hiromasa yonebayashi

It often takes me just as long to think of the contenders for World Cinema Wednesday as it does to write the reviews. Do I simply include all non-American and non-UK films? Are films from Australia and New Zealand not allowed, due to the…

In 2014, Japanese animation giant Studio Ghibli announced that it was taking an hiatus after director Hayao Miyazaki retired.  Their latest film, directed by The Secret World of Arriety director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, is a bittersweet…

For many years now little people have become the central focus in film, from sci-fi thrillers such as The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) to jovial family adventures like Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989). But one famous story about little…

In the current state of the world of animation in which everything has to be CGI and 3D, there are studios out there that continue on 2D hand-drawn animation, a lot of these studios are in Japan. Like Pixar, you expect the very best from…

Studio Ghibli's adaptation of Mary Norton's classic The Borrowers is a fairly faithful one, grounding the film in a reality that's unusual for the studio. However it's still about tiny people living under a house unbeknownst to the…