Posts Tagged paprika

Anime Director, Satoshi Kon ( 1963 – 2010 )

Posted by mistergroonk in Animation, Anime, Movies, Only in Japan, People Who Died, Television on August 24, 2010

The universe remains an unfair ‘verse. We just learned of anime director Satoshi Kon‘s passing via Twitch.

Satoshi Kon worked on several anime classics under Katsuhiro Otomo and Mamoru Oshii, but is most well-known for his own films released by Madhouse: “Perfect Blue”, “Millennium Actress”, “Tokyo Godfathers” and of course “Paprika”. He also made the brilliant 13-episode series “Paranoia Agent”. Currently he was working on his new film “The Dreaming Machine” which was scheduled for release next year.

Kon’s genius will be sorely missed.

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Live-Action PAPRIKA Film Proposed, Because Hollywood Loves Effing Up Perfection

Posted by mistergroonk in Anime, Movies on March 26, 2010

Petersen notes that his representatives first introduced him to the story through Kon’s anime film: “And I saw it and bingo, I thought this is fantastic. This is a great piece. That will be a very very interesting movie.” Although he plans to make the story a little more accessible for a mainstream audience, he compares the story to The Matrix in its scope.

We’ve learned THE NEVERENDING STORY director Wolfgang Petersen wants to adapt Satoshi Kon’s (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Paranoia Agent) anime masterpiece PAPRIKA into a live-action affair. The first quote out of his mouth is to make it “a little more accessible.” Just count the ways this can go wrong.

PAPRIKA is one of those tales that lends itself to the limitless possibilities of animation. While the NEVERENDING STORY film was a favorite of ours growing up, we’d rather Peterson focus on some other project. It’d be nigh impossible to improve upon Kon’s perfection.

Check out PAPRIKA’s opening sequence which is, by our reckoning, in the top 5 best film opening sequences of all time below the cut.

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New PAPRIKA Trailer Stuns My Brain with Beauty

Posted by mistergroonk in Anime, Just Freaking Neat, Movies, Only in Japan, Trailers on March 2, 2007

This has to be the one movie I’m looking forward to this spring. Aside from 300, of course.

paprika2ndtrailer.gif

The trailer’s only at the Apple site right now. You Tube doesn’t have it yet.

Damnit.

And if this is the intro to PAPRIKA…holy shit, man!

(via warren ellis, first PAPRIKA trailer, second PAPRIKA trailer)

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PAPRIKA is Curiously Cool Looking

Posted by mistergroonk in Anime, Movies, One Sheets, Trailers on December 7, 2006

This ain’t your mama’s paprika. This here PAPRIKA will invade your headspace and cause fits of cool to shudder throughout your body.

Can dreams drive you crazy? Is the boundary between dream life and so-called real life permeable? Satoshi Kon has been making brilliant animations based on these and similar questions since “Perfect Blue,” his 1998 feature debut about an idol singer whose life, inner as well as outer, is invaded by an obsessed fan.

His latest and, he says, last investigation of this dream-vs.-reality theme is “Paprika,” which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival and has been selected as a possible nominee for an animation Oscar. I have no idea if his film will make it into the final five, but it is definitely different from not only the talking-animal, 3G animation for kiddies that is now standard in Hollywood, but also the manga-based, sci-fi fantasy that the Japanese animation industry exports in large quantities to the world.

True, it has SF elements, the main one being a gizmo called the DC Mini that looks like a futuristic hearing aid and can transmit the wearer’s dreams — think of an MP3 Web site that allows you to share dreams instead of tunes.

But instead of focusing on his hardware or spinning the usual good-vs.-evil SF story, Kon takes his audience on a wild, fantastic ride into a land of extreme dreaming, where primal desires and fears (absolute freedom, appropriation of one’s identity by a malevolent Other) come to gaudy, phantasmagorical life.

I know it sounds like THE CELL. But this actually has a thought behind it. I’m sure of this(sight unseen) cause director Satoshi Kon did the amazing PERFECT BLUE, the mesmerizing MILLENIUM ACTRESS, and the flat out awesome PARANOIA AGENT.

That’s 3 to 1 against CELL director Tarsem Singh.

All THE CELL did was show me J Lo smoking pot(points for the panty shot) and Vicnent D’Onofrio in weird hair. It got points for mentioning FANTASTIC PLANET but lost all off them when it turned into a 90 minute music video.

There’s a one sheet under the cut.

(via ontd and anime luving YouTube and The Japan Times)

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