"Paprika" and "Hula Girls" in the US

So I changed the gear and now starting my "slow personal blog" mode.  Sorry for not being able to have lots of update like before, but I will just go with the flow for now and write whenever/whatever I feel like.

Last week on SF Chronicle, there was a huge line-up of summer movies, and found out that two of my recent favorite Japanese flims, "Paprika" and "Hula Girls" will be shown in the U.S.  I don't remember exactly the opening date - maybe Paprika in June and Hula in July or something like that. 

I wrote a lot of thing about Hula Girls on "Hoga Central" main site, so please refer to it.  As for "Paprika", I watched it recently and am planning to write an article with an interview with Director Kon, so please stay tuned.  "Paprika" remided me a little bit of "Patlabor", one of the very few Japanese animation film that I like - with a unique mix of its sharp/cool graphics, mature humor with a bit of satire, clever use of modern technology in the story, and a huge robot destroying the town (the regular kind of fun that you expect from animation).  Beautiful, beautiful graphics!!

Good thing lately is that once it has a US distribution, I can rent it from Netflix eventually, even though I miss the theatrical showing.  Looking forward to it!!