Categories
Bowl Of Noses

New Miyazaki Film!


The new film from Hayao Miyazaki will open in Japan this month.  So the countdown for it coming stateside has begun.  It’s already being called a classic.

The official Studio Ghibli website for it is here now though (okay, so what if it is in Japanese, just click around it and explore!).  Evidently it is geared for a younger audience than the last few and is closer in tone to MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO and KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE.  The film is called PONYO ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA.
The title character, Ponyo, is a girl fish with a human face who decides one day to leave her underwater home — and her school of smaller sisters — to see what lies on the surface. Riding on the back of a jellyfish, she is nearly trapped by a drift net, but escapes — with her head stuck in a glass jar. Sosuke , a boy who lives on a house on a seaside cliff, spots Ponyo in the shallows and rescues her. He is delighted with his new pet — and Ponyo is delighted to be in the human world at last. She says her first words, to Sosuke’s astonishment — and begins a transformation from half-fish to human.

Meanwhile, her human father, Fujimoto, who lives in an undersea manse with Ponyo’s sea-queen mother, starts to search for her. With his long hair, beaky nose and tormented, bags-under-the-eyes expression, Fujimoto looks like a decayed aristocrat from a shojo manga (girls’ comic), but he possesses magical powers over the waves, which become like living creatures under his command. What can a mere kid, if one with a feisty mom he calls Lisa, and a good-natured, if mostly absent, ship-captain dad, do to stop him?
I wonder what will the equivalent of the Cat Bus in this one?
Categories
These Are Those Things

One Of The Top Films Of All Time: Chris Marker’s La Jetee

Chris Marker’s LA JETEE haunts many filmmakers’ work.  When I went to NYU, it was required viewing and I think you can see it’s influence in many grads’ work.  Its marriage of form and content has rarely been equaled.  His film SANS SOLEIL has also forever provoked me to deliver a true Essay Film — and I will one day.  Both are Required Viewing.  

One of the beautiful things about his work is that its effect runs far beyond the work at hand; he changes how we look at things, makes us reflect upon our own choices.  Marker is a true believer in the power of the dialogue between screen and audience. He recognizes how some of the best work is created when our imagination fills in the gaps.  Today far too much is actually shown, preventing us from becoming complicit in the narratives. His great essay on Hitchcock’s VERTIGO makes clear his passion for this process.  If only others could follow this lead…

There’s a lot of great writing on this film out there. Here’s Senses Of Cinema’s

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Recommended Viewing #1: My Beautiful Girl Mari


Lee Seong-kang’s MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL MARI (2002) was one of our great film discoveries this year.  The animation is beautiful and inventive.  It’s the story of a young boy who seems to have everyone around him always leaving him.  He seems to find a solution by entering a dream world, where he meets Mari.  Seeing it’s set during his summer vacation there’s no better time to watch it than right now.  We’d say appropriate for age 7+.

Categories
The Next Good Idea

Wanted: New Database

I have a child.  I am always looking for new films to explore with him.  It’s hard to find truly age appropriate films.  I have a pretty good handle on the classics, but we like to explore too (Check out our blog Bowl Of Noses).

How sweet it would be to have a database that sorts all of the films by the age of the protagonists?  Does it exist?  Will you build it for us?
Categories
Bowl Of Noses

The Fifty Greatest Cartoons Ever!


The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals is a 1994 book by animation historian Jerry Beck.  Five of the top fifteen are up on the internet for you viewing pleasure, including one of our faves Duck Amuck.  Porky In Wackyland is so great (and not available on line).  If you don’t have the Looney Tunes Collection, we recommend a netflix order or purchase.  Vol. 1 has Duck Amuck.  Vol. 2 has Porky In Wackyland.  No life is complete without having seen Wackyland.  Seriously.  You have our word.  Check these out online.

2. Duck Amuck (1953)
6. Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)
9. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1951)
13. Steamboat Willie (1928)
15. Bad Luck Blackie (1949)
Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Brick

LEGO continues to be one of the most creative toys and companies out there. This movie is almost as good as the first Indie, and definitely tops the other three. Plus it’s only five minutes!

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Best Film of 2008: Blu

I saw another installation/film of Blu’s awhile back at a gallery in NYC with my family and we were blown (bluwn?) away.  In that one you could see him painting the animation but this one, sans human, with the sun and clouds working as the clock, adds onto the prior one’s promise. 

Right now, this is my favorite film of the 2008.  This guy’s imagination soars — and thus does the same for mine.  My son had loved the first one as much as I did.  You might want to scout this one first before screening for the young ‘uns as it is a tad freaky — but good freaky fun if you ask me.  
Of course it is ultimately graffiti and you may have to explain that one, less your walls start to change.  Not to mention the explanation on why Buenos Aires is looking cooler than NYC.



Check out his whole website here.