Things that make me feel old, #453: Watching the Olympic athletes, in interviews, say things like “I decided I wanted to be a skater/skier/bobsledder/whatever when I was a little kid watching the Games in Albertville.” I was 21 and in college during the Games in Albertville…..

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Parents: If you’re looking for a movie to watch with the kids, and you’re tired of Disney and the assorted non-Disney Disney clones that clog the video store shelves, here’s a movie to find: My Neighbor Totoro. I watched this last night with my own daughter (she’s two-and-a-half) and it met with her sign of approval: she demanded to watch it again today. This anime production is just wonderful. The story of a father and his two young daughters who move to a country house near some woods (the mother is in the hospital with an illness that is never disclosed) is told in wonderful, real touches. The film treats its characters with respect, children and adult alike; no one ever acts mean or stupid merely to advance the plot — in fact, no one in the film is ever really mean or stupid at all. It is also loaded with wonderful touches. At one point, the girls are waiting out a rainstorm by huddling under a Shinto shrine when the boy next door — whose only expression seems to be the faces he makes at the older of the two sisters — comes by. He gives the girls his umbrella, allowing them to get home dry, and walks off through the rain back to his own house. Moments later we see him being yelled at by his mother for losing another umbrella, but like any boy his age he can’t take the easy way out and tell his mother what he did with it, so he tells her he lost it and accepts the punishment. Ten-year-old boys really do act like that.

Of course, the film involves magical beings who live in the nearby woods; these beings are presented matter-of-factly, as another part of the landscape; they are neither horrors or mysteries that become the entire focus of the film. The Totoro is a wonderfully realized being, and the cat-bus has to be seen to be believed. The animation may seem rough to people accustomed to Disney smoothness, but the details of each frame are perfect and true. The music, by Joe Hisaishi, is by turns movingly beautiful and delightfully childlike. This is a movie that finds wonder in the sound made by rain dropping on an umbrella. If you know anyone who doesn’t love My Neighbor Totoro, take their pulse or turn them toward the light.

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I’m a bit concerned about Michelle Kwan’s chances of winning the Gold in the long program. Yes, she is the best female skater in the world right now, but what’s got me concerned is the degree to which skating has become jump-focused, which will play into Irina Slutskaya’s strengths. She’s the athletic jumper, whereas Kwan is the graceful skater with impeccable lines, flawless spins, and wonderful artistry. Here’s hoping, though. Go Michelle!!!

(BTW, I would almost be willing to bet money that by the 2010 Winter Games some male skater will attempt a Quintuple jump in competition. That seems to be the natural evolution.)

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Read this week: Harlan Ellison‘s classic SF story, “‘Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (reprinted in Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century). Orson Scott Card’s introductory note calls the story “a Kafkaesque parable about the dangers of individuality in a conformist society”. I didn’t read it that way; I saw the story as a cautionary tale about the futility of attempting to create a society where everything is controlled and where nothing is left to any kind of chance. The story’s ending suggests to me that although the society’s apparent cause for concern has been eliminated, a seed of sorts has been planted. A crack has been formed in the edifice of the story’s world; now all that remains to happen is for water to get in there, freeze, and melt; water, freeze and melt; water, freeze and melt….

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What to do with the gaping hole left in lower Manhattan following the 9-11 attacks has been a vigorous discussion since the initial shock wore off. Some have suggested rebuilding the towers, only this time adding height so they are again the tallest buildings in the world; some have suggested shorter towers; Roger Ebert suggested turning the whole site into green space with trees and grass and places for quiet contemplation. Just about everyone agrees that there needs to be some kind of monument to those lost on that horrible day. One particularly unique suggestion for a monument can be found here. It is two long piers that would be built out into New York Harbor; each would be the exact length of one of the towers, separated into sections demarking the corresponding floors, and the whole thing would bear the names of those who died. What I want to know is: would this design somehow inhibit boat traffic in New York Harbor? Sixteen hundred feet is a lot of pier.

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Why I hate The Practice, reason number 342: Did the denouement of last night’s episode, the so-called “shocking moment” at the end, really come as a surprise to anybody? This is the kind of plot twist that David E. Kelley has been spinning for years. I only watched the last ten minutes or so of the episode (since I can’t stand the show and normally avoid it like the plague, but at that moment whatever was on the Olympics was boring so I channel-flipped a bit) and I saw the surprise event coming a mile away. I won’t spoil it here, but in a Kelley series a disgraced person putting his/her briefcase on the conference table can mean only one thing….

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Both King of the Hill and The Simpsons last night had gags that involved the Olympic Torch being accidentally extinguished, and both depicted the five Olympic rings upside down, probably for trademark reasons. I wonder if this was planned. Anyway, if the Futurama writers end up being let go as seems might very well happen (FOX doesn’t like the series, for some reason, and insists on giving it shabby treatment) maybe they can just be brought over to The Simpsons, which could use some writing help. The show is still good, but nowhere near the pinacles it once hit (and it came perilously close to jumping the shark when Maud Flanders was bumped off). FOX’s treatment of Futurama puts me in mind of something Jon Lovitz said on Letterman when his FOX show, The Critic, was canceled: “FOX. They should spell it with a ‘u’.”

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Why one should never go to Borders without extra pennies in one’s pocket: Christopher Moore‘s new book, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, is out. And I didn’t have enough on me to pick it up. Ah well….there is always next week.

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Last week I saw Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in its new IMAX version. I was a bit apprehensive, because I’ve read that IMAX films have to be edited differently because the images are so huge; compositions that are fine on a normal-sized screen become disorienting when expanded to occupy the entire visual range. Happily, this did not seem to be the case except in the action sequences at the end of the film. The final fight between the Beast and Gaston is a bit hard on the eyes with its quick cuts and jolts (it doesn’t help that the sequence takes place outside in the middle of a violent thunderstorm). But other than that, the film is still wonderful and still loaded with the magic that made it the only animated feature ever nominated for Best Picture. I don’t think that Disney has told a love story that was more tender or heartfelt before or since; the supporting characters are wonderfully realized; and the IMAX presentation makes the musical numbers — already one of the film’s towering strengths — all the greater. Most notable are the “Be Our Guest” sequence with its Busby Berkley staging and the film’s title number, sung movingly by Angela Lansbury and animated with romantic wonder. And there is a new number, apparently recorded for the original film but never animated until now: an ensemble piece called “Human Again”, in which all of the castle-servants-turned-household-objects dream of that wonderful day when the castle’s curse will finally be ended.

The most remarkable thing about the IMAX presentation of Beauty and the Beast, to me, was that the larger image allows the Monet-like construction of the backgrounds to be seen in all their glory, with landscapes dappled with color in the finest Impressionistic manner. This can even be seen in a comedic scene where Gaston falls into a mud puddle, the water of which turns out on closer examination to be delicately colored where lesser animators might have gone with uniform brown.

The film was preceded by a preview of next year’s Disney IMAX release, The Lion King. (Actually, it wasn’t a preview per se but rather that film’s opening “Circle of Life” sequence in its entirety.) I will be interested to see how that film’s African landscapes translate to the new format.

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Roger Ebert’s latest addition to his biweekly series, “The Great Movies”, is a very good one indeed: “Say Anything”, which is probably the greatest adolescent love story ever filmed. And now I remember that it’s been years since I saw it….read what Ebert has to say about the film here.

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