I'm also in the middle of a few books at the moment: Ernest Hemingway's short story collection, Chuck Palahniuk's Pygmy (bit of a difficult read, but good so far), and I'm going to start Charles Bukowski's Women today.
Miyazaki is a very creative guy but also very negative. Some of his opinions:
- To solve the problems with the Israel and Palestine, Japan should use their advanced technology to build concrete ocean platforms to create an artificial city in the middle of the mediterranean and to make it a new holy place for these religions. --> ? ---> this certainly will result in the end of conflict in the middle east.
- Besides these crazy ideas he also talks about film. Miyazaki hates all film derived from Eisenstein's principles which are exemplified in films such as Battleship Potemkin.
- Miyazaki said that he never found Disney films very good, in fact, when he was a kid he never had strong interest in animation, he watched Disney's films like other children which he found amusing but nothing more (he later said they were important technical landmarks but lacked in psychological depth). He developed an interest in animation after watching The Tale of White Serpent and The Snow Queen.
- Miyazaki also said that he dislikes American films. Specially American war films which portray war like a videogame where the protagonists should kill as many enemies as they can.
- Miyazaki also said that most direct to video anime is not worth watching. He says they show violence for it's own sake and they objectify women. Where did he saw that?
- Also, he regards all Japanese color movies to be garbage.
So what Miyazaki likes? Well, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Tarkovsky, Anno, Norstein, Oshii and Takahata were people he mentions with great deal of respect and/or admiration.
I love those first three. We had to read Brave New World in high school and everyone in class seemed to hate it, but I loved it. I keep meaning to re-visit it. The Road was my introduction to McCarthy, who is now one of my favorites. I read 2001: A Space Odyssey after falling in love with the film, and I think it made me love the film even more; an excellent companion piece.
Been meaning to read Bukowski for years now. He's often recommended to me.
Have you read Blood Meridian, Cap? That's my favorite book.
I bought it a couple of months ago, but haven't read it. Definitely looking forward to it. His prose is intoxicating. The most recent McCarthy that I read was The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain--- all three of which were phenomenal.
Don't understand all the flak that this book gets, particularly from those who in hindsight knew of Rand's philosophy, and then decide to judge her literary works on the same level as the ideology. No doubt in my mind that Rand was a great writer whose philosophy I might not subscribe to. Initially I was underwhelmed by the language which comes across as being too simplistic for my liking, but then I absolutely adore the final chapter(s) of the book that sets this book apart from many other similarly themed science fiction stories (recall 'We' by Zamyatin). Our protagonist finally discovers the true meaning of 'living', but not before giving up on everything that he has ever known.
The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and other writings on media by Walter Benjamin
Cinema is the first ever art form to break away from cult appeal and worship. Get it?
Oh. I got mine from Paris over the summer. It's so beautiful, I would like to keep in it a display case. It also comes with these awesome stickers I'm too scared to touch.
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