Archive for the “Movies” Category

I recently came across the cover art for Sony Pictures’ upcoming release of The Sky Crawlers (May 26th on DVD and region-free Blu-ray) and I’d like to dig into a few aspects related to it.

First, some quote clarifications. When I see critics’ quotes used in movie promotions, my first instinct is to try to track down the sources and look at their contexts. The quote on the front by Dan Parsons (see above) comes from this post he wrote in December about its New York premiere at the Lincoln Center. The full sentence that Sony pulled from reads: “It’s his best work since the original GHOST IN THE SHELL, and proof positive of anime’s unique ability to excite and enlighten.” However, the only mention of ‘fantastic’ within Parsons’ entire post lies within the word fantastical from the following phrase: “Despite the fantastical nature of the aircraft…”

There is another quote that appears on the back of the box – “An Intense Experience!” – that is attributed to Justin Sevakis of ANN. That comes from this review from the same Lincoln Center screening and was taken from the following sentence: “The Sky Crawlers is an intense experience, and a level of artistic expression far beyond the levels even the best anime strives towards.”
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Mamoru Oshii’s new film The Sky Crawlers, winner of the Future Film Festival Digital Award at Venice, was picked up by Sony Pictures for distribution in North America, Latin America and Oceania, which is good for those who got their first taste at Production I.G.’s panels during the summer con season (AX for me), but much of my anticipation was deflated after reading the reviews that the film, called “a modern ukiyo-e printed on celluloid” on its TIFF listing, is getting from festival attendees.

Most liked the digitally generated dogfights but the points of division seemed to be the pace Oshii doled out information and his attempts at philosophizing the necessity of war in society. You can read excerpts of seven different sources after the jump and be comforted that the Wii game has beautiful looking planes. (My enthusiasm for Burn After Reading has also been deflated over the past week but I won’t talk about that here.) Also: Twitch has a five-minute clip if you want to spoil yourself a little.
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I just finished watching “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo), a movie I had been wanting to see but hadn’t gotten around it until tonight because a friend bringing it up a couple days ago reminded me about it. TokiKake was a very touching film – made me cry a couple times. My brain is still trying to think about deeper meanings while my hands are typing this so I’m not going to attempt a detailed analysis. (Besides, that would spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, right?)
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What better way to bring a popular series like Fullmetal Alchemist to a close than with a theatrical feature? “The Conqueror of Shamballa” attempts to resolve the cliffhanger of the TV series successfully and manages to do a pretty good job of that during its 104-minute runtime. I am sorry that the below review was a bit delayed (was busy with schoolwork yesterday) and a little disjointed. I have decided to review the extras and the movie in seperate posts so look for another entry on the two documentaries tomorrow along with those postcard scans I promised. Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Beall over at Cinematical reports that producer Gerald R. Molen (Jurassic Park, Minority Report) recently got onto two major projects: one is a sports drama about baseball players in WWII and the other is Lupin the 3rd. The sports flick is scheduled to begin filming in Feburary while no date has been set for Lupin. This news made me think of previous and ongoing anime-to-live-action attempts. Read the rest of this entry »