In Contention

Tag: Spirited Away

  • ‘Moon’ redrawn: own a future classic

    I know there are a lot of “Moon” fans and collector types among you, so I thought this worth mention. The great British design studio All City, who dreamed up the justly famous poster for Duncan Jones’s sci-fi debut, have launched a new series of limited edition Redrawn poster concepts for some of their most famous titles of recent years — all of them available to purchase.

    The striking sketch-based prints are all eminently frameable: this rejigged take on the “Moon” poster appears to be the most popular, but I’m just as keen on what they’ve done with the likes of “Control,” “Let the Right One In” and “Spirited Away.” At around $120 to $240 a pop, they’re not quite bargainous, but should age pretty nicely. Check ’em out here; some of my favorites after the cut.

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  • LAFCA picks the top 10 films of the decade

    Laura Elena Harring in Mulholland DriveYou can never have too many of these, right?  Right?

    Right?

    1. “Mulholland Drive”
    2. “There Will Be Blood”
    3. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”
    4. “Brokeback Mountain”
    5. (tie) “No Country for Old Men” and “Zodiac”
    6. “Yi Yi”
    7. (tie) “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and “The Lord of the Rings”
    8. “Spirited Away”
    9. (tie) “United 93” and “Y Tu Mama Tambien”
    10. “Sideways”

  • Guy’s top 50 of the decade: #1-10

    Maribel Verdu in Y tu Mama TambienAnd then there were ten.

    Before I wrap up the list that I’ve trickled out over the last five days, I suppose I should write a few words on the decade that was. I entered the 2000s as a 16 year-old boy in Johannesburg who thought he knew a lot about movies. I left it as a 26 year-old man in London who knows a lot more than he did then — but realizes that he knows a lot less. There is still so much to see that I’ve barely touched upon — from this past decade alone.

    Probably no filmgoing decade in my lifetime will be as crucial to me as the one that passed, in terms of the shift and growth in my sense of how to read (and write) film.

    I may have already known that I loved movies, but in the 2000s I gained a sharper sense of how to love them, what I really respond to in a film — and the 50 titles gathered here (along with many, many others) helped fine-tune that notion.

    With that kind of personal learning curve attached to the decade, it’s hard to stand back and judge how it might stack against previous ones; strong, weak or average, it’ll always feel like my decade. As I compiled the list, however, did arrive at the conclusion that it started better than it finished. Sheer mathematics supports this personal view — the top 10 films I’m about to reveal all landed in the decade’s first half, and I don’t think that’s merely down to the advantage of distance.

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  • Searching for Oscar meaning in IMDb’s top 15 of the millennium

    IMDbOver at IMDb there is a new feature called “The Power of Film” (lofty title, that), which has listed out the top 15 films of the millennium as voted on by IMDB users, i.e., fans, the public, regular folks.

    The IMDb top 250 is an ever-changing mish-mash of high-,middle- and low-brow entertainment that always makes for an amusing cross section of what the public thinks of cinema from one moment to the next.  “The Godfather” and “The Shawshank Redemption” trade off the #1 spot consistently, save for the spike of interest in this major new release or that, films that insinuate themselves high early on but inevitably fall down the list as more viewers get a look.

    The new feature, unsurprisingly, features Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” at the top, but strewn throughout is a diverse mixture including the “Lord of the Rings” triology, German Oscar-winner “The Lives of Others” and Pixar entries “WALL-E” and “Up.”  And speaking of Oscar, MTV’s Terri Schwartz has spun her wheels on the idea that, with a larger slate of Best Picture possibilities, the IMDb list could prove an omen for the potential blend of eclectic and entertainment cinema so many expect the Academy’s line-up to resemble from this year forward.

    (Schwartz’s thoughts and IMDb’s list after the jump.)

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  • Miyazaki’s ‘Ponyo’ closes LAFF

    Hayao MiyazakiI’ve come to the awkward, “I’m the only one” conclusion that, despite my best efforts, the cinema of Hayao Miyazaki just doesn’t paddle my boat.

    Looking back over the animator’s past works again throughout the week in preparation for this write-up, and having taken in his latest, “Ponyo,” just a few weeks back, I still find myself struggling to maintain an interest in these films.  “Ponyo” is probably more in line with “My Neighbor Totoro” or “Kiki’s Delivery Service” than the director’s more ambitious fare, but it nevertheless represents an imagination that, despite my aversion to the work, is a welcome dose of creativity in a business sorely lacking it year after year.

    “Ponyo” is a loose adaptation of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” though Ariel’s mermaid has been swapped for Ponyo’s gold fish and there isn’t a villain within earshot.  But a narrative lacking an antagonist is par for the course for Miyazaki, perhaps one of the reasons I never warmed to his work but still a brazen way to go about visual storytelling business.

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  • Raves roll in for Miyazaki

    Six days in, and a rather quiet Venice Film Festival has come up with its first unalloyed critical triumph – an animated Japanese re-imagining of Hans Christian Andersen, aimed primarily at children still in the single digits.

    That would be surprising were “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea” directed by anyone other than Hayao Miyazaki, the Oscar-winning animation master who has, in recent years, crossed over to being one of the industry’s most venerated auteurs. After all, “Spirited Away” — for me, still one of the crowning cinematic achievements of the decade — began its incredible success story when it won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2002 (sharing with Paul Greengrass’ “Bloody Sunday,” no less).

    2005 follow-up “Howl’s Moving Castle” didn’t reach quite the same dizzy heights, but it was another richly textured, narratively daring work that received its fair share of acclaim, and a second Oscar nomination for Miyazaki.

    Now comes “Ponyo,” apparently a return to the simpler, gentler storytelling of earlier films like “My Neighbour Totoro,” that is already doing spectacular business in its home country. And it seems the looser style and younger target audience hasn’t deterred critics in the slightest. Screen Daily breathlessly raves:

    Visually, it’s extraordinary; imaginatively, it’s daring. Once again Hayao Miyazaki is playing in a league of his own with … a sweet, gentle, moving, and always delightful Japanese take on the classic Little Mermaid fable … “Ponyo” is firing on all cylinders on every level. From the sheer creativity of its traditional cell animation to its characterisations (every adult here feels real); the interactions between old and young; the untrammelled imagination on display throughout the story; and, above all, the way Miyazaki still dares to be different.

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