took my daughter jane (9) to ponyo, the new hayao miyazaki film. both of us are cultists. our all-time movie (like a lot of dads and daughters, i'd think) is totoro. also kiki's delivery service and castle in the sky. the recent ones have been almost too elaborate - like spirited away and howl's moving castle - for small children, with amazingly-visual horror-film animation. but even sam will actually put on princess mononoke, which is beautiful and disturbing.

anyway, ponyo is a perfect synthesis of these two styles; it was so breathtakingly beautiful and real for janie. it's a masterpiece of visual imagination: just teeming with hand-drawn images. girls dancing on tsunamis. it would surprise me if miyazaki (like jane's sister emma (21) hasn't been looking at winsor mccay, with his hyper-replete images, and the sea is the perfect chaotic environment that allows you to go beyond psychedelic. not to mention the transparent/reflective qualities of water, here presented in a tour de force of animation.