Miss Hokusai (opens in Akron October 21st at the Nightlight in Akron)

[MISS HOKUSAI opens in Akron on Friday October 21st exclusively at the Nightlight Cinema.] 

Artists are pretty self-centered and borderline-dislikable people. Kind of a-holes, once you really get down to it. Consider the Japanese printmaker and draftsman Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Among his most famous works is the iconic The Great Wave. We’ve all seen it. Now, back several years ago when one of my books on Great Lakes paranormal phenomena came out, I campaigned for the old Cleveland Free Times newspaper (it still existed then) to run an excerpt, my disquisition on the Lake Erie Monster. Editor Frank Lewis agreed…but that wasn’t enough for me. Even though I hadn’t drawn with pen and ink for decades, I sat down and for days and days did a painstaking takeoff on Hokusai’s Great Wave just to illustrate my Free Times book excerpt. I reproduced Hokusai’s wave, all right, but to give it the proper Cleveland twist I included the Lake Erie Monster (as a Chinese dragon), two floating drums of toxic waste, dead fish, and a homely and fat chainsmoking Japanese mermaid in a LeBron jersey.

When Frank Lewis – who probably had no idea I could draw – got the thing in the mail, he said it was the damndest thing he ever beheld. Here’s the weird part, though: I never knew if the drawing ran. The Lake Erie Monster article did, oh yes – it was findable online while the Free Times still existed. But in all the years I wrote for the paper, that was the one issue of which I could not locate one printed copy on the street.

What does this all have to do with artists being self-centered a-holes. Well, this review is supposed to be about a wonderful and offbeat new movie about Hokusai. But I’ve just gone on rambling about myself. And how I did a Hokusai takeoff. Hence, for a while here I am an artist. And, therefore, a self-centered a-hole.

ColossalCon conquers Sandusky, June 2-5

Don't dare call them mere cartoons. To its cultish fandom, this medium is known as "anime." Their creators, like Hayo Miyazaki, Yatoshi Kon and Osamu Tezuka, are considered geniuses on the level of Chuck Jones and Walt Disney. Movies like SPIRITED AWAY and AKIRA and series such as Cowboy Bepop and Ranma 1/2 are considered classic achievements. And their dedicated/demented fans go by the Japanese term "otaku."  

These people take their anime seriously. For example...When was the last time you saw crowds participating in Bugs Bunny lookalike contests? Or ruthlessly competing in Popeye trivia? Or paying big money for rare LILO & STITCH material, downloaded from the internet off bootleg Far East laserdiscs and edited and translated by obsessed fans in home computers?  

Wolf Children (screening at Zipcon in Akron, February 20)

 

Hailing from the legendary Japanese distributor Toho, WOLF CHILDREN was a hit theatrical release in Nippon in 2012 and, and no wonder (well, aside from riding the lupine coattails of TWILIGHT movies, of course). Visually stirring and hitting a lot of buttons for longtime Japanimation connoisseurs, animator Mamoru Hosoda's tender fantasy does not hail from Hayao Miyazaki's renown Studio Ghibli - but there is a strong affinity, particularly in its reverence for the natural world.  

Heroine Hana is an orphaned, big-city Japanese college student with a keep-smiling attitude to life (pretty girl, big-city college student, keep-smiling attitude to life? Like I said, it's a fantasy). She falls in love with a handsome loner on the fringes of the campus. The nameless man reveals his astounding secret, that he is actually a Japanese wolf, the last of his kind, hiding in human form. Werewolf movies have it all wrong, he affirms.  

Forget the Oscars, Japanese animation reigns at Zipcon in Akron, February 20

It's fair to say now that a college education these days is futile. Students at pricey 

universities/academies/institutes/whatever rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, now at jacked-up interest rates, all to earn a diploma and degree that will never get them work able to pay down the huge sum. They will slave in permanent debt at miserable minimum-wage Mcjobs (if they are even lucky enough to find one of those at all in Ohio). Or default in bankruptcy - and slave away in permanent debut at miserable minimum-wage Mcjobs without a credit rating. They will never get out from under the crushing expense of so-called higher education. College took it all, picked their pockets clean and stole their futures. And it was not worth it, unless one counts paying bloated salaries of the faculty and elite administrators riding this gravy train-con game. 

But that is not the fate of the students at glorious University of Akron, oh no! They will NOT face a bleak future owing money that they will never earn back in a climate of low-pay hopelessness and no-benefits malaise.

No, they will face a bleak future owing money that they will never earn back in a climate of low-pay hopelessness and no-benefits malaise...WITH the pleasurable memory of having enjoyed the annual Saturday anime marathon, Zipcon.

When Marnie Was There (opens in Cleveland June 5th at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE opens in Cleveland on Friday June 5th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Sorry, a rush job on this review of a Japanese animated feature. Bob Ignizio, white foreign barbarian devil round-eye giant pale ghost (those are all bona fide racist slurs Japanese use against anglos, unless I'm much misinformed) dropped this one right on top of me, a review assignment of the latest release from legendary Nippon animation factory Studio Ghibli - right in between my binge-watch assignments to go through two other, more "conventional" anime shows.

So you can identify with my befuddled state, these were the bookends: Noir, a famous 2001 action serial (and, to my eyes, Sergio Leono tribute) about two winsome young girls working as a lethal international assassins-for-hire team, who are also puppets in the hands of a 1,000-year-old secret society. The other is Unlimited Psychic Squad, one of those sci-fi deals in which telepaths with incredible mind-superpowers duel like gods in a sort of alternate-history version of Japan.

Welcome to the Space Show (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I don't know about you, but when a separate Oscar category for Best Animated Feature was inaugurated, I welcomed it as a chance to open audiences up to the rich world of cartoons, CGI and stop-motion that exists outside of the usual Disney/DreamWorks axis of evil. (Plus, I like to think that advancements in animation will mean fewer live-action cinema - meaning fewer borderline-psycho actors would be employed in our midst - and that can't be a bad thing). So, perhaps thanks to the Academy, more viewers are turned on to stuff like SONG OF THE SEA and the output of Studio Ghibli than would have been otherwise.

Still, there are still some major animated features that take some time to get here. I'm still curious about FELIDAE, the German cartoon based on a best-selling thriller novel (that never broke big with American readers) about a cat version of Sherlock Holmes...

Wait a minute! Didn't I just write this same exact lead for a previous review? Well, yes. I've got two movies in a row in which it's applicable. Plus this is a bad economy, it's cold and dark, it's dispiriting in Cleveland, and I just couldn't up with anything more original. What are you going to do, garnish my Cleveland Movie Blog wages? Good luck.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (opens in Akron on January 2nd at the Nightlight Cinema)

[THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND MADNESS opens in Akron on Friday January 2nd at the Nightlight Cinema.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I am rather surprised there aren't more documentary films about Japanese animation. Come to think of it, the only one I could really name, never seen but known only to me by reputation, is a shadowy DIY effort called THE OTAKU MOVIE, reputed to be more of a mockumentary/fan flick than anything else. While so much in the world of popular culture seems to be docu'ed to death (anyone seen Keith David’s Creature from the Black Lagoon documentary? How is it?), the breadth and richness of Japanese anime and their close relation, manga comics, are still fairly unexplored by documentarians. Is that possibly because the idea of these folks sitting at their workstations, churning out tons of their art, just isn't very compelling?

Dope Island: Just in time for Pearl Harbor Day, the latest from Japan

As my regular readers (the columnist laughs ruefully, pauses) ...know, I have a sideline watching and reviewing fresh home-video releases in Japanese animation.

This is a curious personal situation, as Japanese history and culture holds certain negative associations for me. Pearl Harbor, the Rape of Nanking, the bad KARATE KID sequels and some other disagreeable episodes that the Chinese and the Koreans and the Filipinos won't soon forget.

Why would Japan, this sequestered, homogeneous nation of rigid, militaristic fanatics who elevated their Emperor Hirohito to the level of god, come to nurture a most amazing industry of "manga" comic books and eye-dazzling animation. With incredible emotional depth, unique themes and nuances? Nothing in Japan's old-school scrollworks, samurai swords, incomprehensible kabuki theater or calligraphy looks to my foreign-devil-barbarian POV like Speed Racer or Pokemon - enjoyable stuff, in which, by the way, almost no characters even resemble ethnic Japanese, not even remotely. Where'd they get the mojo?

Yeah, fans say the style was set by the genius artist Osamu Tezuka, and everyone afterwords just imitated his Astro Boy aesthete. But here's my alternative conspiracy theory:

DragonBall Z: Battle of Gods (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Anything left of interest in the movie theaters in the dreadful year of 2014? While I'm sure some of you are looking forward to the WW2 nonfiction drama UNBROKEN as a holiday release, the latest mind-bender from Christopher Nolan INTERSTELLAR and, I guess, CARS 3: CARS SAVE CHRISTMAS (Pixar sure has fallen, if you ask me), I recently got my abused eyes on the 105-minute import from Japan, DRAGONBALL Z: BATTLE OF GODS, released here direct to video.

I will not pretend to be anything of a follower of the long-running Dragonball franchise, which encompasses comics, videogames, TV shows and, of course, movies - both theatrical features in the Far East such as this one and made-for-video specials. In fact, starting with BATTLE OF GODS may be optimum, as I can't simply see where this addictive franchise can go from here.

A Letter to Momo (September 14th and 17th at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[A LETTER TO MOMO screens Sunday September 14th at 7:00 pm and  Wednesday September 17th at 7:00 pm at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

As regular readers of my reviews (probably the NSA; nobody else) knows, I landed a critic gig that pays me actual money - yes, just like in the old Clinton era - to review Japanese animation on DVD and Blu-ray. I know that probably arouses envy in some of you. Isn't Japanese "anime" supposed to be the coolest thing?

Well, it isn't much money. Far less than I deserve. Hear me, O My Brothers, when I watch this Japanese stuff in massive doses, I have to go back and decontaminate with a Far East episode of Capra's WHY WE FIGHT or other WW2 propaganda pieces, to settle accounts with those bastards of the Rising Sun.

One of my recent assignments, for example, was this thing about teenage girl ninjas (not Ninja Turtles, even). You'll notice I'm not divulging the title. But like a lot of Japanimation, it runs a 12-episode cycle - 300 minutes, folks, not counting the disc "extras.' Enormous, beachball-like breasts is/are the primary attraction, pendulous with what the anime cognoscenti (or "otaku," as they're called) have dubbed "fan service": partial nudity, shower scenes, swimsuits, lesbian-ish gropings, and panty flashes.

Dope Island: The Fiend's superhero fix for those of you who couldn't go to Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The closest thing I had to New Year's resolution this year was that I'd start posting my dreams/nightmares online. If I haven't followed through, it's mainly because most of my dreams, as I can best foggily recall, were not of a very interesting nature. 

But I had a great one the other night. In it, I finally, FINALLY got hired at a local newspaper. I think it was the Morning Journal of Lorain, for whom I freelanced for 18 years before they downsized me (and just about everyone else) out a few years ago. But here, I was back on the team. When I showed up at the place you would never dream it was a financially struggling Ohio daily. The news offices were like a chain of airplane hangars or big-box stores, just vast spaces. Moreover, there was some kind of epic corporate musical-party celebration going on.  

Colorful (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Right up there with Leo the Lion and the 20th-Century Fox logo (never altered yet to "21st-Century Fox," probably because there isn't enough money) is the distinctive emblem of Japan's Toho Studio. You know, a bluish-translucent starburst-sort of thing, that I do believe represents in the abstract the artful beauty of Japan's favorite flower, the chrysanthemum. Either that or a visual representation of the neural shock that's the last thing that flashed through the brains of Allied POWs when the honorable Imperial Japanese camp commander cut off their heads with honorable clan samurai sword.

Yes, I still have issues with the Japanese, and that Toho emblem always puts me in mind for the imminent appearance of Godzilla or Rodan. But recently I beheld it in a very different context - setting off the animated feature COLORFUL.

Repost: Princess Mononoke (October 10th, 11th, and 13th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[PRINCESS MONONOKE screensThursday October 10th at 8:35 pm, Friday October 11th at 7:00 pm, and Sunday October 13th at 8:25 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Here's my latest career (sic) update news: I may be serving as a Japanese animation specialist for one of our allied websites. Strange to me that they didn't already have one. Isn't Japanese "anime" supposed to be the coolest thing on Earth? So I asked, didn't any of their other writers, the ones with seniority, want to do anime? Answer: Nope. Nobody at all. Yours if you want it, newbie. Hmmm... That's not the cultural climate I remember.

(here's a metaphorical comparison:
ME - "Hey, Cleveland Movie Blog Reader, I've got a Baywatch starlet here who wants to be your lover!"
YOU (a la Homer Simpson) - "Woo-hoo!"
ME - "Uh, I should tell you, she's not what she used to be, really. been through the wringer. Isn't photographed much anymore. Got rejections by Larry King, Kelsey Grammer, Gilbert Gottfried and Charlie Manson first before working her way down here.
YOU (weakly): "...woo-hoo..."
ME - "It might help if you close your eyes when you're with her. And use the Vicks Vapo-Rub under your nose, the way coroners do..."
YOU - "D'oh!")

Repost: Kiki's Delivery Service (September 26th and 27th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE screens Thursday September 26th at 8:35 pm and Friday September 27th at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I can’t imagine University Circle after dark ever being a place for kids – unless they’re cut into sections and displayed floating in formaldehyde in a new Damien Hirst retrospective at the remodeled MOCA, or sold on the human-traffic market by CWRU-enrolled parents that desperate to pay off the interest on their student loans. But every once in a while the Cleveland Cinematheque shows a quality children’s movie at special admission rates, and there’s a particularly highly recommended one this weekend.

It’s KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE, from esteemed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, a warm, fuzzy and yet non-condescending release whose original 1989 title MAJO NO TAKKYUBIN translates literally, so I’m told, as “Witch’s Special Delivery.”

Repost: Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind (September 12th and 14th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[NAUSICAA IN THE VALLEY OF THE WIND screens Thursday September 12th at 8:35 pm and Saturday September 14th at 5:15 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I had semi-serious intent to go to the multiplex and review a new release for you all, but…smeg! What a rotten selection last weekend! Just about everything new has been getting genuinely terrible writeups. No kidding, in a movie marketplace like this, INNOCENCE OF MUSLIMS would probably get a wide release, had only the filmmakers had the foresight to make it in Real3D. Fortunately, as part of its Hayo Miyazaki series, the Cleveland Cinematheque is bravely looking backward.

Laputa - Castle in the Sky (September 6th and 7th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[LAPUTA: CASTLE IN THE SKY screens Friday September 6th at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday September 7th at 5:00 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

While I've got all your attention (yeah, right), let me just make this last comment - for the moment - on the Seymour Avenue horrors and the widely applauded suicide, so-called, of sex-criminal Ariel Castro. Just days before, much of this part of Ohio celebrated the 20th anniversary of the filming of the jailhouse drama THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION in and around Mansfield. If memory serves, a theme in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is a Hollywood-liberal notion that underneath their rough exteriors, hardcore maximum-security inmates are really good souls. They are, they are! You just have to have a guy like Tim Robbins serenading classical music in the exercise yard and stocking the prison library full of sensitive literature, and they become lambs.

Yes, audiences adore THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and weep at the appropriate moments...Yet when a real-life notorious convict kills himself or gets killed/executed, not even a week later, and all the same hoi polloi give the high-fives and the "f__ yeahs!" and whatever bad Shane Black dialogue passes for macho affirmation these days. I'm just saying, it's an unusually sharp disconnect there. We cheer on Hollywoodized convicts played by Morgan Freeman; the real non-SAG ones offscreen may well be mass-lynched by vigilantes and Republican frat-boys. It's like BABE inspiring more pig roasts, is all I'm saying.

Repost: From Up On Poppy Hill (July 26th at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[FROM UP ON POPPY HILL screens Friday July 26th at 7:00 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art Morley Lecture Hall.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

In 1964 Japan, high school girl Umi (Sarah Bolger) lives and works at her grandmother's boarding house while her mother studies medicine in America. Umi's father died in the Korean war, and she honors his memory by flying signal flags that can be seen by boats passing by the boarding house. The flags are seen by Shun (Anton Yelchin), another student at Umi's school who is inspired to write a poem about them. Circumstances bring the two young people together in an effort to save the Latin Quarter, an old building on campus that has clearly seen better days but which many students consider an important meeting place (almost a frat house, it seems). They clearly have chemistry, but a surprise revelation throws a major monkey wrench into their budding romance. Not only does it seem the lovestruck teens are doomed to be “just friends”, the fate of the venerable school building appears grim as well.

From Up On Poppy Hill (opens in Cleveland April 12th exclusively at the Capitol Theatre)

[FROM UP ON POPPY HILL opens in Cleveland on Friday April 12th exclusively at the Capitol Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

In 1964 Japan, high school girl Umi (Sarah Bolger) lives and works at her grandmother's boarding house while her mother studies medicine in America. Umi's father died in the Korean war, and she honors his memory by flying signal flags that can be seen by boats passing by the boarding house. The flags are seen by Shun (Anton Yelchin), another student at Umi's school who is inspired to write a poem about them. Circumstances bring the two young people together in an effort to save the Latin Quarter, an old building on campus that has clearly seen better days but which many students consider an important meeting place (almost a frat house, it seems). They clearly have chemistry, but a surprise revelation throws a major monkey wrench into their budding romance. Not only does it seem the lovestruck teens are doomed to be “just friends”, the fate of the venerable school building appears grim as well.

Speed-race to Shinboku Con 7 (April 12th, 13th, and 14 at the Elyria Ramada Inn)

 Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I've been studying Japanese animation ("anime") in depth lately, and it goes like this: all anime has magic schoolgirls who manage to produce huge swords from somewhere and fight monsters (or other magic schoolgirls). When dressed in full school-uniform regalia, the girls are wisp-thin like Olive Oyl. When their clothes come off, or the top blouse button gets undone during combat or something, the same girls turn out to be busty as porn stars. Every Japanese anime series has their own equivalent of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue; suddenly the heroines (including their female deadly enemies) wind up at the beach, in a bathhouse, or competing in a beauty pageant, lingerie fashion-show or bikini tournament. There are suggestive lesbian clinches, nipple slips, and what are called "panty flashes." There is a male lead character, usually a decent-hearted high school guy, but as colorless as Tintin (and also with little or no parental supervision). For some reason all the schoolgirls-with-swords congregate around him and wind up cohabiting under his very roof, in what they call the "harem comedy." Often, usually around a bathtub, he accidentally trips and falls face-first into their spectacular cleavage (sternum and/or vaginal) as all the others walk in, cueing feminine shrieks and jealous misunderstandings.

The Cat Returns (February 23rd and 24th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE CAT RETURNS screens Saturday February 23rd at 9:05 pm and Sunday February 24th at 3:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Marcie Gainer

Full of whimsy and magic, THE CAT RETURNS is another captivating tale from the renowned Studio Ghibli. A spin off of WHISPER OF THE HEART, THE CAT RETURNS features the Baron (a magical cat statue) and Muta from the previous film but, unfortunately, not Shizuku. The protagonist in THE CAT RETURNS is Haru, a young misfit, who longs for love and acceptance. After rescuing a cat from being hit by a truck, Haru realizes she has the strange ability to speak to cats. She comes to find out that the cat she rescued is the son of the Cat King. In order to “repay” her for her kindness, the Cat King decides to kidnap Haru and force her to marry his son. Haru enlists Muta and the Baron to help save her. After writing that synopsis, I realize how childish the plot sounds but it’s more entertaining that it may seem.