038. The Castle of Cagliostro (Japan - 1979)

A good remedy for those who don't like the anime narrative style - like myself. It's surely one of a kind. And completely different from the everyday anime bullshit that we're used to. Seriously, all the Hayao Miyazaki's films that Jéssica is showing me are teaching me to see the true anime jewels. This is Miyazaki's first one, full of exaggerations and a way of functioning that determines its own physics. Lupin is an absurdist thief who is out to discover the secrets of the fake money notes of European casinos. But then he's entangled in other, more romantic businesses at the castle of the corrupt Count Cagliostro. Funny and clever in its peculiar way of storytelling, and the art is hilarious.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki.

Score
Cinematography: 7.5

Voice Acting: 8.5
Editing: 8.0
Sound: 9.0
Text: 7.5
Concept: 7.5
Premise Execution: 8.5

Average Score: 8.0

035. もののけ姫 / Princess Mononoke (Japan - 1997)

I had watched some bits of the film in another occasion, and had dropped it before the ending due to... well, hurrying up to do something else, I guess. And what a stupid bastard I was in doing that! Princess Mononoke is such a touching, absolutely wonderful film in many regards! Art, sound, linearity, the way the plotline sequence deals with the innovative strategy of mixing up fantasy and anti-industrialist themes... it's just a mouthful of audiovisual delight. Whilst watching the piece, I couldn't help but let tears well in my eyes, and they welled in full honesty of feelings. 'Mononoke forces you to consider both sides of environmentalist causes, dramas, struggles. And you go with the flow, as the film gently takes you with the struggle for survival of its ill-fated characters. A prominent characteristic of Miyazaki's animations. Genial.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki.

Score

Cinematography: 9.0

Voice Acting: 7.5
Editing: 9.0
Text: 8.5
Sound: 9.5
Conception: 10.0 (first time in all of Filmic Jeran thus far)
Premise Execution: 9.5

Average Score: 9.0

032. となりのトトロ / My Neighbour Totoro (Japan - 1988)

A piece of art that is both cute and contemplative. My Neighbour Totoro often engulfed me in the atmosphere that it creates of peaceful living, bucolic disinterest in luxuries, family's comprehension and loving, and the cutest little girls there have ever been in cinema. Hayao Miyazaki doesn't disappoint with all the reputation that precedes him. The wonderful lines of purity and heartiness, and the soft soundtrack that accompanies the storytelling. A true children's story in its core, but which carries you with it all along, as though you forgot you were a grown-up (if you are).

Director: Hayao Miyazaki.

Score
Cinematography: 8.5
Voice Acting: 8.0
Editing: 8.5
Sound: 8.5
Text: 7.5
Concept: 9.0
Premise Execution: 8.5

Average Score: 8.3

028. 猫の恩返し / The Cat Returns (Japan - 2002)

If you like cats, you'll find this film at least cute. I say at least because the art is superb. Hiroyuki Morita has subtle and realistic lines, the ones that colour the world of anime every now and again. The theme is very animeish. A little girl saves a cat on the streets of her city; a cat who happens to be the prince of the Kingdom of Cats. His kinsmen (or would it be kinscats) want to repay her for the kind and heroic act, and bring her to their country in order to arrange a wedding with the prince. But she doesn't really buy into the idea, and wants out, only to notice that she's gradually turning into a cat herself. She then needs a little help from her cat friends from Planet Earth to take her out of there and break the speel. A lot of cats, heh?

Well, the film is well made, no major problems whatsoever. The dialogues are pretty no-nonsense, and the art is, as I've said before, sublime. Simple enough anime. Simple enough - and cute - concept. Well done, Morita. ;-)

Director: Hiroyuki Morita.

Score
Cinematography: 7.5
Voice acting: 7.0
Editing: 7.5
Sound: 8.0
Text: 7.0
Concept: 7.5
Premise execution: 7.5

Average Score: 7.4

015. つみきのいえ / The House of Small Cubes (Japan - 2008)

A beautifully moving story.  Often referred to as La Maison en Petits Cubes, it tells of an old fisherman who has to constantly build additional floors for his house because of an evergrowing problem of flooding. As his favourite pipe falls into the water and ends up at the bottom of the ocean, he has to dive to fetch it. On his way down, he revisits old floors of his house and with it, all the past memories of his life. Besides being touching with such a creative plot, the animation also touches by its simple yet calming art: the smooth lines that delineate the old man's facial demeanour bring a sense of peaceful conformation, and triggers some inner switches of longing, of nostalgia in our lives. A gorgeous film that has just the exact length to get hold of your feelings.

Director: Kunio Kato.

Score
Cinematography: 9.0

Acting (not present)
Editing: 9.0
Sound: 8.0
Text (not present)

Average Score: 8.6

001. Summer Wars (Japan - 2009)

Same director as Digimon. I've come a long way. Not exactly into animes or anime-style motion pictures (their melodrama and thematic stalling gets on my nerves), but Jéssica convinced me that this one was good. She wasn't wrong. Summer Wars carries a fairly creative idea for a theme - the world of the social networks and their symbiosis with life itself -, and with a careless although cunning drop of naiveté, the film presents us with chaotic climax enhanced by conflictive and selfish characters. 

Nice art, flat dialogues, bad ending.

Director: Mamoru Hosoda (細田 守).

Score (all the categories are score out of 10)
Cinematography: 7.5
Acting (in this case, voice acting): 6.0 
Editing: 8.0
Sound: 7.5
Text: 6.5

Average Score: 7.1


P.S.: Watched on the 11th, just now reviewing. Oh, well...