Dubbed for our ease, the English-speaking cast is prodigious, featuring, among others, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (last blogged in Don Jon) as adult Horikoshi, John Krasinski (most recently in Promised Land) as his best friend Honjô, Krasinski's real-life wife Emily Blunt (last in Looper with Gordon-Levitt) as love interest Nahoko, William H. Macy (last in these pages in The Sessions) as her father, Martin Short (not blogged yet--you know exactly who he is!) as the grumpy little boss, Mandy Patinkin (ditto) as the calmer big boss, Stanley Tucci (last in The Company You Keep) as the Italian Caproni, and Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams) as the German Castorp. Their voices aren't that easy to spot because they're all affecting various accents and vocal mannerisms. Short, particularly, makes his voice so gravelly, we were sure it was Patton Oswalt, who did a mostly voice-over part in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. But it was Short.
At 126 minutes, only certain (nerdy) kids will be able to sit through it, which is a shame. We appreciated the slow pace, but would have been perfectly satisfied with a shorter running time. Apparently director/writer Hayao Miyazaki (covered in The Secret World of Arietty) claimed last year this was to be his final feature, but recanted a few months ago.
The music, by multi-award-winning Joe Hisaishi (has scored most of Miyazaki's other work and more), is very nice, with a combination of old-fashioned anthems, accordions, oboes, European and Japanese influences. You can hear one clip at this link and a playlist at this one.
We strongly suggest you see this Oscar-nominated movie (it lost to Frozen, which we didn't see, but millions did!).
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