On Mar 19, 11:26 pm, Derek Janssen
comcast.net> wrote:> Terrence Briggs wrote:
>>>>Actually, the one time an unidentified member of the Foreign Film
>>>>committee posted on raam regarding the Mononoke FF-push,
>
>>>Could you help me find the original post? A quick Google Groups
>>>search didn't help, and I'd love to hang such a post on my bathroom
>>>door :)
>
>> Ken Rudolph was the alias of the original poster who made the infamous
>> observation. Get those thumb tacks and tape out...
>
>
>> Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.current-films
>> Date: 1998/02/11
>> Subject: Re: Worst Oscar Snub of 1997....
>
>> In response to one of DJ's classic canards :-), Ken said...
>>> "'Not one single member of the foreign language committee could possibly
>>> have compared Mononoke with Beauty and the Beast. What really turned
>>> the committee off was its simplistic ecologic sword-and-sorcery
>>> subtext and lack of any emotional involvement. Comparing Mononoke
>>> Hime with Karakter is like comparing Batman and Robin to Wings of the
>>> Dove."
>
>> Ouch. That was a pretty painful bowel movement.
>
>> Dude also stated in other posts that he is "not a huge fan of animated
>> movies in general".
>
> Keep in mind, this was years before the Best Animated Feature award, and
> Disney had, frankly, acted like a spotlight-hogging *pig* about their
> one Best Picture nomination (which, back in '92, before two other of the
> nominees had come out and one was given up for forgotten, carried about
> as much weight as "Little Miss Sunshine" had for Best Picture this year)--
Any citations that I can reference for, say, a magazine article?
> Not to mention frenzied Los Angeles voters who had been making pests of
> themselves trying to get "Aladdin" and "Toy Story 2" Best Picture noms.
> The creation of the Best Animated Feature category was quite literally
> the act of Shutting Somebody Up, and the committees were grateful for it.
Any citations for these observations?
> ...What you had in 1997 for Oscar screening committees was the
> proverbial Tough Crowd for animated films.
> Spirited Away might've softened their hearts into a nomination, but
> Hayao's "Big Overreaching Attempt At Serious Downbeat Art" was not going
> to go over well, especially with a movie that would've been a fish out
> of water with the committee even if it *had* been upbeat, involving or
> entertaining.
So, the committee wasn't prepared to accept an animated film, much
less one with a weighty tone? Isn't that what I've been saying from
the beginning?
>> An old Web site review (2001) of his observes:
>> "Why do the Japanese, who have one of the world's great cinemas, so
>> rarely get nominated? They don't have a very good take on the Academy
>> committee's mind-set. They consistently send movies which turn off
>> the committee. Go is a perfect example (as was Princess Monogartari,
>> and other Anime films submitted in the past few years.)"
>
>> Don't hate, though. He liked the dub of Howl's Moving Castle :-)
>
> One time, a Japanese/English news blog asked the question, why DIDN'T
> Mononoke go over well in the US, as opposed to breaking box offices in
> Japan?
> Among other answers, mine was, will somebody break the bad news to the
> other side of the Pacific that Westerners *just aren't as obsessed* with
> "Save the Earth" messages as a good chunk of Japanese filmmakers,
> writers seem to be?
So now, is a pop cinema culture trained on Happy Feet (a.k.a. March of
the Toe-Tappin' Penguins) and An Inconvinient Truth (a.k.a. The Al
Gore Movie), just a wee bit more obsessed than they were 10 years ago?
But yeah, I'm not sure how much consideration Happy Feet got for Best
Feature. Hell, Little Miss Sunshine was supposed to be the "family-
friendly" nom this year, right?
> Where Japanese audiences thought the man vs. nature story was
> "heartfelt" and "mystical", US audiences just fidgeted, checked their
> watches and said "Enough with the Woodsy Owl crap, give us a STORY with
> CHARACTERS!!"
> (At least, those who didn't try to go with the story and grumble, "Okay,
> so basically, everybody's crabby and at war with each other for the
> whole movie, then?")
Guess they weren't ready for Platoon and Saving Private Ryan and
Letters From Iwo Jima and every other live-action war movie ever made,
then. But those war flicks didn't attempt sword-and-sorcery
metaphysics without Hobbits and psuedo-realistic CGI.
The "boringandstale" argument always seemed to include a Tolkien
exemption, right?
> ...In other words, Disney wasn't the *only* one who were hoping to see a
> Ghibli movie with Kiki in it.
Terrence Briggs returning his Ghibli DVDs to the library. Guess I
shoulda watched them while I was sick.
Peace to you...
