movie rec: My Neighbor Totoro

We watched My Neighbor Totoro with Junie. Early on, she told us in this great impressed voice, "I really like this one". Later on, she got pretty worried when it was raining and the dad was late coming home on his bus - thank god I didn't grab Lilo and Stitch the other day, we are clearly not ready for Dead Parents. In fact if I had remembered the hospitalized-mom aspect I might have waited on Totoro also; with me hopefully going to the hospital any. day. now., the last thing we need is Junie associating that with being worried I'm going to die. However, we watched the closing credits carefully and observed how the mom *did* come home to be with her kids, so I think in the end the message conveyed wasn't too damaging, and she was totally entranced with the first part of the film.

*I* was entranced by the animation of Mei, the four-year-old - things like her awkward gait coming down the stairs, her mimicry and shouting, her stubborn little face - I can't think of any other animated work that portrays a little kid so realistically like that. Dunno that this even crossed my mind last time I saw Totoro, back in my pre-parenting youth.