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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
Aug 27, 2010
'Hana to Hebi 3 (Flower & Snake 3)'
Author/director Oniroku Dan's "Hana to Hebi (Flower & Snake)" is the recognized classic of sadomasochistic literature in Japan, probably equal in reputation to Pauline Reage's "Story of O." While the novel has been brought to the big screen in many guises — and to the small as well, in an pervy video...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2010
'The A-Team'
There's no greater sign of the creative bankruptcy in Hollywood these days than the fact that pretty much any old TV series, no matter how stale or silly, is ripe for a remake. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a TV series from my youth that hasn't been remade.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 13, 2010
'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'/'How to Train Your Dragon'
There's a bit in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Disney's shameless attempt to siphon off some of that "Harry Potter" cash flow, where a wizard played by Nicholas Cage is lecturing his young protege on how to conjure magic. The trick to sorcery, says Cage, is to tap all one's mental faculties; most people,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2010
'The Men Who Stare at Goats'
Reality, wrote Philip K. Dick, is what's still there even after you stop believing in it. Thus an enlightened man in our age of science may well speculate on the notion that our bodies, like the walls of the room we are in, are all made up of atoms. And atoms, for their part, contain a lot of empty space....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2010
'Jennifer's Body'/'Zombieland'
"Jennifer's Body" is pretty straightforward in its intentions: mix this season's hot teen genre, the vampire flick, with that old standby the high-school movie. Cast smoking hot Megan Fox as the bitchy bodacious queen bee, Amanda Seyfried as her nerdy best friend, and throw in some snarky teen-speak...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2010
'Toy Story 3'
The original "Toy Story," from way back in 1995, was a fiendishly clever film. Its heartwarming story involved a good-natured but low-tech cowboy doll who was feeling all angsty about getting supplanted by a flashy, high-tech spaceman toy; quite a premise for one of the first animated films to be created...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2010
Sexual empowerment with a large dose of Grey matter
Sasha Grey is not the sort of movie star you normally see discussed in these pages. With a resume that includes "Oral Supremacy" and "Sex Toy Teens," Grey has risen to become one of the top porn stars in the United States, appearing in more than 180 films in a three-year period starting when she was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2010
'Inception'
Director Christopher Nolan has fashioned a career as neatly parceled into halves as that of Bruce Wayne/Batman: On the one side are his ontological thrillers, crafty mind games such as "Following," "Memento" and "The Prestige," with their shifting levels of reality and unreliable narrators. On the other...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 9, 2010
'The Hangover'
Ever wondered what would result if you put Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas," a bromance-comedy of the Judd Apatow sort, and John Cassavettes' "Husbands" in a blender and hit spin? Your answer would be "The Hangover," an over-the-top comedy of men behaving badly in the absence of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2010
'Harold & Maude'/'Brewster Mccloud'
Does anyone remember Bud Cort? My guess is that Johnny Depp does; more than a few of his early, quirkier performances — like the wide-eyed naifs of "Arizona Dream" or "Benny & Joon" — owe a great debt to Cort's work in the 1970s. Wes Anderson does: he cast him in "The Life Aquatic" as a nod to Cort's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 25, 2010
'The Girlfriend Experience'/'Sin Nombre'
From the era of President Ronald Reagan onward, life in the United States has been marked by one salient trend: the increasing Brazilification of society, where wealth is concentrated in a super-rich elite, while the underclass swells and the middle class shrinks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 18, 2010
'Hearts and Minds'/'Winter Soldier'
There has been a lot of informed opinion lately suggesting that the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan has already become a "new Vietnam."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 11, 2010
'Iron Man 2'/'The Last Song'
There's an old piece of industry wisdom that says, when casting your leads, the audience has to either want to be them or sleep with them. (Actually, they use a coarser term, but my editors do so hate it when I lead off with an f-bomb.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 4, 2010
'Survival of the Dead'
Director George A. Romero kicked off the zombie genre in 1968 with his "Night of the Living Dead," and from the outset he used the undead menace to channel contemporary fears.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 28, 2010
'Crazy Heart'
As the music industry continues its precipitous decline, people — generally people with no experience whatsoever in the biz but who sure like ripping all the music they can for free — have no shortage of advice for musicians. Recorded music is dead, they say, so you have to make your money playing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2010
'Legion'
"Legion" may not be a great film, but if you wanted to pick one film that was symptomatic of America in the early 21st century, this is it: a movie about angels . . . with machine guns.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 7, 2010
'Green Zone'
Hey, here's some news for you: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and elements of the administration of President George W. Bush deliberately deceived the public! If new Iraq war film "Green Zone" had come out with this plotline circa 2004, I would have cheered, but at this late stage...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 30, 2010
'The Box'/'9'
You'd be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of certifiably cult movies from the past decade, but Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko" (2001) is definitely one of them. This strange hybrid about a troubled teen and his invisible friend (a giant evil-looking rabbit named Frank) could best be described...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 23, 2010
'Johnny Mad Dog'/'Clash of the Titans'
For a quick snapshot of the alternate and opposing directions being taken by cinema in the 21st century, it's worth considering a pair of films on release this weekend: "Johnny Mad Dog," by French director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, is a provocative, intensely realist look at child soldiers on the rampage...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 16, 2010
'Moon'/'An Education'
If hell is other people, as existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously put it, then Sam Bell has the best job in the world: He leads a solitary existence on a lunar base, where he's the only human employee in charge of a mostly robotic-controlled installation that mines fusion energy from beneath...
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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