fortissimo

Yesterday afternoon I had a birthday lunch with my mom. Then we went to see Spirited Away, which I naturally *loved*!

It's *very* bizarre, even for a Miyazaki movie, and I know I'm going to have to see it again to catch all the details I missed. But it's oh-so-magical in that Alice In Wonderland way: fantastically absurd but full of real human emotions and childhood fears and fantasies.

There was a little girl in the theater sitting near us who was very vocal about all her reactions to the movie, and it was such a delight to hear how much *more* transported she was by the movie than I was. And the little running bird and mouse gag at the end was absolutely hilarious. If you're an Alice fan, an anime fan, an oscillating fan, or any kind of fan at all: SEE THIS MOVIE!

Unfortunately, today was a hellish day at work. Massive company-merger system integration day, punctuated by stupid system policies that overwrote everything on my desktop, deleted all my e-mail rules and spam filters, and generally made a mess of absolutely everything. Grrrr!

So I've decided this evening is Miyazaki film festival night. I'm gonna make some fettucine alfredo for dinner, pop open a bottle of chardonnay, and have a My Neighbor Totoro / Nausicaa double feature. I should unwind quite nicely after that.

-ff