Thoughts on... The Losers (2010)

The Losers, 2010.

Directed by Sylvain White.
Starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Óscar Jaenada and Jason Patric.


SYNOPSIS:

In the Bolivian jungle, a group of Special Ops soldiers plan an air strike on a village targeted by the US military. Finding a large amount of children in the village they save them, only for the helicopter carrying the children to be destroyed by a secretive villain known as Max. Presumed dead in the crash, the soldiers, now just ordinary ‘losers’, plan their revenge and their path back into the USA.


Going into The Losers I wasn’t expecting much – it has received pretty mediocre reviews and has lacked publicity upon its UK release, suggesting a lack of faith from its distributor Warner Bros. If Warner had got behind it though, they could have had a hit on their hands because The Losers is a genuinely entertaining piece of pulp filmmaking.

Based on a comic book that ran from 2003-2006, its story concerns a Special Forces team that are presumed dead after their helicopter was destroyed during a mission in Bolivia. They survived however, and plan to take out the man who wanted them dead, a Black Ops official with a side interest in trading arms, known only as Max.

The Losers plays out like a western along the lines of The Wild Bunch or The Magnificent Seven. The team members are somewhat caricatures, defined by their roles within the team and broad personalities. They are individually introduced by comic book style freeze frames showing their name and specialist military skill, before we quickly come to see them as the leader, the rogue, the nerdy hacker, the ice-cool sniper and the family-man pilot. Each man’s skill is essential to the team, and they operate, like in the classic westerns, as a rebel group, outside of the law but on the side of good.

The Losers brings this classic group dynamic into the 21st century however, and aims it squarely at the nerdy young male, with the snappy banter and squad based military format recalling the experience of playing online videogames. The Losers aims for this market aesthetically too, with plenty of camera trickery and clever editing that keeps it fast-paced and exciting without veering into the territory of feeling vacuous. The film draws on its comic book source for visual cues, but also on videogames, Hong Kong action movies, and MTV music videos – flashing up comic book style frames, projecting location names onto establishing shots, flirting between slow and fast motion, and cutting in time to the beat of the constantly murmuring score.

These visual flourishes, along with enthusiastic performances by all involved and a brisk running time of only 97 minutes make the film a satisfying indulgence. It may not be Citizen Kane but it doesn’t have the pretence to think it is – director Sylvain White, who hasn’t helmed much else of note, directs with an unashamed joy-de-vivre. The Losers knows its target audience and it understands the failings of bloated big-budget comic book adaptations, such as the Spiderman sequels. Opting for a focused and fun romp, The Losers delivers where it should and is enjoyable to watch.

Following the success of Kick Ass, it’s a shame that The Losers hasn’t performed better at the box office. While it isn’t quite up to the heights of that film – which so successfully melded a contemporary teenage comedy with a solid superhero film – it is perhaps a sign that the big film studios should be starting to look towards more recent comic books for their inspiration rather than the tired X-Men and Iron Man types that were created in the 1960s. Indeed, with the promising looking Scott Pilgrim vs. The World also coming soon, this movement could already be underway.

Arnold Stone

Movie Review Archive

Five Essential... Football Movies

With the 2010 FIFA World Cup about to kick off this week, Gary Collinson selects his Five Essential Football Movies…

It’s fair to say that films centred on football (sorry, no soccer here) haven’t exactly set the world alight, especially when you consider its place as the world’s most popular sport. In fact, out of the trickle of movies centred on the beautiful game the chance that it’s going to be mediocre at best is almost as assured as England exiting a major tournament on penalties. However, just like in ’66, there’s always the chance they can go one better and actually turn out pretty well…

5. When Saturday Comes (1996, dir. Maria Giese)

When Saturday Comes is the Rocky of football movies (albeit nowhere near as good), with Sean Bean starring as hard-drinking football nut Jimmy Muir, who gets by playing for his local pub team while grafting in a brewery. Scouted by well-known non-league Hallam FC, Jimmy gets a shot at the big-time and the chance to become a local hero when he is offered a trial at Sheffield United (Bean's own club), only to put his chance at risk by hitting the bottle the night before. At least George Best waited until he made it. Bean's performance is certainly a highlight here... just overlook the fact he should be pushing retirement.




4. Goal! (2005, dir. Danny Cannon)

The first in a trilogy centred on fictional South American playmaker Santiago Muñez (Kuno Becker), Goal! sees the youngster make his way from poverty as an illegal alien in Los Angeles to the heights of the English Premier League when he is snapped up by a scout for Newcastle United. Featuring cameos from world stars such as Beckham, Zidane, Raúl and of course the legendary Alan Shearer, Goal! benefits from full FIFA cooperation and the use of actual match footage and real players helps add to the overall authenticity. Certainly one of the more enjoyable football movies out there, if somewhat over-the-top.




3. Escape to Victory (1981, dir. John Huston)

Set in a German P.O.W. camp during WWII, Escape to Victory (or simply Victory to our American cousins) sees Michael Caine lead a team of prisoners in an exhibition match against the Germans as part of a Nazi propaganda stunt. Fortunately the Allies can rely on the likes of World Cup winners Bobby Moore, Pelé and Ossie Ardiles - in addition to renowned goalkeeper Sylvester Stallone - to give old Jerry a right good pasting and escape to victory (or, at the very least a draw). The film also features members of Ipswich's UEFA Cup-winning squad including John Wark and Russell Osman, along with the likes of Mike Summerbee, Kazimierz Deyna and Paul van Himst.



2. Shaolin Soccer (2001, dir. Stephen Chow)

Stephen Chow brings his insanely frenetic style to the beautiful game in this unique Hong Kong comedy about a group of Shaolin monks who set out to promote their brand of kung fu by establishing a professional football team. Using their superhuman skills, Team Shaolin - led by captain Sing (Chow) - take the league by storm only to meet their match in the China Super Cup when they must face off against the chemically-enhanced Team Evil, managed by Sing's arch-nemesis and shamed former star Fung (Chow veteran Ng Man Tat). Chow's international breakthrough, Shaolin Soccer is hugely entertaining from start to finish with plenty of humour, top-notch special effects and crazy kung fu-inspired footballing action.



1. The Damned United (2009, dir. Tom Hooper)

Adapted from David Peace's 2006 novel, The Damned United stars biopic regular Michael Sheen as the legendary Brian Clough - described by many as 'the best manager England never had' - in a fictionalised account of his troubled 44-day spell as manager of Leeds United in 1974. Sheen is superb as the straight-talking and belligerent Clough, whose obsession and rivalry with fellow manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney) threatens to destroy his growing reputation and friendship with longtime assistant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall). Despite criticism towards its inaccuracies, The Damned United is a fantastic film that provides an authentic look at the football culture of the 1970s, and is my choice for the essential football movie.


Honourable Mentions...

A Shot at Glory (2000, dir. Michael Corrente)
Mean Machine (2001, dir. Barry Skolnick)
The Game of Their Lives (2002, dir. Daniel Gordon)
The Game of Their Lives (2005, dir. David Anspaugh)
Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos (2006, dir. Paul Crowder, John Dower)

Air Bud shows the England team how it's done by notching a thunderbolt of a penalty in Air Bud: World Pup (2000):


The Los Angeles Times ask Why is there no great Hollywood soccer movie?

Agree? Disagree? We'd love to hear your comments on the list... and of course, your predictions for the World Cup.

Gary Collinson

Essentials Archive

Short Film Showcase - Vincent (1982)

Vincent, 1982.

Written and Directed by Tim Burton.
Narrated by Vincent Price.

After three years working as an artist at Disney, Tim Burton's potential was spotted by Head of Creative Development Tom Wilhite, who gave the young filmmaker $60,000 to produce a stop-motion animated short based on a poem entitled Vincent that he was developing as a children's book.

The resulting five minute film took two months to complete, with Burton working alongside cameraman Victor Abdalov and animators Steven Chiodo (director of the cult 80s horror-comedy Killer Klowns from Outer Space) and Burton regular Rick Heinrichs (recipient of an Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Set Direction for his work on Sleepy Hollow).

Shot in black and white in a stark German expressionist style, Vincent tells the story of a strange young boy who is obsessed with the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and - imagining himself to be Vincent Price - begins to slip between reality and his own macabre fantasy world. Burton's childhood idol provides narration and would later describe his admiration for the piece and its director, stating that his involvement was "better than a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame".

Vincent enjoyed a two-week theatrical run with Matt Dillon teen drama Tex, and gained critical acclaim and a number of awards when screening in competition at the Chicago and Annecy film festivals.

Vincent:

Embed courtesy of DailyMotion.

Related:

Freakishly Clever: A Tim Burton Profile

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Friday The 13th Retrospective - Part 1: From Crystal Lake to Pinehurst Halfway House

Luke Owen examines the classic horror franchise Friday the 13th in the first of a two-part feature...

Friday The 13th came at the right time in American cinema. The box office success of Halloween was to kick start a slasher horror revolution that consumed the 1980s and Friday the 13th was one of the first one to capitalise on it. It has since spawned an amazing 9 sequels, one remake, one crossover and a TV series over the last 30 years. Jason is one of the most prolific and recognisable horror icons and was the first ever fictional character to win the MTV Lifetime Achievement award.

As many of you will already know, I like my horror films and I particularly like my slasher horror films. Much like Nightmare on Elm Street, I love this series. It has a few duds here are there (more than good ones actually) but there is something about these films that I like. After I wrote my retrospective for Nightmare, the natural progression was to write an article of another franchise. So I looked at my DVD rack and went to pick up Halloween for a John Carpenter piece I was planning, but then I had a sudden urge to watch Friday the 13th. An urge I’ve not felt in a while. I popped it in my DVD player for the first time in what seems like forever and watched it from start to end. I then went on to watch the rest of the series and I began to remember about the first time I ever saw these films, what I liked about them, what I didn’t like about them, what I thought was cool, what I thought was lame. It compelled me to write this.

So, without further ado, here is part 1 of my Friday the 13th retrospective.

Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980)

Borrowing heavily from Halloween, Friday the 13th was the surprise hit of 1980. Made for a lowly sum of $550,000, Friday went on to become the 18th highest grossing film of the year and cement itself in the halls of horror classics. The premise of the film is very simple, a group of teenagers go to Camp Crystal Lake to help set up for a new batch of kids but mysteriously get bumped off one by one. As apposed to Halloween, where we knew that it was Michael Myers doing the murdering and stabbing, Friday took the whodunit approach by never letting the audience see whoever it was doing the killing. By placing most of the stalking in a first person perspective, Cunningham drew the audience into the eyes of a crazed killer and created a feeling of dread and uneasiness.

The film also throws a curve ball by convincing the audience that the stalking killer is the drowned boy Jason back from the dead, only to reveal at the end that it was in fact his mother Pamela Voorhees. It was a nice little twist that comes out of left field and brings a human nature to the film. This is a woman that loved her child so much that she vowed to kill camp councillors, regardless of if they’d done anything wrong or not, because she felt they needed to be taught a lesson.

The film itself is very good. The script is good, the acting isn’t terrible, the camera work is excellent and Tom Savini’s special effects are outstanding. The scares are very well executed and the final moments of the film will stay with me until my dying day. It is a film that is truly deserving of its place in the hall of fame.

Friday the 13th Part II (Miner, 1981)

With the success of the first film, Paramount would have been foolish not to try and cash in all their chips on a franchise. The original plan for the films was to have different stories out every year under the Friday the 13th banner - a sort of slasher version of The Twilight Zone. But some plans change, and some plans change for the better. Friday the 13th Part II falls under the latter category as it introduced us to a deranged hermit killer in a mask. His name was Jason.

This entry has a lot going for it and has some great moments. The introduction of Jason furthered the series' back story without making a mess of things. Jason survived his supposed drowning and lived his life as a crazy hermit in the woods alone wanting his loving mum. 5 years previous, he found his mother, and he found her dead. Something inside him snapped. Much like his mother, his mission in life now is to kill camp counselors. This all comes to a head in a beautifully crafted final act in which our heroin Ginny discovers Jason’s shack only to find the severed head of Pamela and her dirty blue sweater mounted on a make shift shrine. The mummy’s boy had struck back.

If there was one deterrent from the film it would be its ending. After Ginny stabs Jason in the shoulder with his machete, she and her boyfriend Paul run back to a cabin. There we get our final scare where Jason jumps through a window unmasked. Ginny then wakes up in a hospital bed, asking where Paul was. Credits roll.

While the “shock waking up from a dream” ending worked in the first instalment, it does not work here at all. In fact is feels forced and unnecessary, like they couldn’t think of a better way to end the film and it leaves a few unanswered questions. It was works fine if you are planning on facilitate another sequel, but this is poorly executed. Especially when you take into account that neither Ginny nor the missing Paul don’t appear in the next film. It was the beginning of what could become a horrible trend for these films.

Friday the 13th Part 3 (Miner, 1983)

“A new dimension in terror” the tag line promotes as Friday the 13th was going 3D.

In 2010, it has become almost commonplace for any film that is being released to be retrofitted into “3D”, but back in the early 80s, it was only for a select few films and was made to be a big deal. Steve Miner (who worked both the previous films) returned to the director’s post to helm the third instalment which gave birth to a mask that would become synonymous with the series - Jason’s hockey mask.

So what’s the crack here then? Well some teenagers are on their way to Higgins Haven, a stones throw away from Crystal Lake, one day after Paul and Ginny survived Jason’s attacks. But Jason has made his way to the same area and people start to die.

The only thing that separates this film out from the rest of the series is its 3D element. Other than that, it’s a very bog standard hack and slash film. Not that it’s a bad thing you understand, but this is not a strong entry. The fact that they gave no explanation to the ridiculous ending of Part II shows that Steve Miner didn’t care about continuity or story progression, he just wanted to make a film where teenagers get stabbed in a variety of different ways while exploiting the 3D technology.

It’s not a great instalment in the franchise. Jason did get a much better look and some of the death sequences are cool, but the film just feels hollow. It also suffers from the same alignment that the second film had in that it has a terrible nonsensical ending. The final female hangs Jason in a barn and leaves him to die. She then sails out into the river on a canoe to sleep. When she wakes up in the morning she sees Jason in a house. Before she can scream, the decomposing body of Pamela Voorhees jumps out of the lake just as young Jason had done in the first film. You’ll then be incredibly unsurprised to hear that she wakes up from the nightmare and is carted away by the police. It’s a terrible ending to what is a pretty forgettable film.

Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984)

To paraphrase Lionel Hutz, “this is the most blatant case of false advertising since The NeverEnding Story”. But the reality is that this was going to be the final chapter of the Friday franchise.

The mid eighties were a troubled time for the horror genre. Silent Night, Deadly Night had sparked quite a lot of controversy by portraying Santa Claus as a wild crazed killer and the angry mothers of America called out to “ban this filth”. The film was pulled from the cinema and banned from anywhere outside the US. Paramount got scared (how ironic) and decided to pull the plug on it’s money making franchise. The truly ironic thing is that Silent Night doesn’t feature Santa killing people but someone dressed as Santa. But that’s for another article.

Despite the fact that 5 years previous a load of teenagers were killed and over the last couple of days more teenagers have been murdered, a group of teenagers travel to Crystal Lake to camp. Shine on you mad bastards. Well, unsurprisingly, Jason survived the hanging from Part 3 and has now made his way back to Crystal Lake where he starts bumping off the stupid teens.

As you can probably tell, the series was starting to become a pretty predictable affair and this entry is no different. But there is something about this episode that separates it out from the others - it has an almost definitive ending. Whereas parts 1-3 have had convoluted stupid open endings, this one feels like the series has closure. The final act of the film is quite powerful with young Tommy Jarvis shaving his head to impersonate Jason only to brutally stab him to death with his own machete. This violent act from a young child (played superbly by Corey Feldman) plays back to the violent treatment Jason received when he was a young boy. As with the first Friday, Jason is not the killer, he’s the victim. Jason deserved his revenge, but he took it too far and it took the actions of a young child to bring him back down and end his reign of villainy. The very final scene is quite ambiguous in the face that it hints that Tommy could possibly become the new Jason, but it’s never explicitly spelled out.

This is one of the best entries of the series. It didn’t convolute anything by stretching out the plausibility of the story and it didn’t end on a “wake up from a dream” ending (despite the fact they filmed one). It harks back to the original film by heightening the notion that Jason is not an all powerful demon, he is a regular human being and he can be stopped – just like his mother.

Had Paramount stuck with their ideals, this would have been a great ending to what has been a fairly brilliant quadrilogy. But, as we all know, it was not to be the end. We we’re heading for a new beginning…

Friday the 13th Part V – A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985)

The fans begged and the fans pleaded and it didn’t take long for Paramount to cave and make another film.

But the question that lingered over fans was, “will Jason return”? They’d essentially killed him off in Part IV and this film was titled “A New Beginning” – would they go through with the tease they left at the end of Final Chapter by suggesting that Tommy would become the new killer?

The answer to both of those question is “no”. They just made a rubbish film.

5 years have passed and young Tommy is now 17 and placed in Pinehurst Halfway House. Upon his arrival, one of the patients is killed by one of the other inmates. Tommy then starts to have nightmares about Jason and believes he isn’t really dead – much like the audience. As the body count piles up, the audience get more and more drawn into the belief that we are watching the return of Jason Voorhees. That is until the final act, where is revealed that it was a paramedic from the first 5 minutes of the film avenging the death of his kid – the patient that was killed.

This would have been fine, we were of course in the midst of A New Beginning, but Steinmann and the rest of the team led us to believe we were watching Jason - not some paramedic who has no relevance to the Friday mythology. It was the completely wrong move to attempt and it backfired on them greatly. This wasn’t a great entry to start with, but its ending is just beyond awful. It was a slap in the face to the audience and they did not take kindly to it.

But the series was showing some progression. The horror audience had moved on since 1980 and films like Nightmare on Elm Street had given viewers a more sophisticated killer. While Jason was never going to be viewed as a refined psychopath, we could at least enjoy his travels. By having Tommy return as a recurring character, the films were starting to move along with back story and plot rather than just have Jason show up and kill teenagers. Jason Lives and The New Blood where to carry on with this ideal, but that’s for part 2 of this series.

Part 2: From the Grave to Space

Thoughts, opinions, questions all can be sent to to boddicker_scripts@yahoo.co.uk or visit my website www.boddicker-scripts.moonfruit.com

Luke Owen

“You see, Jason was my son and today is his birthday” – Pamela Voorhees (Friday the 13th, 1980)

Related:

A Nightmare on Elm Street Retrospective

Miss Zombie Queen 2010 Pageant to promote Zombie Women of Satan

To promote the release of upcoming Brit horror-comedy Zombie Women of Satan on DVD on June 21st, Revolver Entertainment are hosting the 'Miss Zombie Queen 2010' beauty pageant at The Cobden Club in London on June 16th, 2010.

If you fancy yourself as a Zombie Queen and would like to enter the contest email your details and a photo of yourself to info@growlingclown.com and mike@revolvergroup.com (closing date June 9th) - the top 10 submissions will be invited to take part in the finals, with the winner receiving a cash prize, the Miss Zombie Queen crown and sash and a chance to feature in Zombie Women of Satan 2!

Alternatively, if you'd prefer just to ogle the entrants, tickets for the evening are available from Ticketweb priced £8, which includes fetish and burlesque performances, DJs and live music from the band Killer B-Movie.

Zombie Women of Satan centres on a group of nightclub performers including Pervo the Clown (Warren Speed - also writer and co-director), flatulent dwarf Zeus (Peter Bonner) and feisty rock chick Skye (Victoria Hopkins), who arrive on a remote farm for a TV interview and soon discover that the occupants hold a dark secret - they have been kidnapping and torturing young women as part of a perverted cult. However, the family's experiments have gone dangerously wrong and turned the victims into ravenous, stocking-clad Zombies, leaving the ragtag group of visitors fighting for survival.

Zombie Women of Satan (cert.18) is released June 21st. Visit the official site here.

Drawn to Anime: A Hayao Miyazaki Profile (Part 2)

Trevor Hogg profiles the career of Japanese animated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki in the second of a five part feature... read part one here.

“I was frankly in a dilemma after my work on From the Apennines to the Andes [1976] ended,” stated Japanese anime artist Hayao Miyazaki who found himself at a career crossroad. “I really thought I could never do any work that involved just layouts. But then I was asked if I’d like to try directing. Even today I don’t like being pegged as just a “director” or as someone who does scene designs or screen layouts. Rather than being seen solely as directing, if it’s something that I like to work on, I’d actually like to be thought of as an animator.”

Aided by the talents of his long-time collaborator Isao Takahata and their mentor Yasuo Ôtsuka, Miyazaki adapted Alexander Key’s The Incredible Tide into an animated television program known as Mira shônen Konan (Conan, the Boy in Future, 1978). “I still think of this series as basically a love story between Conan and Lana,” reflected the man who designed, storyboarded and directed nearly all of the twenty-six episodes, “but without depicting this part of the story properly, Conan and Lana would never have amounted to anything more than two people with crushes on each other. I realized what was missing, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I had accepted the original idea of a post-Armageddon setting for an adventure story, but I did feel constrained by the burden of the heavy ending.”

Further revisions were made out of necessity. “You have a weird society where people dream of riding bicycles through desolate scenes of dark oceans, gray skies, and craggy boulders and rocks – it’s a bleak mental landscape,” explained Hayao Miyazaki. “And you have this weird society called High Harbour. I don’t think a boy like Conan would have ever been born in a world like that. Nature recovers and forgives humans, and even though “forgives” is a strange way to put it, I do think that nature creates the foundation for all life to exist, so that humans [who are also animals] can go on living. Conversely, in creating the setting for a character like Conan, I think it would have been better to have nature having already made its comeback. I have been told, however, that the idea that nature can recover by itself may be a very Japanese one.” There was another major reason to diverge from the pessimistic tone of the original story. “Even if someone’s lost all hope for the future, I still think it’s incredibly stupid to go around stressing this to children.”

“I can’t do the work unless I have an emotional investment in it,” admitted the animator. “I tend to pour myself into the characters. And when I do so, I start to emphasize with the characters.” Hayao Miyazaki had a particular concept he wanted to explore. “I wanted to have a young protagonist who takes over from the failed generation of older guys.” When it came to deciding upon the age of the title character, the creator of the science fiction fantasy series reasoned, “It seems to me that most boys are about eleven when they start imagining themselves as the heroes in stories where they have the traditional roles like saving princesses, etc., so that’s why I made Conan eleven.” The title character is grounded in reality. “Conan is not a superman. He’s an ordinary kid who mainly thinks about having fun in his life. But humans are complex characters. And one fact about Conan is that the conditions in which he lives amplify certain aspects of his personality. He doesn’t go looking for adventure, he just does his best to stay alive.” Miyazaki added, “He comes to embody the vitality, resolute spirit, and understanding of others that his world needs. I personally like the idea that it is because of Conan’s silent influence that Jimsy becomes happier, that Dyce tries to become more normal, and that Monsley is transformed.”

“I really wanted to make all the characters Japanese and, if not Japanese, at least have them all of the same nationality so we could totally forget about language barriers; to differentiate characters visually we did have some red-haired people appear,” revealed Hayao Miyazaki who was not entirely content with the overall look of the TV program. “I frankly feel a little frustrated by the fact that the world of Conan turned out looking a bit like the American West.” The transition to directing was far from easy for Miyazaki; production of the series fell behind and NHK had to insert a special program to pad the broadcast schedule. “The story began to go off in a different direction than I had initially planned, so we had to create the storyboards anew. The schedule slipped and I caused a lot of trouble for the staff and the production company. That was entirely due to my failings as I can only work by following my intuition and feelings.” The experience was not an entirely a bad one. “To Takahata’s credit, the storyboards he drew for five of the episodes were of a high level of perfection and in my exhausted state that was as much of a relief as rain during a draught.”

“When we started working on Conan, I would have quit the animation business if people had thought that what we were trying to do was boring,” declared the Tokyo-native. “But to my surprise even my sons became passionate fans of the show.” Support for the TV program was not universal in Japan. “I can sort of understand why the overall series ratings weren’t so good. We were creating something that went against the grain of the times. Of course, some people later said that the ratings would have been a bit better if we had shown more of the Giganto plane flying earlier in the story.”

His decision to join the Telecom Animation Film Company in 1979 was motivated by Hayao Miyazaki’s desire to bring a small screen character to the big screen; the end result was his feature film directorial debut Rupan sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro (Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro, 1979). Arsène Lupin attempts to rescue a kidnapped princess and find a treasure hidden since the fifteenth century.

“My responsibilities for this film started with creating the story,” began the animator. “In order to give form to my vague idea, I began drawing a bird’s-eye-view picture of the setting for the story: the lake and castle of a small country. When I completed this drawing, I was confident that the film would do well.” Alterations had to be made to accommodate the change in the media format. “In a work like Lupin, the storyline may be set, but the important thing is how it is depicted, how the characters enter and depart, and how the story’s hidden traps and subplots are portrayed. As such, plot changes are unavoidable when turning the story into a film.”

John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer for Disney and Pixar, is a great admirer of the picture. “That car chase up the hill is still one of my favourite scenes,” enthused Lasseter. “Just before the chase, Lupin’s car gets a flat tire and swerves to the side of the road. He climbs up on the roof and just sits there looking up at the sky. The clouds are going by, the wind is blowing, we’re shown a field of grass…and then you hear this GHEEEE sound. Miyazaki-san allows Lupin to react with a ‘What was that?’ look before a car roars past him. It sets up the chase so beautifully because of the quiet moment right before. That’s pacing.”

“The Castle of Cagliostro was like a clearance sale of all I had done on Lupin and during my Toei days,” confessed Miyazaki. “I don’t think I added anything new. I can understand why people who had followed my work were extremely disillusioned. You can’t use a sullied middle-aged guy to create fresh work that will wow viewers. I realized I should never do this again. Neither did I want to. Even so, I did two more [Lupin television episodes in 1980], and it was hell. With every piece I made, it was obvious that I was just trotting out everything I had done before. 1980 was my year of being mired in gloom.”

Indulging in a different artistic medium in 1982, Hayao Miyazaki authored a serialized story called Kaze no tani no Naushika (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) which was sporadically published in Animage magazine over a twelve-year period. “I began drawing the original magna without thinking of making it into an animated film, and as a result I didn’t know how to respond when the possibility first came up. But I knew if a film could express the themes I was exploring in the comic, then I had to make it.” Comparing the futuristic saga set in the twilight era of humanity where “a girl who, while being drawn into battles between human beings, comes to look far beyond the human state” to a previous project he worked on, Miyazaki stated, “Little Norse Prince [1968] deals with problems between humans while Nausicaä deals with the problems between people and nature.”

Revealing the inspiration for the title character of his 1984 picture, Miyazaki remarked, “Nausicaä is the name of a Phaeacian princess who appears in the Odyssey. I first learned of her from Bernard Evslin’s book Gods, Demigods & Demons, and I was instantly attracted to her.” Describing the mythological figure, the animator said, “Nausicaä is a fleet-footed, fanciful, beautiful girl. She loves her harp and singing more than any suitor or ordinary happiness, and her extraordinary sensitivity leads her to delight in playing amid nature.” Miyazaki referenced a cultural figure from his homeland when developing the tale. “In learning about Nausicaä, I recalled a certain Japanese heroine [featured in a number of eleventh century short stories]…She was known as a princess who loved insects and apparently ran about in nature even after coming of age, delighting in watching such things as caterpillars metamorphosing into butterflies. As a result she was also viewed as quite eccentric.” When asked how the young royal family member would be perceived in modern times, the animator replied, “These days, a girl like Nausicaä probably wouldn’t be treated as someone particularly odd. Even if she were a little different, she’d still be able to find a place in society – as a lover of nature or as someone with an individualistic hobby.”

Reluctant to label himself an environmentalist, Hayao Miyazaki admitted, “I thought it would be interesting to overturn the concept of defenseless plants always being destroyed and instead create a forest that was on the offensive.” A prevailing public attitude troubles the anime artist. “The idea that nature is always gentle and will give birth to something like the Sea of Decay in order to restore the environment polluted by humans is a total lie. And I believe the idea that we should cling to such a saccharine worldview is a big problem. That, at least, is what I felt while writing Nausicaä.” Questioned about the Sea of Decay, Miyazaki answered, “In the story of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the Sea of Decay [an artificially made ecosystem] was supposed to have been created by humans a thousand years earlier to cleanse the environment. But even the ancient people who made it had no way of predicting how the Sea would be transformed.”

“I do like animism,” explained Hayao Miyazaki. “I can understand the idea of ascribing character to stones or wind. But I didn’t want to laud it as a religion. That is why Nausicaä isn’t Joan of Arc. She acted for her own sake, not for the sakes of those in the Valley of the Wind, but because she could endure no more. Rather than considering the risk to her own life, Nausicaä felt that unless she returned the baby ohmu to the pack, the hole in her heart would never be filled. That’s the kind of person I think she is.” Responding to the negative reaction to the conclusion of the film, the animator declared, “Even if a film like Nausicaä is criticized for ending like a religious movie or a miracle movie, it still has to conform to the basics of filmmaking and it must follow a logical development. I’m one of those who feels that a film should show some problem being overcome, even if it’s a small one. I think, as filmmakers, that it’s a type of business ethic we have to maintain.” Even with the destructive societal unrest depicted in his pictures, Miyazaki is not one to give into a message of despair. “What is hope? And the conclusion I’d have to venture is that hope involves working and struggling along with people who are important to you. In fact, I’ve gotten to the point where I think this is what it means to be alive.” Collaborating with music composer Joe Hisaishi for the first time, Miyazaki produced a box office hit which ran into trouble with U.S. distributors; the poorly dubbed English print renamed Warriors of the Wind had over twenty minutes of footage removed and the names of the characters changed.

Not entirely leaving behind his television background, Hayao Miyazaki directed a re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous sleuth with Meitantei Holmes (Sherlock Hound the Detective, 1984). The Japanese-Italian co-production took place in Victorian-England with humanized dogs serving as the majority of the cast members. Hindered by legal problems, the TV series was eventually broadcasted.

Encouraged by the theatrical commercial success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Japanese publishing firm Tokuma Shoten decided to bankroll a new animation company to be run by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki.

Continue to part three.

Starting Point 1979 to 1996 - a collection of essays and sketches by Hayao Miyazaki.

For more, visit Studio Ghibli fansites Online Ghibli, StudioGhibli.net and GhibliWorld.com, along with the GhibliWiki.

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.

UK Box Office Top Ten - weekend commencing 28/05/10

UK box office top ten and analysis for the weekend of Friday 28th - Sunday 30th May 2010.

Chick flick Sex and the City 2 survives a critical mauling to bank £6.1m (£1m more than its 2007 predecessor) in its debut weekend here in the UK. With the third highest opening of the year so far behind Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Marvel superhero sequel Iron Man 2, SATC2 claims the top spot in the chart and pushes last week's number one film StreetDance 3D down into second, with the homegrown effort enjoying a two week gross just shy of £5.3m.

Along with Sex and the City three other new releases break into the chart this week headed up by family adventure Tooth Fairy starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, which opens in fifth place with £844,889 to outdo the former WWE star's previous Disney effort Race to Witch Mountain. Meanwhile CGI animated sequel Space Chimps 2 fails to capitalise on the 3D craze with a seventh-placed finish, one spot ahead of comic book adaptation The Losers (which takes just £42k less than Space Chimps despite showing on almost half of the screens).

Elsewhere in the chart Disney will be relieved that it's big budget video game adaptation Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time managed to increase its weekend takings by 19% after a horrendous opening last time out, although the arrival of Sex and the City means that both Persia and Ridley Scott's Robin Hood fall one place apiece to third and fourth respectively. Iron Man 2 continues to enjoy good business and stands just a few grand short of the £20m mark in sixth, while Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans and Four Lions fill out the remaining two spaces at the foot of the chart.

Number one this time last year: Night at the Museum 2

Pos.	Film	Weekend Gross	Week	Total UK Gross
1	Sex and the City 2	£6,142,718	1	£6,142,718
2	StreetDance 3D	£1,826,768	2	£5,292,845
3	Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time	£1,638,149	2	£4,017,460
4	Robin Hood	£1,489,273	3	£11,620,091
5	Tooth Fairy	£844,889	1	£844,889
6	Iron Man 2	£511,895	5	£19,975,518
7	Space Chimps 2 3D	£434,883	1	£434,883
8	The Losers	£391,938	1	£391,938
9	Bad Lieutenant	£180,443	2	£532,700
10	Four Lions	£164,967	4	£2,338,974

Incoming...

Unlike July - which sees a host of A-list titles hitting UK screens including Shrek Forever After, Predators, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Inception, Toy Story 3 and The A-Team to name a few - there's very little on the horizon in terms of big releases this month as studios hold back in the wake of World Cup fever.

This coming Wednesday sees the release of Adulthood writer-director Noel Clarke's latest Brit crime thriller 4.3.2.1 (cert. 15) along with Neil LaBute comedy Death at a Funeral (cert. 15). Meanwhile on Friday the options include The Brothers Bloom (cert. 12A) from Brick director Rian Johnson, rom-com She's Out of My League (cert. 15) and Michael Winterbottom thriller The Killer Inside Me (cert. 18).

Any Rush fans out there may also want to check out music documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (cert. 15), which enjoys a limited release.

U.K. Box Office Archive