So-Cal Studio Ghibli fans jealous that New Yorkers got to see new prints of these classic animated films projected on the big screen won’t have to wait long to get their turn. The Studio Ghibli Collection makes its way to Los Angeles, at both the Egyptian and Aero Theaters, from January 26-February 12.

Fourteen films produced by Ghibli: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984),Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Only Yesterday (1991), The Ocean Waves (1993), Porco Rosso (1992), Pom Poko (1994), Whisper of the Heart (1995), Princess Mononoke (1997), My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999), Spirited Away (2001),The Cat Returns (2002) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), will screen both in their original language with subtitles as well as dubbed Englis for younger audiences. Find out how to get tickets and more after the break. Read More »

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In the two and a half decades since its inception, Studio Ghibli has consistently put out some of the most beloved classics of animation — from Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro in the ’80s to more recent projects like Ponyo. So the recent announcement of not one, but two new projects, from studio co-founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, is exciting news indeed. The report of a new film by Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies) is especially intriguing since it’ll be his first feature since 1999′s My Neighbors the Yamadas. Read more after the jump.

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After a nice ten year hiatus since he completed My Neigbours The Yamadas, Isao Takahata is back at work directing the next feature film from Studio Ghibli. Taketori Monogatari, which translates as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, will be an adaptation of the story considered to be the oldest surviving Japanese folktale. It is an incredibly well known story, at home, much as Grimm’s Fairy Tales are in the West.

I recall that Kon Ichikawa made a live action version of the tale with Toshiro Mifune and, according to my Google Research, Big Bird witnesses a telling of the story by schoolchildren in the TV movie Big Bird in Japan but I dare say most renditions will become ancillary to the Ghibli version, if not outright forgotten in its shadow. I suspect this toon is likely to become a definitive version in Japan much in the way Disney have laid claim to Snow White or Pinocchio for Western audiences. You only have to imagine how deeply entrenched a Pixar version of

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