Wonderful Days...a Korean anime masterpiece? (1 Viewer)

[Dan Rudolph]

Dennis, some people would argue Lion King was original.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Lion King, IMO, clearly falls in the "reimagining" category (without a lot of imagination, unfortunately) And the idea for the story/ specific characters/ scenes even! were lifted directly from...anime! D'OH! (At least they chose a good source to pilfer! )

Osamu Tezuka's "Kimba the White Lion" (no, not Simba, KIMBA!)

Congratulations to Hayao Miyazaki for the nomination for "Spirited Away"...I doubt he'll win, because as we all know, the more deserving a film is, the less likely an Oscar win is...

-Dennis

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Congratulations to Hayao Miyazaki for the nomination for "Spirited Away"...I doubt he'll win, because as we all know, the more deserving a film is, the less likely an Oscar win is...

How sad but true. On RottenTomatoes.com Spirited Away has around 120+ reviews, and only 1 of them is negative. It's really sad.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Pretty much everythign has been done. It's just a matter of findign a combo that hasn't been doen together ort soemthignt hat hasn't been done much recently.

 

[TheLongshot]

I doubt he'll win, because as we all know, the more deserving a film is, the less likely an Oscar win is...

Actually, I think it has half a chance of winning. It has picked up some end-of-the-year awards, which is usually a good sign that a film will win.

Jason

 

[Seth Paxton]

I would be shocked if Spirited Away doesn't win. I don't think anyone who has seen it thinks it's not the best animated film of the year by a wide margin (and I have yet to see it myself).

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Check this out:

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron-68%
Treasure Planet-72%
Ice Age-75%
Lilo & Stitch-85%
Spirited Away-98%

And Spirited Away probably won't win.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

I don't think it received a wide enough release for it to be seen by enough "normal folks" and because of that fact, it won't generate enough "buzz" or interest by Academy members to go see it. And couple that with the fact that Disney will be marketing its own films for Oscar wins; a work they are distributing (and in control of here in the U.S.) won't receive much of a push, if any, from them...so I predict that "Lilo & Stitch" will probably win, with a win for "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" or "Ice Age" to be considered big coups for their respective studios. A win for Miyazaki given all these unfortunate circumstances would be a MIRACLE. Believe me, I hope I'm wrong.

Seth: Was Spirited Away ever playing anywhere reasonably close to where you live? (My suspicion is "No": DAMN YOU, DISNEY!)

-Dennis

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I don't think it received a wide enough release for it to be seen by enough "normal folks" and because of that fact, it won't generate enough "buzz" or interest by Academy members to go see it.

If it were playing in 3000 theaters nationwide most Academy voters wouldn't go see it. Most of them don't have time to go to the movies. That's why they send out Academy screeners
Hopefully Disney included OSL, but I have a sneaking suspicion they didn't :frowning:
Word on the street is that Disney was at least considering a fast wide release of the movie if it got nominated. Hopefully it'll be true and be announced soon

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Jason: I finally watched the video clip...it's pretty cool; they built a crapload of miniatures for this, easily on par with some of the miniature work for the LOTR series/ SW series. Pretty neat...if you can wait for the media player version to download (I waited about 20 minutes on DSL, before the entire thing would play through smoothly...well worth the wait)


Jeff: True, most voters don't go to the movies...but building a buzz (and box office to back it up) would make the movie an easier sell to the Academy (unfortunately, box office does matter to some degree). I wonder if Disney will do a wider release only after it wins the Oscar? I hope they do it before, so that Seth can see it in a theater!

-Dennis

 

[Seth Paxton]

Seth: Was Spirited Away ever playing anywhere reasonably close to where you live?

Yes, it played here in Indy for a couple of weeks. I wasn't in the anime mood and didn't go to see it, then it was too late. I've kicked myself ever since. Every now and then I won't be in the arthouse mood and I end up missing a shot at a film that I really like later. Then for several months after that I make sure to get to everything I can when it's there. Then I relax again and restart the cycle.

I missed Donnie Darko at the theater this way too.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

I do exactly the same thing...though I used to watch tons of foreign/ art house films in the theater when I lived in NY (and was mostly single)...now I'm married to a woman who really doesn't like most art films/ foreign films, and live on the West Coast, where I'm more likely to watch a chick flick/ big budget action film than anything else (if it involves my wife). But that's exactly what DVD is good for...if I had been in this situation pre-DVD (LD at best), I'd be spending a fortune to buy/try to rent films that look interesting (actually, I spent a fortune on LD's anyway!)

-Dennis

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Jeff: True, most voters don't go to the movies...but building a buzz (and box office to back it up) would make the movie an easier sell to the Academy (unfortunately, box office does matter to some degree). I wonder if Disney will do a wider release only after it wins the Oscar? I hope they do it before, so that Seth can see it in a theater!

Actually, it did extremely well per screen. I believe the final gross is around 5.5 million with only around 100 prints out there. That's an average of $50,000/screen which is the equiv of the first 2 weekends of something like Star Wars. On average it stuck around about a month in major markets.

 

[Ted Lee]

i never knew they used models in animation? i've always thought (at least in the traditional sense) that it was hand-drawn or cgi.

what do they do with the models? rotoscope it?

anyway, those clips look freakin' amazing! can't wait for this one!

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Just caught me on my way out...

They photographed extremely detailed miniatures (all with Sony HD cameras, a la Spy Kids 2, AOTC) and combined them in shots with (sometimes) CG animated elements (vehicles, etc), digital paintings, traditional paintings, and traditional cel drawn animated characters, all composited on a computer; it's a cool clip, and shows that they're just as advanced in their techniques as Disney, ILM, etc, with equally, if not more, eye-popping results. What amazed me watching the clip, is the AMOUNT of actual models that they've built, a lot of what I would have guessed was first rate CGI is actually miniatures! (I was equally impressed with AOTC on this point.)

A short clip, and the quality is not that great in WM format, but well worth a look if the still images and trailer intrigue you...

-Dennis

 

[Rob Lutter]

Uh... it isn't anime. Anime = the Japanese word for "animation" and doesn't have a damn thing to do with this Korean work.

It's Koreanime

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Rob: I will politely disagree with you; you might want to read page 1 of this thread...

-Dennis

 

[Seth Paxton]

now I'm married to a woman who really doesn't like most art films/ foreign films

Go to the theater with my better half? Not if I want to see half of the best films of the year. I punted on that long ago and just go by myself.

She and I "enjoyed" "How to Lose a Guy..." though.

In fairness to her she didn't care for "How to" any more than me.

 

[Seth Paxton]

And speaking of Spirited Away and Oscars, at least the Academy woke up and created the Animated Feature award. Even if SA doesn't win (which would surprise me with its buzz), at least it gets presented to a huge viewing audience come Oscar night.

Now I have to wonder if Dennis will be gloating in a couple of years about how he had the animation Oscar winner picked out long ago.

If this film delivers on its promise I don't think that's so far fetched.

 

[Rob Lutter]

Rob: I will politely disagree with you; you might want to read page 1 of this thread...

First of all... damn that person on the first page for coming up with the term "Koreanime" before me.

And second of all... it isn't anime ("anime" is romanji in Japanese for, literally, "animation"). I would call it "anime-esque" :p)

Let's agree to disagree! (does it really matter anyways?)