‘Pompo the Cinephile’ Film Review: Anime Crafts a Sweet-Natured Valentine to Filmmaking

What underbelly? This salute to showbiz ambitions stays on the sunny side

Pompo the Cinephile
GKIDS

As long as there are movies, there will probably be movies about people who make movies. (“Write what you know,” the saying goes.) The question is only whether these films will take a realistic view of the industry, showing the warts and all (which usually means just more warts), or whether they show Hollywood in a favorable, often fantastical light.

“Pompo the Cinephile,” the new anime feature from Takayuki Hirao (“Magical Sisters Yoyo and Nene”), is not a film about warts. It’s a warm hug of a behind-the-scenes motion picture, where the entertainment industry is full of producers who are desperate to mold superstars out of actors with no experience and to take chances on first-time directors and give them final cut, even if it nearly bankrupts the production, just because they’re so passionate about the project.

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