​Hayao Miyazaki released his ultimate homage to the wonder of childhood in 1988 with My Neighbor Totoro, but he wasn’t finished dissecting the first phases of life.  A year later, his follow-up Kiki’s Delivery Service provides a melancholic look at adolescence, smuggled in amongst an adventure story about a witch establishing herself in a new city.  It’s not surprising that Miyazaki and his fellow artists at Studio Ghibli would add depth to their films, but it is surprising in this particular package, an underappreciated gem compared to the recognition of Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke.  Kiki’s Delivery Service is another of Miyazaki’s low-stakes stories without an antagonist, but when a studio makes some of the best hang-out movies in cinematic history, who needs major conflicts?

In Spirited Away, the most critically acclaimed film in Hiyao Miyazaki’s extensive and oft-praised career, the most powerful and memorable image isn’t of wonders like a multi-armed spiderman operating a bellows or a dragon fleeing from a swarm of paper birds.  These, and many others, fill Spirited Away, but an early shot wins out.  It’s simply a broad-shouldered man, shot from a low angle, walking confidently forward.  Through the eyes of pre-teen protagonist Chihiro (Rumi Hiiragai), daughter to the man, the whole world is captured in her gaze as she watches her father lead her into an unknown future.  Her parents can lead her to the enchanted spa she finds herself stuck in, but she has to be the one to get out of it.  That shot is so self-evidently loving, that it is enough to want Chihiro to escape a truly incredible place, one of cinema’s great fantasy locations.  It’s the fulcrum on which the film is balanced, and it powers Miyazaki’s masterpiece as surely as that aforementioned spiderman powers the spa.

​Enacted in WWI nationalistic fervor, the Espionage Act is a blunt tool that the government can break out whenever it wants to bring the hammer down on leakers, including those who expose crimes by the US government at home and abroad.  In the War on Terror era, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden are only the most well-known conscientious leakers.  Amongst many others, Daniel Hale, descendant of Revolutionary icon Nathan Hale, released documents about the drone program, John Kiriakou disclosed information about torture, and Terry Albury exposed the surveillance and infiltration of American Muslim communities.  These men weren’t trying to sell out the government to foreign adversaries, but inform the American public of crimes done in their names and felt there was no alternative way to do so that precluded them serving jail time.  Reality Winner is an interesting addition to this clan of whistleblowers, as what she gave to the press was malfeasance from a foreign government towards the same government that tapped Angela Merkel’s personal phone.  It’s harder to feel righteously indignant about her actions, understandable as they might be.  Who wouldn’t find it difficult to be in a position to shut up Sean Hannity and do nothing?  Tina Satter’s Reality, adapted from a play that is itself adapted from the FBI transcript of Winner’s initial interrogation, doesn’t portray Winner in the way Oliver Stone portrayed Snowden.  She’s not wracked by guilt over what her bosses are doing, but is a little too trusting and a little naïve and tired of hearing bloviating conservative voices.  Reality is a character study and a smaller film befitting Winner’s more impulsive actions, but the insignificance of her actions doesn’t stop her from looking like a nail to the government’s hammer.