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Spirited Away Wins Award; Cowboy Bebop Opening Soon
May Kasahara writes "Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away just won the Best Animated Feature award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Note that last year's winner in this category was Shrek, which then went on to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar. The article says it's still too soon to detect a pattern, but IMHO, Spirited Away is the best film among this year's eligible Oscar selections, and at any rate, it's good karma :)" And rnb writes "I'm not sure when the listing was created, and unfortunately, I don't have much more information, but imdb has a January 2003 release date for the Cowboy Bebop: Knocking On Heavens Door. Yahoo also has a listing that seems to indicate this limited release may only be in LA and NY, but I'm still hoping to get it in at least one theater here in Philadelphia."
bummer that Metropolis got skipped due to timing.
(pretend there's something witty here)
A very well written review.
I'm glad that the Cowboy Bebop movie is finally out, though I have only a slim chance to see it in theaters... I'll probably have to wait for the DVD.
For those who have not heard of Cowboy Bebop, it's a dark humor anime with a very unique soundtrack... very stylish. 26 OAV episodes, 13 of which were released for TV, 13 only on OAV... you can often tell which are which pretty easily, since the OAV only episodes are darker and carry more of the plot. It's worth a view if you like anime, and if you don't like anime... well, may God save your soul! ^_^
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Sheesh, I watched that thing almost a year ago. In truth its not that good. Its just like a long episode with better art. The story does nothing for the over all series. Which is a disapointment as I was hopping for somthing that tied everything together with regards to the char' history.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I think Disney made the right call on waiting to blitzkrieg the public with Spirited Away ads. If they wait until it gets tons of awards, then they'll surely make more money.
Sex - Find It
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that all 26 episodes have made it to Adult Swim on Cartoon Network... at least, I'm pretty darn convinced that I watched them all last year. It took like three months to get through all of them, because they'd show two episodes per week.
Am I missing something?
They all made it.
At least, the second run through. The first time at least two episodes were skipped, namely:
Sympathy for the Devil
Cowboy Funk
If any others were dropped, I don't know because I didn't watch more than the first few. I had bought the dvds almost a year earlier and prefer subs, anyways.
Then you're watching the wrong anime. Anything that has ever aired on TV pretty much sucks. Go with the classics: Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and now my new fav Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Granted, tentacle porn and big eyed morons is some stupid shit, but if it's an honestly good story, what do you care that it was drawn rather than filmed? If the Shawshank Redemption was been animated would it be any less good?
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
If the movie wins a bunch of awards then it seems like it will be more difficult for Disney to kill it so that it won't make it onto any screens.
If it gets much more press, then people might actually see it, which as far as Disney is concerned can only be a Bad Thing.
As far as Disney is concerned there's nothing worse than to have an animated masterpiece come out - now people might actually realize just how bad the mindless movies that they shit out every year (don't forget the stuffed toys, and fast food tie-ins) truly are.
I hope this movie comes out big. I really do. Whether it happens or not, we'll just have to see.
Agreed. It's a fun action movie, but rates a very decided 'enh' on my movie scale. Nowhere near the quality or plot of Sen to Chihiro.
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Yes, it was a fine movie indeed. Probably one of the best and most creative animated films ever. Heck, I wanted to show it to my little cousin, but then decided not to since she might ask me to explain what the movie was about. (BTW, I'm serious. Can someone please explain to me what the movie meant?)
So far, it's won every animation award offered for this year.
I don't know that it'll win the Oscar, but it's certainly a lock to be a nominee.
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I saw the movie here in Switzerland last christmas, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not Japanese (Dutch) and didn't feel there were any parts of the story I didn't understand because I don't know anything about Japanese folklore. Your argument might have made sense for Princess Mononoke, which was based on a Shintoist myth if I recall correctly. Which parts of the storyline exactly did you think were not clear to you?
I don't think of classics in a time line, it's based on quality. The Matrix is a classic science fiction movie, but it's only a few years old. I've seen a great number of rather old anime's and I still think GitS is probably the best sci-fi oriented anime I've ever seen.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Mr. Miyazaki has a nice explanation. It's basically a story about keeping in touch with one's past, and it's nicely told IMHO.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Original Animated Video, or Original Video Animation (OVA and OAV are pretty interchangable)
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
For those of you in the Southwestern Ontario region, the annual Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema has titles like ones listed, or rather had in this specific instance.
And most importantly, historically most anime is *not* pornographic.
A large amount of what was originally imported to the US was pornographic (e.g. Urotsukidoji/Legend of the Overfiend and sequels).
However, the vast majority of anime is not pornographic, and never has been. There may be scenes of nudity at times (very often comedic), and they often deal with adult situations (not necessarily sex).
Many animated Japanese shows are mature. There are also many that are aimed at children. And many aimed at teenagers.
Anime covers the entire spectrum. Anime is a style, not a genre.
They only had one scene completed which was the crossing the rope bridge over the lava scene, but I can say that it was the most incredible bit of computer animation that I've ever scene. Don't know when the final thing is going to be finished, but I would definately recommend it to anyone...
The only Good System is a Sound System
Holy crap... is there really anyone out there who hasn't already seen the fansub of this, like, a year ago? If you ask me, these anime companies are really shooting themselves in the foot by delaying American desireada by so much.
If there's one thing about the free market, it's that people will always create things people want. That's why the war on drugs doesn't work. Of course, in the case of CB:KOHD, it was distributed for free, possibly throwing my free market analogy completely worthless. but. um. the point is that a high quality English translation of the film has been available for over a year.
If internet geeks could do it in that short time, why couldn't the company? It seems to me they would have made a lot more money if they were putting out a movie that most people were excited to see a year ago...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
No there isn't any evil Star Chamber in Cartoon Network that decided to cut Sympathy for the Devil and Cowboy Funk. There maybe some hidden group that is calling the shots but they had little to do with this.
For awhile people have claimed that both of these episodes where cut because of their contraversal natures. This is odd since a lot of Cowboy Bebop episodes feature one or some of the "Three TV Sins"(sex, drugs, violence). People claimed that Sympathy was cut because of youth violence (think Columbine) while Cowboy Funk was cut because the maniac bomber (who blew up tall buildings).
However what I remember is this fact: during the first run of Cowboy Bebop on CN it ran a 4 days a week run for 6 weeks. That adds up to 24...two episodes had to be skipped to fit.
So it is simple as scheduling. Two episodes had to be cut on the first run. These two episodes where somewhat weakly tied to the CB methos so it wasn't a big loss.
As for Spirited Away: go see if it is in your area. It is one of the best and blessed visualzations put to film in recent history. As for Knock'n Down Heaven's Door: it is an interesting movie that takes advantage of foreshadows and themes to emphize what the core of Cowboy Bebop really was.
Personally, I am not an anime fan. But Cowboy Beebop is superb. Tylor is ok, though it has some gratuitous stuff in it. Most of the other stuff I've seen has left me cold. The point is, don't make up your mind about the genre until you've seen the best of it. If you still feel that anime is just some kind of "Japanese porno," fine. But base your decisions upon the evidence of your senses, not just third or fourth hand information.
It seems a shame to me that such a fantastic film has been relegated to a smaller and less visible venue. It will automatically undercut ticket sales. SA only played there for a week-and-a-half and the theater was only about 1/10 sold out when we went. That's a fucking crime!
Is this the case elsewhere? Where is SA playing in your area? How much promotion is going on?
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I'm going to have to disagree. You may not be able to fully understand it if you're not Japanese, but you can still get a lot out of it. The basic story is pretty clear - girl is trapped in a magical place by her parents' interference, loses them and is forced to work a demeaning job, is romantically involved with the estranged son of the queen, releases someone from a spell, they all go on a journey, everything comes out fine but ambiguous. She keeps trying to do right and making things worse, she nearly loses something very important to the queen, there's a lot of family conflict and intrigue. If you set it in the West, it would be right out of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Actually, I think it's more The Wizard of Oz than Alice in Wonderland.
Even if you can't understand any of the cultural references, you can still appreciate it for the story and for how well it's done. I knew this was a beautiful movie before I saw it, but I was still amazed. This is one of the best movies I've seen in the last couple of years. It's certainly one of the best looking animated movies since the classic Disney days.
Here's what I want to know: In the scenes with the many-armed guy who runs the furnace in the bathhouse, there are several shots of an ashtray full of butts, but you never see him smoke. Is it paranoid of me to imagine that Disney had those bits cut out, since smoking is so opposite to their image? It would probably only be a couple of frames. Has anyone here seen the original?
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
Noir - Fairly dark, plot revolves arround 2 female assasins, one who doesn't know who she is.
Nadesico - Sort of a spoof on Anime, takes all the cliches rolls them into one giant mess and lays it out in an amusing series. The movie was good too.
Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 - Haven't seen the original series this was based off of, but guns girls and explosions are usualy a good combination.
Ra Xephon - Dark wierd, and leaves you with more questions than answers
Azumanga Daioh - It's wierd, it's funny and worth watching.
Escaflowne - I personaly liked the series better than the movie, a very cool mech/fantasy anime.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984