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August 15, 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
Sep 26, 2013
'Heaven's Gate'
The 1970s are fondly remembered now as an insanely creative and risk-taking era for American cinema, and there's one infamous film that is generally blamed for bringing it all to a crashing halt: "Heaven's Gate." Director Michael Cimino had cleaned up at the Oscars with "The Deer Hunter," and seemed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2013
'Warm Bodies'
Most zombie movies look at the undead and decide they're a problem best solved with a bullet to the head. But director Jonathan Levine gives us "Warm Bodies," which suggests that when World War Z comes, all you'll need is love.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2013
Iron Man 3
Director: Shane Black
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2013
'Elysium'
On the one hand "Elysium" is the last of this year's summer blockbusters, the new Matt Damon star vehicle and the Hollywood debut by South African director Neill Blomkamp, acclaimed for his debut aliens-among-us feature "District 9." On the other, this is a political propaganda film so stark and simplistic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2013
'Byzantium'
The post-"Twilight" boom in all things vampire continues, but this latest undead flick comes from Irish director Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game"), whose 1994 adaptation of Anne Rice's "Interview With the Vampire" well preceded the current trend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2013
'Zero Dark Thirty'
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013
'The Wolverine'
While it never seems to be as high-profile as the "Iron Man" or "Spider-Man" franchises, the "X-Men" series is actually the longest-running Marvel Comics series on the big screen, and it's the one that opened the gates to Marvel's current dominance. For my money, "X-Men" remains the most interesting,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013
'Strutter'
Allison Anders started off as a scrappy indie filmmaker — cutting her no-budget first feature, "Border Radio," after hours at the UCLA film school — and after a flirtation with mainstream success in the 1990s (the iconic "Gas Food Lodging" and "Grace of My Heart") and a lot of work in TV, she's now...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013
'Paranorman'
Directors: Chris Butler, Sam Fell
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
Director James Mangold puts soul into Wolverine's demons
"The Wolverine" may look like just another in a long line of superhero movies to hit the screen this year — it's the latest installment in Marvel's "X-Men" franchise — but it's certainly the first one directed by a guy who cites director Yasujiro Ozu of "Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story)" fame as an...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
'Side Effects'
Director Steven Soderbergh's retirement from cinema after a career of 30-plus years has been much ballyhooed, and is hopefully only temporary. But if "Side Effects" turns out to be his last movie, it's a shame, because this one shows him at the top of his game. Soderbergh is working again with screenwriter...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
'Le Magasin des Suicides'
In the miserable satire-world of French animated comedy "Suicide Shop," people are fined by the cops and billed for damages for failed suicide attempts. Of course in present-day Japan, this is the sad reality, where bereaved relatives get a bill for the disruption caused by a loved one who jumps in front...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
'Dark Horse'
Director: Todd Solondz
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2013
'On the Road'
How do you make a movie version of "On the Road," author Jack Kerouac's near stream-of-consciousness ode to bumming back and forth across Eisenhower-era 1950s America and Mexico in hitched rides, purloined cars and hobo boxcars in a blur of jazz joints, poetry and longing? The book is all about first-hand,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2013
'The Walking Dead Season 3'
Director: Various
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2013
'End of Watch'
Is there anything new left to be done with the buddy-cop genre? Probably not, but "End of Watch" gives it a damn good shot. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña star as a couple of LAPD officers who patrol one of Los Angeles' roughest neighborhoods, Newton Division, where their gung-ho attitude will eventually...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2013
'The Mexican Suitcase'
War photographer Robert Capa is known for being the first to engage in frontline photography; prior to Capa, photos would be taken before or after a battle, but rarely during, for obvious reasons. Yet Capa, with colleagues Gerda Taro and David "Chim" Seymour, took great personal risks to cover the Spanish...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2013
From One Second to the Next
Director: Werner Herzog
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013
'White House Down'
Hollywood movies are all starting to feel the same these days, but in some cases almost literally. Just check out "White House Down," a "Die Hard"-in-D.C. popcorn flick that is almost exactly the same movie as "Olympus Has Fallen," which was released earlier this summer. Great minds think alike, as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013
'Garbage in the Garden of Eden'
German-Turkish director Fatih Akin, best known locally for 2005's excellent doc on Istanbul's music scene "Crossing the Bridge," turns his attention to a small tea-growing village called Camburnu on the coast of the Black Sea. This was the hometown of Akin's grandparents, and it's this personal connection...
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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