Streamy Awards Ceremony Tomorrow

Watch the Live Online Broadcast of the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards Ceremony Recognizing Excellence in Web Television Programs

Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 5:30pm (PST) on www.streamys.org

Join your favorite Web TV stars and actor/comedian Paul Scheer as he hosts the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards this Sunday! The excitement kicks off with a live online Red Carpet Pre-Show starting at 4:00 p.m. (PST), followed by the Awards ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Real-time closed captioning will be provided for this global audience in five languages: English, German, Italian, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

The star-studded event will feature nominees including Kevin Pollack, Felicia Day, Illeana Douglas, Robert Englund, David Faustino, and many others. For a full list of nominees, including The Guild, Auto-Tune The News, FEAR Clinic and many more, visit: http://www.streamys.org/winners/2010-nominees/

An impressive group of global corporate and digital entertainment industry sponsors have signed on to support this year’s Streamy Awards, including Kodak, Trident, IKEA, and Boxee. For more details, see the Partner release: http://bit.ly/bEaqF9

The show is sure to be a laugh-riot as the hilarious Paul Scheer gets behind the podium to flex his hosting muscles. Scheer is best known for his work on the MTV sketch comedy series Human Giant, which he co-created and starred in with Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and director Jason Woliner. He also stars in FX's newest hit comedy, The League, which will return this Fall for its second season. This summer Paul can be seen in Dimension Films' Piranha 3D opposite Elisabeth Shue and Jerry O'Connell and in Adult Swim's newest live action comedy show, Children’s Hospital. To learn more, visit the Official Paul Scheer Web site at http://paulscheer.com.

Download the First-Ever Streamy Awards iPhone App!
You can even watch the Streamy Awards Ceremony LIVE on your iPhone! Learn more:
http://www.streamys.org/2010/04/08/watch-the-2nd-annual-streamy-awards-live-on-the-apple-iphone/


About The Streamy Awards
Presented by the International Academy of Web Television and co-hosted by new media companies Tubefilter (www.tubefilter.tv) and NewTeeVee (www.newteevee.com),
Streamy Awards recognize excellence in global web television programming for broadband distribution across 35 creative categories, from acting and directing, to editing and special effects. Members of the International Academy of Web Television review shows submitted through a free, public submissions process and vote on the final nominees and winners for each category. The Audience Choice Award for Best Web Television Series is selected by members of the public. Winners of the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards will be announced at the Streamy Awards Ceremony on April 11, 2010 at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. The Streamy Craft Award winners will be announced at a separate ceremony on April 7, 2010 at the Barnsdall Art Center in Hollywood. Founded in 2009, the Streamy Awards is produced by Tubefilter, Inc. (www.tubefilterinc.com). For more information, visit www.streamys.org, follow @streamyawards on Twitter and become a Fan at www.facebook.com/streamys.

Review: Oscar-nominated "Howl's Moving Castle" is Quite Imaginative

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 56 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004) – animation
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japan
DIRECTOR: Hayao Miyazaki
WRITER: Hayao Miyazaki (based upon the book by Diana Wynne Jones)
PRODUCER: Toshio Suzuki
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Atsushi Okui
EDITOR: Takeshi Seyama

Howl’s Moving Castle (2005) – USA version
Opening date: June 10, 2005
Running time: 119 minutes (1 hour, 59 minutes)

MPAA – PG for frightening images and brief mild language
DIRECTORS: Pete Docter and Rick Dempsey
WRITERS: Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt – adapters; Jim Hubbert – translator
PRODUCERS: Rick Dempsey and Ned Lott
Academy Award nominee

ANIMATION/FANTASY/SCI-FI/ACTION/ADVENTURE/ROMANCE with elements of war

Starring: (English voices) Emily Mortimer, Sofie Gråbøl, Christian Bale, Josh Hutcherson, Blythe Danner, Lauren Bacall, and Billy Crystal

Eighteen-year old Sophie (Emily Mortimer) lives a humdrum existence working in her late father’s hat shop in a dull town when powerful magic enters her life. She encounters the mysterious, handsome, and self-indulgent young wizard, Howl (Christian Bale, who delivers an embarrassingly stiff voice performance). However, the evil Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall, sly and droll) is looking for Howl, and since Sophie won’t cooperate, the witch casts a spell on Sophie that turns the unconfident young woman into an elderly woman, Grandma Sophie (Sofie Gråbøl). Determined to get the spell reversed, Sophie seeks out Howl again, and with the help of a scarecrow who moves by bouncing up and down on his pole (Sophie calls him “Turnip”), she finds Howl’s moving castle, an amazing contraption that walks across the landscape on spindly mechanical legs. Inside the castle lives Calcifer (Billy Crystal, who mixes comedy, mock menace, and a touch poignancy for a fine vocal performance), a fire demon (in the form of a ball of fire) that gives the moving castle the power to travel through time and space. However, Howl’s life is very complicated, and he fights for one side in an on-going war that leaves a terrible wake of destruction. It’s up to Sophie to free Howl of the curse that haunts him, while he plots to end the war.

The animated film, Hauru no ugoku shiro, or Howl’s Moving Castle, is another masterwork from revered Japanese animated filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki. Howl received a 2006 Oscar nomination for “Best Animated Feature Film of the Year,” an award Miyazaki won in 2003 for Spirited Away. While Howl doesn’t reach the heights of Spirited Away, it is a brilliant film, and in many ways surpasses most American films of the last two years in terms of narrative and use of technical achievement in a creative way.

Miyazaki and his collaborators have once again created enormous panoramas of images – awe-inspiring, extravagant, spectacular visuals that coalesce into a narrative that is almost too big even for a Miyazaki film. His movies usually have a novel’s worth of sub-plots and enough characters for an ensemble film, which is the case with Howl’s Moving Castle, although the film really focuses on Sophie and Howl.

Howl’s Moving Castle is a quiet anti-war film. It may be hard to imagine that an animated film could capture the astounding devastation that war can bring to a city, (especially through aerial bombing) as well as a live action film does. However, watching the marvelous flying contraptions of war drop bombs on the countryside and in cities and towns in this film is breathtaking. Miyazaki even takes it up a notch. Magical creatures and monstrosities launch from the incredible flying battle warships and engage Howl in grand aerial battles. Strangely, this art (some of it computer generated) makes war seem cool instead of scary.

For all that this film is about war, Howl is at its heart a romance with war almost as a backdrop, and Sophie and Howl are superb star-crossed lovers. Miyazaki’s script (a loose adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ novel of the same title) deftly mixes romance with a magic-drenched fantasy of competing wizards and enchanted machinations. It all rings true, except for Christian Bale’s horrid voice acting as Howl. Howl’s Moving Castle is a visual assault on the senses, and it captures the imagination with magic and engages the heart with a love that overcomes all.

9 of 10
A+

Monday, March 27, 2005

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Animated Feature Film of the Year” (Hayao Miyazaki)

Clint Black Replaces Tim McGraw in "Flicka 2"

Clint Black Takes the Reins from Tim McGraw in the All-New Family Adventure Flicka 2

Based On The Best-Selling Novel, Hearts Will Race When The Exhilarating Family Film Arrives On DVD May 4 Exclusively at Walmart, Sam’s Club and Walmart.com

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The wild mustangs of Wyoming return when Flicka 2 makes its exclusive premiere on DVD and DVD Combo Pack May 4th from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. The uplifting film, directed by Michael Damian (Moondance Alexander), a continuation of the popular 2006 Flicka that starred Tim McGraw, features Patrick Warburton (“Family Guy,” “Seinfeld”), newcomer Tammin Sursok (“The Young And The Restless”) and country legend Clint Black in a thrilling story of the special bond between one girl and the mustang no one could tame.

Carrie (Sursok) is a big-city teenager whose life is turned upside down when she moves to a horse ranch in Wyoming to live with her father (Warburton). But everything changes when Carrie meets Flicka, a wild, jet-black mustang who’s just as free-spirited and strong-willed as Carrie. The two form a special bond and Carrie opens her heart to her father and a handsome, local boy, but when a jealous rival puts Flicka’s life in jeopardy, Carrie must do whatever it takes to save her best friend.

The Flicka 2 DVD includes behind-the-scenes featurettes; a documentary on the North American Mustang; an in-depth interview with Clint Black; bloopers and more for the suggested retail price of $22.98 DVD and $34.98 Flicka / Flicka 2 2-pack DVD. Fans, families and Flicka friends can find the DVD and 2-pack DVD on May 4th at 4,000 Walmart and Sam’s Club locations nationwide and in Canada. DVD and DVD Combo Pack are now available for pre-order exclusively at Walmart.com:

Flicka 2 DVD: www.walmart.com/ip/13996365

Flicka / Flicka 2 2-pack DVD: www.walmart.com/ip/13996366

DVD Special Features:

A Conversation With Clint Black
Running Wild: The North American Mustang
Making Flicka 2
Horsin’ Around
About Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

A recognized global industry leader, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC (TCFHE) is the worldwide marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming on DVD, Blu-ray Disc (BD) and Digital Copy as well as acquisitions and original productions. The company also releases all products around the globe for MGM Home Entertainment. Each year TCFHE introduces hundreds of new and newly enhanced products, which it services to retail outlets -- from mass merchants and warehouse clubs to specialty stores and e-commerce - throughout the world. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC is a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, a News Corporation company.

Press materials available at www.foxpressroom.com

Follow Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Twitter @FoxHomeEnt

FLICKA 2
Street Date: May 4, 2010
Screen Format: Widescreen – 1.78:1
Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French and Spanish Dolby Surround
Subtitles English and Spanish
U.S. Rating: PG
Total Run Time: 96 minutes
Closed Captioned: Yes

Review: "Spirited Away" is Pure Magic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 45 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

 

Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001) – animation

Running time: 125 minutes (2 hours, 5 minutes) COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japan

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Hayao Miyazaki

PRODUCER: Toshio Suzuki

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Atsushi Okui

EDITOR: Takeshi Seyama

 

Spirited Away (2002) – USA English dub

MPAA – PG for some scary moments

WRITERS: Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt – English script

PRODUCER: Donald W. Ernst

Academy Award winner

 

ANIMATION/FANTASY/ADVENTURE 

 

Starring: (voices) Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Jason Marsden, Susan Egan, David Ogden Stiers, Lauren Holly, Michael Chiklis, and Tara Strong

 

The world’s best director of animated films is Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke), and even the masters at Disney represent with Miyazaki. In 2001, his film Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi became the all-time highest grossing film in Japan, and in 2003, Spirited Away, the English language version of the film, won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

 

While moving to their new home, a ten-year girl named Chihiro (voice of Daveigh Chase) and her parents get lost on an overgrown stretch of road. At the end of the road, they find a lonely building that her father surmises was part of an abandoned theme park. Continuing to track through their discovery, the parents wander into the park where they catch the smell of cooking food. The parents begin to chow down on a veritable feast that they find in an empty restaurant. They don’t know that the food is enchanted and meant for the spirits. Within minutes, the magic transforms Chihiro’s parents into pigs.

 

Chihiro meets a boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) who tells her than the theme park is actually a rest haven for spirits. Haku tells her that he will help her and her parents, but she must wait. Meanwhile, Chihiro indentures herself to Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), a greedy and devious she-creature who runs the bathhouse that is the centerpiece of this magical world. Yubaba changes Chihiro’s name to Sen and forces her to work in the bathhouse while the girl struggles to find a way to free herself from slavery and her parents from the spell.

 

Whereas Miyazaki’s previous film Princess Mononoke was an epic tale of magic versus modern with the threat of a great war as the backdrop, Spirited Away is a magical fantasy in which the level of magic reaches epic proportions. From beginning to end, Miyazaki fills every frame of the film with an eldritch charm that defies comparisons to any other movies, including his own work. It’s a dazzling display of the supernatural that held me spellbound. Witches, monsters, phantasms, spirits, creatures, mythical beasts, and wondrous landscapes populate the world of Spirited Away. It’s part Alice in Wonderland, part faerie tale, and part Japanese myth. Every frame is pure wonder and fantasy.

 

All of the magical creatures seem so real and so much real part of their environment. Miyazaki has a variety of fantastical beings for almost every scene, and it never seems like too much or too phony. So many filmmakers cheat now because of computer-generated imagery and throw anything on the screen just because they it pops into their heads. The wondrous people and things of Spirited Away seem natural and purposeful, a part of a divine order, not forced, but correct and part of a circle.

 

The film’s story and script, also by Miyazaki, isn’t so much about plot as they are about the imagination, the magic of the film’s world, and, in the end, about growing up and losing the magical corners of youth where ethereal, unreal, and surreal things exist and happen. Chihiro/Sen’s adventure is a wonderful one, and Miyazaki so draws you into Spirited Away that you feel the presence of the supernatural as much as Chihiro does, and like her, you hurt from the loses that come with growing up and getting older.

 

This is more than just a great animated film; this is simply a great film. There are times when it did seem a bit long, and Miyazaki’s craft seemed too polished, too perfect, but a master like Miyazaki can’t help but be overbearing at times. He’s a filmmaker and a magician. Spirited Away has to be seen on the big screen; it’s the only way to truly feel the awe-inspiring enchantment of the most fantastical film since Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

 

There are a lot of fantasy films and films about magic, but only once in a generation is one so resonant with the mysterious of power miracles, magic, and fantastic beings that the film itself feels other worldly. Spirited Away is the supra fantasy of this time.

 

9 of 10

 A+ 

 

NOTES: 2003 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Animated Feature” (Hayao Miyazaki) 

 

2004 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Film not in the English Language” (Toshio Suzuki and Hayao Miyazaki)

 

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Henry Selick Returns to Disney, Lands at Pixar

Last week, Variety broke the news that Henry Selick, the director of such stop-motions films as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Oscar-nominated Coraline, had signed an exclusive long-term deal to make stop-motion features for Disney/Pixar.

Selick first worked for Disney in the late 1970s. The deal also reunites Selick with his CalArts classmate, Pixar's John Lasseter. For more, visit Comingsoon.net.

Review: "Princess Mononoke" is Simply Great

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 43 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux 

 

Mononoke Hime (1997) – animated

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japan

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Hayao Miyazaki

PRODUCER: Toshio Suzuki

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Atsushi Okui

EDITORS: Takeshi Seyama and Hayao Miyazaki

 

Princess Mononoke (1999) USA release – English dub

Running time: 134 minutes (2 hours, 14 minutes)

MPAA – PG-13 for images of violence and gore

WRITER: Neil Gaiman – English screenplay

ANIMATION/FANTASY/ADVENTURE/WAR/ACTION

 

Starring: (English voices) Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Keith David, John DeMita, John Di Maggio, Minnie Driver, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Billy Bob Thornton

 

Many consider Hayao Miyazaki to be Japan’s greatest animator and one of that country’s finest directors. He has several films to his credit, including Majo no takkyubin (released in the U.S. as Kiki’s Delivery Service) and Tenku no shiro Rapyuta (Castle in the Sky). In 2003, he won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film for Spirited Away, the 2002 English language version of his film Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi. However, his first real shot at mass appeal in the United States was the film known in America as Princess Mononoke.

 

The story centers on Prince Ashitaka (voice of Billy Crudup) who finds himself in the middle of a war between the elemental and spiritual forces of the forest and Tataraba, a human iron-mining colony. The town’s leader , Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver) has conspired with a sly assassin named Jigo, sublimely voiced by Billy Bob Thorton, to kill the great forest spirit. Ashitaka meets San, the Princess Mononoke (Claire Danes), a girl raised by the Wolf God. San leads the animal gods of the forest against Lady Eboshi, who has also made her colony a haven for outcasts. Ashitaka walks a razor’s edge, trying to save both the humans and the forest before the two destroy each other, and, although he it not the title character, he is the story’s focus.

 

Although the drawing is not as polished and as classical as a Disney film, the animation in Mononoke is nothing short of breathtaking and fantastic. While so many Western animators use computers to augment their films, Miyazaki used traditional hand drawn cels, reportedly correcting by his own hand 80,000 of the films 144,000 cels. The animation takes on a scope of epic proportions while simultaneously being romantic.

 

Miyazaki and his animators created a film that manages to be encompass the film genres of action, adventure, and war, while being a dramatic film of beautiful and poetic touches. The depth of the storytelling is novelistic in its approach. It has so much going on that the audience cannot help but be captivated and enthralled even if the references to Japanese mythology goes over their heads. The voice acting for the English dubbing is excellent, which includes not only those actors mentioned prior, but also Jada Pinkett-Smith, Gillian Anderson, and Keith David. They did have a good script with which to work. Fantasy novelist and comic book scribe Neil Gaiman, creator of the Sandman comic book, wrote the film’s dialogue in a friendly American vernacular Mononoke.

 

Fans of anime and animated films cannot miss Princess Mononoke. For people who loved epics like The Lord of the Rings, this film fits right in that vein. It stands, not only as an accomplishment in animation, but a special achievement in movie making.

 

9 of 10 

A+ 

 

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Oscar-Nominated Documentary "Food, Inc." Goes to the Dark Heart of Bad Food

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 19 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

 

Food, Inc. (2008)

Running time: 94 minutes (1 hour, 34 minutes) 

MPAA – PG for some thematic material and disturbing images 

DIRECTOR: Robert Kenner

WRITERS: Robert Kenner, Elise Pearlstein, and Kim Roberts

PRODUCERS: Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Richard Pearce

EDITOR: Kim Roberts

Academy Awards nominee

 

DOCUMENTARY – Food 

 

Starring: Gary Hirshberg, Michael Pollan, Troy Roush, Joel Salatin, and Eric Schlosser

 

Drawing on the books, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, director Robert Kenner’s documentary, Food, Inc., lifts the veil on the food industry in the United States and explores the food industry’s detrimental effects on both our health and our environment.

 

Food, Inc. explains that a handful of corporations control our nation’s food supply, and these corporations often put their profit and bottom line ahead of their workers’ safety, their consumers’ health, the livelihood of the American farmer, and the wellbeing of our environment. Kenner also spotlights the men and women who are working to reform the industry and change the way Americans think about food. Pollan and Schlosser are among those people. Food, Inc. exposes our nation’s food industry’s dark and highly mechanized underbelly, a side of it that has largely been hidden from the American consumer. The film declares that the food industry has been able to hide its dark side from us with the consent of the regulatory agencies that are supposed to police them, the USDA and FDA. The film presents an industry rife with monopolies, with questionable interpretations of U.S. laws, and with political ties that grants substantial government subsidies to the industry. One of the consequences of the food industry’s practices has been (and continues to be) rising rates of E. coli outbreaks. As evidence of the industries strange and harmful practices and innovations, Food, Inc. offers stories of science-designed food: bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad (because of the gas to which these tomatoes are exposed). The film’s scariest bit of information concerns new, drug resistant strains of E coli, the harmful bacteria that causes illness in tens of thousands of Americans annually and is not only being found in meat, but also on raw vegetables sold in grocery stores. I think of Food, Inc. as an important movie, but as far as documentary filmmaking goes, it isn’t particularly remarkable. Food, Inc. is more like an overview covering a wide range of topics, many deserving their own films. For instance, Food, Inc. informs us that the meat processing industry often hires illegal immigrants as labor. That’s not surprising, but the fact that the industry coordinates with immigration officials on ICE raids is. However, Food, Inc. only covers that aspect of the food industry in passing, and when this film does that to other subjects, I can’t help but be frustrated because I want more.

 

Still, Food, Inc. nourishes our awareness of food industry issues and leaves us hungry for more. This activist documentary may be frustrating, even infuriating at times, but it is successful at grabbing our attention concerning food issues that must have our attention.

 

7 of 10 

B+ 

 

NOTES: 2010 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Documentary, Features” (Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein) 

 

Wednesday, April 07, 2010 

 

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