That gray on gray finish of minutes

The highly annoying color display issue has been resolved. More importantly, I've seen Spirited Away which knows a thing or two about color, character design and what happens when a Stink God tries to take a bath.

More than Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki's last movie, Spirited Away reminds me of most of the ps2 game Ico. The two share a similar tenderness - a feeling that stops short of seeming precious because it is so subtly evoked by the gestures and expressions of the main character. Also like Ico, there is no excess of backstory or mythological explanation. But this doesn't matter as the world shown is so complete that it makes intuitive sense, despite the fantastical setting.

We saw the matinee with a full house of little kids - it seemed to have entertained the good chunk of them ... lots of laughs and some crying in the sad parts. However, there were also those who weren't really buying my 'intuitive sense' argument. One kid in particular was desparate to figure out a variety of unanswerable questions: "Why's the dragon white!? Where does that door go? Why's that girl got hair!"