Spirited Away Set for 800 Theatre Rerelease 296
Robotech_Master writes "According to the website of Jerry Beck, a 20-year-animation industry veteran and one of the co-founders of Streamline Animation, when Spirited Away won the Oscar, it also "won the right to be re-released to 800 theatres this Friday. Disney will be announcing plans to re-release the Japanese masterpiece in theatres later today." When I emailed Beck to ask him his source, he said it was someone within the Disney publicity department and it would be made public sometime today. According to Spirited Away's numbers page at Rotten Tomatoes, it peaked during its first run at 151 screens. Wonder how it'll do this time around?"
Will DVD sales hurt theater proceeds? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think advertising is more important than screens (Score:5, Interesting)
But the more important problem is the audience. Who is this for? Under 13? Teenagers? Adults? Are they going to show commercials during Saturday mornings between Pokemon and Digimon? Or is this after-school fare?
I still think the biggest problem is that Disney doesn't know what to do with these films. They don't fit into their standard G rating pipeline so the films end up showing on 100 screens and getting attended to by the film heads only. Too bad.
How did Mononoke do? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know Mononoke's theatrical release was lackluster, but that's largely because there were only 8 prints of the movie, and so it slowly wound its way through the country instead of having a real "release" per se. But how were the sales/rentals on the Mononoke DVD?
Re:If it failed the first time.... (Score:2, Interesting)
If Disney actually pushes "Spirited Away" it'll do just fine at the box office.
I had to travel 45 minutes away from my home to find a theatre showing it back in October. More theatres and a bit of publicity can do wonders.
dub vs. sub (Score:2, Interesting)
The first is that there are very often small details in the image that I miss if I'm distracted by subtitles. This is especially true with Miyazaki, I think.
The second is that it's much harder to follow a language like Japanese if you don't have a background in it. I grew up speaking English and studied some French. So it's easy to follow films in French, Spanish and Italian without having to read every last word. Japanese is so different that I don't get anything at all from hearing it. So I have to read the movie instead of watching it.
I haven't seen the subtitled version of Spirited Away, but I had both problems with Metropolis [imdb.com].
By the way, Spirited Away is amazing. If you can, catch it in a theater with a digital projector.
Re:Hmm.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Now saying this obviously makes me not an anime fan, but I think they should be trying to attract non-anime fans to go see this. A lot of the big corporations like to do this with movies/shows, they don't give it a chance to succeed and then say it failed, i.e. they don't advertise it, make it an inconvience to see it, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:Disney (Score:4, Interesting)
While it tickles me pink that this wonderful movie is getting another big-screen release, I doubt it will do any better this time than it did last time.
Spirited Away is just too Japanese/Asian for middle-Americans to get.
Oh, I hope not. I'd really like to think that The Rest Of Us could appreciate it. True, it's full of Japanese cultural references, but the story is still the classic kid-and-friends-on-a-quest-to-get-home story. Think of it as a Japanese "Wizard of Oz".
There's always hope. After all, no one expected "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" to do anything, and it stuck around the theaters for a year or so. Then again, my rational self doubts it. I'm afraid you're right.
Hmmm. Veddy interrresting.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Silly, but true; I love the illusions created by well-done blobs of ink and paint (or well-done CGI.) Spirited Away was a beautifully made film, and I shuddered when I found out that Disney was handling the US distribution, because I knew that there was no way in hell that they would give it the marketing that it deserved.
Fast-forward past Oscar night: Spirited Away walks away with the gold. I find it absolutely hilarious that Disney in general (and Eisner in particular) is sitting down to a 3-course meal of crow right about now. Much as I liked Lilo and Stitch, it was good because the filmmaker got Disney to stay the hell out of his way for the most part. I've been hoping that somebody would come along to derail the Disney juggernaut for a long time. Don Bluth had potential, but not the budget. Bakshi doesn't have the broad appeal. Pixar became an ally. Dreamworks is still too much in its infancy to really tell. OTOH, Japanese companies have been putting out some amazing stuff for quite a while now, with very little recognition outside of the community of "anime fans." The fact that the Mouse's in-house product lost to the redheaded stepchild has put a nice warm fuzzy feeling in my cynical, coal-black heart. Maybe AMPAS doesn't have its collective head stuck entirely where the sun don't shine after all.
I think you are not alone, however. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly, children seemed to respond very well to the film, despite its length. I think this might be because the film was effective on a level kids could understand, and because young children have not yet been fully programmed by culture as to what they are 'supposed' to find acceptable in the media they are offered. Kids are much more open to alternative ways of thinking than adults, who have been programmed and de-sensitized to such a high degree.
Of course, one might also argue that kids are simply not savvy enough to spot crap when they see it, but I think there's more going on here than that. This film was not crappy in any sense, (except in that it violated a host of Hollywood formula 'rules'.) This film was perhaps my favorite Miyazaki film to date. Very, very smart. Very insightful on many levels. There were some brilliant things done in that film, and the background works were awe inspiring. I came out of the film practically bouncing. --And I typically can't stand Anime. Miyazaki is in a whole other league of film makers. He's not one of the teeming hoards of Japanese animators still dealing with teen angst, sex and self-confidence issues which practically scream from the screens of most Anime. --Nothing wrong with that, mind you. It's obviously a required vent and forum for dealing with such issues in the otherwise unbearable pressure cooker that is Japanese culture. But such things are driven primarily by the subconscious. Miyazaki is waaaay beyond that. Miyazaki is mature in that he works with great skill from the conscious level. He knows what he is doing, and why. He is one of those creators who is in fact able to speak to the subconscious.
A good measure, for me anyway, of a film's worth is whether or not I notice my bum beginning to hurt in the theatre chair. If I do, then obviously I'm not entirely engaged by the film. This is a great, 'benchmark', (sorry), particularly with films which are as long as Spirited Away. Almost three hours!
An interesting experiment you might try is this. .
Rent Raiders of the Lost Ark and watch it. If I am not very much mistaken, then I expect you'll find it to be a rather slow, almost boring film. Amazing, considering that in the eighties, it was one of the fastest, most exciting bits of movie making ever made. I believe that this is an indicator both of just how much the speed of culture has increased, and the level of competition amongst movie makers to make each successive film more exciting than the last. A fine example of cultural programming and de-sensitization.
-Fantastic Lad
Re:Anyone else not such a fan? (my own repost) (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, the main character seemed to be a whiny little girl for far too long, and seemed fairly well-adapted to being enslaved as a bath wench. The main goal she had was to free her parents, but she doesn't actually embark on doing so until at least 2/3 of the way through the film.
Well, if you're going to criticize it based on logic and plot holes, you're going to miss the entire point. In that case, let's talk about gun battles on the outside hull of a spacehip with projectile weapons in Cowboy Bebop, kids going off their bikes at 100KPH while wearing T-shirts and getting up without even a scratch in Akira, and a million others.
It's an animated fantasy, already. You can't apply real-world standards of logic to it and still have anything enjoyable. Once you accept that you're at the bathhouse of the gods and your parents have been turned into pigs, everything else just flows from there. Enjoy it for the beautiful animation, dreamy pacing, and classic story, even if the cultural differences are going to be baffling.
The only people I know that really enjoyed Spirited Away were either the die-hard anime fans that
I fall into none of those categories. I just love movies, and if the acting, writing, story and/or direction are good enough, I can ignore a lot of imperfections. I'm sorry you didn't appreciate it. I know it's not an actioner, but try watching it again just to enjoy the story. You might feel differently about it this time.
Re:Anyone else not such a fan? (my own repost) (Score:4, Interesting)
People seem to confuse anime as a genre when it is really nothing more then a medium. I think that catches a few people off guard, in this movie and in other movies. As for this one, its not an "intelligent" anime, nor is it "goofy" anime. Its a cartoon (made in Japan so people call it an anime) made for children. Its supposed to be a magical fantasy, not a mind blowing epic.
If you went into this movie expecting to watch an anime (as a genre) then you wholly missed the point and I'm not suprised that you didn't like it. The film is animated and from Japan, but that in no way means you should lump it with such pieces as Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, etc.