Hayao Miyazaki

The girl of your dreams -- and his dreams and her dreams -- the punkish heroine of Satoshi Kon's Paprika, is a double-agent-provocateur in a shape-shifting movie of marvelous, baffling complexities. It's a long way from the work of that Japanese Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away). And it is also anime decidedly for adults: Among Paprika's thriller aspects, noirish angst and futuristic action, nothing is ever what it appears. Dreams intrude on dreams. Surfaces of reality fold over each other, like the petals on an origami chrysanthemum.

The girl of your dreams -- and his dreams and her dreams -- the punkish heroine of Satoshi Kon's Paprika, is a double-agent-provocateur in a shape-shifting movie of marvelous, baffling complexities. It's a long way from the work of that Japanese Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away). And it is also anime decidedly for adults: Among Paprika's thriller aspects, noirish angst and futuristic action, nothing is ever what it appears. Dreams intrude on dreams. Surfaces of reality fold over each other, like the petals on an origami chrysanthemum.

Aquarium plans a four-day party for 10th birthdayOn Aug. 8, 1981, the future of the MX missile was a hot topic in Congress; workmen were putting the finishing touches on White Marsh Mall; and Cal Ripken Jr. was being called up from Rochester to finish out the baseball season with the Baltimore Orioles.And the National Aquarium in Baltimore opened its doors to the public.This week -- one decade, 14 million visitors and a Marine Mammal Pavilion later -- the aquarium will stage a four-day 10th anniversary celebration.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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...

Aquarium plans a four-day party for 10th birthdayOn Aug. 8, 1981, the future of the MX missile was a hot topic in Congress; workmen were putting the finishing touches on White Marsh Mall; and Cal Ripken Jr. was being called up from Rochester to finish out the baseball season with the Baltimore Orioles.And the National Aquarium in Baltimore opened its doors to the public.This week -- one decade, 14 million visitors and a Marine Mammal Pavilion later -- the aquarium will stage a four-day 10th anniversary celebration.

YOUTH FILM JAM -- The quest for discriminating movie audiences takes a new turn this weekend, as the Maryland Humanities Council presents Baltimore's first Youth Film Jam, offering area middle and high school students the chance to see and talk about movies a notch above the standard shoot-'em-up (or slice-'em-up) fare. Movies will be shown at the Maryland Institute College of Art's Brown Center, 1301 Mount Royal Ave., followed by discussions featuring local film experts and led by a core group of 24 students who have spent the past couple of months honing their critical-thinking skills.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [Warner Home Video] $29 "Family" films are not strictly for the kids. A lot of adults love to watch old Disney films from their youth and rush to theaters, with kids or not, to see the newest animated film or the latest Harry Potter saga. The two-disc set of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire follows the pattern of the previous three Potter films -- games for younger viewers and documentaries on the elaborate production, plus interviews with the three stars for older viewers.