Originally posted by WiccanPagan
mononoke is just as good a film a sa. i'd go watch it. it has a fern gully feel (not that fern gully was as good just that it had subtleties to protecting one's environment).

Originally posted by trigun
Yeah, it's like Fern Gully...but with decapitations

Originally posted by tofu
I'm glad that Spirited Away won but I was really disappointed that Miyazaki wasn't there to accept it because I was curious to see what he looks like (altho I'm going to look up his picture on the net right now)

The mouse that whimpered
Spirited Away marks the first time a feature-length Japanese animated film (i.e., anime) has ever been acknowledged by the Academy. And if Hayao Miyazaki's glowingly reviewed mix of traditional Japanese spa culture and Alice in Wonderland eccentricities wins, the complicated relationship between the oft-competing U.S. and Japanese schools of animation will be irrevocably altered.

It may be surprising to some that Spirited Away was distributed in the United States by Walt Disney Studios, the home not only of Mickey and Goofy but also some of those other nominees in the two-year-old Best Animated Feature category, namely Lilo and Stitch and Treasure Planet. In the postwar cradle of modern Japanese anime, Disney's early work actually served as an inspiration and watermark for Japanese artists. Since they didn't have the money to beat Disney's production values, anime evolved with an indie aesthetic based on diversity, unlimited by the "just for kids" format. While Miyazaki was cranking out increasingly ambitious films like Nausicaä and Laputa at his Studio Ghibli, Disney continued to toe the line with animation as musical comedy for the whole family – a house blend that peaked when Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture in 1992 and walked away with four Oscars. But of late the magic has been missing from the kingdom's animated offerings. While Lilo and Stitch performed admirably at the box office last year, the outright disaster of Treasure Planet capped off a string of lukewarm releases that included The Emperor's New Groove and Atlantis. Meanwhile, Miyazaki's Spirited Away grossed more in Japan alone than Lilo and Planet combined; it's currently the highest-grossing film in Japanese history. Sensing Miyazaki's potential early on, in 1996 Disney signed a deal with Studio Ghibli to help finance new works (including 1997's Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away) and distribute them on video worldwide.

Not only does Disney need Miyazaki's creativity and potential box-office clout, but it also needs his star power. Many people on both sides of the Atlantic have long considered Miyazaki as not just an animation director but an heir to the legacy of Akira Kurosawa. If Spirited Away gets the Oscar, Miyazaki will become the god of anime, albeit a sometimes crotchety deity who has been vocal in the past about the lack of "decency" in recent Disney films (as he said in a 1995 interview). Still, Miyazaki's Spirited Away was how the film was officially released in the United States, and in putting the director's name ahead of the title, the studio gave it a sense of authorship that had been previously reserved for Uncle Walt himself. In eclipsing the now stagnant Disney style of animation, anime is now poised to grab the future, with or without that little trophy. (Patrick Macias)

Originally posted by Hiro11