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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
Jun 15, 2012
Film fest keeps it short
Once upon a time, short films actually played in cinemas, as an opening act for the feature presentation. But as feature films got longer and cinemas tried to squeeze in ever more screenings, the shorts eventually fell by the wayside. As a result they lost their position as the traditional calling card...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2012
'Act of Valor'
Ten minutes into "Act of Valor", I could practically hear the voice of Homer Simpson in my head, delivering his own critique of the movie: "Ooh, propatainment!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 8, 2012
'The Divide' / 'Bellflower'
Shibuya's Theater N may not exactly fit the definition of a grindhouse — its polite staff and lack of dodgy-looking stains on the seats rule that out — but any cinema doing a late-show revival of 1978's notorious "I Spit on Your Grave" earns the comparison. Theater N has been getting good mileage...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 1, 2012
'Midnight in Paris'
A guy's on a trip to Paris with his fiancee. Gil (Owen Wilson) is a hack Hollywood screenwriter bemoaning the fact that he never became a "real" author and, besotted by the city's charms, toys with the idea of staying and doing just that. Inez (Rachel McAdams) is a castrating harpy who won't buy into...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 25, 2012
'John Cassavetes retrospective'
There are plenty of anecdotes about the late John Cassavetes — the director often cited as the "godfather of American independent cinema" — but my favorite is the one regarding an advance screening he did for his 1977 film "Opening Night," about an alcoholic actress overcoming a personal trauma to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2012
'Dark Shadows'
Dear reader, heed my warning: verily, the undead live. Not rotten-fleshed zombies or nocturnal ghouls, but old TV series from the 1960s and '70s, resurrected from the moldering vaults where they lay and given new life by devious Hollywood necromancers. In this deal with the Devil, they breathe new life...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2012
'Bad Teacher'
Arguably the greatest legacy of Bill Clinton's time in the White House is that fellatio jokes entered the mainstream. It's damn near impossible these days to find an American comedy that doesn't include a sniggering blow-job reference in the first five minutes, and the new Cameron Diaz comedy "Bad Teacher"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 4, 2012
'The Ballad of Mott the Hoople'
The embalming of rock history continues apace, and some days it seems as if every band that had a following in the 1960s or '70s is getting a rockumentary of its own. There's a reason for that, and it's not just boomer nostalgia: Bands back then were mapping out new territory, whereas contemporary rock...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 27, 2012
'I'm Still Here'
You can do just about anything in Hollywood — stints in rehab, wife-beating, being arrested for lewd conduct, or drunk-driving topped off with a few anti-Semitic remarks, to name but a few — but the one thing they'll never forgive you for is spurning stardom. Woe to those such as Mickey Rourke who...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 20, 2012
'Bridesmaids'
The word out on "Bridesmaids" is that it's a successful port of the Judd Apatow-style bromantic comedy to the chick-flick platform. That's partly true: The coarse humor, the emphasis on how people act when members of the opposite sex aren't around and the emotional honesty that's lurking behind all the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2012
'John Carter'
Just in time for the 100th anniversary of its first publication, "Tarzan" author Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars" gets the 3-D blockbuster treatment from Disney under the revised title "John Carter." This new franchise should have been a sure thing, with a novel that has endured in readers'...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2012
'The Artist'
One has to admire "The Artist" for it's sheer chutzpah: the idea that someone can make a silent, black-and-white movie in this day and age and achieve massive Oscar-winning success is nearly unthinkable.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2012
Director flirts with film history in 'The Artist'
With hindsight, successful ideas always look brilliant, but that doesn't mean everyone involved viewed them as such from the outset. That's especially true in the world of film finance, where producers are loathe to gamble with people's money, and the best approach is usually the one that worked last...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 30, 2012
'The Ides of March' / 'Route Irish'
OK, my job this week is to convince you that "The Ides of March" is one of the best films you'll ever see about politics and elections and the eventual disillusion we all come to harbor about both. But this task is complicated by the fact that I don't want to spoil it for you in the least — and believe...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2012
'My Week With Marilyn'
In his book "Retromania," music critic Simon Reynolds makes the case that pop music/rock has gone distressingly meta, feeding on its accumulated history at the expense of any further forward evolution musically. It's a bold argument — and well worth a read — but one could probably make the same case...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 16, 2012
'Take Shelter'
If there's one thing that's certain about predictions of the apocalypse, it's that none of them have been correct to date. The mother of all end-of-the-world predictions was 2012 — according to all that Mayan calendar mumbo-jumbo — and yet, here we are.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 9, 2012
'Shame'
Sexual addiction is defined by one recovery-program website as "any compulsive or impulsive sexual activity that falls into one of three categories: shameful, secretive or abusive." Well, that's a bit of a party-killer, isn't it? Beyond the fact that this defines as illness so much common sexual activity...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 2, 2012
'The People vs. George Lucas' / 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams'
Don't ever say it's just a film! It's not just a film!" So rages one super-size fanboy in the documentary "The People vs. George Lucas," which delves into "Star Wars," its huge impact on popular culture and the rabid fans it has spawned like so many clone troopers from a Kamino lab. Beyond the movies...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012
'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" was released last Christmas in the United States, slightly after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One would like to suppose that the filmmakers realized the crassness of opening a 9/11-themed film any closer to the actual anniversary, but I'd bet...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012
Fiennes gets savage in Shakespeare's 'Coriolanus'
An angry mob of protesters waving banners and wielding bats advances on a government building protected by black-clad riot police. Hooded hotheads break open the gates and all hell breaks loose.
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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