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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 8, 2014

Language: English

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 1, 2014

Frank: Skewering the cult of mental illness as art

Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) is a young man with a dream: He wants to be in a band. He wanders the streets looking for something, anything, to give him some inspiration to write a song, and spends endless hours twinkling at his keyboard. Yet everything he pens is absolute crap and he seems much better at writing...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 1, 2014

If I Stay: High school romance with a coma on top

This adaptation of Gayle Forman's best-selling young adult novel from 2009 follows high school teen Mia (Chloe Grace Moretz), who is worrying about her boyfriend, college and stuff like that when an auto accident puts her into a coma.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 1, 2014

For no Good Reason

Director: Various Language: English

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 24, 2014

As someone who drinks a fair bit of wine, allow me to make a heretical statement: French wine is overrated. This is not to suggest that the French are not capable of producing some truly fantastic quaffs, but let's be frank: If money is not an issue, by all means drink French wine. But if you have a...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 24, 2014

I always take a keen interest in French auteur Philippe Garrel, who has spent an entire career pouring his relationship joys and (mostly) troubles into films such as "Wild Innocence" and "Les Amants Regulars," but I haven't found many of his films to be truly satisfying; his work tends to be self-indulgent,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 24, 2014

Director: Rudolf Buitendach Language: English

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 17, 2014

Many skins of Britain's cinematic chameleon

Jim Broadbent is one of those ubiquitous British actors whose face you'd recognize long before you knew his name. I first spotted him as Dr. Jaffe, the quack plastic surgeon in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" (1985), but others will recall the small parts he played in cult TV show "Blackadder," and the art-house...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 17, 2014

Glancing at the promotional posters for "Le Week-End" — with their romantic shots of the Eiffel Tower and a beaming, laughing couple — you might suspect this is a warm, fuzzy rom-com for the over-50 set. Paris is for lovers, as they say, and it's easy to imagine a long-married couple revisiting...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 17, 2014

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011) was the boldest, most inventive series reboot Hollywood has attempted in recent years, and I'm happy to report that its sequel keeps pushing the envelope. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" begins a decade after the previous film and its opening montage of a virus...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 17, 2014

Director: Darren Aronofsky Language: English

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 10, 2014

Dawn of the motion-capture renaissance

If "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," the second chapter in the reboot of the much-loved sci-fi franchise, feels like a different sort of blockbuster sequel — deeper, richer, more involving — that may be because director Matt Reeves is not your typical blockbuster director.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 10, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy

If the poster for "Guardians of the Galaxy" seems a bit like a parody of a space-opera movie — with its ray-gun firing hero, green-skinned Amazon, machine-gun toting space racoon and giant alien plant — well, that's because it is. Kind of.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 10, 2014

Frankie & Alice

Frankie (Halle Berry) is a go-go dancer in 1970s Los Angeles, who's raking it in at a nightclub in the Watts district and enjoying a fairly wild lifestyle, but increasing blackouts and psychotic episodes lead to her getting committed to a mental institution. There she finds herself under the care of...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 10, 2014

The Walking Dead: Season 4

Language: English

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 3, 2014

In 1988, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who came to power in a bloody coup in 1973, decided to hold a national referendum — a simple yes or no vote — on whether he should extend his rule by eight years. It was supposed to be an exercise in sham democracy to stem international criticism...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 3, 2014

Non-Stop (Flight Game)

Add "Non-Stop" to that short list of films that you will never see as in-flight entertainment. Liam Neeson (making 60-something seem like the new 40) plays Federal Air Marshal Bill Marks, who is on a flight from New York to London when he receives an anonymous message on his cellphone telling him that...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 3, 2014

A Day With Adrian Sherwood

Language: English

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 27, 2014

Stories We Tell

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 27, 2014

How I Live Now (Watashi wa Ikite Ikeru)

Being a teen girl and having to endure a summer in the Welsh countryside with relatives who don't speak American English, where there's no Wi-Fi, no malls, and everyone eats totally gross things like gluten-containing bread and lactose-containing cheese, well, that's bad enough, but throw in a nuclear...

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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