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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
May 24, 2013
'Dredd'
Director: Pete Travis
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 17, 2013
'Gambit'
When is a Coen Bros. film not a Coen Bros. film? I can imagine The Dude poring over this koan for hours, but the answer's quite simple: when it's "Gambit," the neo-screwball comedy directed by Michael Hoffman, working off a script by Joel and Ethan Coen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 17, 2013
'Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby'
Director: Adam McKay
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 10, 2013
Hawke film exploits the gruesome myth of snuff
In "Sinister," the new horror movie starring Ethan Hawke, a man explores the attic of his new home and finds a box of old Super 8 film reels. After his family goes to bed, he pours himself a whiskey and watches them: At first it's normal home-video sort of stuff, a family goofing around in their backyard...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 10, 2013
'Sinister'
Horror — like porn and Adam Sandler movies — is one of those divisive film genres that people tend to either obsess over or avoid completely. My own opinion lies somewhere in the middle: I rather like being scared witless, but don't find too many movies that succeed at it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 10, 2013
'Heartless'
Gangbangers quoting poetry, a man biting the face off a living severed head and hoodlum hoodies who are lizard-people straight out of 1970s "Dr. Who" ... If "Heartless" isn't the most ridiculous film I've seen this decade, I'll bite my own face off.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 10, 2013
'The Conspirator (Japan title: Koe wo Kakusu Nin)'
Director: Robert Redford
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 3, 2013
'Evil Dead'
When Sam Raimi's low-budget splatter flick "The Evil Dead" emerged in 1983, it had the same sort of queasy impact you get when you hear a thud and feel something dragging under your tires. "The Evil Dead" was a terrifying and ghoulish film like no other, a signpost of sorts, marking new territory on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 3, 2013
'Trishna'
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 26, 2013
'Killing Them Softly'
There's a scene in "Killing Them Softly" where Brad Pitt, playing Mafia enforcer Jackie Cogan, drives up alongside a car driven by a suspect gambling den operator (Ray Liotta) and pumps a few bullets into him. Here, and only here, director Andrew Dominik slows the film down to the extent that a couple...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 26, 2013
'Iron Man 3'
Amid the legion of superhero franchises, there's been only one that relies on performance more than digital SFX, and that's "Iron Man." You could take any square-chinned blonde with good pecs and put them in the Captain America or Thor roles, but just try to imagine the Iron Man character without Robert...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 26, 2013
'Carlos'
Director: Olivier Assayas
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 19, 2013
'Now is Good'
Dakota Fanning ("The Runaways") plays Tessa, a teenage girl with leukemia who has decided to forego the debilitating chemotherapy and live her last days to their fullest. Losing her virginity ranks high on her list — right up there with shoplifting, doing drugs and going to Glastonbury — but despite...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 19, 2013
'Beasts of the Southern Wild'
On the one hand, Sundance and Cannes award-winner 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' has been correctly labeled as 'magic realism.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 19, 2013
'Frankenweenie'
Director: Tim Burton
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2013
'Cosmopolis'
We want to like this movie, "Cosmopolis." David Cronenberg fills his movies with concepts and ideas, then turns them into something stupendous and horrible. Sigmund Freud is finished, Don DeLillo is next. But his cinema is losing its narrative quality the same way that painting did once upon a time....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2013
'Holy Motors'
French auteur Leos Carax's first feature in over a decade isn't as logorrheic and alienating as David Cronenberg's "Cosmopolis," but it's twice as masturbatory and aimless. (And I'm a huge fan of Carax's "Boy Meets Girl" and "Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.") Like so many directorial projects gone astray, "Holy...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2013
'Sound City'
Director: Dave Grohl
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 5, 2013
Audiard's method: as slow and steady as the waves
My first impression of director Jacques Audiard is that he's almost as wired as the street-punk hero of his film "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," fidgeting in his chair, desperate for a smoke, jumping in mid-translation to clarify a point. Entering his sixth decade, Audiard shows no signs of slowing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 5, 2013
'Rust and Bone'
A boxer knows how to get back up when knocked down. So when life spins out for French bare-knuckle fighter Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), he spends his last euros on a train out of town, his 5-year-old son in tow. It's a responsibility this sullen brute of a man barely knows how to deal with, but he does...
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.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
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.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

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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