Vive L'amour!

Black Swan is hardly a movie about dancing, but more so a retelling of character psychosis a la Roman Polanski. Like a a cut-rate Red Shoes, this movie expertly tells the story of the danse macabre. But like Polanski, the film clings to the shoulders of characters, never leaving them. The camera always functions as this carry-on, where one follows and looks at all the things the characters becomes obsessed with. Black-on-white, compact, and obsessed with subjectivity, the film is at its most intense and clear when it is at its murkiest. The film captures all the falsehoods of perception and thinking things are really there because we have seen them. Those hard notes of jump cuts on a subway, to walking in mid-stride, to having a sexy dream. Everything is so abrupt in this movie, that in retrospect that it seems that most of the brilliance of the film was thought up in the editing suite.

The second period starts in 1981 and ends in 1999.
It is categorized as the opened market period. In 1981 the first imported animation from Japan called 鉄腕
アトム (Astro Boy) came to China (Qin, 2006). This animation series was considered a classic one and
paved the way for importing more animations to China in the future. Since Astro Boy had been such a
great success, animations from different countries entered China in large numbers and, later on, dominated
the Chinese animation market. During this period, Japanese and American animations had the biggest
8 influence on Chinese youth and seriously challenged the Chinese domestic animation industry.

http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0020064


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New atom is surprising high rating! [ATOM]! The average adult satisfaction 91 points, 99 points a child!
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October 9, 2009

Visited every one of the movie preview ATOM] Family
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　[Shinematoudei Movie News] Oct 10 movie which is done] [ATOM preview of the family of 07, after screening, there were numerous voices of praise.

ATOM movie Photo Gallery]

　Check the preview screening was held at Kadokawa Pictures parents, despite the turbulent weather Niowasu the typhoon, many parents have visited [ATOM] 観You with a glance. Hollywood and Hong Kong co-production, "Astro Boy" New parents who had earlier unveiled a sparkling pair of eyes, a smile came out of the screening room after screening of 10 million horsepower.

　I had a 100 point scale to evaluate this work was carried out after the preview of the survey, average 91 points from adults, children can be obtained from a high rating 99 points on average, adults also watch as 薦Metai limited to questions of whether parents are all "yes" is selected. "I had the impression of an old animation, the characters look very surprised and subtle pretty picture," said the 40 year-old women and children were present for eight years. Cartoon "Astro Boy", but have seen pictures, the anime is the first time your child says this is "all fun" we did that with a smile.

　30-year-old women, parent-child relationship was reborn as an atom and atoms of Dr. Tenma secretly robots son Toby died, "there is something in common human family as well, once again the importance of parent-child bond made me think, "he said," I'm glad to let children watch, "and feel satisfied. 10-year-old children may have seen the anime atoms in the "new and far different from the atom," this work was evaluated with both high technical quality.

　After watching most of the parents before going to say this film changed the impression, "I thought childish story, thrills and spills is also watch for adults" (34 year old woman) "is moved to tears was going to come out "(female 31 years old) found that holding a favorable impression with the unexpected. Field survey of children's thoughts and the "honest and was fascinated by the strength of mind of an atom! Human reviewed" (10 year old girl) "was getting tired but are seen sitting in a child" (6 year old boys) to dance and put in a boost for many of the comments had inflated expectations for the sequel. Are disappointed to visualize the foreign-born work that there are many Japanese. The album was finished to thoroughly incorporate the opinions of Tezuka, but it seems to be the case.

ATOM movie] will not disclose other country in the Shinjuku Piccadilly on October 10



Astro Boy
Reviewed by: Joshua Starnes
Rating: 6 out of 10
<="" span="" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Movie Details: View here
Cast:
Freddie Highmore as Astro Boy
Kristen Bell as the voice of Cora
Donald Sutherland as General Stone
Nicolas Cage as the voice of Dr. Tenma
Bill Nighy as the voice of Dr. Elefun
Nathan Lane as the voice of Ham Egg
Eugene Levy as the voice of Orrin
Matt Lucas as the voice of Sparx
Samuel L. Jackson as the voice of Zog

Directed by David Bowers

Review:
As anime continues on its pop-culture upward swing and the various amounts of modern popular characters to be licensed and brought to the States get burned through, it's inevitable that some of the classics that made Manga and Anime what they are will get revived and reinterpreted for us along the way. After all, if they worked once there's no reason they won't work again, right?

At some point in the near future, a group of (literally) enlightened citizens have fitted engines onto the last pristine piece of land on earth and lifted it into the clouds, leaving the scrap heaps of earth behind, with every whim of its citizen's lives taken care of by robots. Robots brought to life through the genius of Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage) who is so lost in research he never really notices his brilliant son Tobey. That is, until his son is lost. Then he does what any grieving, brilliant, mad robot scientist father would do; he builds a robotic version of his dead son, Astro (Freddie Highmore).

The American version of what is, ostensibly, the first Manga, is unfortunately quite typical. The first animated film produced by young studio Summit Entertainment has a lot of the problems first animated films have. It has had a lot of resources thrown at it--it looks fantastic with some beautiful CGI courtesy of DreamWorks Animation and Aardman alumni David Bowers ("Flushed Away") and a boatload of recognizable voice talent--but not quite enough thought.

It's the abundance of resources that are ultimately holding it back, actually. Without the wealth of animation experience Pixar or DreamWorks Animation were able to bring to their first films they've put all their faith in their director, allowing him to co-write the film and giving him more or less free rein over it.

Generally, that's a good thing. It allows for the freedom of artistic expression and coherent vision without quite as much of the infighting and compromise that is inherent in the group process that is professional filmmaking. But, and this is the important bit, that only works if the would-be auteur in question has the talent and/or skill to make something out of his vision.

There are a lot of independent auteurs out there with complete artistic control over their would-be masterpieces and the results are frankly awful. "Astro Boy" isn't that, but Bowers inexperience on the story end of things shines throughout the film. The end result is pretty but plain. Like most modern animated films Bowers is trying to make two films, one for the kids and one for the adults, and he's only really successful at one of those.

The hawkish warlike President of the city (Donald Sutherland) needs a power source for his new super war machine for protecting the people of the city from the citizens of the world below, despite the fact the people below couldn't possibly begin to conceive of posing a threat to the city.

If you think you're noticing some not very subtle political commentary in there, that's because you are. The two potential energy sources are the peaceful, productive blue energy and the destructive rapacious red energy. Naturally the short-sighted President puts the 'evil' red energy into his indestructible killing robot and is amazed when it all goes wrong.

It's not all as heavy-handed as that. Astro Boy's introduction to the world around him and discovery that he is in fact a robot is quite evocative. Particularly his would-be father comes to the realization that the thing he has created can't really replace his lost son and regardless of what it may feel he must get rid of it. The pain of keeping it around is just too great.

That's some complex, engrossing stuff and in contrast to some of the cheap political shots it's handled quite nicely. But it's also about as far as "Astro Boy" is prepared to go, and that's just the first 30 minutes. The rest of it... if you've seen even one other animated film in your life, then you've seen "Astro Boy."

He's quickly thrown out to the world below, which it turns out is filled with robot comic relief and scrappy kids in the employ of Fagin-like mechanic Ham Egg (Nathan Lane) who collects robots for his own ends. There are some valuable lessons about choosing one's place and dealing with the natural human emotions of alienation and loneliness. These are things kids are going through, so they are relevant, but it's still hard for a kid's film not come across as shallow and unimaginative when all of their characters are 'outsiders just looking for their place in the world.' It's the character type that's done the most because it's the easiest, and ease doesn't always lend itself to quality or interest.

There actually is quite a bit of solid craft at work in "Astro Boy." The performances, both vocal and visual, are solid throughout and it captures a lot space-age styling of the source material, even if the tone is somewhat different.

But it feels rushed, ill-prepared and derivative. And that's because it is rushed, ill-prepared and derivative. It's not a particularly bad kid's film. It will do passing well until something better comes along. But something as creative and influential as "Astro Boy" probably deserves better than just a quick trip down CGI-Kids-Film lane. That's all you're going to get, though.

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COMMENTS (4)
Posted by:
Robert
October 24, 2009
Well, I saw the movie last night after reading the review and I have to say that even though I agree with some of the things you said, I was pretty satisfied with the film. It was far much better than other Anime-inspired-turned-to-crap films like Dragonball Evolution and Speed Racer. It's a new take on the long-told story of Astro, which was nice, so if people were expecting to "re-invent the wheel", you either didn't do research or haven't seen any of the past series. I do complain that most of the voice actors weren't that good, only being Highmore, Cage and Bell among the best and Sutherland the worst, and the ending was forced and anti-climactic, but it stayed true to Tezuka's work compared to the last two films I mentioned earlier.
Posted by:
Robbie Cohen
November 11, 2009
As a huge fan of the original cartoon growing up, I too was sceptical of this film, but after seeing it, it has managed to stay true to form of the original story whilst adding an updated and more relevant rhythm; something the soppy and unrealistic 80's version I adored as a child, never quite could do.

This film has surpassed all expectations, especially the valuable lessons of social acceptance and how to deal with such issues as a child. Astro Boy opens these issues up for our children so they may learn from them in a more appealing and encouraging way.

Astro is also the best hero of all the hero’s because kid's can relate to him. Why? Because he's also a kid just like them and not an adult hero. And in this day & age, there are not too many decent heroes our kids can relate or look up to.

This film is also not just a kid’s film, but one the adults can get something out of as well. And if this film opens up a whole new generation of Astro fans, then that's a good thing. Magic film - 10/10! Go Astro!
Posted by:
thebloke
December 28, 2010
WOW! more dummies making comments. 1st Robert "but it stayed true to Tezuka's work" IS UR BRAIN WORKING?

This turd was A 180 in every way. It lacked the heart and depth that made this character last so long. I took the trouble 2 read some off the manga and this crap wud shame Tezuka.

Staying true, means retaining the elements that made it great. Ironman/ Spiderman are good examples, all the stuff from the comic is there and then some.
GET A BRAIN!!
Posted by:
edj
January 9, 2011
Like so many American films, Astroboy carries on the great tradition of pandering to the laziest audiences, who are easily taken in by the eye candy, and oblivious to the way it brainwashes them into reducing the complexities of human emotion and morality into a simple-minded good/bad dichotomy. And what does it promote in place of complex emotion? Violence. And we wonder why kids are shooting kids. I wouldn't trust most adults in this country to be able to see how harmful this film is. Why would I want children to see it?


Read more: Astro Boy Movie Review - ComingSoon.net http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=60177#ixzz1AZMaOhZF

 http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=23405

 www.atom-movie.jp/top.html

9
Yoshiko Nakano
Who initiates a global flow? Japanese popular culture in Asia

This article examines the diffusion of Japanese popular culture in
Asia, with an emphasis on Hong Kong and mainland China. The two central
frameworks for this article are the methodology for consumer culture
research proposed by Du Gay et al. (1997) and the theories on Japan’s
globalization proposed by Befu (Befu and Guichard-Anguis, 2001). Du Gay
and his colleagues have shown how Sony produces and markets its Walkman
around the world, how it is consumed, and what mechanisms regulate its
distribution and use. Building on this framework, I consider how dramas
from the Japanese small screen have been distributed and consumed in Hong
Kong and China, in ways the Tokyo producers never imagined. The main
difference between Walkmans and Japanese cultural products is that the
Japanese cultural products have been crossing Asian borders largely at the
initiative of the Asians who are on the ‘receiving end’ (e.g. Bhusdee, 1994;
Honda, 1994; Shiraishi, 1997; Ishii, 2001; Iwabuchi, 2001; Ng, 2001). In other
words, the cultural flow was not pushed from the economic center

. ‘The new global
cultural economy’, notes anthropologist Appadurai (1996), ‘has to be seen as
a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models’ (p. 32)

Japan’s cultural power in Asia goes far beyond Pokémon: children have been
growing up watching more Japanese cartoons than American or local
cartoons. Approximately 80 percent of animation programs shown on Hong
Kong’s four terrestrial channels, according to Poon (in preparation), are
produced in Japan. Sailor Moon and four other Japanese cartoons dominated
a children’s favorite cartoon list in 1997 (Apple Daily). Even in Korea, where
Japanese popular culture was banned altogether until 1998, Japanese
cartoons have been on the air since the 1970s with all traces of Japanese-ness
edited away (Kobari, 2001: 99).


Why have Japanese cultural producers taken a back seat in the Asian
market? In addition to lingering reservations because of Japan’s imperialist
history, there are four reasons. First, the Japanese domestic market has been
strong and growing steadily. As a result, according to former TV producer
Ozawa (1999), the Japanese media industry did not have to turn to the
overseas market for profit:
Not only broadcasting but also various media industries have enjoyed
continuous growth since 1945. Therefore, the priority was to compete
for a bigger share of the pie in the expanding domestic market. The
domestic market was sufficient. (p. 100)
The copyrights of the programs were usually designed exclusively for domestic
distribution. In Ozawa’s analysis, digital broadcasting,more channels and the
internet are some of the factors that will force Japanese cultural producers to
think globally and look toward the Asian continent.
Second, two of the four Asian Tigers had official bans on Japanese
popular culture. The former British colonies, Hong Kong and Singapore,
began broadcasting Japanese drama series in 1970 and 1982 respectively.
3
Their new middle classes had consumer power, but the markets were small:
Hong Kong today has 6.9 million people, Singapore 3.2 million. On the other
hand, the bigger tigers, Taiwan (population 22.1 million) and Korea (47.3
million), were former Japanese colonies where, until the 1990s, policies
against Japanese cultural products were in place.
4
Today, the Taiwanese
people are the most enthusiastic consumers of Japanese popular culture: over
70 cable channels continuously look for new content to fill airtime, and five
channels broadcast J-dramas and variety shows around the clock. In spite of
this, the official ban on Japanese TV programs and movies was not lifted
until 1993 (Ishii, 2001: 48; Iwabuchi, 2001: 179).


The term ‘globalization’ became fashionable as a marketing strategy in the
1970s, and has been closely linked to multinational corporations (Du Gay et
al., 1997: 78). Corporate ambitions and strategies are often seen as its driving
forces.McDonald’s and Microsoft intended to go global and crossed political
as well as cultural borders. Pirated J-drama VCDs, however, prevailed
precisely because Hong Kong and China had not been on Tokyo’s strategic
map. Far from being cultural imperialism pushed from the economic center
to the targeted market, it was a complex combination of unforeseen demand,
greed, digital technology, insecurity and highly developed literacy on the part
of local people that initiated the informal cultural flow and kept it going.
And Tokyo was not even participating in the diffusion when J-dramas
crossed the border into China.


Iwabuchi, Koichi (2001) Transnational Japan. Tokyo: Iwanami (to be
published in English by Duke University Press


Poon, Carol Man Wai (in preparation) ‘Cultural Globalization? The
Contemporary Influence of Japanese Animation on Hong Kong
Teenagers’, unpublished MPhil dissertation, Department of Japanese
Studies, University of Hong Kon

http://www.atypon-link.com/INT/doi/abs/10.1386/host.1.2.253_1

http://ejas.revues.org/8806

http://bit.ly/evngec

But is it enough simply to “feel
Asian modernities”—as the title of Iwabuchi’s anthology suggests—
instead of analyzing “complex political inscriptions” “too taxing for
mass audiences of popular culture”?
13
Diana Crane argues, “Major forces
leading to cultural globalization are economic and organizational.”
14
Economy involves not only consumption but also production and distribution. Unfortunately, few books on Asian cinema deal with transnational Asian cultural production as effectively as Chua and Iwabuchi did
in their edited volumes in terms of cultural consumption. Furthermore,
the contemporary political complexity of the People’s Republic of China
has been largely relinquished to the background not only in the area of
East Asian film studies but also in the area of Chinese film studies.