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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Death Note in Theaters: A Lost Opportunity
May 21, 2008 in Commentary by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 1 comment
I’ve been reading the past couple days about the live-action Death Note premiering in theaters across America in a two-day limited run and while the effort garnered a fair amount of press, I feel it was a lost opportunity of sorts. The “unique theatre event” (from the press release) likely increased the appeal of Japanese film and anime-influenced productions given the brand attraction Death Note has. However, the fact that the film was shown dubbed and forced viewers to experience that instead of experiencing the original cast’s voices makes me shake my head in shame as a film purist first and an anime fan second. (I suppose it shouldn’t be called ‘forcing’ since attendees are willingly paying $10 per ticket but still.) Regular readers know that I am more forgiving than others with regard to dubs but why didn’t Viz think about bankrolling subtitles on their prints?
What’s odd about this is that in the next couple months, Bandai is going to be screening The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in limted release in three different locations: Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The two West Coast cities will be getting the subtitled version while those in New York will see the English dubbed version. While it’s good that there are different options, it seems like New Yorkers are getting the shaft in a way.
I would prefer anime films be screened domestically the same way foreign films are shown in arthouse theaters – with minimal alterations and subtitled so the audience can understand as best as possible. Alas, this is not likely to happen in the near future with financial interest tied in with these promotional screenings.
Tags: Death Note, Movies, theaters