Join the posthumous honor goal club

Recommendations are being accepted for the Winsor McCay Award.

The Winsor McCay Award may be awarded to a maximum of three individuals in recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation in producing, directing, animating, design, writing, voice acting, sound and sound effects, technical work, music, professional teaching, or for other endeavors which exhibit outstanding contributions to excellence in animation.

An entry fee is not required to recommend a person for a Winsor McCay Award. However, the person submitting the application must be a member of ASIFA-Hollywood. Membership to ASIFA-Hollywood is $75, or $100 if the person is residing outside the United States.

The deadline to submit Winsor McCay Award recommendations is Friday, October 15, 2010.

Click here to submit a Winsor McCay Award Recommendation.

Hey, Darren wasn't being cool about Satoshi Kon + PB. You know, the company which produced PB could really use his name-dropping. I mean, even Nolan-albeit indirectly-acknowledged Kon. If Swan wins an Oscar or two, the fans, Kon's family and Madhouse would really appreciate either Kon or PB being mentioned in the acceptance speech. It wasn't too tough for Marty when he remade Infernal Affairs, and he's got a longer legacy than Lau. And even Sofia Coppola got into the act with Wong Kar Wai, and I barely notice his style in Lost in Translation. I know Darren's not as "geeky" as the Wachowskis, and maybe he and Nolan don't wanna be perceived as such, which is why it might be beneath them to like "cartoons", but if Darren really did go to the trouble of getting the remake rights for PB then he obviously must have had some respect for that film which transcends its medium. You do know that Madonna also used
clips of PB in her Drowned World tour, right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-Je_lIR-Xo I don't expect her to acknowledge Kon, 'cus she was already doing him a favor by incorporating it in her video, but Darren is just pulling that Disney Kimba/Simba denial shit right now, and I don't think it'll make him look good in the long run. At least, unlike Tarantino, he's honest about remaking an obscure Asian film, but he's still equally ungrateful.

I've seen Perfect Blue, back in 1998 on the big screen.

Yesterday, Forum des Images (Paris) screened a little film about Satoshi Kon's life, made by Rintaro. Thanks to him, and Madhouse.

There have been many sad film-related deaths this year, but the one that made me saddest was that of Satoshi Kon. The brilliant Japanese anime director of films like Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Paprika (pictured above) died on 24 August of pancreatic cancer at the age of 46, in his creative prime. His final blog entries are a heartbreaking record of his terminal illness, yet also offer a curiously uplifting celebration of the human spirit in the face of approaching death. "Now excuse me, I have to go."

“Con il cuore colmo di gratitudine verso tutto ciò che esiste di buono a questo mondo, ora poso la penna. Vogliate scusarmi, ora devo andare”. A due giorni dall’annuncio della morte del grande Satoshi Kon, viene pubblicata postuma sul suo blog personale una straordinaria e toccante lettera d’addio del regista.

Yes, I know: Why didn’t Tron: Legacy do this? For what it’s worth, Mamoru Hosada’s Summer Wars only passably exploits its excellent premise, a successful digital update of War Games. Noisy and often brainless when it should be brainy, it’s a poor man’s imitation of animator Satoshi Kon, whose Paprika serves as some, but not enough, visual inspiration.

I really should have known: it’s only the latest award-winning release from Madhouse, the Japanese animation studio responsible for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (also by Hosoda) and all of Satoshi Kon’s work up until his death...

...What Summer Wars restores to the superflat aesthetic, missing in much of Murakami’s art, is that quintessential personability present in Natsuki’s family of Web 2.0 participants. In Kon’s Paprika, we saw the digital space becoming a cacophony of meaningless artifacts, but Hosoda’s Summer Wars optimistically shows us a digitization that maintains its links to the past...

Osamu Kobayashi said to me that he enjoyed the Satoshi Kon exhibition at Japan Expo Sud festival[in Paris] (Kon was his friend)

7. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Back before the Best Animated Feature category was considered an instant-win for Pixar, the award was a breath of fresh air with the clever (perhaps too clever) Shrek picking up the first Animated Feature Oscar and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, um… spiriting away the second. But the 2004 nominations gave us the first great snub in the category’s history when it nominated the utterly forgettable Disney flick Brother Bear over the (now late) anime legend Satoshi Kon’s utterly unforgettable Tokyo Godfathers. The film, a modern remake of the 1948 film Three Godfathers, told the story of three homeless people – a failed father, teenaged runaway and drag queen – who find a baby on Christmas Eve and struggle to take care of the child and find its parents. Maybe it sounds like Three Men & A Baby, or maybe it sounds a little boring, but in Satoshi Kon’s adept hands the film is nothing short of a thrilling masterpiece, filled with more heart, laughs and jaw-dropping twists than you could fit in a grown bear… fraternal or otherwise. Finding Nemo probably would have won the award anyway, but a nomination would have elevated Satoshi Kon’s status in America to the extent that his next feature, the snubbed sci-fi mindbender Paprika, might have stood a chance in the category as well. Satoshi Kon was never nominated, and sadly died in 2010.

Date Saturday, April 2, 2011, 11 am
Categories Films
Venue Freer Gallery
Event Location Meyer Auditorium
Cost Seating for films is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Auditorium doors will open approximately 30 minutes before each show.
Details Immerse yourself in anime culture with a full day of film screenings, music, costume events, special guests, and a tribute to the late filmmaker Satoshi Kon, who visited the marathon in 2007. This event is cosponsored by the Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan, and Otakorp, Inc., and is copresented with the DC Anime Club. Detailed schedule information will be posted in March.