Arrietty in France - A Healthy Second Weekend

Arrietty, le petit monde des chapardeurs has enjoyed a healthy second week in French cinema.  According to Box Office Mojo, Arrietty continues to hold the #5 space on the box office for January 19-23.  It earned $1,268,611 for the weekend, a decline of only 9.8% from its opening week.  The number of movie screens has also been expanded to 252, an increase of 47.  The film's per-screen average is the third highest for the 1/19-23 period, at $5,034 per screen (falling narrowly behind Season of the Witch's $5,148).

Arrietty's total in France stands at $2,942,933.  It appears to have strong legs and will hopefully continue to draw in audiences in the coming days and weeks.  Later this year, Madman and Optimum will deliver Arrietty to theaters in Australia and the UK.  As reported late last night, Disney has pushed back the US release date to February 17, 2012.  Blu-Ray and DVD releases are also planned for later this year.

Arrietty the Borrower US Release Delayed Until February, 2012

Arrietty the Borrower's US release has been delayed until February 17, 2012.

According to Deadline.com, Disney will not release Studio Ghibli's latest theatrical feature in North America this year as widely expected.  Instead, the movie has scheduled for February of next year.  An official announcement on release date and cast is expected soon.

Clearly, this is very frustrating and disappointing news.  Arrietty is currently playing in theatres across France, and will soon be headed to the UK and Australia.  Once again, the US and Canada are the last in line.  By this time next year, Goro Miyazaki's Kokuriko-Zaka Kara will have already played on Japanese movie screens, and Ghibli will be gearing up for their next feature production, presumably Hayao Miyazaki's next epic.

Not only that, Arrietty will be released on Blu-Ray and DVD this summer in Japan, France, and possibly elsewhere.  It is now entirely conceivable that a US theatrical release may not happen at all, and the movie would simply go directly to video.  This does not bode well for the prospects of any future Studio Ghibli movies not directed by Miyazaki being seen on American movie screens.  Is this an indication of the future of the Disney-Ghibli relationship?  Some relationship.

This is very discouraging.  We may have to wait for the next Hayao Miyazaki-directed film before we Americans can see Ghibli on the big screen again.  This is why I told you to see Ponyo and Earthsea while we had the chance, kids.

Photos - Anne of Green Gables

I recently added a large number of screenshots from Anne of Green Gables to Ghibli Blog's Facebook page, so I decided I should post a few here on the website.  Anne is another classic in the Takahata-Miyazaki canon that I don't spend nearly enough time writing about; one of these days, we're going to sit down and go through the entire series, episode by episode, start to finish.

I think it's very insightful to compare Isao Takahata's version of Anne to the popular Canadian tv production from the 1980s.  While they are both similar in many ways, Takahata's Anne is much more rooted in the neo-realist tradition, with a reverence towards accuracy in all details, great and small.  The World Masterpiece Theater series was a way to introduce Japanese audiences, young and old, to the outside world.  These series - Heidi, Marco, Anne - are as much about their respective Western countries as they are about the original books.

Takahata also balances this naturalism with the romantic flair of Anne Shirley's vivid imagination.  We are constantly brought into her world, and her world takes on a surreal, impressionist flair.  This psychological focus is a signature element of the Takahata style, and no other director has focused so intensely on the paradox of psychology in animation.  No character in animation is real, after all; these are drawings and paintings.  But how do you portray a character's thoughts, their mood, their personality?  Walt Disney and his animators discovered how to reveal character through movement.  The genius of Takahata is how he can reveal character through stillness, silence.

Mamoru Oshii once declared that "Isao Takahata is walking logic."  You can see that powerful intellect on display throughout his career, and especially so in Anne of Green Gables.

A Blue Totoro Plush Hat

We had a look at a Catbus Hat recently, and how here's a cute and charming blue Totoro Plush Hat to complete the ensemble.  I like this one a lot more; it's just more practical for cold Minnesota winters.  Also, it's blue.  I'll have to order a pair for Marcee and myself.

You can order the Totoro Plush Hat from Amazon and ThinkGeek.  Not bad for a "traffic bait" post, eh?

2011 Oscar Nominations: King's Speech, True Grit, Social Network

This morning, the 2011 Oscar nominations were announced.  "The King's Speech" leads with 12 nominations, while the Coen Brothers, our local heroes, surged into second place with "True Grit" and 10 nominations.  "The Social Network," the early runaway favorite, sits at third place with eight nods.  "The Boxer" and "Inception" also received eight picks, including Best Picture.  This could be an interesting battle for the top awards.

Christopher Nolan was ignored for a Best Director nomination, and this seems to be causing grief on Twitter.  If the Motion Picture Academy were wiser, Inception would be a stronger contender for the top awards.  They lament falling ratings for the Oscars, and yet they studiously avoid any movie that was a hit at the box office.  It would also help if they opened up Best Picture and Best Director to, say, comedies, documentaries, or animation.  Instead, it's the same dramas released late in the year.

Animation fans will be happy to see "Toy Story 3" nominated for Best Picture, but this is a ceremonial pick.  Academy voters are still struggling to fill ten Best Picture slots, and the second half, like last year, are throwaways.  Pixar will still be happy to have another feather in their cap.

I am surprised and happy to see Sylvain Chomet's "The Illusionist" nominated for Best Animated Feature.  Once again, spaces are reserved for Pixar Movie and Dreamworks Movie, and this remains a category that nobody in particular really cares about.  Pixar will walk away with the Oscar yet again, because it requires the least amount of time to think about.

Here are the complete 2011 Oscar Nominations:

Best Picture

‘Black Swan’
‘The Fighter’
‘Inception’
‘The Kids Are All Right’
‘The King’s Speech’
‘127 Hours’
‘The Social Network’
‘Toy Story 3′
‘True Grit’
‘Winter’s Bone’

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky, ‘Black Swan’
David O’Russell, ‘The Fighter’
Tom Hooper, ‘The King’s Speech’
David Fincher, ‘The Social Network’
Joel and Ethan Coen, ‘True Grit’

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, ‘Biutiful’
Jeff Bridges, ‘True Grit’
Jesse Eisenberg, ‘The Social Network’
Colin Firth, ‘The King’s Speech’
James Franco, ‘127 Hours’

Best Actress

Annette Bening, ‘The Kids Are All Right’
Nicole Kidman, ‘Rabbit Hole’
Jennifer Lawrence, ‘Winter’s Bone’
Natalie Portman, ‘Black Swan’
Michelle Williams, ‘Blue Valentine’

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, ‘The Fighter’
John Hawkes, ‘Winter’s Bone’
Jeremy Renner, ‘The Town’
Mark Ruffalo, ‘The Kids Are All Right’
Geoffrey Rush, ‘The King’s Speech’

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, ‘The Fighter’
Helena Bonham Carter, ‘The King’s Speech’
Melissa Leo, ‘The Fighter’
Hailee Steinfeld, ‘True Grit’
Jacki Weaver, ‘Animal Kingdom’

Best Animated Feature Film

‘How to Train Your Dragon’
‘Illusionist’
‘Toy Story 3′

Best Foreign Film

Mexico - ‘Biutiful’
Greece - ‘Dogtooth’
Denmark - ‘In a Better World’
Canada - ‘Incendies’
Algeria - ‘Outside the law’

Best Original Screenplay

‘Another Year’
‘The Fighter’
‘Inception’
‘The Kids Are All Right’
‘The King’s Speech’

Best Adapted Screenplay

‘127 Hours’
‘The Social Network’
‘Toy Story 3′
‘True Grit’
‘Winter’s Bone’

Best Art Direction

‘Alice in Wonderland’
‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I’
‘Inception’
‘The King’s Speech’
‘True Grit’

Best Costume Design

‘Alice in Wonderland’
‘I Am Love’
‘The King’s Speech’
‘The Tempest’
‘True Grit’

Best Original Score

‘How to Train Your Dragon’ John Powell
‘Inception’ Hans Zimmer
‘The King’s Speech’ Alexandre Desplat
‘127 Hours’ A.R. Rahman
‘The Social Network’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Best Documentary

‘Exit through the Gift Shop’ Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz
‘Gasland’ Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
‘Inside Job’ Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
‘Restrepo’ Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
‘Waste Land’ Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

Best Film Editing

‘Black Swan’
‘The Fighter’
‘The Kings Speech’
‘127 Hours’
‘The Social Network’

Best Makeup

‘Barney’s Version’
‘The Way Back’
‘The Wolfman’

Best Sound Editing

‘Inception’
‘Toy Story 3′
‘TRON: Legacy’
‘True Grit’
‘Unstoppable’

Best Sound Mixing

‘Inception’
‘The King’s Speech’
‘Salt’
‘The Social Network’
‘True Grit’

Jainko Chie Added to Video Rotation

As you can see, I've added Isao Takahata's 1981 movie Jarinko Chie to the video rotation in the middle column.  This video (the complete movie on one Youtube window) includes English subtitles, so everyone is able to follow along.  As always, I don't know how long this movie will remain on Youtube before it is pulled by TMS, so be sure to take advantage of the opportunity and watch the movie.

Also, the link to the Jarinko Chie fansub (720p Blu-Ray) is available at the Downloads section.  Since France remains the only Western country to see a commercial release, the fansub will remain your only option for seeing Takahata's most excellent film.  This is a marvelous picture and you owe it to yourself to watch it once or twice.

Finally, I've added a folder of Jarink Chie (BD) screenshots to The Ghibli Blog on Facebook page.  Feel free to visit and share your impressions.  Arigatou.

Goro Miyazaki's 44th Birthday

A belated Happy Birthday to Goro Miyazaki, who turned 44 last Friday, January 21.  He is currently in production as director of Studio Ghibli's next feature, Kokuriko-Zaka Kara, which is currently scheduled for a summer release.  Let's hope that Goro-San has a terrific 2011.

Oh, and if this next movie crashes and burns like Gedo Senki did, you'll be remembered as the guy who killed Studio Ghibli.  So, no pressure at all, Goro-San.  No pressure at all.

Miyazaki and Friends Volunteering at Totoro's Forest

While those of us in the United States spent our Sunday watching the Packers and the Steelers, Hayao Miyazaki and 200 volunteers spent their day cleaning up the preserved forest Fuchi no Mori, or more commonly known as "Totoro's Forest."  The 5,700 square meter area in Higashi-Murayama (nearby Tokorozawa, where Miyazaki-san lives) served as the inspiration for the pristine wilderness in My Neighbor Totoro.

Plans for residential development in this area were defeated in 2007, thanks to the work of Miyazaki and local residents.  Later that year, they presented the city of Higashimurayama 73 million yen ($620,000) to preserve the land.  In 2008, Pixar organized a charity art auction to raise money for another forest preserve in the Sayama Hills; this area was also an inspiration for Totoro.

Thanks to NHK and Anime News Network for the report.

Photos - Mei and the Kittenbus

Yes, these are actual photos of Mei and the Kittenbus, which remains an exclusive addition to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan.  This comes from the terrific 2003 DVD documentary, Lasseter-San, Arigatou.  This documentary was released only in Japan, and is a video diary of Hayao Miyazaki's 2002 visit to North America for the Disney release of Spirited Away.  The entire enterprise was under the strict supervision of John Lasseter, who immediately became Miyazaki's champion Hollywood.

Miyazaki shared Mei and the Kittenbus with the Pixar staff on his visit, and this is where the screenshots come from.  Lasseter-San, Arigatou is a terrific DVD, and should be seen by Ghibli and Pixar lovers alike.  Consider this a real gem in your movie library; the odds of this being released outside of Japan is next to nil.  Too bad for the rest of the world.

I do hope Miyazaki has a plan to protect his works after his death.  You just know the powers that be will be pillaging his works for endless sequels and cheap knockoffs.  It it were an American cartoon character, we'd already have at least a dozen Totoro videos.  Perish the thought!

Castle in the Sky, My Neighbors the Yamadas Blu-Ray in Australia April 20

Madman Entertainment has announced this week that Studio Ghibli's latest Blu-Ray discs, Laputa: Castle in the Sky and My Neighbors the Yamadas, will be released in Australia on April 20. Huzzah!

This is excellent news. I was fully expecting to have bragging rights for owning the Japanese Ghibli Blu-Rays straight through the summer. It seems Ghibli may be moving more aggressively on the global market. This is good news for the rest of us. If these BDs are coming to Australia in three months, then the UK and France can't be far behind. The North American market will likely be the last, and left up to Disney's schedule.

Fan Impressions of Princess Mononoke, 1999

I wanted to share this page of reviews by fans who were lucky enough to see early pre-release screenings of the Miramax-dubbed Princess Mononoke in 1999. I find this to be a very valuable tool, in that we are weeing initial impressions from dedicated Studio Ghibli fans back when they were truly the keepers of the flame. They were fierce defenders of Ghibli, but eager to see Hayao Miyazaki win mainstream acceptance. Anime during this time was still very much an underground, "alternative" thing, while greater America was indifferent, baffled or hostile.

Heck, Roger Ebert was pretty much the only major film critic in the US to openly champion anime, and do so on anime's own terms. This sub-culture appeared as counterculture as the beats of the '50s and the hippies of the '60s. Thankfully, we've come a long way in the years since, but that's because of the generational shift as younger people embrace the scene.

For me, I'm really enjoying these short essays. I haven't spent serious time with Mononoke in a number of years, so this really does feel like a rediscovery, one that gives me a greater appreciation not only of Miyazaki's vision, but the American version as well. Now if only I could get that nasty scratch removed from my R2 Mononoke DVD...


Fan Impressions of Princess Mononoke (1999, Nausicaa.net)

Forest of the Shishi Gami

Forest of the Shishi Gami - Mononoke Hime fansite

I discovered this ancient (by internet time) website devoted to Mononoke Hime.  It was last updated back in August, 1998, which means this is an unfiltered look into Miyazaki's grand epic.  This site essentially explains the characters and many of the concepts in the film, and some of the ideas from Japan's mythic past that are unknown to Westerners.

I think we're very fortunate that this website is still alive on the internet (graphics are long gone), so we should take advantage of the opportunity and preserve this history while we still can.  For the future Mononoke Blu-Ray, I would like to see a greater effort to communicate and explain the more Japanese elements of the film, instead of just glossing it over.  Some better subtitles, one that retained the Japanese titles, would be an excellent start.

Sake Into Wine: Neil Gaiman and Princess Mononoke

A number of years ago, Hollywood Gothique sat down with Neil Gaiman to discuss his American adaptation for Princess Mononoke. His rendition of a Studio Ghibli script is unique in that it retains a poetic, lyrical style, one that respects the original dialog while also explaining certain elements of Asian culture to Western audiences.  This is always a debating point for the dubs-versus-subs crowd, and that's perfectly fine.  But what cannot be denied is the honest, heartfelt desire to bring Hayao Miyazaki's vision to the outside world.

In the interview, Gaiman discusses the challenges in balancing translation with adaptation, and of conveying ideas that fall between the gaps of the two languages:

So there was a certain amount of creativity, not just mechanical translation.

There was an enormous amount of creativity in the job. If it had just been a matter of taking the script and tidying up the language to make it sound more like dialogue, that would have been easy. The fun for me was that all of these people are different; they have different characters and different voices.

There was some issue with Miramax about retaining the Japanese flavor in the dialog, suggestions that you replace "Samurai" with "Warrior."

That got a bit silly for awhile. “Samurai” they left; we got to keep “samurai.” We lost “sake”; “sake” became “wine.” We lost “Japan,” interestingly enough, and we even lost China—at one point [in the original version] they talk about these guns that come from China.

Did you have to be real concerned with synchronization, writing dialog that matches how long the characters' mouths are moving?

It’s not even a matter of how long they’re moving their mouths. It’s a matter of matching exactly. People have been asking if we reanimated it. There are two schools of thought coming out from the film. School of Thought #1 is that we reanimated the mouth movements. School #2 is that they must have made two different versions at the same time.

In Japan, it's standard to post-dub animation, so clearly it can be done.

What is interesting is that we actually match the mouth movements better than the Japanese one did, only because what would break suspension of disbelief for an American audience is much more than for a Japanese audience, so we had to be closer.

The delight with PRINCESS MONONOKE is we set a new standard for dubs. You get different responses from fans, because you get different types of fans watching it. One are the people who have seen the original Japanese film many times; sometimes they love it, and sometimes they have stuff they miss from the Japanese version, in terms of performances. In the Japanese one, for example, the part of Moro, the giant wolf, is played by a transvestite, a female impersonator; it actually sounds, frankly, like a fairly deep-voiced male actor, although Moro the wolf is a female. So they sort of remember a very deep, growling kind of voice. Now, we have Gillian Anderson, and we don’t try to recreate that voice. There was no attempt to recreate that. There was no attempt to tell Gillian Anderson, “Do it in a deep voice like a bloke” or anything. The idea was, we have Gillian Anderson, and she’s wonderful and astonishing, and she’s really, really good. We did that all the way through. Billy Bob [Thornton]does not sound like the Jigo from the Japanese version. But on the other hand, Billy Bob as this wonderful, sort of used car salesman—this little wild card forever fiddling stuff behind the scenes—is terrific.

You had to fill American audiences in on background information that would be obvious to Japanese viewers.  For instance, when Ashitaka cuts his hair, it symbolizes that he is now "dead" to the people of his village.

In the Japanese one, they are talking about other things, and he goes and cuts his hair, puts it on the alter, goes out, and never comes back to his village. As far as most Americans are concerned at this point, he’s just given himself a haircut, possibly because it’s going to be a slightly long trip. You want people to get the same amount of information that they would have got.

Was there a trade-off?  Did you have to leave out other dialog to make room for these new bits of information?

Rarely. Mostly no. There was very little that got left out. You change things for effect. At one point they’re talking about women and how they have to stay and guard the town. The captain of the guard says, “Don’t worry about our ladyship. I will protect her.” One of the women in Japanese turns to him and says, “Useless!”—and everybody laughs. Which is fair enough, but it doesn’t take you terribly far in doing the translation. You go, “Why is she saying ‘useless’? Why is this so funny?” So I have her go, “Even if you were a woman, you’d still be an idiot!”—and everybody laughs. Now, we lost the word “useless,” but we had the laugh and the context.

The Ghibli Blog on Wordle

I used the RSS feed to create a Wordle of The Ghibli Blog. A very impressive of this past week's events, don't you think? Heck, if I could add a logo to this word sculpture, or Photoshop the words "Ghibli Blog" into the mix, I could print this on t-shirts. Now that would be super cool, and in keeping with the punk rock tradition. Every band has to have their own t-shirt.

Update 1:42 -- I had so much fun tinkering around with the Wordle designer, I created a second one. This time, I used the site's main address. The classic movie poster style is pretty impressive, no? And this is the kind of graphic design that really grabs me. If and when I publish books based on this blog, this is exactly the cover design I'll pursue.

The Dumbing Down of the American Moviegoer, Ctd.

Sumitted without comment.  This review of Princess Mononoke was written in 1999, at the time of its theatrical release in the United States:

A film like this difficult to import, thanks to the cultural differences between Japan and the U.S. Lots of work was done to make the script understandable to American audiences; what's not necessary to explain in Japan might be necessary to explain in the U.S. This means the dialogue is not a direct translation. Sometimes this can work against the movie, like the bad dubbing script for Akira (the subtitled tape I have is much better). But Mononoke's script is good, and if ever there was dubbing that was top-notch, it's in this movie. (Kiki is also very well dubbed.) But dubbing is dubbing. Hearing a character say, "Forest God! We give you back your head!" is just funny no matter how it's said. If I'd just been reading it in subtitles while the original voices spoke on-screen, the cultural gap might not have been so silly—reading a translation like that is different from hearing a character come right out and say it. The audience laughed several times at things that were not meant to be funny. Sometimes, I understood why, like the head line, while other times I was cringing at what seemed to be a lack of openness to another culture's visions, like the strange human face of the Forest God. (Or maybe I was cringing to fight back my own smirking reaction to that face.) Either way, it's distracting and takes you out of the movie.