Muybridge's Strings Flip Books (マイブリッジの糸 フリップブック, 2011)

Fans of Kōji Yamamura who live outside of Japan may not be aware that it has become a tradition for the great animator to publish a book tie-in along with his latest film releases.  For Kafuka Inaka Isha, he published a slim, hardcover illustrated storybook edition of Franz Kafka's acclaimed short story A Country Doctor in Japanese translation.  For his latest animated masterpiece Muybridge’s...

Nishikata’s Best Japanese Animated Shorts 2011

2011 has been an exciting year in the world of Japanese independent animation.  Kōji Yamamura released his much anticipated NFB co-production Muybridge’s Strings (マイブリッジの糸, 2011) to great acclaim in Canada and Japan.  It has already won several awards including the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival.  Mirai Mizue was invited to the Biennale to show his latest "cell animation" Modern...

MOM Productions and the Making of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

It’s the Christmas season again and my children have already watched our DVD of the 1964 stop motion animation of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) half a dozen times.  I never tire of watching this Christmas special which was something I looked forward to watching on TV every year when I was a child.  The characters have clearly been lovingly brought to life by the hand of some animator....

George Ghon comments on MYSTERIES OF LISBON

How do I translate a dream into a film, without losing its delicate intricacies and keeping a storyline so elaborate that it almost becomes confusing – this question seems to have been on Raul Ruíz’s mind a lot. In the Mysteries of Lisbon, he has been spinning the imaginations (or was it all real, in the end?) of a young boy named Joao, just Joao (Joao Arrais). Maybe he is an orphan, maybe even the...

Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 2011)

Things have been quiet here on Nishikata Film the past couple of weeks because I have been ill.  When I am under the weather and sofa-bound, I turn to what for me is the movie equivalent of chicken noodle soup: romantic melodramas.  2011 has been so jam-packed for me with work that I have not had the free time to indulge in the guilty pleasures of a cheesy romantic drama.First on my list...

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

The sequel to Guy Ritchie's 2009 Sherlock Holmes reboot has just as much style, period atmosphere, wit and bite, but suffers from a rather baggy script from husband and wife team, Michele and Kieran Mulroney.  The result is a film that is certainly entertaining enough to justify a cinema ticket, but which propels the franchise no further, and does a great disservice to Noomi Rapace and Stephen...

George Ghon comments on MARGARET

Kenneth Lonergan’s long-awaited follow up to YOU CAN COUNT ON ME has – after a four-year-long editing squabble, and a final edit by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker – finally been released. It seems to attract considerable attention among a British audience - a diverse crowd filled the outdated screening room at the Odeon Panton Street just off Leicester Square on a recent Sunday afternoon...

Noburo Ofuji’s Whale (くじら, 1952)

Some of the most beautiful early anime from Japan are the silhouette animations of Noburo Ofuji (大藤 信郎, 1900-61) and Wagoro Arai (荒井和五郎, 1907-95).  Inspired by the films of Lotte Reiniger – whose pre-war films were shown extensively in Japan (Donald Richie, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film, p.247) – and drawing on the Japanese traditions of shadow plays and 19th century utsushi-e (写し絵 /...