Studio Ghibli
My Neighbour Totoro Play Coming from Royal Shakespeare Company and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop
Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 animated film My Neighbour Totoro is coming to Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company as a play, and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop animatronics studio is providing the puppetry. According to Deadline, the My Neighbour Totoro stage adaptation is directed by Phelim McDermott and is set for an initial 15-week run at London’s Barbican from October 8th, 2022 through January 21st, 2023. The show will feature compositions from Joe Hisaishi’s original film score, as well as additional music. The composer also serves as an executive producer for the production. My Neighbour Totoro is set in 1950s Japan, as professor Tatsuo Kusakabe and his two daughters, Satsuki and Mei, move from the city to the countryside, and the young girls encounter spirits inhabiting their...
What’s Streaming on HBO Max in February 2021
HBO Max is offering more than valentines in February. As promised, the streaming giant is delivering more Warner Bros. theatrical features as part of their same-day program. This month sees the release of the star-studded Judas and the Black Messiah and the live-action re-imagining of Tom & Jerry. Judas… is a biographical drama on the life of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the Illinois chairman of the Black Panther Party who was betrayed by William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield). The film is set to premiere at this weekend’s Sundance Film Festival, and has already been named one of the 10 best films of 2020 by the National Board of Review. Elsewhere, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver returns for what should be a far less vitriolic season given the changing political climate, while Studio ...
Kacey Musgraves Joins English-Language Voice Cast of Studio Ghibli’s Earwig and the Witch
With just one week to go before Christmas, Kacey Musgraves has been granted her so-called “biggest heart dream”: a role in a Studio Ghibli film. The Grammy-winning country star has just joined the cast of the English-language version of Earwig and the Witch, Studio Ghibli’s first fully-CGI film. Musgraves is set to voice the mother of protagonist Earwig. She will also perform her own version of the movie’s theme song “Don’t Disturb Me”. According to a tweet Musgraves posted on Tuesday, she has wanted to work with the renowned Japanese animation studio since she was a child. “My dad brought a VHS tape of [My Neighbor] Totoro home when I was about 9, and I’ll never ever forget the comfort and the magic that movie (and many other Ghibli films) have given me,” Musgraves, now 32 years old, wrot...
Studio Ghibli Shares Trailer for First Fully-CGI Movie Earwig and the Witch: Watch
Studio Ghibli has shared the first trailer for Earwig and the Witch, the Japanese animation studio’s first fully-CGI movie. The story is based on a 2011 book of the same name by the late British writer Diana Wynne Jones, best known in film circles for providing the source material to Howl’s Moving Castle. It follows a brilliant young orphan named Earwig who has the misfortune to be adopted by the evil witch Bella Yaga. With brains, a bit of magic, and a friendly talking cat, Earwig sets out to escape the witch’s haunted house. The new trailer is in Japanese, and it’s not clear if the title has been correctly translated. While sources like Ghiblioteque are reporting it as Earwig, the movie was initially announced in English as Aya and the Witch. But the two-minute clip does a...
Ranking: Every Studio Ghibli Movie from Worst to Best
With the launch of HBO Max on Wednesday, May 27th, 21 of the 22 Studio Ghibli movies will be available for streaming in the United States for the first time ever in both original Japanese audio with subtitles and English dubs. Due to distribution and licensing rights, Grave of the Fireflies will be unavailable at the time of this writing. Odds are if you’ve ever watched an anime movie, it was probably one from Studio Ghibli. The brainchild of Hayao Miyazaki has always striven to animate its films by hand whenever possible and limit CGI to a minimum. Not only has this process created a distinct visual style, but it has also served as a rock-solid foundation for a legacy that’s unmatched by any other animation studio besides perhaps Disney. Suffice to say, it’s no surprise that Studio Ghibli...
