Maybe it’s all of the chaos happening right now in the world, or perhaps the tragedies that are affecting some people close to me, but I was in need of something to buoy my spirits. So imagine my joy when I saw that the trailer for Ponyo, the latest film from Hayao Miyazaki, was now on Apple’s trailer page.

After an initial viewing, it’s apparent that Miyazaki made good on his word to go back to a simpler animation style. Gone is much of the CGI and the designs and animation are much more basic. Nevertheless, I was completely entranced by the trailer’s halfway point.

Ponyo will be released here in the States on August 14. More information on the film, including some potential spoilers, can be found at GhibliWiki.

Twitch recently alerted me to War of the Worlds: Goliath, an upcoming animated feature that just sounds cooler than cool: it’s a “sequel” to H.G. Wells’ classic story with steampunk and alternative history aspects and done in an anime-like style.

As for the story, humanity has rebuilt itself after the initial Martian invasion using the remaining Martian technology. Now, they’re preparing themselves for the aliens’ inevitable return, developing a defense force consisting of giant steam-powered tripods, massive zeppelins, and fighter squadrons led by Manfred von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron.

As the filmmakers put it, War of the Worlds: Goliath will feature selfless heroism, alien cruelty, base betrayal and passionate lovemaking framed by the life and death paradigm of total interstellar war.

The film’s official website is still under construction, but you can find plenty of information—including a full synopsis, a director’s statement, and a gallery of production artwork— here.

War of the Worlds: Goliath is scheduled to be released on DVD in February 2010.

I’ve just posted my review of Mamoru Oshii’s The Sky Crawlers over on Filmwell.

Considering that it’s Oshii we’re talking about, I wish I could’ve been more positive but, well, you’ll just have to read the review to find out why I wasn’t.

The Ross has recently announced the lineup for this year’s “Movies on the Green”. Perhaps drawing some inspiration from the current economic climate, six “Depression era” films will be shown:

• July 9 - You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
• July 16 - A Star Is Born (1937)
• July 23 - Sahara (1943)
• July 30 - The Stranger (1946)
• August 6 - You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
• August 13 - Lost Horizon (1937)

Movies on the Green occurs in front of Kimball Recital Hall (12th & R Streets). All screenings are free (soda and popcorn will be sold at the screenings) and begin at dusk. If a screening is cancelled due to bad weather, it will take place the next day at the same time.

I won’t spend a lot of time and energy going through the many reasons why Terminator Salvation is so underwhelming. But they can all be summed up thusly: if you’re making the latest film in a long-running and beloved franchise, it’s one thing to pay homage to the earlier films. However, it’s quite another thing to cannibalize them for spare parts.

Three guesses as to what Terminator Salvation does.

Earlier today, I posted my review of Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux on Filmwell. For what it’s worth, the review is a reworked version of my earlier Opus review that takes into account some of the changes made in the “redux” version, which represents Wong’s final directorial vision for the film.

On a sidenote, writing the “new” review was an interesting experience because it required me going back and reflecting on earlier material. It’s always strange to read older articles on Opus—I posted my original review of Ashes of Time back in 2003, FYI—and see how I reviewed movies back then (or tried to review them), what I notice then as opposed to now, and so on.

I don’t know that I’ve become a better movie reviewer—sometimes I think I’ve slipped a little—but there’s a definite difference in how I approach the material now. Not that I can necessarily articulate it in words, but the difference is there if only on a subconscious level for me.

Last night, I dreamed about a trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie that was so awesome I woke up smiling and positively giddy.

However, even that pales in comparison to this.

One of the most anticipated movies of 2009—at least, ‘round here at Opus HQ—is John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Earlier this week, Esquire ran a review of the film, calling it “the most important movie of the year”. And now, the film’s first trailer has arrived online, and I have mixed feelings.

The trailer shows that the filmmakers have certainly captured the devastation and worldwide cataclysm—I dig the huge shot of the ruined city around the 0:23 mark. But at the same time, the trailer—with its rapid editing and pounding score—makes the film look like little more than a generic survival action/adventure piece, which the book is most assuredly not.

Furthermore, the trailer conveys little of the novel’s grimly beautiful poetry, but focuses primarily on the devastation and even hints at its cause(s). (The novel never explains what caused the worldwide cataclysm that has left humanity in a lurch, which only makes the story stronger and more haunting.) So I hope these added little bits stay in the trailer, and don’t represent the film’s content.

Ultimately, I think we’re seeing a movie studio’s typical marketing approach to material that is challenging—and believe me, if Hillcoat was even remotely faithful to the novel, the movie is going to be very challenging. So if you’ve never read the book, and this trailer is your first real exposure to The Road, take it with a grain of salt and know that while the trailer gets some things right, there’s a lot there that is, shall we say, misleading. Oh, and read the book while you wait for the movie to come out October 16.