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Tales from Earthsea, a review by dfmorgan

Title: Tales from Earthsea
Original Title: Gedo Senki
Year: 2006
Director: Goro Miyazaki
Rating: PG
Length: 111 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: 5.1, English: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo, Japanese: Dolby Digital: 5.1, Japanese: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles: English

Stars:
Junichi Okada
Aoi Teshima
Yuko Tanaka
Teruyuki Kagawa
Jun Fubuki

Plot:
Goro Miyazaki's debut feature as director, Tales From Earthsea is an epic adventure, adapted from the much-loved series of novels by Ursula K. Le Guin.

It tells the story of Ged (voiced in English by Timothy Dalton), the most powerful wizard in Earthsea, and his attempts to protect Prince Arren (Matt Levin) from the evil machinations of rival wizard Cob (Willem Dafoe). Together with Therru, a young girl he rescued from slave takers,Arren must unite with Ged to defeat Cob and return balance to their world.

Beautifully animated, Tales From Earthsea will enchant viewers of all ages and once again shows Studio Ghibli at the height of its powers.

Extras:
Scene Access
Feature Trailers
Featurettes
Interviews
Storyboard Comparisons



Studio Ghibli  , Miyazaki  , Goro Miyazaki  . A Miyazaki film but this time it's Goro, the son of Hayao Miyazaki. Hayao Miyazaki was involved in this film during its initial development and storywriting but had to pass when he commenced work on Howl's Moving Castle. Studio Ghibli, still looking for future talent, put Goro in charge.

People are noticing that the balance of the world is out of kilter and the King asks his advisers to try to find the cause. However the young Prince Arren kills his father and runs away. On his journey he meets Sparrowhawk (Ged), the Archmage, who takes him under his wing. Together they discover that a rival is behind the problems.

The film is based on the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin. Disney had problems with the release of this film in America as the film/TV/video rights to Earthsea were held by The Sci-Fi Channel. However these rights lapsed in 2009 and Disney finally released this film to cinemas in August 2010 with a video release apparently due before Christmas. The rest of the world didn't have these problems so they released the film and videos in 2007 and 2008 and where necessary the Disney dubbing was used. A couple of minor gripes I have with this release from Optimum Releasing, who used the Madman Australia authored DVD, is that they used the same print for both the English language and the Japanese language versions. So all you get is the English opening and closing credits whereas the R1 Disney DVDs for the other titles had the Japanese opening and closing credits for the Japanese language. Also they only used one set of English subtitles which, conveniently, were for the Japanese soundtrack whereas again Disney previously had English HoH subtitles for the English soundtrack.

A film that I did enjoy but not as much as other Studio Ghibli films. For me this is only a

edited for a couple of typos

(From dfmorgan's Studio Ghibli Marathon on August 21st, 2010)

The Monster Squad, a review by RossRoy

Original Title: The Monster Squad Year: 1987 Country: United States Director: Fred Dekker Rating: PG Length: 82 Min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: Dolby Digital Stereo, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo Subtitles: English, Spanish

What they sayMy Thoughts
I actually liked this one! First time I've seen it (that I can remember). I found it quite reminiscent of The Goonies, which is good! I like that they stayed true to the original makeup design for all the monsters. The kids are great in this movie, they are believable, even the lead one. I also liked how they set the tone with the opening text scroll whihc ends with "They blew it." (speaking about Dr. Van Helsing messing up the banishment of Evil). All in all, that was quite an enjoyable, light hearted movie.

Rating:


(From RossRoy's Random Viewings on October 12th, 2008)

Angel Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

13. Waiting in the Wings
Original Air Date: 2/4/2002
While attending a performance by a renowned ballet company that he also saw back in 1890. Angel realizes that nothing has changed - including the dancers.

Guest Stars:
Mark Harelik
Mark Lutz
Summer Glau

My Thoughts:
This may be my least favorite episode of Angel. It is definitely my least favorite up to this point. I always found this one to be just slow and boring. Especially the scenes in the Ballet. Until today I never realized that the Prima Ballerina was played by Summer Glau (Firefly & Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles).

My Rating:

(From Angel Marathon on March 14th, 2010)