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November 22, 2024
 

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Giovanni Fazio

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Giovanni Fazio
Giovanni Fazio has been The Japan Times' resident film crank since 1993. When not at the movies, he is busy recording and playing live with his band Makyo and running the independent electronica label Dakini Records.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2013
'Shadow Dancer'
Director: James Marsh
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2013
'Monsters University'
Pixar's 2001 hit "Monsters Inc." revolved around one great premise: What if the monsters that lurk underneath children's beds, were actually terrified of the kids? It was a great gag, and the rest of the film fell into place around it. Also adding immensely to the film's charm were the contrasting comedic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2013
'Lawless (Yokubo no Virginia)'
The relationship between singer Nick Cave and filmmaker John Hillcoat has been a fruitful one over the years; while Hillcoat has done a lot of music-video work for Cave's gothic-blues group The Bad Seeds, Cave has also worked on Hillcoat's feature films, providing music for "The Road" (2009) as well...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013
'Compliance'
Of all the films you'll see this year, "Compliance" has, for sure, the most unbelievable plot of them all. The little tagline at the beginning saying "inspired by true events" hasn't stopped people from taking outrage at director Craig Zobel's supposed exaggerations, with "Nobody could possibly be that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013
'Borgia (Season One)'
Director: Various
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013
'After Earth'
It's the year 1,000 A.E. — After Earth, hence the name of the movie — a millennium since humanity fled an ecologically ravaged Earth for a new home on another planet. Commander Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his sulky 13-year-old son Kitai (Jaden Smith) are out on a routine training mission when their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013
'21 & Over'
When "Hangover" screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore got green-lighted to direct their first film, it's pretty easy to imagine their marching orders from their producers: give us the same, but different.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013
'Les Miserables'
Director: Tom Hooper
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013
Unflinching survival epic recounts tsunami horror
Director Juan Antonio Bayona came out of nowhere — well, Barcelona and the world of music videos, actually — to drop "The Orphanage" on an unsuspecting world in 2007. This chilling and intelligent reinvention of the haunted-house genre went on to become No. 1 at the Spanish box office and also did...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013
'The Impossible'
Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter" had the misfortune of having opened in local cinemas just before March 11, 2011. After the trauma of a real-life tsunami hitting Japan, few were in the mood to see a Hollywood special-effects version of the same.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013
'Spring Breakers'
Harmony Korine started his career back in 1995 by writing the screenplay for youths-behaving-badly movie "Kids," and some two decades later he's still playing the same card. "Spring Breakers" is set amid the annual college-student migration to Florida during spring vacation, where drunken public debauchery...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013
'The Rum Diary'
Director: Bruce Robinson
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013
'Olympus Has Fallen'
This latest bit of Hollywood "propatainment," "Olympus Has Fallen," is basically "Die Hard" in the White House, with Gerard Butler's disgraced former Secret Service agent trying to save the president (Aaron Eckhart) from a team of crack North Korean commandos who plan to pry America's nuclear launch...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013
'Life of Pi'
Director: Ang Lee
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013
'Oblivion'
I have seen the future and it looks like about half a dozen other sci-fi films poured into a cauldron and left to smelt. Influences are one thing, but "Oblivion" is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, its plot composed almost entirely of bits hacked off from other well-known films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013
'The Grandmaster'
Ever since Ang Lee scored big with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" back in 2000, nearly every other Chinese-language director of note has tried a similar attempt at crossover success with a martial-arts movie. The latest to do so is Hong Kong's Wong Kar-wai, yet the irony is that he has already made...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013
'Glorious 39' (Japan title: Hitler Code 39)
Director: Olivier Assayas
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 24, 2013
'Antiviral'
Hypochondriacs should avoid "Antiviral" like, well, the plague. This creepy near-future-dystopia flick features enough coughing, sneezing, night sweats, bloody vomiting and gnarly sores to make even the jaded viewer feel like gargling and showering with antibacterial soap.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 24, 2013
Son of Cronenberg debuts with sickly body horror
Imagine you are David Cronenberg, a filmmaker but also a parent. You tell your kids that your job is making movies; naturally, they want to see one. So which do you show them? "Scanners," with its exploding heads? "Rabid," where porn-star Marilyn Chambers drinks human blood? Or maybe "The Fly," where...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 24, 2013
'The Tree'
Ten-year-old Simone (Morgana Davies) has just lost her dad, felled by a sudden heart attack, and she finds solace high in the branches of a massive fig tree that grows outside her home under the big skies of rural Queensland. Sometimes, late at night, she thinks she can hear his voice; her mother, Dawn...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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