The two-week Studio Ghibli Film Festival in Minneapolis closes out this Thursday, and we are playing the final four films: The Cat Returns and Mimi wo Sumaseba on Monday and Tuesday, Princess Mononoke and Omohide Poro Poro on Wednesday and Thursday.  It's a terrific lineup and we wish we could be there every day this week.  Sadly, we're down to our final two free passes, and we have to save our money for the move to a new apartment this weekend.

Marcee and I will be there on Thursday for the final showing of Omohide Poro Poro, Isao Takahata's 1991 masterpiece.  I thought it would be right for Ghibli Blog to be there at the very end.

Of the final four movies, The Cat Returns is the weakest of the bunch, and it's a good example of Ghibli's struggles to find new directors to follow Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.  It does have its charms, but when you can also watch Yoshifumi Kondo's Mimi, why bother?  One is a decent movie best served by home video (and best paired with the short film, Ghiblies Episode 2); the other is an animation masterpiece by a skilled veteran who built a long career with the Miya-san and Paku-san.  I really wish I had money hidden under my couch cushions!

Princess Mononoke was Miyazaki's blockbuster smash that toppled E.T. from the Japanese all-time box office and brought international acclaim to Studio Ghibli.  It also sparked a notorious battle between Miya-san and Disney, and especially the Weinsteins at Miramax.  Now Lionsgate owns the home video rights, and it's questionable that we'll see Mononoke on US home video again.  If you get a chance to see this movie in a theater...run.  Don't walk, run.  You may not get another chance for a long time.

Omohide Poro Poro is the perfect closer, a style and genre of filmmaking that literally does not exist in the West.  Feature animation in the service of a weepy character melodrama?  With a pop culture nostalgia that rivals Quentin Tarantino?  And one that addresses contemporary Japan (ca.1991) as its vaunted bubble economy burst?  Somewhere in the mix lies a popular Japanese manga about a woman's childhood in the 1960s, and a modern quasi-documentary about organic farming and cultivation of safflowers for dyes and cosmetics.  Yes, this is a very deep movie.  Yasujiro Ozu would have been amazed.

Much thanks to everyone who attended GKids' Studio Ghibli Film Festival here in Minneapolis.  It's been terrific, and I really do wish it could have lasted longer.  I needed more time to save up more money!  Please come back!

Related Posts : mimi wo sumaseba, mononoke, omohide poro poro, the cat returns, video

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Posted by Daniel Thomas MacInnes Categories: film reviews, greatest movies
Yes, Citizen Kane is still number one in this house!

The Sight & Sound 2012 poll of greatest films has been unveiled, which means it's time for everybody to pull out their long lists of favorite movies.  And now, after many days of hard work and endless revisions, I present my rankings of the best movies ever made.  Short comments follow after the rankings.

Ghibli Blog Rankings - The 50 Greatest Movies

1. Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
2. Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
4. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
5. Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
6. Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)
7. Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey)
8. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Th. Dryer)
9. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
10. Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchkock)

11. Omohide Poro Poro (1991, Isao Takahata)
12. Mimi wo Sumaseba (1995, Yoshifumi Kondo)
13. City Lights (1931, Charlie Chaplin)
14. Ran (1986, Akira Kurosawa)
15. Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
16. The Fog of War (2003, Errol Morris)
17. Paths of Glory (1957, Stanley Kubrick)
18. Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen)
19. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson)
20. (tie) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg)
20. (tie) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, Steven Spielberg)

21. The Godfather Parts I & II (1972, 74, Francis Ford Coppola)
22. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Ang Lee)
23. Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
24. Floating Weeds (1959, Yasujiro Ozu)
25. The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
26. Nights of Cabiria (1957, Frederico Fellini)
27. Princess Mononoke (1997, Hayao Miyazaki)
28. Porco Rosso (1992, Hayao Miyazaki)
29. The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming)
30. Elizabeth (1998, Shekhar Kapur)

31. Metropolis (1926, Fritz Lang)
32. The Searchers (1956, John Ford)
33. Throne of Blood (1957, Akira Kurosawa)
34. Modern Times (1936, Charlie Chaplin)
35. Young Frankenstein (1974, Mel Brooks)
36. Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks)
37. Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)
38. Yojimbo(1961, Akira Kurosawa)
39. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968, Sergio Leone)
40. Fantasia (1940, Walt Disney)

41. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996, Jim Mallon)
42. Ben-Hur (1959, William Wyler)
43. The Seventh Seal (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
44. Network (1976, Sydney Lumet)
45. Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Leaned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963, Stanley Kubrick)
46. Gauche the Cellist (1982, Isao Takahata)
47. Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985, Gisaburo Suugi)
48. The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
49. Beetlejuice (1988, Tim Burton)
50. (tie) Clue (1985, Johnathon Lynn)
50. (tie) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986, John Hughes) 

And now for a few quick thoughts.  You fine readers have no idea how many times I've shuffled movies around this list, adding this, dropping that, desperately finding a place to squeeze in The Royal Tenenbaums and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, trying to remember whether I loved or merely liked The Seventh Seal.  My mind constantly pulls out wonderful memories, reflective laughs and meditations.

I believe the key was writing a Top 50 list of movies, instead of the standard "Top 10."  With a shorter list, one stays careful and overly cautious, wary of giving up a cherished classic.  I won't cede Citizen Kane or Casablanca to anyone.  However, if I expand my palette to fifty films, a far richer landscape emerges.  Now I can embrace the vast history of cinema, honor the earliest classics, and raise the banner for modern pictures that deserve to be honored.  I could easily add another fifty movies without blinking an eye.  The Shining!  La Dolce Vita!  F For Fake!  Ivan the Terrible! Waking Life!  This could go on forever, which is an exhausting thought.

I'm thinking that I should write essays on each individual film on this list, make it a running series.  That would give me more time to explore each film in better detail than I can here.  Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions.  Enjoy.

Update 8/8/12, 1:11pm - Raiders or Last Crusade?  Last Crusade or Raiders??  Which movie Indiana Jones movie takes the #20 spot?  This dilemma has consumed me all week, and I cannot pick one film over another.  Raiders is grittier, pulpier, has scarier villians, and Karen Allen.  Last Crusade has more and better action scenes, is way funnier, and has Sean Connery.  Both are, essentially, the same movie, and equally great.

So I'm going to cheat and declare a second mulligan (the first one being the two Godfathers joined together at #21).  Raiders and Last Crusade will share the 20th slot, and you can just pick your favorite.  Now I'm going to walk away before I really get carried away.  This project is finished!

Update #2: 8/9/12 8:40am - More cheating.  Marcee and I watched Chaplin's City Lights last night, and I immediately realized my mistake in ranking it so low.  It deserves a Top 10 spot, but I can't fit it in, and I want to promote the two Studio Ghibli films, so we'll take 13th Place.  This is the final edit, I swear(chuckling)!  Thanks for your patience, feel free to hurl wisecracks.

Update #3: 8/9/12 10:20am - Great, I can't read and I can't count.  I really should pay Reed Nelson to be my editor.  There were two movies at #34, so I've shuffled things around...and we end with yet another mulligan.  But it's fitting that a "Top 50 Movies" list would really have 53, in a Calvinball sort of way. Related Posts : film reviews, greatest movies

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Posted by Daniel Thomas MacInnes Categories: dvd, panda kopanda
Earlier this year, Discotek reissued Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki's two Panda Kopanda short films on DVD, under the common Western title, "Panda Go Panda."  The previous home video release was handled by Geneon, which featured a butchered title sequence and no extras.  This 2012 version is much better by all counts.

The two short films - Panda Kopanda (1972), Panda Kopanda and the Rainy Day Circus (1973) - are included complete and uncut, which is nice if you're a fan of Animal Treasure Island and My Neighbor Totoro and enjoy their opening credit sequences.  For picture quality, I cannot speak from first-hand experience, but it does appear that Japan's Studio Ghibli DVD has a higher bitrate, which means a sharper, cleaner picture.  The US disc trades a lower bitrate in exchange for a 40-minute interview with director Takahata, and a 13-minute bonus feature.  All of these extras include English language subtitles.

Panda Go Panda deserves to be a part of your movie library.  For every fan of My Neighbor Totoro, it's an obvious must-have.  For everyone else, young and old alike, these two short animated films are a delight, free of cynicism or insincerity or shameless marketing.  These are the sort of cartoons I grew up watching, and I would very much like to see that tradition continue.

Discotek has been on an absolute tear this year.  Panda Go Panda and Lupin III: The Complete First TV Series are only the tip of the iceberg.  It's easy for anime fans to bemoan the state of the industry, but these gentlemen are working their tails off, day and night.  They deserve your support. Related Posts : dvd, panda kopanda

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Posted by Daniel Thomas MacInnes Categories: miyazaki

"The debut film from Hayao Miyazaki, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is considered by many to be his masterwork—and there are few films, animated or otherwise, of such sweeping scope and grandeur."

- Landmark Theaters, Lagoon Cinema (bold added)

They're off by twenty years.  D'oh!  This is why I need to score press passes to the Studio Ghibli Film Festival here in Minneapolis.  I've also volunteered to give free lectures to the audiences, and share some insights and history.  It's become my destiny to replay that Woody Allen-Marshal MacLuhan scene from Annie Hall, isn't it?  Ah, well.

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Posted by Daniel Thomas MacInnes Categories: spirited away
Reader Felix comes to the defense of Hayao Miyazaki's 2001 film, "The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro," which I omitted from my 50 Greatest Movies list back in August.  He makes many excellent points:

"Spirited Away is a terrific movie, visually spectacular and endlessly creative, but I don't believe it is Miyazaki's best film. It's an escapist picture at heart, one that lacks the more complex and serious themes of the director's work. A great movie, but a little light."

I can't agree with this, and it seems to be a disagreement about basic undercurrents of Miyazaki-movies. Nothing about this movie as far as I can see is escapist in any strict, negative sense of the word. Surely you can draw this logical conclusion, but it would be accidental, a mere "reservation" depending on the context of your viewing as far as I can see, but not a lasting judgement.

For one, the altering of Chihiro is certainly not the effect of an escape from her issues, but a "finding of herself". I think this is quintessential in judging the whole "positive" outlook of Miyazaki per se, or else it would be hard to distinguish him from any other "pretty" entertainment, or it becomes a pure intellectual argument of the ideology that his movies present.

Then, Chihiro is emotionally challenged throughout the movie, and it is mostly frightening and dangerous, and the ending is not "sweet" but kind of regretful, which is not a nod to the wish to escape again (as maybe could be seen in the Peter Pan "mythos"), but a major element of life - but Miyazaki would probably say (as I've seen him do) that she will come to deal with it.

Also there are aesthetic elements which I think make it unique among his movies. There is this almost overly lush bathing house, but also this Zen-like, minimalist trainride and water landscape.

The infinite imagination that some refer to, on the other hand, and that may be seen as one element of escapism, I do simply do not recognize. I don't think it is very inventive at all, if I would look only for this, I would be very bored and could point probably to an endless list of more "inventive" or "visually stunning" examples. The lush invention that I see serves merely to create a certain atmosphere of life and the overfilled environs, but not much to marvel at.

A couple more things could be said, but that should be the essence of my view.

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Posted by Daniel Thomas MacInnes Categories: kaguya hime, kaze tachinu, miyazaki, posters, takahata

Today is the big day, everyone!  At long last, Studio Ghibli's newest productions have been formally announced at Toho's press conference in Japan.  Hayao Miyazaki's Kaze Tachinu ("The Wind Rises") and Isao Takahata's Kaguya Hime no Monogatari ("The Story of Princess Kaguya") will both be released in theaters across Japan this coming Summer 2013.  Let's take a quick look at each of the films.

Hayao Miyazaki - Kaze Tachinu

First is Hayao Miyazaki's next feature film.  Kaze Tachinu originally appeared as a lengthy color comic (manga) in Model Graphix Magazine in 2009.  It was a biography (of sorts) of the Japanese engineer Jori Horikoshi, a designer of airplanes who was, tragically, instrumental in the building of the Zero Fighter used by the Japanese military in World War II.  The story is also an adaptation of a novel (of the same name) by Tatsuo Hori; I haven't read the novel, but I have scanned through the untranslated comic (I have a copy on one of my hard drives), and I'm well aware of Miyazaki's style of loose adaptations.

If history is any judge, Kaze Tachinu will be as much a personal statement by Miyazaki as a biography or literary adaptation.  One of the movie's key scenes will involve the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which is intended to be a parallel to Japan's recent earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis.  In the aftermath of the crisis, Miyazaki publicly declared that Studio Ghibli would eschew fantasy films, in favor of more realistic stories that speak to our times.  This may seem strange to Westerners who look to Miya-san as Japan's Walt Disney, but if you know the studio's output, and the careers of the old masters, this is in keeping with many of their greatest works.

Note the poster's tagline: "We must try to live."  It's taken from Hori's novel, but it also references the final lines from the Nausicaa manga.  Princess Mononoke also used the same line ("Ikiro!") back in 1997.  We have our first Ghibli Riff of 2013!

Kaze Tachinu promises to be Ghibli's grandest and most expensive spectacle to date.  Miya-san famously stated that he be "bet the studio" on his film.  It's his gung-ho, leave-nothing-behind gamble ever since Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind in 1984.  We'll make one grand movie, and if it's a hit, we'll make more; if it fails, we'll close up and go home.  And although he has never said so publicly, I do believe this movie may be Hayao Miyazaki's final directorial feature.  This may be his Abbey Road.  Stay tuned.

Isao Takahata - Kaguya Hime no Monogatari

Isao "Paku-San" Takahata: visionary,, revoltionary, godfather of the modern anime era, the greatest animation director who ever lived.  None of these titles are mere hyperbole; he has earned his reputation as one of the world's greatest living filmmakers.  In my mind, he is without peer.  At the recent Studio Ghibli Film Festival in Minneapolis, I was fortunate enough to see Omohide Poro Poro and My Neighbors the Yamadas on the big screen.  It was a miraculous experience.

If any artist suffers from the West's obsession with equating all animation with Walt Disney, it's Paku-San.  His work bears no resemblance to Mickey or Donald, to Bambi or Pinocchio.  Maybe there's a connection to Fantasia, with the love of classical music and daring visual variety.  No, you'd best draw comparisons to the great live-action filmmakers like Yasujiro Ozu, Jean Renoir, Igmar Bergman, Orson Welles, to documentary neo-realism and the French New Wave.  And, yes, to the great French and Russian animators like Lev Atamanov (The Snow Queen), Paul Grimault (Le Roi et l'oiseau), and Yuri Norstein (Hedgehog in the Fog, Tale of Tales).

And now Paku-San has returned, from semi-retirement, from self-imposed exile, however you wish to call it.  My Neighbors the Yamadas was brilliantly funny, quiet and humane, but it was also a firm rebuke against the drive towards "blockbuster" status that Studio Ghibli was embracing, as Miyazaki's Mononoke became a global hit.  Japan's audiences wanted big, epic movies, the kind Hollywood makes, and Miyazaki was all too happy to oblige and indulge.  Takahata offered Yamada-kun as his counter-argument: "Don't overdo it."  His 1999 film was savaged at the box office at the hands of a Pokemon toy commercial and Jar Jar Binks.

After serving as director for a 2001 puppet theater production, "Where Spirits and Fairies Dwell," Takahata contributed one short (60 second) segment for the 2003 anthology film, Winter Days, and then spent his time giving lectures, traveling, and working to build the Ghibli Museum's international film library.  He worked on film projects, struggled to find funding (Miyazaki would no longer gamble the studio's money in the wake of Yamada-kun's collapse), searched for stories and worth collaborators.

I don't think it's ever been stated directly, but I think the death of Yoshifumi Kondo hurt Paku-San the most.  As a writer-director, and not an animator, Takahata has always been dependent on a right-hand artist who could realize his visions.  In the 1970s, his star student was Hayao Miyazaki.  After that, it was Kondo, who proved invaluable on Anne of Green Gables, Grave of the Fireflies, Omohide Poro Poro, and Pom Poko.  Now, with Kondo gone, and all his peers retired or deceased, finding skilled partners is Takahata's greatest challenge.

Kaguya-Hime no Monogatari is an adaptation (all of Takahata's works, other than Pom Poko, are adaptations) of the Japanese folk take, "Tale of the Bamboo Cutter."  The legend was referenced briefly in My Neighbors the Yamadas, the scene where daughter Nonoko is born from a bamboo stalk.  This 2013 movie will tell the larger story, presenting an historical, emotionally-charged family melodrama.  It's Paku-San, after all.

The poster's tagline is interesting: "A princesses' crime and punishment."  Is this a deliberate reference to Dostoyevski?  Perhaps.  I can see Takahata addressing the larger and deeper questions of humanity in his film.  At age 77, he may not have an opportunity to create another feature film.  I would expect another Abbey Road movie, a summary of a man's life and career, and a probing of what it all means.  Mind you, I am only speculating.  We shall discover soon enough.

I am happy to see the watercolor style of Yamada-kun return.  I love that visual art style, and Studio Ghibli used it in a number of TV commercials, and their 2002 short film, Ghiblies Episode 2.  I'm excited just to see something new, different in animation.  I'm tired of all the CGI plastic dolls and noisy formulas.  We're actually going to see something unique.  We can say that of both films, Miyazaki's and Takahata's.  After five decades in film and television, this may be their final triumph.  We should savor the moment, and hold it as long as possible. Related Posts : kaguya hime, kaze tachinu, miyazaki, posters, takahata

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Posted by Daniel Thomas MacInnes Categories: blu-ray, grave of the fireflies, screenshots
Grave of the Fireflies Blu-Ray arrives on US store shelves today, courtesy of Sentai Filmworks.  Copies are available for $15-$20, with (hopefully) some "Black Friday" deals to follow.  This is a perfect opportunity to add a Studio Ghibli BD to your movie collection (and once again wonder why Disney fell asleep at the switch).

Now for a little good and bad news.  The good news, obviously, is the low price, which is far more attractive than the $80 it costs to import Ghibli BDs from Japan (retailers either kill you on the price or the shipping).  The bad news is the bitrate, which on the Sentai disc is one-half the rate of Ghibli's Japanese release.  The picture seems to lose a little subtlety in the color and light, and although it's minor, the difference is there.  That said, the US Blu-Ray trumps the previous DVD versions with ease.

I've included some photo comparisons, courtesy of DVD Beaver's review, so you can judge for yourselves.  As expected, the many extras from Central Park Media's 2002 DVD is missing, but this was to be expected.  The Ghibli BDs in Japan have few extras, in order to fit as much movie, as high a bitrate, as possible.  So I think we'll survive, and collectors will have reason not to sell their older versions.

More photo comparisons after the jump; Sentai Filmworks (US) disc on top, Studio Ghibli (Japan) disc on bottom:

Related Posts : blu-ray, grave of the fireflies, screenshots

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