This was the Oscar race I was most interested in and I was surprised it was the first one to be announced. It’s a pity Miyazaki didn’t turn up but this will be great publicity for the film. I hope Disney considers a re-release and markets the film properly.
Thanks for the update; I’m at work not following the show. (or the war). I said in one of your earlier threads that I was torn about whether I wanted Lilo & Stitch or Spirited Away because they both could use some “validation” from the industry. The former to acknowledge to Disney that you don’t have to make all the animated features so formulaic and predictable and still manage to sell toys AND win awards. The latter to acknowledge to Disney that they should be releasing all the Ghibli movies they’re sitting on because they could be making money & “art-house cred” off of them.
Anybody feel like telling me what the presentation was like? Did they do the animated characters’ waiting in the audience to hear the vote, like they did with last year’s category?
Not much presentation really. Cameron Diaz announced the nominees and there were brief clips.
THERE IS A GOD!!! THANK YOU JESUS!!!
I was also thrilled.
I was very thrillified as well.
If you haven’t seen Spirited Away, go see it right now.
Actually, that also goes for y’all who have seen it. 
Damn, I forgot to check what time the awards were going to start and missed it. Would’ve loved to see that.
This was the only category I felt very stongly about. Anything else winning would have be a complete joke.
The American version of the DVD is out in a couple weeks, BTW.
have be = have been.
For one shining moment this evening, life was fair.
I felt much the same way as SolGrundy, though my reason for Lilo and Stitch was a twisted brand of civic pride, me originally being from Hawaii. Still, having an anime title win was damn good too!
I am stunned and delighted. Now make with the DVDs!
<dances impatiently>
Woohoo! Is Spirited Away going to be in theatres again?
I doubt they’d rerelease Spirited Away, but they might give the other releases that they’re sitting on better publicity if/when they decide to release them.
Just out of curiousity, when was Spirited Away released in Japan? I thought it was released in 2001–and, if so, how would that affect its eligibility?
Not that I’m not glad it won…wonderful, wonderful movie :).
This is good news. More slow progress on the “Disney deciding to ease its boot off of Studio Ghibli’s region 1 neck” dream.
About tbe possibility of a re-release this is an interesting column by Jack Mathews the NY Daily film critic who is a big fan of the film:
He interviews the Disney Studios chairman Richard Cook who said that money for a 1000 theatre release had been budgeted and the studio was waiting for a “good reason” for a wide release. He specifically mentioned Oscar nominations and critics’ top ten lists as possible reasons.
Now that SA has actually won the Oscar and made a huge number of top ten lists there should at least be a possibility of a re-release. Let’s see.
Eligibility for a rerelease? 'Cause award eligibility goes by the year of the U.S. release, as you saw.
I’m sure this is in the SA DVD thread, but the DVD will have a Japanese audio track, yes?
In a related vein, does anyone know of someplace on the Internet where I can see Mickey presenting the award and the countdown to the win? I wanted to see the nominees in the audience, similar to what the Oscars did last year…
(I was rooting for Lilo and Stitch, myself, but I’m definitely glad anime is making inroads in mainstream cinema)
SA will be released again this Friday. I saw two ads on ABC yesterday night so there appears to be a major promotiion as well. Let’s hope the movie does well and also helps the DVD sales in April.
They didn’t do the Nominees in the audience this year (and anyway, Mickey was terrible)