Summer Wars
Last night I went to see the Cambridge (Massachusetts) premiere of new animated feature by Mamoru Hosoda.
I have been researching Japanese cyberpunk so I made a special effort to stop by the Monday showing that had the director in attendance. While the film, which was 35mm, had very little punk, it was very Japanese in the sense that the group (which at one point included a substantial fraction of the global online community) had to pull together to defeat the rogue AI. The director went to great pains to show at least some contribution by as many members of the group (mainly an extended family and friends for most of the movie). I reminded me of the Hollywood screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. The family black sheep confesses to created the rogue AI while the central male character (a high school math whiz) accidentally helps the AI hack the global network.
The movie has a detail portrayal of group dynamics, particularly how everyone initially works at cross-purposes (with the best of intentions, of course). random notes
Hosoda had read Gibson's Neuromancer, but he seemed to be more influenced by visual works, like the movies of Wilder, Disney, Kubrick and Kurosawa; both Dr Strangelove and Seven Samurai were mentioned in the Q&A session after the movie. Curiously, Hosoda denied being directly influenced by Leiji Matsumoto (I wish that I had asked about Tezuka).
Many audience members had seen all of Hosoda's works, from Digimon onwards. Of particular note was The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Hosoda tries to portray the internet as a light inviting place, as opposed to the dark grim nightmare preferred by certain other anime directors.
Hosoda strives to make what he personally regards as the best movies that he can create. He is also quite content with adapting existing books or manga. He tries to touch upon the universal themes without worrying about whether the movie will fit into a particular market niche; in this quest, he acknowledged that he may one day make the career-ending megaflop and that, so far, he has been lucky.
Hosoda did not intent the movie to be about young/new versus the aged/old. He said that he tried how both the older generations have incorporated the internet, cell phones and the like into their daily lives while the young still employ the older methods of social interaction. He views the conflict as more of one between local customs and traditions versus the global tendency towards bland uniformity (consider Love Machine's manifestations as an aggregate of millions of avatars). Even Love Machine is portrayed not as malicious entity but rather as a prankster who disregards the consequences of its action.
I have been researching Japanese cyberpunk so I made a special effort to stop by the Monday showing that had the director in attendance. While the film, which was 35mm, had very little punk, it was very Japanese in the sense that the group (which at one point included a substantial fraction of the global online community) had to pull together to defeat the rogue AI. The director went to great pains to show at least some contribution by as many members of the group (mainly an extended family and friends for most of the movie). I reminded me of the Hollywood screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. The family black sheep confesses to created the rogue AI while the central male character (a high school math whiz) accidentally helps the AI hack the global network.
The movie has a detail portrayal of group dynamics, particularly how everyone initially works at cross-purposes (with the best of intentions, of course). random notes
Hosoda had read Gibson's Neuromancer, but he seemed to be more influenced by visual works, like the movies of Wilder, Disney, Kubrick and Kurosawa; both Dr Strangelove and Seven Samurai were mentioned in the Q&A session after the movie. Curiously, Hosoda denied being directly influenced by Leiji Matsumoto (I wish that I had asked about Tezuka).
Many audience members had seen all of Hosoda's works, from Digimon onwards. Of particular note was The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Hosoda tries to portray the internet as a light inviting place, as opposed to the dark grim nightmare preferred by certain other anime directors.
Hosoda strives to make what he personally regards as the best movies that he can create. He is also quite content with adapting existing books or manga. He tries to touch upon the universal themes without worrying about whether the movie will fit into a particular market niche; in this quest, he acknowledged that he may one day make the career-ending megaflop and that, so far, he has been lucky.
Hosoda did not intent the movie to be about young/new versus the aged/old. He said that he tried how both the older generations have incorporated the internet, cell phones and the like into their daily lives while the young still employ the older methods of social interaction. He views the conflict as more of one between local customs and traditions versus the global tendency towards bland uniformity (consider Love Machine's manifestations as an aggregate of millions of avatars). Even Love Machine is portrayed not as malicious entity but rather as a prankster who disregards the consequences of its action.