Guest post by Tyne Lowe. In the first thirty minutes of Miss Hokusai, artist O-Ei walks through Edo with her blind younger sister, O-Nao, and attempts to explain their father’s art to her. The viewer has been introduced to their father, Katsushiko Hokusai (referred to in the film as Tetsuzo), as a somewhat eccentric and… Read more »
Every month, A Place for Film brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked… Read more »
The first feature-length anime (slang for Japanese animation) that I saw, as opposed to TV shows such as Dragon Ball Z or Cowboy Bebop, was a Hayao Miyazaki film. He has directed some wonderful anime films which have been primarily aimed at children, such as Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) and My Neighbor Totoro (1988). I expected… Read more »
In 1963, aspiring Japanese animator Kihachiro Kawamoto traveled from Japan to Prague to study stop motion animation under Czech animator Jiří Trnka’s direction. According to an interview for Midnight Eye, the young Kawamoto sent Trnka a letter “and waited for over 6 months” for the reply and an invitation to come to Prague to learn… Read more »
When Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) was released, critics and audiences heaped praise on it for its “realistic” depiction of its star subjects: dinosaurs. Janet Maslin of The New York Times characterized them as “Amazingly graceful and convincing, they set a sky-high new standard for computer generated special effects.” Likewise, Kenneth Turan of The Los… Read more »
Ed. note: contains spoilers for The Land Before Time. It was with a certain trepidation I revisited the films of Don Bluth. It’s probably been over 20 years since I first saw his classic films, including The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), and All Dogs Go to… Read more »