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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

Oct 21, 2011

'Cowboys & Aliens'

You can be 100 percent sure that "Cowboys & Aliens" was a title long before it ever became a story; this is one of those high-concept ideas that practically writes itself. No doubt someone felt very clever at figuring out how to solve the now politically incorrect "cowboys and Indians" match-up with...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 20, 2011

Hossam Ramzy's drum tells tales going back to Ancient Egypt

Given the ongoing popularity of bellydancing in Japan, the signature sound of the Egyptian darbuka drum, has become far more familiar. While it may not have the ubiquitous hippie drum-circle presence of the djembe, this smaller-but-brash hand drum has developed quite a following of its own. Local groups...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 14, 2011

'Captain America: The First Avenger'

Anyone who grew up reading comic books from decades past will surely recall the ubiquitous "Hey Skinny!" ads for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding program. They featured a pigeon-chested weakling named Joe who gets humiliated in front of his girlfriend by a beefy bully; after trying the Atlas program, Joe...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 7, 2011

'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'

The original "Planet of the Apes" movie of 1968, based on the science-fantasy novel by Pierre Boulle, dropped a couple of astronauts onto an unknown planet where evolution had worked out backwards: Humans were feral and hunted by the ruling species, monkeys. It was only the film's killer reveal at the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 30, 2011

'Friends With Benefits'

Friends With Benefits" is one of those American movies with a title whose nuance is lost entirely in the translation; local distributor Sony didn't even try, titling it "Stay Friends" for the Japan market. "Sekkusu Furendo" might have been more on the mark, but was presumably a bit too blunt for those...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 23, 2011

'The Next Three Days' / 'On Tour'

They say you can never really know someone completely, even if that person is the spouse you've been married to for years. Trading on the suspense potential of that notion is "The Next Three Days," director Paul Haggis' U.S.-remake of 2008's French thriller "Pour Elle," a fine film in its own right.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 16, 2011

Zhang, Carpenter return to screens — with mixed effect

You know that sinking feeling you get when you're in some trendy upscale shop and suddenly the in-house BGM features some absolutely crap Euro-house remix of one of your most cherished pop songs? Well, that's exactly the feeling you'll get watching director Zhang Yimou's latest, "A Woman, a Gun and a...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 9, 2011

'Countdown to Zero'

The original "Planet of the Apes" movie in 1968 posited the demise of mankind and civilization as we know it from a nuclear exchange; the series' reboot, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (opening in October), drops this premise in favor of a genetically modified virus. That makes sense: Virus scares...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 2, 2011

Hollywood so often uses foreign-accented types for its villains, and American media in general spends so much time bashing Europeans as cheese-eating surrender-monkeys, that it's good to see ol' Europe hitting back. "Hanna," the slick new action thriller by Londoner Joe Wright, is the third film this...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 26, 2011

Two deep and engaging tales painted in strokes of noir

'Shanghai" is one of those movies with world-weary guys in well-cut suits and fedoras, a tough-as-nails broad who drags imperiously on her cigarettes and plenty of neon reflected on the rain-swept streets. You know it's only a matter of time before someone slugs his whiskey and growls, "Just get the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 19, 2011

'LennoNYC' / 'Upside Down: The Creation Records Story' / 'It Might Get Loud'

A good sign of the vitality of rock music at any given period can be found in its documentary movies — look back at the 1970s and '80s, and almost all the rock docs on offer were contemporary. Whether it was hippie "Woodstock," punk "Rude Boy," "The Last Waltz" or "Stop Making Sense," these films...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 12, 2011

'The Tree of Life'

When "Days of Heaven" was finally released in 1978 (see last week's review) after two years of perfectionist fiddling in the editing room, director Terrence Malick was given a blank check by his patron at Paramount, industrialist Charles Bluhdorn, to develop his next project. Malick assembled a small...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 5, 2011

'Days of Heaven' / 'Nashville'

It's somewhat depressing to think that the two best films on offer this summer, by far, were made over three decades ago. Robert Altman's epic "Nashville" came out in the torrid summer of 1975, while Terrence Malick's sophomore film, "Days of Heaven," was released in '78 after two years in the editing...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 29, 2011

'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'

Given enough money, almost any filmmaker could deliver a big, loud, silly popcorn movie about giant alien robots beating the living crap out of each other, but it takes the special talent of director Michael Bay to make such a movie totally repellent.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 22, 2011

Very different approaches to the struggling hero theme

James Gunn wrote the screenplay for 2000's "The Specials," a low-budget indie comedy that mocked superheroes, showing them kicking back, whining about their action figure deals or bloviating about their origin stories, but never once engaging in actual crime-fighting.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 15, 2011

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2'

As we approach the eighth and final installment in the "Harry Potter" series, what can I say? You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind's blowing. The fans are already getting their tickets, while the less-committed have long since departed, especially since director David Yates has pretty...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 8, 2011

As Hollywood films become ever more breathless — with special effects sidelining nearly all plot and character development, and digital-editing abuse leading to few shots that last beyond a second — art cinema has moved just as extremely in the opposite direction, with slow, meticulous pacing;...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 1, 2011

'The Hangover Part II'

Any serious drinker knows that feeling of waking up in the morning so desperately hungover you feel like a reanimated corpse, and the groaning, quivering vow to never touch the stuff again. That resolve usually only lasts until your dehydrated brain has forgotten the sensation of slamming up against...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 24, 2011

What would happen if Megadeath decided to record an emo album? The answer may be something like "Hesher," which features an almost Cro-Magnon sort of misanthropic metalhead hero who likes nothing but shredding, shagging, smoking dope and smashing things, but who, it turns out, will teach his straighter...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 17, 2011

Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," released in 1960, famously terrified audiences to the point where a generation was checking the door locks before taking a shower. Stephen Spielberg's "Jaws," released in the baking summer of 1975, kept many people on the beach and out of the water. Now along comes "127 Hours,"...

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.

The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'

By Tomoko Otake

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