DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Hayao Miyazaki proves again and again, with each film he makes, that you really don’t need an army of computers to make an incredible animated film, and that hand-drawn animation can be just as dazzling as anything a computer can generate. Western audiences at large were slow to come around to the idea that one of the finest animated storytellers of the 20th century didn’t actually work for Disney — though the company rather shrewdly bought up U.S. distribution rights to his back catalog once he did break through here after the release of Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki’s work is anime that doesn’t just appeal to a niche audience of geeks and fanboys. He writes and breathes life into fairy tales that bear his unmistakable stamp of love for nature, feminist undercurrents, and a hallucinogenic imagination.
In his latest, Ponyo, Miyazaki tells a story loosely based on The Little Mermaid, of a fish girl who runs away from home and washes up on shore to be rescued by a young boy. She falls in love with him, and when her father takes her back into the sea, she vows to become human and return to her love. The film was a massive hit in Japan on its release, and was well received at the Venice Film Festival, where it had the rare distinction of screening in competition despite the fact that it had already had a commercial release. Miyazaki dials back the more epic tendencies he’s shown in his last few films for a far simpler approach to both story and visuals, which some critics have said hearkens back to his earlier work, but with an effect that is no less magical. The film technically doesn’t open until next Friday, but for those who can’t wait, there’s an early screening this Wednesday at the Embassy of Japan.
View the trailer.
Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Japan Information & Culture Center in the Embassy of Japan. Free, reservations required. RSVP to jiccrsvpsummer09@embjapan.org. Opens next Friday in theaters.
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Over the next week, E Street will host this series, which highlights films by Latino filmmakers, featuring the local premieres of eight different films, shown on a rotating schedule during the course of the series. The theater is generally showing four or five out of the eight on any given day of the week. While none of these are by filmmakers whose names you’ll recognize (yet), you’ll recognize some of the actors, particularly in the U.S.-produced title, The Line, which stars Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Danny Trejo, Armand Assante and Esai Morales. Liotta plays an assassin going after the head of a crime cartel (Garcia). There are a few other U.S. productions in the mix, along with some from Mexico, one from Peru and one Brazilian film. Check out E Street’s website for a full listing of films and a schedule.
