NEWS
By J.D. Considine and J.D. Considine,SUN POP MUSIC CRITIC | April 14, 1996
If you spent much time watching afternoon TV in the pre-"Ricki Lake" era, odds are you saw a lot of animation. There were classics like "Bugs Bunny," "Tom & Jerry" and the great Max Fleischer "Popeye" cartoons, along with such made-for-TV fare as "The Flintstones," "Rocky & Bullwinkle" and "Scooby-Doo."But there were also a few titles that seemed totally unlike typical American kid-vid. Made in Japan, and then dubbed and edited for American fans, these cartoons covered a range of topics. There was "Astro Boy," about an adorable, big-eyed robot boy; "Speed Racer," whose cast was regularly upstaged by the high-tech Mach Five race car; "Star Blazers," an outer-space adventure featuring a rebuilt battleship dubbed the Argo; and "Robotech," which boasted Valkyrie fighters that transformed from jet planes to giant combat robots.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 24, 2003
DVDs Oscar winner Spirited Away comes to DVD, along with two more of Japanese writer-director Hayao Miyazaki's animated masterpieces in a new three-disc set. page 11. Trips It's a short drive to Annapolis, but you can get a long lesson on history there, since nearly every street has a story to tell. page 21. Art American Visionary Art Museum's Kinetic Sculpture Race is light on competition but heavy on fun -- it doesn't matter who finishes first, but you'd better be prepared to have a good time, or you might get disqualified.
FEATURES
By Michael Sragow | September 4, 2009
Ponyo: **** ( 4 STARS) This loose variation on "The Little Mermaid" offers audiences a chance to see the great Japanese cartoonist Hayao Miyazaki pull off traditional hand-drawn animation with the sweep and invention of a print artist like Maurice Sendak. And despite the worries of fanboys, the American version has been dubbed exquisitely, with Liam Neeson a majestic standout as a psychedelic warlock struggling to balance the human and natural worlds, and the realms of land and sea. Opening Wednesday 9 : (Focus Features)
FEATURES
By Michael Sragow and Michael Sragow,michael.sragow@baltsun.com | August 14, 2009
Within seconds, "Ponyo" spirits audiences away on a flight and dive of creativity that ranges from the moon to a deep blue sea streaked with purple, gray and gold. It's like an international aquarium of the imagination. It teems with fascinating creatures. It conjures a persuasive threat that conflicting forces in the water and on land will go out of balance and destroy the world as we know it. But "Ponyo" is in some ways the most subtle of all ecological movies. It takes in the human trash that litters a marine paradise.
FEATURES
By Michael Sragow and Michael Sragow,SUN MOVIE CRITIC | October 18, 2002
SUN SCORE **** Watching the Japanese cartoon epic Spirited Away is like strolling into Alice's Wonderland and seeing every wonder sprout up around you as if for the first time. The writer-director, Hayao Miyazaki, is comparable to Lewis Carroll and his illustrator, John Tenniel, rolled into one. He gives viewers the sensation of being present at the creation of a fantasy cosmos as fully alive as it is breathtakingly intricate. Spirited Away is in the league of E.T., Pinocchio and The Wizard of Oz. And it has an electric serenity, combining contemplation and excitement, that's unique in contemporary motion picture fables.
FEATURES
By Ann Hornaday and Ann Hornaday,SUN FILM CRITIC | November 24, 1999
Is a second Golden Age of animation upon us?In a year when "The Iron Giant" was tragically overlooked by family audiences and "Pokemon: The First Movie" was giving Japanese animation a bad name, here come two movies that prove once again how ingenious, artful and flat-out entertaining animation can be. In radically different ways, "Toy Story 2" and "Princess Mononoke" bring the art form back to its roots as a medium meant for for general audiences, not...