Results tagged “hayaomiyazaki”

This morning, Irene Sinyavin is our hero. She just gave birth to her 11 pound, 10 ounce baby boy - naturally. And without pain medication. Sinyavin is 5'9" and her husband is 6'4", but you might not expect an a baby over 11 pounds. Weill Cornell Medical Center thinks it's the biggest baby ever delivered there, and from the picture in the Daily News, baby Alexei seems to have totally skipped that scrunched-up, old man face that most newborns have because they are much tinier.

Kiki's Delivery Service is available on DVD from Amazon and Netflix. If you happen to listen to the English version (vs. Japanese with English subtitles), enjoy Phil Hartman as Kiki's cat Jiji! (And Kirsten Dunst supplies the voice of Kiki.) And other great Miyazaki movies will be issued on DVD in the States soon: Porco Rosso, Nausicaa Valley of the Wind, and The Cat Returns. More about Miyazaki and his oeuvre from Nausicaa.net. And we wish that Margaret Talbot's New Yorker profile of Miyazaki was online, but it isn't; there is an interview with Talbot on the interview, though (super meta-ness from The New Yorker).

It takes an Oscar on top of pretty much unananimous critical praise (98% Fresh on the Tomatometer) to convince Disney that anime great Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away should get a wider release. Run, don't walk, to see it. Forgive the cliches, but it is truly dazzlingly beautiful, incredible funny, eye-opening, and a warmly told story.

The evening is over, while Gothamist will be following up with extensive commentary about the actual Oscar telecast, here are the winners and some post-game analysis:

The thought of another snowstorm just makes me want to go home and watch My Neighbor Totoro. It's about these two sisters who move to the countryside. They suddenly realize that there are these "totoros" who live amongst them. What is a totoro you ask? Nausicaa.Net has the best FAQ about the film and has this answer:

Go see Spirited Away this weekend, the animated film by Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki (he made Princess Mononoke) that Disney did not know how to distribute. Definitely one of the best things I've seen recently, it's whimsical, fantastic, sad, romantic, scary. It's on the Top 10 films of the year lists of many critics, including Roger Ebert,; three New York Timesies: A.O. Scott, Elvis Mitchell, and Dave Kehr (number one on his list); Time's Richard Corliss; and even the usually iffy Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly.