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HowlsMovingCastle Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Studio Ghibli's New Film... and More Miyazaki

Filed under: Animation », Foreign Language », Deals »

Studio GhibliDirector Isao Takahata, who co-founded Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki, has revealed that he will be directing his first feature-length flick since 1999's My Neighbors the Yamadas. Takahata, who also wrote and directed the tear-jerker Grave of the Fireflies, will be taking on the classic folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, or Taketori Monogatari.

According to Asian Pulse, "Taketori Monogatari has directly and indirectly inspired many Japanese manga and anime, such as Sailormoon and Inuyasha. This beloved story is considered to be the oldest surviving example of Japanese narrative... A little baby is found inside the stalk of a glowing plant by a bamboo cutter. He takes her home, and raises her with his wife as their own daughter, and they give her the name Kaguya-Hime (radiant-night princess). She grows into a beautiful adult woman, with many suitors, even the Emperor of Japan – and she rebuffs them all. Then, things become even more complicated as her true lineage becomes revealed, and her special relationship with the moon."

Although this famous tale has been the subject of many movies (Empire Online notes that it was also the subject of Kon Ichikawa's Taketori Monogatari, aka Princess from the Moon) this is the first time that Ghibli has ventured into folklore territory.

Asian Pulse also revealed that the revered Miyazaki, who wrote and directed Ponyo, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro, just to name a few, is in discussions to do two more features in the next three years.

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is slated for a 2010 release.

Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens 400 Blows - Small Summer Movies

Filed under: Columns », 400 Screens, 400 Blows », Summer Movies »



Iron Man opens this week, and thus the summer movie season has officially arrived. I love a good summer movie as much a the next guy, but this morning I found myself looking back at some of the little films that cropped up during the summer; some of them managed to get a "summer" feel on a much lower budget and without all the advertisement and hype. My absolute favorite summer art house movie has to be Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run (1999). I saw it three times that summer, and each time I clutched my seat, my heart pounding. I was amazed at how brilliantly Tywker had mapped out his three possible storylines and how lovely the small, quiet interludes were. I loved Franka Potente, and I loved his throbbing score, which practically entered into your bloodstream and pumped up your adrenaline by hand. Every color, movement and cut was designed for maximum effect (I've always been puzzled how Tykwer's movies since have seemed so long and sluggish.)

Also that same summer, John Sayles delivered his baffling adventure/suspense film Limbo, which had several people trapped on an island awaiting rescue and stalked by bad guys. The ending had everybody in an uproar and caused the film to die a quick death. The summer before that one, Darren Aronofsky's debut feature Pi gave me a good dose of sci-fi thrills, as well as a few head-scratching puzzles (which were actually real). 2000 was a particularly bad summer, but John Waters' Cecil B. DeMented provided a mischievous little oasis in the middle of it all. In that film, renegade filmmakers kidnap a Hollywood starlet and force her to be in their indie production; each team member has a tattoo of a maverick filmmaker's name. (I've often wondered which filmmaker's name I would pick for a tattoo? Maybe David Cronenberg...)
 
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