Reviews of From Up on Poppy Hill 2013
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I'm kind of ashamed to admit this but I was super bored during this movie. It could have been me and not the movie but I simply did not care about the protagonist or anyone else in this film. I love every other Studio Ghibli movie I've seen (which is almost all of them) but for whatever reason, I couldn't get excited or even mildly interested about this one. Studio Ghibli does continue its tradition of calm and assured animation…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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A cute little story told beautifully in the feel-good-Ghibli-style, lush with detail.
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My MiamiArtZine review: bit.ly/YTyoz8
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Slight, but charming. It’s nice to see that an animated movie, with all the work and time it takes to make one, can be almost entirely eventless, gliding by on the charm of character alone. This seems to be the movie that Hayao wishes his son started out with, and it’s not lost on me that its themes include honoring the past while preparing for the future and the legacy great men leave with their children.
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A good-hearted but fairly mundane project from Studio Ghibli, normally my favorite animation studio. Many of Ghibli's projects, like My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke, are absolute must-sees for animation fans, and are particularly remarkable in the way they portray joy and determination to succeed, whether in the face of familiar human trials (a sick mom, or separation from a loved one) or outsized supernatural battles. Poppy Hill, by contrast, is pleasant and very well animated, with the…
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After an abysmal blunder of a debut, Gorō Miyazaki finally redeems himself with his second film, the non-fantasy fare From Up on Poppy Hill, a tremendous step-up in terms of practically everything since his first foray into the medium. The bland and soulless Tales from Earthsea is the worst thing to ever come out of Studio Ghibli, making me question the abilities and future of Hayao Miyazaki’s heir apparent. Gorō wisely sidesteps the dragons and sorcery genre this time in…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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Studio Ghibli films have such a knack for creating and maintaining a sense of place, and ensuring their characters are three-dimensional, and have their own complicated personal lives and hang-ups. As opposed to simpler (no less beautiful or meaningful) Disney/Pixar/whatever productions, From Up On Poppy Hill handles heartbreak and grief and romance with maturity in its innocence.
Firstly, the family lives of Umi and Shun are pretty complicated and more than what I would have seen in an animated film…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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Gorgeous, gracefully realized visuals and a keen sense of time and place don't do enough to overcome a hit or miss English voice cast and a plot twist that rings completely false and doesn't amount to anything. The town and the people feel like living, breathing entities not least because the film takes the time to show them simply living: doing housework, going to class, sleeping late. The heroine is almost angelic in her loyalty to her family and her work ethic, but comes back down to Earth in moments of frustration and tiredness. It works best when it's not trying to be melodramatic.