Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Borrower Arrietty opens in Japan today

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 07-17-2010, 02:02 PM:

The latest film from Studio Ghibli opens today in Japan. The Borrower Arrietty (Karigurashi no Arietti) was directed by long-time Ghibli animator/first-time director Hiromasa "Maro" Yonebayashi - early reviews look very good. Hayao Miyazaki co-wrote the screenplay and acted as a "hands-off" supervisor on this updated adaptation of Mary Norton's 1952 childrens novel The Borrowers. In press descriptions, Miyazaki is very happy to finally have a worthy home-grown successor at Ghibli.

NTV broadcast clip of the 2-minute theatrical trailer

Mark Schilling's review in the Japan Times

GhibliWiki's Arrietty page

I'm sure we'll be seeing this one here in North America sometime next year, once negotiations between Ghibli and Disney are concluded. In the mean time, Ghibli's 2006 film Tales from Earthsea opens here in a very limited release (LA, NY, Chicago, San Francisco, Honolulu) from Touchstone on 13 August. Saw the trailer for this one at the Landmark 12 two weeks ago in LA. Guess I'll need to plan a road trip... or maybe catch it while doing a Regal/Sony install - I'm in Oceanside, CA that week. By most accounts, this adaptation of Earthsea wasn't very good, but any Ghibli on a big theater screen is better than no Ghibli at all.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-17-2010, 02:34 PM:

WHAT? ...an animated film that's not in 3D? Or will Disney 3Dize it when it's released here?

Hmmm, get this answers Joe's question.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 07-18-2010, 03:35 PM:

If Miyazaki Sr had directed it, I'd say there'd be a snowball's chance in Hell of anyone being allowed to do anything to Earthsea. Senior once famously sent a samurai sword to the Weinsteins at Miramax when they demanded cuts to the North American prints for Princess Mononoke. The message tied to the sword's hilt simply read, "No Cuts." [Big Grin]

But since Earthsea was Miyazaki Jr's film (his first one) who knows what Disney will be allowed to do with it? I imagine not much, since it will be such a limited release (I'm sure Disney will not want to spend much on this one anyway).

Oops. The city list for Earthsea includes Seattle instead of Chicago. My bad.

Back to Arrietty...