley (Robbie Jones) is a programmer who made the third biggest social network website (oh man!) and he wants to invest in the company. But maybe, just maybe, he wants to invest himself in Judith. Oh yeahh.

Judith’s mother taught her how to be a good wife. Cook meals for his man, always be there for him, not to be swayed by fast cars and money. Fast cars and money are the devil! Well, the devil is so…I don’t know, tempting!

There is also a side story of a new girl (Brandy Norwood) at Brice’s pharmacy, who is super secretive, and maybe on the run from an abusive ex boy friend. Also “featuring” Kim Kardashian as the “Bitch from Judith’s work”, Vanessa Williams as their boss, and Renee Taylor as the bigoted old white lady.

Oh for fucks sake. Now she is tagged on my website.

Well, everything that happens in this movie is predictable, nothing will come as a shock. It does, however, escalate so much out of control that there is a chance multiple people could die! Who knew that being an adulterer could lead to death. What is this, Mean Girls?

The ending is a complete mess. Not the actual ending where the climax occurs, but the slower part afterwards, when you remember that this entire thing was a story from a government issued marriage counselor. The girl who was fooling around literally is left crying from the story and agrees to never give into the temptation of another man and love her husband forever. What?!

I guess that was an easy enough solution to everyone’s problems.

But back to the movie. The acting wasn’t that great, but you knew that when you saw that Kardashian was billed third overall. It moves far too slow at the beginning, and it is a predictable drab overall. I was actually excited to watch this film because, as I have said before, Tyler Perry is good at dramas! But that was only using For Colored Girls as my only TP Drama reference, and it wasn’t an original work of his. My bad, maybe action is his best role?