Dune: Part 2 VFX producer reveals secrets to movie's Oscar win
Vancouver's Stephen James, with visual effects studio DNEG, hoisted an Academy Award last weekend for his work on the blockbuster film Dune: Part Two, directed by Montreal's Denis Villeneuve. The visual effects producer said shooting on location and bringing a documentary-movie-like mindset helped the team bag the award.
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CBC
a day ago
- CBC
When actor Graham Greene got the call that he'd won a Governor General's Award, he thought it was a prank
Social Sharing With a dry sense of humour and a penchant for teasing, it's no wonder that acclaimed actor Graham Greene believed his own friends were pranking him when he got the call from Governor General Mary Simon's office letting him know he'd be receiving a Governor General's Performing Arts Award. "'Yeah, yeah, who is it?'" he recalls saying. "I found out it was true, and I said, 'Oh my gosh, I'm terribly sorry, I thought it was some friends playing a joke.' The same thing happened when I got the Order of Canada, I thought somebody was pulling my leg." The 72-year-old actor will be receiving a Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for his vast body of work in stage and screen, which includes unforgettable portrayals of chiefs, medicine men, doctors, a judge (Molly's Game), a detective (Die Hard with a Vengeance) and a death row inmate (The Green Mile). For his performance as Kicking Bird, a Sioux medicine man in the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, he earned an Academy Award nomination. Often playing specifically Indigenous characters, and frequently speaking languages and representing tribes and nations not his own (he's Oneida from the Six Nations of the Grand River), Greene is one of the most recognizable Indigenous actors in North America. "It's wonderful to be recognized in your own country, and I'm grateful for that," he says. "I'm just a working actor and I'm lucky enough to survive as long as I did in the business. There's a lot of better actors that have not survived and there's some that are still active that never got any recognition, which is unfortunate." His four decades of acting all stemmed from Greene's fascination with human behaviour when he was a sound engineer for bands. He'd sit behind the sound console and watch the crowds instead of the band. "I just picked somebody and started asking questions and making things up about them." Filling in a character's backstory came naturally to him in film, but he wanted to bring more confidence to his acting, so he did theatre to develop discipline and learn "how to dance," as he calls ad-libbing. Some of his favourite "dance partners" have been Felicity Huffman and Mel Gibson, from Transamerica and Maverick, respectively. Actors Graham Greene and Tantoo Cardinal 4 days ago Duration 5:33 Two Canadian actors discuss what it was like to work with Hollywood's Kevin Costner in the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves. Despite announcing his retirement from acting, he says he gets more calls than ever. He tells his agent to send only the good stuff, and his requirements include working four days or less, very little dialogue and "a lot of money." Acclaimed television series The Last of Us and Reservation Dogs must have fit the criteria, as Greene made notable appearances in both in recent years. Sometimes, a little convincing brings him into the fold. The 2024 thriller/comedy Seeds was written specifically for Greene by the film's writer, director and star, Kaniehtiio Horn. "She says, 'I wrote a role for you, and you better do it.' I said, 'Well, I guess I better.'" Seeds is the closing night film of imagineNATIVE Film Festival, where Greene will receive another lifetime award, the August Schellenberg Award of Excellence.
Canada Standard
4 days ago
- Canada Standard
Studio Ghibli marks 40 years, but future looks uncertain
Japan's Studio Ghibli turns 40 this month with two Oscars and legions of fans young and old won over by its complex plots and fantastical hand-drawn animation. But the future is uncertain, with latest hit "The Boy and the Heron" likely -- but not certainly -- the final feature from celebrated co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, now 84. The studio behind the Oscar-winning "Spirited Away" has become a cultural phenomenon since Miyazaki and the late Isao Takahata established it in 1985. Its popularity has been fuelled of late by a second Academy Award in 2024 for "The Boy and the Heron", starring Robert Pattinson, and by Netflix streaming Ghibli movies around the world. In March, the internet was flooded with pictures in its distinctively nostalgic style after the release of OpenAI's newest image generator -- raising questions over copyright. The newly opened Ghibli Park has also become a major tourist draw for central Japan's Aichi region. Julia Santilli, a 26-year-old from Britain living in northern Japan, "fell in love with Ghibli" after watching the 2001 classic "Spirited Away" as a child. "I started collecting all the DVDs," she told AFP. Ghibli stories are "very engaging and the artwork is stunning", said another fan, Margot Divall, 26. "I probably watch 'Spirited Away' about 10 times a year still." 'Whiff of death' Before Ghibli, most cartoons in Japan -- known as anime -- were made for children. But Miyazaki and Takahata, both from "the generation that knew war", included darker elements that appeal to adults, Miyazaki's son Goro told AFP. "It's not all sweet -- there's also a bitterness and things like that which are beautifully intertwined in the work," he said, describing a "whiff of death" in the films. For younger people who grew up in peacetime, "it is impossible to create something with the same sense, approach and attitude", Goro said. Even "My Neighbor Totoro", with its cuddly forest creatures, is in some ways a "scary" movie that explores the fear of losing a sick mother, he explained. Susan Napier, a professor at Tufts University in the United States and author of "Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art", agrees. "In Ghibli, you have ambiguity, complexity and also a willingness to see that the darkness and light often go together" unlike good-versus-evil US cartoons, she said. The post-apocalyptic "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" -- considered the first Ghibli film despite its release in 1984 -- has no obvious villain, for example. The movie featuring an independent princess curious about giant insects and a poisonous forest felt "so fresh" and a change from "a passive woman... having to be rescued", Napier said. Natural world Studio Ghibli films also depict a universe where humans connect deeply with nature and the spirit world. A case in point was 1997's "Princess Mononoke", distributed internationally by Disney. The tale of a girl raised by a wolf goddess in a forest threatened by humans is "a masterpiece -- but a hard movie", Napier said. It's a "serious, dark and violent" film appreciated more by adults, which "was not what US audiences had anticipated with a movie about a princess". Ghibli films "have an environmentalist and animistic side, which I think is very appropriate for the contemporary world with climate change", she added. Miyuki Yonemura, a professor at Japan's Senshu University who studies cultural theories on animation, said watching Ghibli movies is like reading literature. "That's why some children watch Totoro 40 times," she said, adding that audiences "discover something new every time". French connection Miyazaki and Takahata -- who died in 2018 -- could create imaginative worlds because of their openness to other cultures, Yonemura said. Foreign influences included writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery and animator Paul Grimault, both French, and Canadian artist Frederic Back, who won an Oscar for his animation "The Man Who Planted Trees". Takahata studying French literature at university "was a big factor", Yonemura said. "Both Miyazaki and Takahata read a lot," she said. "That's a big reason why they excel at writing scripts and creating stories." Miyazaki has said he was inspired by several books for "Nausicaa", including the 12th-century Japanese tale "The Lady who Loved Insects", and Greek mythology. Studio Ghibli will not be the same after Miyazaki stops creating animation, "unless similar talent emerges", Yonemura said. Miyazaki is "a fantastic artist with such a visual imagination" while both he and Takahata were "politically progressive", Napier said. "The more I study, the more I realise this was a unique cultural moment," she said. "It's so widely loved that I think it will carry on," said Ghibli fan Divall. "As long as it doesn't lose its beauty, as long as it carries on the amount of effort, care and love," she said. Originally published on France24
Toronto Star
29-05-2025
- Toronto Star
Oscar-winning Canadian animator Co Hoedeman has died, National Film Board says
MONTREAL - Academy Award-winning Dutch-Canadian animator Co Hoedeman has died, the National Film Board of Canada said Tuesday. The 'master of stop-motion animation' died at age 84 on Monday in Montreal, the NFB said.
