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Spirited Away Still Has a Chance
Dean Siren writes "Disney chairman Richard W. Cook says that they've budgeted to market Spirited Away in up to 1,000 North American theaters, and if the Oscars endorse it as much as Metacritic has, Disney will launch it. They'll spend the same time and money promoting Spirited Away for Academy Awards as they will Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet. Cook hopes that it will win not only Best Animated Film, but get nominated for Best Picture, as Beauty and the Beast got in 1991. Thanks to Jack Mathews at New York Daily News for getting Cook to explain."
First off, AC's usually don't deserve a response, but this one is just off in left field.
Spirited Away is a _children's story_. You could let your 6-year-old watch this. So quit throwing around the 'japanese porno' catch-all description of anime. Yes, they do exist, but it's a relatively small segment of the market (in the US AND in Japan).
wasnt it already in the theatres? I saw this movie in NYC on a digital screen. (English Dub) the subtitled version was also avaliable in that theater but not at a good time for me.
Overall i thought this was an excellent movie, I Loved the sound track, and also the sound track to Miyazaki's other movie "Princess Mononoke" I cant wait for Disney to release more enlgish Dub's of his animated films, Disney does a really good job on the english dubs. "Princess Mononoke" had an excellent voice cast.
Sun is Warm, Grass is Green
This movie was made by Studio Ghibli, and US distribution rights were bought by Disney, who so far has been doing only so-so at actually getting this stuff out. (Where is my Kiki's Delivery Service DVD? How about Nausicaa or Castle in the Sky, or any of the other good Ghibli titles they've gotten?)
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
..Spirited away is written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, which is the same person who made Nausacaa Valley of the wind, and more recently (1997) Princess Mononoke.
It seems to be even more captivating than Princess Mononoke, yet somewhat disney oriented as it focuses on the adventures of a ten year old named chihiro who gets "spirited away" to a magical land; separated from her parents, she struggles to find a way home.(trailer)
Whoah, that was a mouthful. But it seems to be a really good movie, if your looking for something more than Treasure Planet.
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Spirited Away has nothing to do with Disney, other than the advertising. It's an anime film, and is therefore a lot closer to Princess Monononke (you've seen it or at least heard about it, right?) or even Ghost in the Shell (you've heard about THAT one).
I saw it a couple of weeks ago in theatres, and I was definitely glad I did. Something like half the people here would probably not "get" it and walk from the theatre disappointed, but it was an incredible display of imagination, beautiful animation, and the most refreshing break from Hollywood crap since... well... since a long time. I enjoyed it a lot more than Princess Mononoke, as well.
About the closest analogy I can find, without discussing the plot and characters, is "Alice in Wonderland". If you think Alice in Wonderland's stupid, or if you just don't get it, you won't like this. (and this movie, like Alice in Wonderland, can be enjoyed by kids - but it can be enjoyed by adults even more).
It's a great conspiracy theory, except that it's bullshit.
Disney is the company that bought the rights to distribute Miyazaki's films in America. Not Mirimax acting independently. The theatrical releases have been under the Mirimax label because Miyizaki's contract with the Disney studio requires that his movies not be marketed as Disney films.
I'm all for knocking big companies, but the fact is that big companies like to make money, and spending money on the rights to American distribution for a movie with the intent of killing it is not good business practice. Anime fans may not like the mainstream Hollywood perception that anime releases aren't "big-budget" enough, and they may not like it that Disney obviously buys into this and released both Mononoke and Spirited Away as art-house films. I don't like it, either, even though I'm not much of an anime fan. But that doesn't require a conspiracy.
Reality check: these films got the same kind of promotional budget and release that other art-house films do. This is the normal pattern. Start small with very little advertising, and when a film starts to take off, pump more money pumped into them. Look at Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon--there was no more advertising for it in the first several months of its release than there was for Mononoke. (In my area, in fact, there was more advertising for Mononoke; Dragon didn't get TV ads, at least in that region, until its Oscar nomination.)
And you know what? The fact that Mononoke made much less money wasn't a great argument for putting it into wide release. "It'd have made lots of money if only you'd opened it on three thousand screens simultaneously and spent ten million advedrtising it" is an argument that warms the heart of fans but not studio accountants.
The level of commitment that Disney is showing by even considering a major theatre rollout for Spirited Away is much higher than I'd have expected. It's also inconsistent with the idea that they're interested in burying it--if they hadn't released it in the first place, nobody in America would be talking about it except anime fans. If you hope something "will still go away quietly," you don't start screaming about it louder.
Yahoo keeps track of reviews by major newspapers, mags, and film websites. Out of the 15 reviews the lowest it scored was a B+ and that only happend twice.
& cf =critic&intl=us
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1808405164
This is my favorate movie, I saw it opeaning night in hollywood, and I hope it wins best picture but I doubt it. It probably will not even make 10 million in the US.
The original title is 'Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi', for those who care :-)
It won a prize at some Berlin (Germany) festival, the Gold Bear
I saw it in France around a year ago, and even if there were some long scenes imo, it's still a pretty darn good movie.
Of course, some things are lost in the translation (for instance, why is Chihiro sometimes called 'Sen' isn't that easy to get if you don't know some japanese basics).
You can also find some ecological references (river god), and things like that.
I was in Japan in july, around the time it was released in DVD, and boy, it was totally crazy: any shop related more or less to video, anime, games, you-name-it had TVs with the DVDs / tape rolling ! (and i don't even mention related merchandise)
All in all, a decent movie imo ^_^
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)