where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Tuesday, August 18ht, 2009
show: 9:40 pm
costs: $9.50 Ticket + $3.75 small Diet ( w/ Barq's & Cherry flavors ) Coke + $4.00 small Kettle Corn = $17.25
auditorium: 5
seat: 4th row, 8ht column
synopsis: A Fish/Love Story wherein a "bubble dad" wants to burst his daughter's bubble.
A young magical goldfish, Brunhilda, is rescued by a little boy, Sosuke, who gives her a new name, Ponyo. Smitten by its hero, Ponyo transforms herself into a little girl, with the aid of his blood, so that she can be with Sosuke all the time. As she does, her over-eager enthusiasm and attraction for him upset the balance of Nature which reflects her overwhelming love in giant tsunamis, her magnetism in the Moon's gradual approach to Earth and her new found creative passion in Life in the sudden re-appearance of ancient fishes long-thought to have already been extinct. In her youthful innocence, Ponyo doesn't realize that her magic powers can have grave consequences to land dwellers. She cannot straddle both the magical world and the human world. She has to sacrifice one for the other and hope that her true feelings are reciprocated in kind.
noteworthy scenes: 1.) The school of jelly fish; 2.) The cut finger; 3.) Fujimoto, Ponyo's father, on land; 4.) The school yard and the senior center; 5.) Fujimoto retrieves Ponyo; 6.) The bucket on the fence post; 7.) Morse codes; 8.) The transformation; 9.) The power outage; 10.) The unexpected typhoon; 11.) Ponyo and the bucket; 12.) Ponyo and Sosuke; 13.) In the house; 14.) The clustered ships; 15.) Gran Mamare ( The Goddess of the Sea ); 16.) The ancient fishes; 17.) The toy boat; 18.) The rescue boats; 19.) Sleepy Ponyo; 20.) Lisa's, Sosuke's mom, abandoned car; 21.) The Gazebo on a hill; 22.) The submerged senior center; 23.) Lisa and Gran Mamare; 24.) The Promise; and ; 25.) The Restoration.
audience reaction: The young children and their parents enjoyed this movie.
recommendation: Go see this with your little ones.
spoiler alert! Sosuke's mom, Lisa, drives like a maniac on wheels. All of Ponyo's siblings are girls, every single one! Goldfish are fresh-water fish. All the goldfish look like little rag dolls with human hair and faces. Ponyo and Sosuke are too young to know about "love."
fyi: According to Miyazaki-san in an interview, this story was originally about a frog.
The red-haired Ponyo reminds me of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon about an organ-grinder's monkey that Bugs stiffed of a tip. The monkey went to a zoo and told a gorilla about the cheapskate bunny. The gorilla broke loose and headed straight for Bugs Bunny's apartment. To intimidate Bugs, the Gorilla puffed his barrel chest as he flexed his muscles; at which point, Bugs turned to the camera and said, "Obviously, a bar-bell boy." The image was just the funniest thing for me to behold: a brown-haired, muscle-bound ape with scrawny legs AND a red toupee! To this day, I still smile or laugh whenever I think of this particular scene which is indelibly-etched into my memory.
word of advice: There will come a time when you will finally have to "cut the apron strings" so that your own child can experience Life in his/her own way ( nurturing your child as best as you can during his/her formative years in preparation of Life's eventualities ) and hope that he/she will grow into a loving, responsible, and caring adult, and not necessarily someone who's similar to you in every way but, rather, someone who's proud and confident about his/her own individuality.
tidbits: I was hoping to be alone in the auditorium for this last showing for the night. But there were two mothers with young kids who were all talking/commenting loud enough, as the movie played, to annoy me. On the other hand, none of the kids were bored to sleep. So, either they loved this movie or the kids were high on the caffeinated sodas that they drank as they watched the movie. Kids + Sugar + Caffeine = Bad combination!
