Oshii fans rejoice - Sony Pictures has picked up North American distribution rights to Mamoru Oshii’s latest epic ‘The Sky Crawlers‘! For some reason every time I post something about Mamoru Oshii I feel the need to defend my undying affection for everything he does - as far as I’m concerned Oshii could film an eight-hour rotoscoped anime of himself sitting on the shitter feeding his beloved basset hounds and I’d be totally enthralled.

Cinema Blend, where I noticed this happy news, describes ‘Sky Crawlers‘ reception at the Venice Film Festival as tepid, but I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is the fact that Oshii’s best experimental workThe Angel’s Egg still isn’t available in the U.S. What’s up with that? Of course, The Angel’s Egg so obtuse it makes The Red Spectacles look like Baby Geniuses.

Guess I’ll be waiting a while for that one…

I’m sure by now y’all know what a rabid Mamoru Oshii fan I am. Some people are a little put-off by Oshii’s obtuse and meandering style, but that’s exactly what I love about him. Oshii-san isn’t about constantly kicking you in the eye with hyperactive visuals. His long philosophical digressions are why I queue up every time he puts out something new.

If this review over at Screen Daily is even remotely accurate, it sounds like I’m gonna love his new flick, The Sky Crawlers. Although I have to wonder if the reviewer has ever seen any of his other films…

…while its measured pacing – not to say sluggishness – is a new departure for the director of Ghost In The Shell films…

Huh? A departure? Sounds like par for the course to me…

There’s no way in hell I’ll make it to the 65th annual Venice Film Festival, but I sure wish I could. Three of the four selections from Asia this year hail from Japan, and all three of those look like winners. Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano’s Achillies and the Tortoise, Hayao Miazaki’s Ponyo in the Cliff by the Sea, and Mamoru Oshii’s alt-universe dogfighting epic The Sky Crawlers.

Sounds like quite a lineup to me. And because I’m that kind of a guy, here are trailers for all three..

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Twitch scored a 5-minute promo clip of Mamoru Oshii’s upcoming flick The Sky Crawlers - embedded below for your viewing pleasure. Does it look amazing? Of course…it’s Mamoru Oshii.

It seems the lucky bastards in Japan are being treated to something very cool: a theatrical re-release of the 1995 Mamoru Oshii film Ghost in the Shell. As you might have noticed, we’re a bunch of raving GitS fans around here, so we can’t help but be jealous…and we can’t help but buy the DVD when it comes out in the U.S.

Because this isn’t just a re-release- the new version includes cleaned-up footage, some new animation and 3D work, and a re-recorded soundtrack. How can we pass that up?

More information:

Link

Pages and pages of shots from the original movie compared to the new ones:

Link

…pretty.

And hell, if no one’s making anything new, I’ll take the repackaged old stuff. I am that crazy, people.

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Fans of 2004’s Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade may or may not be aware that it was not Mamoru Oshii’s first foray into the dystopian society portrayed in Hiroyuki Okiura’s film. In fact, the Kerberos Pazer Cops, the organization that officer Kazuki Fuse belongs to, appeared three times before, in a manga series and two live action films. These two films, The Red Spectacles (1987) and its prequel Stray Dog (1991), have recently been issued for the first time in the U.S. by Bandai Entertainment, owing no doubt to the success of the anime.
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