RDeLisle

I remember it and recall it being excellent.

I liked Cable Guy but I have no use at all for Ace Ventura (especially the sequel), Carrey films are either interesting or really dumb it seems. Truman Show - good. Bruce Almighty-waste of celluloid (poor story development, lame obvious gags, trite and corny (guy with sign bit is worst). Man in the Moon - good or at least nice try. Majestic - nice try but fades into a kind knee-jerk anti-McCarthy line that is ok except it has been done, and much better.

I think her ego and careerism has gotten in the way of whatever ability she has for acting in cinema. She did her part admirably in League of Their Own, an excellent performance, no scene stealing, real ensemble work, as it should be, shows potential. Beyond that I must agree with you, Case in point: Evita where she has the show itself altered so that no one but her sings a female part. Other cases: all those really bad vehicle movies. Capper: truly rotten remake of Swept Away (but then we could go on for days about the miles of wasted celloid spent on unnecessary and awful remakes (and a few seconds on the handful of worthwhile ones, is there a rotten remake thread here somewhere?).

There is definitely some adjustment in Spirted Away. In the American version, the young woman working in the furnance room has a tone of skeptical practicality with an edge of sharp wit. My impression of the Japanese version is that her tone is a traditional assertion of her superior position with a scolding tone (and the response is always "hai" in keeping with this impression). I think it worked well, but it is a definite change with cultural implications. This is no particular reason that good anime should be regarded differently from other distinguished foreign films, or the work of Japanese speaking voice actors inferior to their visible counterparts. My best argument for that is Grave of the Fireflies, which is of such power that it is stands as a great movie that was made with animation rather than genre anime (and I have only seen the subtitled version of this one). Just the same, it appears to me that a well written dubbing and the right choice of voice actors is usually less damaging to animated features than to movies using filmed actors. The matching of words to mouth movement is much less demanding for animation, allowing a freer use of effective language without the choice between bad and jarringly obvious lip synchronization, or terrible and awkward lines chosen only to match the actors mouth on film. The great thing is that with DVD technology one can have it both ways in the same package.

Missed this one, but I am pleased to see TCM give time to such anime works, and I hope they keep it up on a limited basis (just like the silents and lofty subtitled European works (Bergman etc) are pretty limited to few hours and remote times). Not sure where to stand on the subtitling issue with these works. Spirted Away seems to be very well dubbed, there seems to be much opinion that the others are usually less well served, and no one advocates running non-animated foreign movies with dubbing in a serious venue like TCM at least. (StarZ runs a dubbed King of Hearts once in a while, yuck).

Did I miss something? From the intro on TCM I understood there is no valid "original two hour version" of Greed. There was an original nine hour version that was brutally edited to get the two hour version as ordered by studio head Irving Thalberg (whose name is now attached to an award for movie excellence, ironically in view of this case). Further to directly insult, punish and crush Von Stroheim, the cut footage was not just omitted but ordered destroyed. Thus we have no valid "original" nor much hope of assembling a much of a real restoration. I have not seen the two hour version, but I regarded this attempt as successful since I enjoyed it and it held my attention, and was worth the time. Putting in stills is hardly ideal, but to regain something of the scope and continuity of Von Stroheim actual original justifies the unfortunate compromise forced on us by power struggles and personal feuds long past, at least when it works as well as this one. And the "original" is all nice and restored ready to watch for anyone who disagrees.