Mamoru Oshii (Kokaku Kidotai, Innocence, Patlabor 2, Sky Crawlers) has one hell of an impressive resume, containing some of the biggest, challenging and most successful animation films out there. At the same time he never stopped experimenting, expanding his oeuvre with smaller, more artistic films (think Tenshi no Tamago or Tachiguishi Retsuden). Talking Head clearly belongs to this second category of films and should be approached with at least some level of caution.Talking Head is part of the unofficial live action trilogy Oshii directed between '87 and '92. It's not a true trilogy though as Talking Head has little (actually nothing) to do with the other two films. Red Spectacles and Stray Dog are both set in the Kerberos universe, Talking Head is a meta...
- 5/3/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Mamoru Oshii's (Tenshi no Tamago, Patlabor 2, Sky Crawlers, Tachiguishi Retsuden) Innocence is without a doubt one of the trickiest accomplishments of his already rich and challenging career. From the get go the film was doomed to fail, back then it simply seemed impossible for a sequel to live up to the standard of its predecessor (Kokaku Kidotai). But Oshii persevered and created what would become another benchmark in Japanese animation.To me Innocence is the perfect sequel. It's everything a good sequel should be, while at the same time avoiding all the predictable traps so many other sequels fall victim to. It's a film that respectfully refers to its predecessor but stands well on its own. It shares the same perks as Kokaku Kidotai, but...
- 3/9/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Mamoru Oshii (Tachiguishi Retsuden, Sky Crawlers, Ghost In The Shell 2.0, Patlabor 2, Tenshi no Tamago) is without a doubt my favorite director out there, so there's really no way I could ever pass up on reviewing his ultimate classic: the 1995 adaptation of Masamune Shirow's much-lauded Ghost In The Shell manga. Almost 17 years after its original release, the film still houses a truly captivating and mesmerizing power. If Eraserhead and Tetsuo are the films that made me become serious about film as a hobby, Oshii's Kokaku Kidotai is the film that actually introduced me to the world of cinema. Sure enough I watched and liked films before this one, but only in a more simple and straight-forward entertainment-based manner. Before this film it...
- 1/19/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Patlabor 2 is the film that first defined Mamoru Oshii's trademark style. While most people came into contact with Oshii (Sky Crawlers, Tachiguishi Retsuden) through his first adaptation of the Ghost In The Shell manga, Patlabor 2 predates that film by two years and still holds all the key ingredients that made GitS into a world-wide success. And even today Patlabor 2 proudly stands its ground, having lost very little of its initial impact. Oshii came a long way before he made this film. He started out working on series like Nils Holgersson and Madame Peppermint. In between he directed several feature films, each sporting their very own stylistic experiments, but none of them really connecting to form a encompassing whole. Patlabor 2 brought all...
- 9/28/2011
- Screen Anarchy
You will recall that back in December word had gotten out that Japanese director Mamoru Oshii and one of the stars from his short film Assault Girl 2, Rinko Kikuchi, announced that they would be pleased as punch if they could make a feature length film based on characters from that short.
The live-action Assault Girls feature film by director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, The Sky Crawlers, Patlabor) has been green-lit for a December 19 opening. This film will be Oshii’s first live-action feature film since 2001’s Avalon. The science-fiction story is set on a desert battlefield after giant monsters named “Suna Kujira” (literally, sand whales) devastated the land. Three beautiful female hunters — all of whom wield assault rifles and other powerful weapons — engage in battle with the monsters, including the biggest of them all, the Madara Suna Kujira (spotted sand whale). Meisa Kuroki (Vexille - 2077 Isolation of Japan,...
The live-action Assault Girls feature film by director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, The Sky Crawlers, Patlabor) has been green-lit for a December 19 opening. This film will be Oshii’s first live-action feature film since 2001’s Avalon. The science-fiction story is set on a desert battlefield after giant monsters named “Suna Kujira” (literally, sand whales) devastated the land. Three beautiful female hunters — all of whom wield assault rifles and other powerful weapons — engage in battle with the monsters, including the biggest of them all, the Madara Suna Kujira (spotted sand whale). Meisa Kuroki (Vexille - 2077 Isolation of Japan,...
- 7/22/2009
- by Andrew Mack
- Screen Anarchy
Tokyo International Film Festival
TOKYO -- Stripping naked, shooting the sheriff, trafficking drugs, humping in the cornfield, spouting conspiracy theories or blowing a giant mecha-robot off the galaxy... there's nothing these famished femmes wouldn't do to get a free bite in "Eat and Run -- 6 Beautiful Grifters," this easy-to-swallow food-themed omnibus cooked up by Japanese animation guru Mamoru Oshii and four other up-and-coming directors.
This is the sequel to the tour de force animation "Tachigui -- the Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters," which was in turn an expanded riff from his TV anime series Urusei Yatsura. In that film, Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Avalon) charted the socio-political changes in post-war Japan through the culinary compass of her evolving tachigui (stand-and-eat) culture. With only one fully animated segment, this sequel has no unified style, nor the incisive sociological angle and the sullen poetry of its predecessor's Edward Hopperesque image texture. Eat and Run is more of a digestible TV dinner for mass consumption. As a result, it is less academic or idiosyncratic, and has more chance for limited theatrical release abroad. Festivals Will Love to have this on their list, and Oshii's fans will still acquire the DVD for collection purposes.
Eat and Run comprises six stand-alone segments featuring legendary women who perfected the art of fly-by-night dining. The first, Princess Goldfish, directed by Oshii, is the most sensuous. Recreating nostalgic streets and furnishings of Showa-era Japan, it uses gorgeous CGI and exhibits a woman's seductive tattoo with tantalizing cinematography.
The Drunk and the Dead features John Woo-like gun-slinging choreography and a pesky sharp-shooting heroine with a weakness for vintage bourbon. But it's just another pastiche of Spaghetti Westerns that's all sauce and no meat. Dandelion makes some mockumentary analysis of the economic context of the Japanese "family restaurant" (chain diners) and its rise to become flagship of the food industry, but the story is weak and handling amateurish.
Whispers in the Grass is luscious to look at, but the heroine Kumi's seduction of men just to get her lips on kakigoi (strawberry frappe) is the skimpiest pretext for vacuous soft porn. Closest in kindred spirit to Tachigui is The Pop Music Angel, which spins an incredible yarn about the government's conspiracy to turn the nation into morons by TV mind-control and promoting idols. Last segment, Assault Girl, directed by Oshii, is a VFX fantasy that sends up sexy female space warriors in sci-fi films while making a cheeky homage to KFC. Keeping it short and fast, the effects are finger-licking good.
EAT AND RUN -- 6 BEAUTIFUL GRIFTERS
Geneon Entertainment Inc/Deiz Co Ltd
Credits:
Directors: Mamoru Oshii (Supervisor), Makoto Kamiya, Kenji Kamiyama, Takanori Tsujimoto, Hiroaki Yuasa
Based on an original concept by: Mamoru Oshii
Producer: Atsushi Kubo
Executive producer: Yuki Mori
VFX Supervisors: Nobuki Sato, Makoto Kamiya
Music: Kenji Kawai
Cast:
Bekko-Candy Yuri: Yuriko Hishimi
Quickdraw Miki: Mizuno Miki
Cafeteria Mabu: Mabuki Ando
Kumi the Strawberry Frappe: Yoko Fujita
Mami the Crepe Mania: Yuko Ogura
Hinako the Kentucky: Saeki Hinako
Running time -- 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
TOKYO -- Stripping naked, shooting the sheriff, trafficking drugs, humping in the cornfield, spouting conspiracy theories or blowing a giant mecha-robot off the galaxy... there's nothing these famished femmes wouldn't do to get a free bite in "Eat and Run -- 6 Beautiful Grifters," this easy-to-swallow food-themed omnibus cooked up by Japanese animation guru Mamoru Oshii and four other up-and-coming directors.
This is the sequel to the tour de force animation "Tachigui -- the Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters," which was in turn an expanded riff from his TV anime series Urusei Yatsura. In that film, Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Avalon) charted the socio-political changes in post-war Japan through the culinary compass of her evolving tachigui (stand-and-eat) culture. With only one fully animated segment, this sequel has no unified style, nor the incisive sociological angle and the sullen poetry of its predecessor's Edward Hopperesque image texture. Eat and Run is more of a digestible TV dinner for mass consumption. As a result, it is less academic or idiosyncratic, and has more chance for limited theatrical release abroad. Festivals Will Love to have this on their list, and Oshii's fans will still acquire the DVD for collection purposes.
Eat and Run comprises six stand-alone segments featuring legendary women who perfected the art of fly-by-night dining. The first, Princess Goldfish, directed by Oshii, is the most sensuous. Recreating nostalgic streets and furnishings of Showa-era Japan, it uses gorgeous CGI and exhibits a woman's seductive tattoo with tantalizing cinematography.
The Drunk and the Dead features John Woo-like gun-slinging choreography and a pesky sharp-shooting heroine with a weakness for vintage bourbon. But it's just another pastiche of Spaghetti Westerns that's all sauce and no meat. Dandelion makes some mockumentary analysis of the economic context of the Japanese "family restaurant" (chain diners) and its rise to become flagship of the food industry, but the story is weak and handling amateurish.
Whispers in the Grass is luscious to look at, but the heroine Kumi's seduction of men just to get her lips on kakigoi (strawberry frappe) is the skimpiest pretext for vacuous soft porn. Closest in kindred spirit to Tachigui is The Pop Music Angel, which spins an incredible yarn about the government's conspiracy to turn the nation into morons by TV mind-control and promoting idols. Last segment, Assault Girl, directed by Oshii, is a VFX fantasy that sends up sexy female space warriors in sci-fi films while making a cheeky homage to KFC. Keeping it short and fast, the effects are finger-licking good.
EAT AND RUN -- 6 BEAUTIFUL GRIFTERS
Geneon Entertainment Inc/Deiz Co Ltd
Credits:
Directors: Mamoru Oshii (Supervisor), Makoto Kamiya, Kenji Kamiyama, Takanori Tsujimoto, Hiroaki Yuasa
Based on an original concept by: Mamoru Oshii
Producer: Atsushi Kubo
Executive producer: Yuki Mori
VFX Supervisors: Nobuki Sato, Makoto Kamiya
Music: Kenji Kawai
Cast:
Bekko-Candy Yuri: Yuriko Hishimi
Quickdraw Miki: Mizuno Miki
Cafeteria Mabu: Mabuki Ando
Kumi the Strawberry Frappe: Yoko Fujita
Mami the Crepe Mania: Yuko Ogura
Hinako the Kentucky: Saeki Hinako
Running time -- 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 12/11/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
MONTREAL -- Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinema announced its full lineup Tuesday, with Philippe Falardeau's Congorama set to kick off the festival's milestone 35th edition on Oct. 18. Pedro Almodovar's Volver will close the festival Oct. 26. With a focus on innovation and new media, FNC director Claude Chamberlain unveiled 189 films from 39 countries -- comprising 111 features and 78 shorts -- that run from the somber to the surreal. Included are such dramas as 12:08 East of Bucharest, by Romania's Corneliu Porumboiu, and South Korean filmmaker Chang-ho Cho's The Peter Pan Formula. One sidebar will focus on genre groundbreakers like Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast-Food Grifters, a film with photo-scan animation from Japan's Mamoru Oshii, and director Satoshi Kon's Paprika, an animated feature that uses more conventional filmmaking techniques.
- 10/3/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
MONTREAL -- Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinema announced its full lineup Tuesday, with Philippe Falardeau's Congorama set to kick off the festival's milestone 35th edition on Oct. 18. Pedro Almodovar's Volver will close the festival Oct. 26. With a focus on innovation and new media, FNC director Claude Chamberlain unveiled 189 films from 39 countries -- comprising 111 features and 78 shorts -- that run from the somber to the surreal. Included are such dramas as 12:08 East of Bucharest, by Romania's Corneliu Porumboiu, and South Korean filmmaker Chang-ho Cho's The Peter Pan Formula. One sidebar will focus on genre groundbreakers like Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast-Food Grifters, a film with photo-scan animation from Japan's Mamoru Oshii, and director Satoshi Kon's Paprika, an animated feature that uses more conventional filmmaking techniques.
- 10/3/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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