My thoughts on The Cat Returns

Source: https://garbolaughs.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/cat-returns-2002/

So I decided to watch The Cat Returns today, I’ve only seen a little bit of the film beforehand when it was on TV, and thought that it would be right up my alley! So I decided to get the Blu-Ray some years later, and give it watch. I finally got around to doing so, and I thought I’d write my thoughts about it here real quick. I gotta keep myself distracted from being bullied by my crippling depression and my antagonising anxiety somehow!

For those unaware, the Cat Returns is an anime film by Studio Ghibli released in 2002, and it involves cats…

I know some people are going to ask: I watched it subbed, but maybe in some cases, it might have been better to watch it dubbed, because a lot of the humor and whatnot involved the way cats spoke, which were just lost on me when listening to the Japanese, but by the time I realised this, I was well into the film, too late to change it without being put off by the sudden change.

Anyway, I thought it was a really good film. I was very into it when I watched it, at least originally. Visually, like every other Studio Ghibli film I’ve watched, it looked beautiful! It was very well drawn and animated, very colourful and cheerful! Why isn’t our world like this?!
It’s also so nice to watch a Blu-Ray film at 16:9! It’s good to actually see a film’s picture take up the entire TV screen! Thanks guys!

You can tell it wasn’t written entirely seriously, there was a lot of intentional comedy in it, and a lot of self-awareness was also present, maybe too much, almost like the writers couldn’t be bothered to rewrite the story to fill in the plot-holes, so they just leave it all in and just have characters say something like “Well, I knew we should have installed that…” or “Oh, how convenient!”. To me, it seems used as a crutch to make up for bad writing… though then again, it is an anime about a girl being sent to a kingdom of cats to marry a cat prince to rule a population of cats whilst having jokes about cats thrown at us (did I mention that this film is about cats?), so I guess anything goes, right?

This self-awareness practically made me lose my immersion, like it’s hard to feel immersed and worried about the characters if there’s always a convenient way out.

While I thought this was a really good film (and believe me, it was!), it’s not as good as the other Studio Ghibli films I’ve watched.

If you find this film on Blu-Ray or DVD for a good price, I’d say £10 or under, then go for it!

That concludes my review, I give this film 7 bags of cat-nip out of 10!

Okay, now the review is over, now go away!

Retro Diary #78

Last Sunday, me and my sister watched Beauty and the Beast… on VHS!

It was an interesting experience, and the quality wasn’t nearly as bad as I would have thought, considering we watched it on a big flatscreen TV and chances are, the previous owner watched this film over and over again, because that’s what kids did.

Though then again, it might not have looked so bad because it was a cartoon, there isn’t as much detail to… well, not be seen…

As for the movie itself, in my opinion, it’s just a run of the mill sing-a-long princess story, only without a princess. The “enchanted” objects do make for interesting characters, though.

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Retro Diary #77

So on Thursday, it was my birthday, and I planned to go with some friends to the cinema to see Cars 3. Only one friend turned up, I’m not going to jump to conclusions as to why the others showed up.

Anyway, we met up,We watched someone play Super Mario 3D world at MEGABytes, and then we went and saw the film. I enjoyed it, you can see my thoughts on the film in this article.

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On Friday, I went to the MEGABytes café, and played some PS1 games. The first was No Onbe can stop Mr. Domino, it was a fairly fun game, although it got really frustrating a couple of levels in.

I then played some Dead or Alive 1. I’ve never played the first game before, and it’s a typical 90s fighter from the time. There’s really not much to say here other than outside the main area are full of explosives, seemingly, if a player falls in this area, the ground blows up, propelling them into the air.

This was also before they started using the gimmick of bouncing tits, so the game was just bland in general. Fun, yeah, but bland, in my opinion.

Afterwards, I visited GAME at St. Enochs, and found that they have eliminated their PC stock, even their digital code cards are gone minus some Sims 4 ones… it’s happening… =(

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On Saturday, I finally got around to playing Watch Dogs 2… and I’m addicted! I’ve already lost several hours because the game!

Gameplay-wise, it feels like Watch Dogs 1, but with better car physics, but seeing as I loved the first game, that’s a good thing!

 

Scots First: Kist o Riches — Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean

A’v juist came across this, it’s an awfu interestin documentary aboot preservin audio recordins bi digitisin thaim!

Alistair Heather is the first to take up the latest “Sharing Gaelic Voices” challenge, as Scots becomes the ninth addition to our “Mother Tongues and Other Tongues” collection of languages! It started with a recent post to the Scots Language Forum on Facebook to see what interest there might be in recording Scots voiceovers to […]

via Scots First: Kist o Riches — Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean

My thoughts on Cars 3 (Minor Spoilers)

Got five minutes to spare? Well, you can read this article about what a nobody thinks about a film that is a month old. Sound good? Let’s continue!

So I went to the cinema to see Cars 3 yesterday, and I thought I’d give my views on the film while it’s still fresh on my mind.

I thought it was a very good film, though of course, I was going to be a little biased. I actually enjoyed Cars 1 and even 2. Nobody else seemed to like those at all.

Of course, if you view anything in a big screen in a dark room with the sound turned right up, you become more immersed and more invested in the film, so that might also be a factor in all of this.

Regardless, I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the awesome film I was hoping for, but I thought it was good, still.

The film actually went in a direction I wasn’t expecting, and because of that, the ending was also not what I expected.

I expected a sort of Rocky Balboa type situation, where it was just:

1. Person is a legend at what they do
2. Person is becoming old
3. Person wants to keep doing what they are a legend of but can’t because they’re old
4. Person trains extra hard for their final match/game/whatever of doing what they do
5. Person wins or loses match with grace.
6. Person retires.

Cars 3, however, whilst following this cliche to an extent, does do some things different, and whilst at first I was dissapointed at this, I was later on happy that they did something different. The thought of every story going through this pretermined path to the point that it becomes predictable is depressing to me, so it’s good to see something break that system!

What did they do exactly? Not telling you! I want to spoil as little as possible!

If there is one thing I didn’t like, it was the fact that the jokes about Lighting McQueen becoming “old” went too far, they just kept going on and on about it. Yes! I get it! He’s old! Thanks for reminding us that it’s going to happen to all of us someday! That out minds will eventually degrade into nothingless! That out skin will become saggy! That out muscles will become frail! That out immune systems will soon stop responding! You know, as if shit’s not hard enough as it is!

There are scenes that I didn’t exact to be in the film either, the races were quite entertaining, too!

Really, there’s not much else I can say about the film without spoiling it, but if you’re up for watching a film in a cinema, there a few showing left of this film, at least if you’re in Scotland like I am. I would reccomend you check this out! I mean, better this than the Emoji Movie, right?

Also, I found out that the film has a game out on the PS4, Xbox one and Wii U! It’s so rare that we see a movie game on consoles nowadays! Movies just get mobile apps nowadays! Even though this will most certainly suck, I’m going to buy it just for that experience! …Wait, was that the idea behind the game? (o sap people like me into bying it based on nostalgia? Hmm….

Anyway, that’s it for this post, see youse whenever, I guess… 

Retro Diary #76 – Back Home!

I’m back!

On Sunday, I met up with an old friend at a retro gaming cafe, where I played Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time on the PS1 for a few hours.

It’s actually a really good game. It fits the theme of the show perfectly, it has some great platforming elements to it! The only major flaw I found was that the controls can be very frustrating! The right analog stick does nothing. You have to use the L2 and R2 buttons to look around. Also, R1 is the action button…

Other than that, it’s a very good game, and I definitely see myself getting it when I can afford it!

After that, me and this friend went to get dinner where we talked about all sorts of things game related!

After that, we went home.

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On Monday, I was talking to a friend online (for a good few hours, I might add!), and we takes about the Tony Hawk games for a bit (because she saw Underground 2 on PS2 for sale at a shop and was thinking of getting it), and how she played one of the games years ago, but can’t remember which, I helper her identify that it was Project 8.

While chatting to her, I found my old PS2 keyring, which broke off ages ago!

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On Tuesday, another friend called me for a little chat, and asked how many PC games I had (I guess just to create conversation), and since I’ve lost count, I decided to just take some photos of my collection and sent them to him instead!

I’ve decided to share them here as well!

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