Hayao Miyazaki

Once the standing ovation died down, anticipation among the 6,500 people packed into a Comic-Con convention hall in San Diego was almost electric as they waited for the first words from the silver-haired alchemist of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. To the opening question from Pixar leading light John Lasseter about how he develops his stories, the white-jacketed, 68-year-old director replied, "My process is thinking, thinking and thinking -- thinking about my stories for a long time."

"From Up on Poppy Hill" is frankly stunning, as beautiful a hand-drawn animated feature as you are likely to see. It's a time-machine dream of a not-so-distant past, a sweet and honestly sentimental story that also represents a collaboration between the greatest of Japanese animators and his up-and-coming son. "Poppy Hill" is directed by Goro Miyazaki, whose father, the Oscar-winning Hayao Miyazaki ("Spirited Away," "My Neighbor Totoro"), wrote the screenplay based on a graphic novel.

We hear it before we see it, moving ponderously with heavy, thudding steps: Something big is coming our way. Clanging, banging, wheezing, it's something magical and indescribable, something only Hayao Miyazaki, the great genius of today's golden age of animation, could put on the screen.

On his first trip to Los Angeles in February, Japanese director Goro Miyazaki found a native custom perplexing. "I've never been to any other place in the world where you see so few pedestrians," Miyazaki said, speaking through a translator in a rare interview at his Beverly Hills hotel. "Normally I go for a walk every morning, but I was told that if I'm just walking around, people will see me as somebody strange. " Miyazaki is accustomed to moving to a different tempo. He's the son of Hayao Miyazaki, the so-called Walt Disney of Japan, whose fantastical, hand-drawn animated films such as "Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle," "Ponyo" and "Princess Mononoke" have made him his country's most successful filmmaker and a defiantly old-school hero in a global boom era for computer animation.

Through the fantasies of animation, director Hayao Miyazaki has spoken to children and adults around the world, his language of color and movement creating some of the best-loved movies of our times. Yet plunked into the real-world intimacy of home and family, Miyazaki the father never had much to say to his eldest son.

His name may be unfamiliar to American audiences, but to American animators, Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki is a hero on a par with Walt Disney, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery. "He is one of the great filmmakers of our time and has been a tremendous inspiration to our generation of animators," says John Lasseter, the Academy Award-winning director of the "Toy Story" films. "At Pixar, when we have a problem that we can't seem to solve, we often look at one of Miyazaki's films."

Optimistic old guy, that Hayao Miyazaki. Japan's most famous animator is forever dropping his characters into a world of hurt, a place where potions turn girls into crones and mothers betray their daughters, where war blackens the landscape and cynical adults "forget they ever knew how to cry." Yet by the time he gets to the credits, Miyazaki always finds a way to leave his heroes and his audience caressed by hope.

The only foreign director to win the Academy Award for best animated feature, Hayao Miyazaki, 68, is the most admired and influential filmmaker working in animation today. His latest film, "Ponyo," opened earlier this month in America in 927 theaters -- a record for a Japanese animated feature. ("Ponyo" was the No. 1 box office hit in Japan in 2008, earning more than 14.9 billion yen -- more than $155 million -- to become the eighth-highest-grossing film in Japanese history.) Miyazaki's work has attracted praise not only from critics, including The Times' Kenneth Turan, but from the artists leading the renaissance in animation: John Lasseter and the other Pixar directors, four-time Oscar winner Nick Park of "Wallace & Gromit" fame, and Frédéric Back, the Oscar-winning creator of "The Man Who Planted Trees."

On his first trip to Los Angeles in February, Japanese director Goro Miyazaki found a native custom perplexing. "I've never been to any other place in the world where you see so few pedestrians," Miyazaki said, speaking through a translator in a rare interview at his Beverly Hills hotel. "Normally I go for a walk every morning, but I was told that if I'm just walking around, people will see me as somebody strange. " Miyazaki is accustomed to moving to a different tempo. He's the son of Hayao Miyazaki, the so-called Walt Disney of Japan, whose fantastical, hand-drawn animated films such as "Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle," "Ponyo" and "Princess Mononoke" have made him his country's most successful filmmaker and a defiantly old-school hero in a global boom era for computer animation.

Japanese animation has been influencing American pop culture for years now, appearing in everything from "Teen Titans" to Tarantino to Nike ads. How fitting, then, that Japan's top animator, Academy Award winner Hayao Miyazaki, still looks to Old Europe and English literature for inspiration. Miyazaki's latest project, "Howl's Moving Castle," is no exception.

Think of Japanese movies, and two things readily come to mind: samurai and anime. But organizers of the L.A. EigaFest - a showcase of contemporary cinema from the Land of the Rising Sun - aim to show Angelenos that the nation's filmmakers are up to much more than that. The festival, now in its second year, runs Friday through Sunday at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and features films on such topics as an unraveling supermodel, a time-traveling Roman architect and a single mother raising two werewolf children.

Kids — tykes, urchins, tots, moppets, bambinos, waifs, ragamuffins, cherubs and small fry — are fascinated by smallness. Consider their films: "Antz," "A Bug's Life," "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," "Toy Story," "The Rescuers," "The Secret of NIMH," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Stuart Little" and countless others. Indeed, a nod to the diminutive seems nearly obligatory if titles of children's stories are any measure: "Little Red Riding Hood," "Little Women," "Little House on the Prairie," "The Little Prince," "The Little Engine That Could," and so on. Now comes "The Secret World of Arrietty," a tale of the tiny.

To be a film critic at the end of August is to be a high diver poised at the end of the board. Behind you is the overheated cacophony of the hectic summer months, ahead is the cool comfort of theaters filled with the fall's smart and sophisticated offerings. Or so it's tempting to think. But what if the fall films, for all their promise, let us down? (It's happened before.) And what if movies from those earlier months turn out to be some of the best we'll see all year? It's in that spirit that some of the best of 2009 so far have been selected for your consideration.

The only foreign director to win the Academy Award for best animated feature, Hayao Miyazaki, 68, is the most admired and influential filmmaker working in animation today. His latest film, "Ponyo," opened earlier this month in America in 927 theaters -- a record for a Japanese animated feature. ("Ponyo" was the No. 1 box office hit in Japan in 2008, earning more than 14.9 billion yen -- more than $155 million -- to become the eighth-highest-grossing film in Japanese history.) Miyazaki's work has attracted praise not only from critics, including The Times' Kenneth Turan, but from the artists leading the renaissance in animation: John Lasseter and the other Pixar directors, four-time Oscar winner Nick Park of "Wallace & Gromit" fame, and Frédéric Back, the Oscar-winning creator of "The Man Who Planted Trees."

Most artists never know what their next gig will be, but color designer Michiyo Yasuda has worked with the same two people for 40 years. Born in Tokyo in 1939, Yasuda joined the ink-and-paint section of the company Toei Doga -- now Toei Animation -- before she was 20. After honing her craft working on commercials and television series, she met animation legends Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki and joined them on the production of 1968's "Little Norse...

You'll be planning to see "Ponyo" twice before you've finished seeing it once. Five minutes into this magical film you'll be making lists of the individuals of every age you can expose to the very special mixture of fantasy and folklore, adventure and affection, that make up the enchanted vision of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. The great genius of contemporary animation, who won the 2002 Oscar for best animated feature (for "Spirited Away," which also took the Golden Bear at Berlin)

"From Up on Poppy Hill" is frankly stunning, as beautiful a hand-drawn animated feature as you are likely to see. It's a time-machine dream of a not-so-distant past, a sweet and honestly sentimental story that also represents a collaboration between the greatest of Japanese animators and his up-and-coming son. "Poppy Hill" is directed by Goro Miyazaki, whose father, the Oscar-winning Hayao Miyazaki ("Spirited Away," "My Neighbor Totoro"), wrote the screenplay based on a graphic novel.

BILL PAXTON: EMMY AND MULTIPLE WIVES The star of HBO's "Big Love" sat down for a webcam chat with Gold Derby's Tom O'Neil. Have the stellar reviews for his show been enough to push the controversial series into the realm of true Emmy Award contenders? CHAT UP THE COUNTRY MUSIC TV AWARDS Country Music Television's big night is Tuesday. Pop & Hiss blogger Todd Martens offers a preview of the award show and will be conducting a live chat during the ceremonies starting at 5 p.m. PDT. LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL BUZZ The Los Angeles Film Festival starts this week, and we've got a preview of all the best-bet flicks to see, including the wackiness of "Black Dynamite" and the premiere of the newest animated feature from Hayao Miyazaki, "Ponyo."

Once the standing ovation died down, anticipation among the 6,500 people packed into a Comic-Con convention hall in San Diego was almost electric as they waited for the first words from the silver-haired alchemist of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. To the opening question from Pixar leading light John Lasseter about how he develops his stories, the white-jacketed, 68-year-old director replied, "My process is thinking, thinking and thinking -- thinking about my stories for a long time."

BILL PAXTON: EMMY AND MULTIPLE WIVES The star of HBO's "Big Love" sat down for a webcam chat with Gold Derby's Tom O'Neil. Have the stellar reviews for his show been enough to push the controversial series into the realm of true Emmy Award contenders? CHAT UP THE COUNTRY MUSIC TV AWARDS Country Music Television's big night is Tuesday. Pop & Hiss blogger Todd Martens offers a preview of the award show and will be conducting a live chat during the ceremonies starting at 5 p.m. PDT. LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL BUZZ The Los Angeles Film Festival starts this week, and we've got a preview of all the best-bet flicks to see, including the wackiness of "Black Dynamite" and the premiere of the newest animated feature from Hayao Miyazaki, "Ponyo."