Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi in Dolby Vision

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Hayao Miyazaki’s debut feature revisits a character he directed for television―gentleman thief Lupin the 3rd. Grandson to Maurice Leblanc’s French literary master thief Arsène Lupin, Lupin the 3rd is a Swinging Sixties-style, James Bond-like charmer who steals for thrills. Stuck with counterfeit bills after a Monaco casino heist, Lupin and his sidekicks hightail it to the mysterious principality of Cagliostro to find the source of the fake money. In the process, the trio becomes embroiled in palace intrigue between Count Cagliostro and his daughter, Princess Clarisse. An energetic caper, Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro is a stylish start to a brilliant oeuvre.

Spirited Away was Hayao Miyazaki’s first Oscar win, and the first hand-drawn non-English-language animated film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003. The film invites audiences into a mind-bending supernatural realm when a wrong turn on a family road trip lands 10-year-old Chihiro in a mysterious dimension populated by all manner of creatures, including soot gremlins (first introduced in My Neighbor Totoro), the giant witch Yubaba, and, most memorably, the enigmatic No Face. To find her parents and return to the real world, Chihiro must work at an enchanted bathhouse serving spirits of all shapes and sizes. A tour de force of surrealist invention, Spirited Away is a timeless wonder filled with whimsy and joy.

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Hayao Miyazaki’s second feature is based on his 1982 manga of the same name, which he continued writing into the early 1990s. It was the last film he released before founding Studio Ghibli with fellow director Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki. Miyazaki’s only cinematic foray into pure science fiction, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is set a thousand years after the Seven Days of Fire have devastated civilization, leaving behind a toxic, overgrown jungle. Princess Nausicaä and the people of the valley try to bring balance back into the world by restoring the bond between humanity and Earth. Inspiration for Nausicaä came from the catastrophic mercury pollution of Minamata Bay, which devastated the Minamata community in the mid-20th century.

Ponyo focuses on the friendship between 5-year-old Sosuke and a magical goldfish named Brunhilde, the young daughter of a sorcerer father and a sea-goddess mother. After wandering away from her father’s four-flippered submarine, Brunhilde washes ashore and is discovered by the curious Sosuke. Now renamed Ponyo, her quick bond with Sosuke fuels her yearning to be a real girl, and they shoulder the cost of what that might take together. The vibrant and colorful hand-drawn animations are a visual delight for audiences of all ages, as Hayao Miyazaki builds a world filled with magical goldfish, wizards, and sea goddesses in this tale of how friendships can blossom anywhere—even in the ocean’s depths.

An adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s fantasy novel of the same name, the Oscar-nominated Howl’s Moving Castle is a pitch-perfect fairy tale about aging and war, set in a dazzling steampunk world. When young hatmaker Sophie is transformed into a 90-year-old woman by the vengeful Witch of the Waste, she seeks to break the curse with the help of the enigmatic wizard Howl, the fire demon Calcifer, and the magical moving castle they inhabit.

A witch film like few others, Kiki’s Delivery Service is a warm-hearted story that follows a girl entering adulthood and discovering her capabilities, while, refreshingly, refusing romance as a central plot device. Following tradition, on the night of the full moon after she turns 13, Kiki must take flight on her broom and leave her family behind to start a new life in the charming port city of Koriko, where she will learn to use her powers. With a wise-cracking black cat named Jiji by her side, enterprising Kiki quickly becomes a local phenomenon as she strives to find her community and herself.

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