Very small update on new Ocelot series

Nord-Ouest's Web site has changed the title from Bergères et dragons to Dragons et princesses (though I suspect that even this might not end up being the final title) and, more disappointingly, the running time of each episode from 13 to 5 minutes. The number of episodes has also decreased – though quite sensibly, I believe, in this case – from 52 to 26, which still makes this his longest project since Gédéon.

Animafest in Zagreb, Croatia will in early June 2010 hold a Michel Ocelot retrospective as part of the festival, with screenings of three of his features and one of many of his shorter works, including Les Quatre Vœux; this screening is particularly notable, even for someone some distance away from Croatia, in that the Web page for it has some nice, proper stills, one of each of the segments, including several of which I haven't come across in this form before.

And lastly, a few notes on cinema releases: Gake no Ue no Ponyo is out in Australian cinemas tomorrow (tomorrow being Thursday, 27 August and Brendan and the Secret of Kells is to reach the Netherlands in September and the USA in October 2009.

Automatic binding bricks

On until 1 September this year (so you haven't missed all of it, but sorry that I've only just learnt of it in the local Metro to tell you) is the Small World International Short Animation Festival in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. The programme this year includes KATÔ Kunio's La Maison en petits cubes and Lesley Barnes' Herzog and the Monsters among works famous and unfamiliar of the last few years.

On the gaming side of things (which I have now thought to make a label for; it will include games of both the digital and analogue kind and both musings and news), I was almost as surprised and excited as when Azur et Asmar was advertised in CITV's commercial breaks to today hear one for LEGO Games, a new range of actual, designed (though still child-aimed) games (two of them by Reiner Knizia and the reminder from British designer Cephas Howard) which I first learnt of about a month or more ago over here at the blog BrettSpiel, which now has a detailed interview with Howard. A more recent post led me to this site on Kit Williams' Masquerade, pioneer of the armchair treasure hunt and all those puzzle-picture books like Piers Harper's Turtle Quest which I'm still in love with the concept of but have never been any good at, which I'd say is enough to warrant my continued attention and a place in the Blog List (to the right, below my user info).

Current music: Lady in the Dark – "One Life to Live"

Also, from a Facebook page: "My four-year old granddaughter now has a new 'favourite movie in my whole life,' but she says, 'Don't tell Totoro!'"

The same page also links to articles on the roles of colour designer YASUDA Michiyo and key animator, animation director and character designer KONDÔ Katsuya. The former in particular isn't particularity revealing, but her belief that "this Ponyo movie had to be created with a whole new colouration" certainly seems evident in what stills I've seen of the finished film.

Current music: Saint Etienne – "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"

Ponyo on Twitter

Daniel Thomas MacInnes' Conversations on Ghibli (in the blog list at the right) recently pointed out that Ponyo has become a top-ten "hot topic" on Twitter. The most strongly negative and positive responses I've noticed thus far are, respectively, that shelbyemustang "still doesn't understand the plot of Ponyo… Or why anyone in their right mind would want to see it?" and, quoted by haleyanna, "I wasn't even tripping and that shit was AWESOME, BRAH."

Fortunately, there appear to many, many people in the "wrong" mind. Naturally, it makes me wonder (and somewhat fear) what they'd think of La Planète sauvage…

Also, much more on the UK broadcast of Ukkari Pénélope can now be found in my posts at Anime UK News here.

Current music: Indian day at the Proms on BBC Radio 3. (^∀^)

I'm pretty sure that any readers in North America that I have will be sick of reading this – and those anywhere else, far more so – but I can't help but play my part in letting as many of you as possible know that Miyazaki Hayao's Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, 2008) is now out in cinemas in your part of the world: go to Fandango, MovieTickets.com or Moviefone and type in your post/zip code to find out where it's playing nearest to you (though you'll need to contact the individual cinemas to find out whether it's a subtitled or dubbed version that they'll be projecting). If you want foreign-language, family-friendly films like Ocelot's to be better represented in cinemas – not only in the USA about around the world, as no other country has such a powerful knock-on effect (see, for example how the bombing of the British MirrorMask in North America caused it to be buried in it's own land) – then the single best thing that you can do towards that cause is to pay to see this film.

I should also mention that the Irish DVD of The Secret of Kells has now been released, which is particularly notable as, since the United Kingdom and the Republic or Ireland are generally considered one territory when it comes to DVDs, this release has been rated by the BBFC and is available from several (though far from all) UK shops (it wasn't represented at Find DVD when I checked earlier today). I would have recommended the French Blu-ray Disc over this, except that the French releases fail to include the original-language dialogue track. More reason to hold out for a UK theatrical release then, though being already available on home video here won't help towards that, I expect.

And thirdly, and last for this post, I noticed a few days ago that Ukkari Pénélope has been showing on CBeebies! It is dubbed, naturally, but thankfully in British rather than American accents, and there aren't really any moving mouths (it's the kind of series that will have been made with international distribution in mind from the start).

Current music: A dark, smoky jazz arrangement of the (original) theme tune to Andy Pandy. No, really; it's on Radio 3 as I write this.