Sunday, March 10, 2013

Comment on Roger Ebert's Opinions on "My Neighbor Totoro"

Put a short comment here on something that Roger Ebert says about the film. You can either agree or disagree with him. Be sure to say why!

Here are the links I used in class:

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3 comments:

  1. BradMarch 10, 2013 at 11:55 AM

    Roger Ebert is right when he argues that, “The father is reasonable, insightful and tactful, accepts stories of strange creatures, trusts his girls, listens to explanations with an open mind.” Such a father is surely an unusual one in a film, as Ebert explains; often, the demands of conflict in a standard plot lead us into a place where children and parents are, if not enemies, certainly are not in any way friends. I react in the same way to this film as he does: I “smile, and smile, and smile.” So, although as Galina noted this film is more “childish” (I would say “childlike” is a better word), it still fills my heart with wonder. Besides, I can watch the bus stop scene with the Totoro jumping to release more raindrops onto the umbrella again and again with a big grin! As a father, it is nice to sometimes see my role shown as something positive and life-affirming for a change.

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  2. UnknownMarch 14, 2013 at 1:12 AM

    I really agree with Ebert’s reviews at all, on “My Neighbour Totoro,” and I like his attitude toward the essence of this movie when he compares the American and Japanese movie that the American movies mostly have someone or something against the others. He also mentioned if there is not any negative character, they will make for it. “Winnie the Pooh,” also originally had no evil characters –but that in its new American version evil weasels have been written A.A. Milne’s benign world.” “My Neighbour Totoro” is amazing soft emotional movie with fantastic cute creatures and there is no any negative character in this movie. He is really right.

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  3. GalinaMarch 14, 2013 at 1:54 PM

    Roger Ebert said: “Miyazaki doesn’t exploit clichés about the dark and fearsome forest.” Nowadays for children woods, bushes are usually a terrible evil place to be afraid of. In most movies and cartoons we can expect only worst troubles, when a child disappeared in a forest on a sunny day, especially when we are talking about a small girl. A scene in which Mei falls into the hole, reminded me of a scene from Alice in Wonderland. How surprisingly was her landing on a friendly fluffy sleepy Totoro! Girls’ forest adventures remind me my own childhood, when it still used to be safe for two four-year-old girls go alone to the forest for wild strawberries. In my opinion, even though we can no longer allow children to a walk in the forest on there own, we definitely can show them more friendly cartoons to reduce the degree of aggression in the future.

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