I can't stop watching this movie

Rating: 10/10 (15 July 2003)

I don't tell you this particularly to sell the movie, but maybe to come to grips with how utterly HAUNTING this movie is to me, and I'm still trying to figure out why. I bought the DVD before I'd ever seen it (and didn't even watch it for a few days), but once I hit "Play" I've been hooked ever since. I have trouble going three days without watching it, and I'm enlisting my friends to watch the movie, but secretly so that I can have an excuse to watch it again. I'll watch it dubbed or subtitled, it doesn't matter. I'm sick, and I don't want to get well.
Story? Great. Animation? Stellar. But that shouldn't be enough to enslave me to Miyazaki's vision. What then keeps me coming back? Well, I have one theory...
There's something about Chihiro that is utterly real, moreso than an in-the-flesh actress, even. The way she runs, or cries, or sulks, or clings to her mother, I don't know how Miyazaki captured it all, but as Chihiro grows, I feel like I'm growing with her. To me, that's why it's cheap to compare SA to Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland; Dorothy and Alice are flat characters, while Chihiro is in my eyes a genuine 10-year-old child. My heart roots for Chihiro.
Yeah, maybe I'm lame, but I'll tell you this. When I think about Hollywood's cookie-cutter punchline movies these days, I barely even feel temptation to attend. Why sit through the latest mediocrity (or sequel to mediocrity), when I can just throw SA back in the DVD player and get my guaranteed movie magic?
My name's earlsleek, and I'm an SA junkie.