Hello Laurier!
This week on the Popcorn Corner I talked about recent Star Wars casting rumours, how much I love Rooney Mara, my thoughts on Frozen and why I think Gangs of New York is not that great.
The big thing for me this week has been animation movies. Other than Frozen, I watched the great Spirited Away. It’s my first Miyazaki film, and it is absolutely gorgeous. The story is very imaginative, and is most definitely weird, but is cute and heartfelt and hilarious all at the same time.
The film stars a young 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, who is moving to the country with her parents. Along the way, they take a detour, and find an abandoned amusement park. When night falls, Chihiro’s parents are turned into pigs, and it is revealed that the amusement park is the resting place for different kids of spirits. With the help of friends, Chihiro tries to save her parents and get back to the human world.
The animation in this movie is simply beautiful. Every little detail is drawn, and you can see the care that was put into animating the movie. It is all hand-drawn, and the complexity and beauty of the animation is simply mind-blowing. As a first introduction to Miyazaki films, it definitely makes me want to explore more of his back catalogue. This is a children’s movie that deals with some serious themes and plot lines – definitely check it out.
If you listened to the whole episode of the Popcorn Corner, you might have been confused as to what played at the very end. As I said at the beginning of the show, trailer voice actor Hal Douglas died recently. His demo reel of various trailers is up on youtube, and I just played a sample for you. Here is the rest of it:
If you ever wanted to see the great master Steven Spielberg at work, check out this awesome video of him behind the scenes of Jurassic Park. It is really, really cool.
Since this blog is supposedly about animation this week, check out this short teaser/sneak preview Dreamworks Animation released for their upcoming movie Almost Home. I’m not quite sure what to think of it…to me it looks like a regular, boring Dreamworks Animation movie. Hopefully it proves me wrong!
I’ll leave you with this short animated movie – Paperman. Made in 2012, it is absolutely beautiful. Check it out.
Cheers!