VIDEO: Five Favorite Films with Tilda Swinton
I fell in love with her after watching "Orlando," based off Virginia Woolf's book of the same name.
I fell in love with her after watching "Orlando," based off Virginia Woolf's book of the same name.
1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Taiwan) | 2000 | $128,078,872
2. Hero (China) | 2004 | $53,710,019
3. Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico) | 2006 | $37,634,615
4. Amelie (France) | 2001 | $33,225,499
5. Jet Li’s Fearless (China) | 2006 | $24,633,730
6. Kung Fu Hustle (China) | 2005 | $17,108,591
7. The Motorcycle Diaries (Argentina) | 2004 | $16,781,387
8. Iron Monkey (Hong Kong) | 2001 | $14,694,904
9. Monsoon Wedding (India) | 2002 | $13,885,966
10. Y Tu Mama Tambien (Mexico) | 2002 | $13,839,658
11. Volver (Spain) | 2006 | $12,899,867
12. Under The Same Moon (Mexico/USA) | 2008 | $12,590,147
13. The Protector (Thailand) | 2006 | $12,044,087
14. The Lives of Others (Germany) | 2007 | $11,286,112
15. Brotherhood of the Wolf (France) | 2001 | $11,260,096
16. House of Flying Daggers (China) | 2004 | $11,050,094
17. La Vie en Rose (France) | 2007 | $10,301,706
18. Talk To Her (Spain) | 2002 | $9,285,469
19. City of God (Brazil) | 2006 | $7,564,459
20. The Orphanage (Spain) | 2007 | $7,161,284
21. The Closet (France) | 2001 | $6,678,894
22. Maria Full of Grace (USA/Colombia) | 2004 | $6,529,624
23. A Very Long Engagement (France) | 2004 | $6,524,389
24. Nowhere in Africa (Germany) | 2003 | $6,180,200
25. Tell No One (France) | 2008 | $6,177,192
26. El Crimen del Padre Amaro (Mexico) | 2002 | $5,717,044
27. Mongol (Russia) | 2008 | $5,705,761
28. Water (Canada) | 2006 | $5,529,144
29. Downfall (Germany) | 2005 | $5,509,040
30. The Counterfeiters (Austria) | 2008 | $5,488,570
Rest of article: http://www.indiewire.com/article/b.o._of_the_00s_the_top_grossing_foreign-language_films/#When:16:56:12Z
The 20 submitted features are:
- “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”
- “Astro Boy”
- “Battle for Terra”
- “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
- “Coraline”
- “Disney’s A Christmas Carol”
- “The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer”
- “Fantastic Mr. Fox”
- “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
- “Mary and Max”
- “The Missing Lynx”
- “Monsters vs. Aliens”
- “9”
- “Planet 51”
- “Ponyo”
- “The Princess and the Frog”
- “The Secret of Kells”
- “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure”
- “A Town Called Panic”
- “Up”
Which ones do you think? I know for a fact that "Ponyo," "Coraline," and "Up" will be there.
Ghost in the Shell 2.0, which James Cameron called 'a stunning work of speculative fiction'
When Larry and Andy Wachowski were pitching The Matrix to their producers, they played them a DVD of an 82-minute Japanese cartoon and said: "We wanna do that for real." The film was 1995's Ghost in the Shell, which defined a visual identity for cyberpunk cinema and counts James Cameron and Steven Spielberg among its most high-profile fans.
- Ghost in the Shell 2.0
- Production year: 1995
- Countries: Japan, Rest of the world
- Cert (UK): 15
- Runtime: 83 mins
- Directors: Mamoru Oshii, Mamoru Oshii
- Cast: Erik Davies, Joey D'Auria, Richard Cansino, Robert Axelrod
As it turned out, The Matrix wasn't quite Ghost in the Shell "for real", but it is indebted to it. Both films explore the virtual realm with a combination of existential questioning and kick-ass violence. The Wachowskis borrowed many of Ghost's key details, including the digital "rain" of green numbers that signifies cyberspace, and the way humans plug themselves in through holes in the backs of their necks.
While he has just rereleased a "2.0" refurbishment of his 15-year-old film, director Mamoru Oshii is modest about its pioneering qualities. "I did not revise it because I was dissatisfied with the original, but to prove how far we have progressed since then," he explains. A cheerfully taciturn man with a penchant for basset hounds, Oshii doesn't like to talk about the Matrix and any similarities to his film. "I've been asked this question hundreds of times. Frankly, it gets a bit annoying. I'm sure the Wachowski brothers feel the same. It is an entertaining movie, but I prefer their debut, Bound."
Adapted from a comic book written by Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell possesses many hallmarks of the anime (Japanese animation) genre: vast metropolises, lovingly detailed robots, military hardware, pneumatic women with huge eyes. The story is a future-noir thriller along the lines of Bladerunner, following a female cyborg detective on the trail of a mysterious hacker. She also questions her own identity: does she possess a "ghost" or a soul? Is she just a machine?
Surprisingly, the film was co-financed by a British company, Manga Films, an offshoot of Island records. Andy Frain, the movie's executive producer, says: "I wanted to do a blend of east and west: western storytelling combined with Japanese artistry and a great soundtrack – we were talking to Massive Attack at one point." But his suggestions were largely ignored, he says. The critics were lukewarm, and the film only reached a sizeable audience on video and DVD.
But it did appeal to an influential contingent of film-makers. James Cameron has described Ghost in the Shell as "a stunning work of speculative fiction . . . the first to reach a level of literary excellence". (His forthcoming movie Avatar envisages a future in which humans can transfer their personalities into the bodies of an alien species. Sound familiar?)
Ghost in the Shell's influence on Spielberg, another fan, is clear in AI: Artificial Intelligence, which ponders the philosophical implications of the human-automaton interface, and in the future-tech visions of Minority Report. In April this year, Spielberg's Dreamworks studio acquired the remake rights to Ghost in the Shell; he plans to make a 3D live-action version.
In the past year, we've also had Joss Whedon's enjoyable TV series Dollhouse, in which secret agents are wiped clean of their memories and personalities, so as to be implanted with new, temporary ones. And the sci-fi film Surrogates, out last month, imagines a future in which people prefer to stay at home and control avatars of themselves in the outside world.
From James Cameron to the Wachowski brothers to Steven Spielberg, US film-makers are paying homage to a groundbreaking Japanese anime – the movie that gave us today's vision of cyberspace
Rest of article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/19/hollywood-ghost-in-the-shell
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