Trailers - My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso

This weekend, the Studio Ghibli Film Festival at the Minneapolis Lagoon Cinema kicks off its second week with the Hayao Miyazaki's classics: My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Porco Rosso.  Totoro will appear in Japanese and English versions, while Kiki and Porco are both in Japanese, w/subtitles.

My Neighbor Totoro is easily the star of the show.  It's the iconic Studio Ghibli movie, and if you've only come to the festival for one or two movies, Totoro is likely on your list.  My advice?  Buy your tickets early, because they're going to sell out fast.  The English-language version will definitely be packed with the younger kids, but parents should feel fine bringing the family to the Japanese (English subtitled) version as well.  The subtitles are large enough that it's easy to read.  Besides, we've all seen Totoro a thousand times by now.

Kiki's Delivery Service gets less attention than Totoro, but I think it's an equally great movie, continuing its pastoral sense of daily life, and painted in wonderful shades of green.  It's the rare coming-of-age story that focuses equally on what is lost (childhood) on the path to adolescence.  Miyazaki is honest with his audience, and I really respect that.  I don't know if the subtitles are true subtitles, or the dreaded "dub-titles" that we've been stuck with for years.  The key will be whether there's a Hindenberg gag line ("Oh, the humanity").  That line's not in the Japanese script.

Porco Rosso is my personal favorite of the three; I've seen the others on the big screen before, so we'll probably see this one on Sunday.  For a long time, this was my "go-to" movie for introducing newcomers to Hayao Miyazaki.  Here is a film with action and adventure, romance and nostalgia, slapstick comedy and melodrama, and many peaceful, quiet moments.  This is far closer to an animated Casablanca than Star Wars, and I do respect the film for not assaulting me with endless fight scenes.  The characters and their internal dramas take center stage.  It's Miyazaki's Mid-Life Crisis movie.

As always, here are the trailers for you to watch, so you can decide which movies to attend.  Obviously, if you have the money, see them all, but remember that this week includes Princess Mononoke, Mimi wo Sumaseba and Omohide Poro Poro.  Could we play all these movies for another few weeks, please?

Trailers - Ponyo, Castle in the Sky

Wednesday and Thursday at the Minneapolis Studio Ghibli Film Festival is devoted to Hayao Miyazaki's 2008 movie, Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea, and his 1986 adventure classic, Castle in the Sky.  We're headed into the Thanksgiving holiday, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Thursday's shows are packed.

I've written extensively about Ponyo when it arrived here in the States back in 2009, and there's not much left for me to say now.  It's a terrific picture that stands as a stubbornly defiant defense of hand-drawn animation.  After three years, I am willing to concede that the ending is a bit weak (Spirited Away was the last Miyazaki film to really score the landing), but it's such a terrific ride that it's worth every minute.

The Lagoon Cinema will be playing the Disney-dubbed version of Ponyo, which was pretty good.  I still could do without that crummy auto-tuned pop song at the closing credits...yuck.  Letting Disney try to cynically turn Ponyo into a star vehicle for yet another Jonas Brother didn't quite pan out, did it?  Ah, well, the kids and parents will be happy.

For me, Castle in the Sky is the one to see.  It's still the only Ghibli Blu-Ray from Japan in my collection, thanks to the horrific import price ($80 w/shipping).  It's going to look fantastic in 35mm, projected on the big screen.  Studio Ghibli's debut film has everything: adventure, romance, amazing action, dazzling visuals.  Miyazaki swung for the fences just as he did with Nausicaa, leaving nothing behind.  For many years, anime fans hailed Castle as a Miyazaki masterpiece.  Come to the show and see if you agree.

Oh, and can somebody smuggle some extra pumpkin pie into the theater for me, please?  Thanks in advance.

Trailers - Pom Poko, My Neighbors the Yamadas

Fresh off a triumphant opening weekend, the Studio Ghibli Film Festival in Minneapolis devotes Monday and Tuesday to Isao Takahata's Heisei Tanuki Gassan Pom Poko (1994) and My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999).  Both films are wildly different in subject matter, in tone, and in visual style.  They showcase an animation director's mastery of the form, his skilled sense of tragicomic melodrama, just as they showcase the remarkable artistic brilliance of Studio Ghibli.

It's easy to imagine these Ghibli films as the sole work of one man - that Hayao Miyazaki himself drew every picture, painted every cel.  This is only mythmaking, of course; the work of the studio's artists, painters and animators are critically important to bringing these movies to life.  And it's doubly true for Takahata, who himself is not an animator.  He depends upon his artists to realize his visions.  These films are a testament to their skills.

Pom Poko and Yamadas can easily be overlooked in the Ghibli canon, but once you sit down and watch, you are mesmerized, awed.  Why don't I watch this movie, or that movie, more often?  Why am I not writing more, sharing more?  You know the feeling.  We are blessed with a bounty of riches.  Every one of Takahata and Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films (and I'll also include Yoshifumi Kondo's Mimi/Whisper) can be rightfully called a masterpiece.  These two men are the world's greatest living movie directors, and they've earned their title.

MPR Discusses Studio Ghibli Film Festival in Minneapolis

On Friday, Minnesota Public Radio devoted a portion of their weekly radio movie hour to the Studio Ghibli Film Festival, now playing at the Lagoon Theater in Minneapolis.  Stephanie Curtis, known on MPR as "The Movie Maven," has been on my must-contact list for years, and one of these days, I'm going to send her a box of discs and movie files from the entire Takahata/Miyazaki canon.

You can play MPRs Friday program here.  In addition to Studio Ghibli, Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" opens this week, and it promises to be a sensational picture.  Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest actor of our time, isn't he?  He should be a lock for the Best Actor Oscar, if there's any justice in the world.