Some News About International Animation

FROZEN from Walt Disney Studios

The movie-going public in the USA fell in love with this
animated feature like hardly any other, "Frozen" (2013). It not only won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, but almost anyone who is a child or has a child in the family knows the featured song by memory, almost if not totally. It received the Oscar for Best Song, same as the title. It was written by the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Robert and Kristen Lopez, who wrote all the songs for the movie.

There is no doubt in the minds of the American movie-going public that the U.S. leads the animation parade in quality, but there is high quality animation in other countries as well. Unfortunately, the language barrier is keeping those quality works from being distributed in English-speaking countries. There is no law against it. Americans, in general, do not like to read subtitles and any motion picture requiring them for the movie-going public immediatly raises a red flag for U.S. distributors. It is more profitable to saturate America with animation from Disney or Pixar and rake in the quick dough. Both are a sure bet.

Here's the trailer for "The Tale of Princess Kaguya" ('Kaguya-hime no Monogatari', 2013), the latest from Isao Takahata, also director of "Grave of the Fireflies" ('Hotaru no Haka', 1988). Language is not a problem with most of the products coming from Studio Ghibli. One can enjoy them by simply viewing them as a silent movie while enjoying a music soundtrack.


Interestingly, the films from the two founders of the legendary animation Studio Ghibli premiered in 2013 and 14. This one by Takahata and the other from the "master," Hayao Miyazaki , "The Wind Rises" ('Kaze Tachinu', 2013). Miyazaki announced it was his farewell as a director of animation. Takahata's last film before "The Tale of Princess Kaguya," was "My Neighbors the Yamadas, 1999) but he seems not to have any intention of retiring officially.

The script, for "The Tale of Princess Kaguya," which Takahata did not write, is  based on an anonymous ninth-century folk tale with the title "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter." It is the story of an elderly farming couple, who find a tiny newborn baby girl inside a bamboo plant, and decide to adopt her as their daughter. She grows more quickly than normal and many men desire her, even the emperor.

Hayao Miyazaki

 A Few Words About Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, the other founder of Studio Ghibli.This is what I wrote before I had a chance to see "The Wind Rises". I did see it and loved it as I have all of his other works: 

 http://mimiatthemovies.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-few-words-about-japanese-animator.html 

THE WIND RISES

"The Wind Rises," Official Trailer. A look at the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes, called Zeros, during World War II. Popular song in USA was, "Johnny Got A Zero". This movie written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and he wrote it is his last motion picture.

THE LATINO CONNECTION

Ale Abreu’s "The Boy and the World" (O menino e o mundo),  premièred at the Rio Film Festival, Brazil 2014, in the New Trends category. In June, "The Boy and the World" took the top prizes at the most recent prestigious international 38th Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The Brazilian feature, for which Ale Abreu drew all the frames, earned the top honors from both the jury and the audience. The film won both the festival’s Cristal Award as well as the audience award for favorite film during the 38th festival. This is the second year in a row that a Brazilian feature has won the top prize. In 2013 the Cristal Award went to Luiz Bolognesie’s "A Story of Love and Fury" ("Uma história de amor e fúria"). Sorry, no trailer available for "The Boy and the World" or "A Story of Love and Fury."

Discussing More Best Picture Oscar® Nominations

In the Previous post directly below, we looked at the Academy Awards® nominations, announced January 25th. We began with the Best Picture nominee that received the most nominations for the coveted Oscar®, The King's Speech (12), and right behind it, True Grit (10). Next in the order of the number of nominations for Best Picture, are The Social Network, Inception and The Fighter. The Social Network and Inception each received eight nominations.

Besides the Best Picture nod, other nominations for The Social Network are: Best Actor for Jessie Eisenberg’s portrayal of  Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, Director (David Fincher), Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin) and Original Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). Other Achievement nominations are for Cinematography, Film Editing and Sound Mixing.

The other nominations for Inception are: Art Direction, Cinematography, Original  Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, and Original Screenplay (Christopher Nolan). 

The surprise is that the creator of the film and director, Christopher Nolan, was nominated for Original Screenplay, but did not receive a nomination for Best Director. Because Nolan did not get a nomination in that category, and there is no nomination for Film Editing, either, Inception may be hurt in the final voting. The more nominations related to the Hollywood Guilds, the more votes a movie garners. With large Academy memberships are the Screen Actors Guild of (SAG), The Producers Guild of America (PGA) and the Director's Guild of America (DGA). The SAG nominations are this weekend.
 
The Fighter is next with seven nominations. Besides Best Picture, The Fighter received three acting nominations, as did The King's Speech. Christian Bale is nominated for an actor in a supporting role; Amy Adams for an actress in a supporting role; and Melissa Leo for an actress in a supporting role. Other Achievement nominations were: Directing (David O. Russell); Film Editing; and Original screenplay (Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson).
 
Click the title of this post to access the Official 2011 Oscar Web site. There will be many more posts on this blog discussing the nomination categories between now and the February 27th 83rd Academy Awards Gala. Next post? "Box Office and the Oscar".

Best Picture Oscar® Nominations and One Long Shot

I found no surprises in the Oscar nominations announced today by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the 83rd Academy Awards®. I haven't even seen The King's Speech, yet, but I tapped it a month ago to get an Oscar® nomination for the Best Motion Picture of 2010. It received the most nominations, twelve in all.

Actors Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush all received nominations, a stellar lineup. Firth was nominated for Best Actor in a lead role. Rush and Carter were nominated in the acting supporting categories, actor and actress respectively. Director Tom Hooper made the cut for achievement as best director.

The other nine Best Picture slots went to 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, Black Swan, The Social Network, Inception, The Fighter, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, and True Grit. The King's Speech did exceedingly well in the technical categories to gain a sure footing on the path to a Best Motion Picture Oscar.

Remember boys and girls, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) has the biggest voting block in the Academy. Thus, where SAG goes, the academy usually follows. SAG will give their awards this Sunday (30th).

All the actors nominated for their roles in The Social Network are also nominated for SAG awards in the same categories. Plus, the movie is nominated for the Best Cast award. The others nominated by SAG for best cast are: Black Swan, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right and The Social Network.

The other directors nominated are: David Fincher (The Social Network), Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), the Brothers Cohen (True Grit) and David O. Russell (The Fighter).

The King's Speech received seven other nominations for achievement in: art direction, cinematography, film editing, original score, original screenplay, sound mixing and costume design.

Getting the most nominations is always commendable in the Oscar race, but movies have racked up the most nominations before, only to go home empty handed. I do not think The King's Speech will experience that problem.

Now, that I have acknowledged True Grit above, I must clarify the statements used in some of the reporting about the movie's lack of even a single Golden Globe nomination. The words, or phrases, used were snubbed, overlooked, passed over, ignored, etc. The truth is, True Grit was not released until December 22, and the Globes ballots were mailed to members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) on December 2nd. The final screening date was the 8th, press conferences the 9th, and ballots were due at Ernst and Young on the 10th for tabulation. Paramount set the HFPA an impossible task.

In not releasing True Grit before December first, Paramount allowed the studio to grab a good box office gross over the holidays, and take the lead in money charts, but it was too late for True Grit to get any Golden Globe nominations. I think that was a bad move by Paramount.

True Grit came in second in the Oscar race with ten nominations, including acting honors for Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld. Also, the aforementioned Cohen brothers directing nomination as well as their nomination for best adapted screenplay. In the other "achievement in" categories, True Grit was nominated for: art direction, costume, cinematography, film editing, sound editing and mixing.

Actor Jeff Bridges (Rooster) is nominated by SAG for best actor. SAG nominated actress Hailee Stienfeld (Mattie) in the best supporting actress category, too. There has been some contention about Stienfeld's supporting actress nod. Some believe that she should have been nominated as best actress.

The best picture long shot? That would be Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney), which I previously suggested would probably be nominated in the Best Motion Picture category, as well as the Best Animated Feature Film category. With it in the last category are: How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount) and The Illusionist (Sony Pictures). If I were voting, I would vote for Toy Story 3 for the Oscar in this category. It is no Fantasia. I think the Best Picture nomination is a "special salute" to Walt Disney and all those who participated in the Toy Story trilogy, and that, in itself, is a good thing.

The same was probably true about the salute to UP last year. I personally felt that the salute was not only for Walt Disney and Pixar, as well as all who participated, but it was an extra special salute to Mr. Edward Asner and Mr. Christopher Plummer.


More posts to follow about the nominations. Next post, "Discussing Three More Best Picture Nominees".