Alternately ground-breaking, engaging and grisly, Golden Kamuy (2018) can be challenging to watch, but it’s difficult to ignore. Based on the 2014 manga by Satoru Noda, the story takes place near the end of the Meiji era (1868-1912). While serving in the 1st Division of the Imperial Army during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Saichi Sugimoto […]

Both upbeat and offbeat, Cells at Work! (2018) is a quirky fantasy series that may initially remind some viewers of Osmosis Jones (2001). But the program is lower key and much less hip: It feels closer to the old police drama “The Naked City”: “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has […]

Lest you thought GKids was sitting out Awards Season… They have two big pictures opening in September for Academy Award consideration. Raúl De La Fuente & Damian Nenow’s Another Day of Life will bow September 13th in both New York and Los Angeles. A week later, on September 20th, the distributor will open Studio Trigger’s […]

Cardcaptor Sakura (1996) probably ranks as the best and best-loved work by the four-woman artists’ collective, Clamp. A textbook magical girl adventure, the animated series debuted in 1998 and ran for 70 episodes, followed by two features and an OVA. A rather timid 4th grader who lived with her older brother Toya and their widowed […]

Twenty years ago, I met Hayao Miyazaki for the first time. Princess Mononoke was his first film to receive a major US release, and my editors at the LA Times let me do a profile of him. We met at a hotel in West Hollywood; we sat at a garden table where he was free […]

Imagine an animated feature with no explosions. No fart gags. No giant robots pummeling each other. No wacky talking animals. Instead, we have a movie anchored in the real world, a slice-of-life story of high school students practicing their musical instruments, all the while wrestling with issues of self esteem. The biggest threat? Losing a […]