Giovanni Fazio - The Japan Times

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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 16, 2008

'The Bucket List'

One of the fuzzier concepts floating around the cloud of pop psychology that has descended upon America in the last decade —like some wizard's curse of stupefaction — is that of "closure." A term lifted from Gestalt psychology by way of grief counseling, its popular meaning has become merely...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 15, 2008

Julie madly, deeply

It's always interesting to meet someone you've seen on the screen so many times. You always wonder: Are they like their movie image? I know, I know — actors are just playing a role, that's not really them up on the screen.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 9, 2008

'Charlie Wilson's War'

It's hard to imagine a political film, let alone one that deals with events that lead directly to 9/11, as being all that funny. "Charlie Wilson's War" pulls it off though, and manages to make covertly arming the Afghani mujahedeen seem like a zany lark. Until, of course, the last reel.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 2, 2008

The 1966 film "One Million Years B.C." was one of those classic naff B-movies from Hammer Films in the '60s. Rerun endlessly on both Saturday afternoon and late-night TV over the next couple of decades, the film had something for both demographics: excellent dinosaur animation by Ray Harryhausen (unsurpassed...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 25, 2008

'There Will Be Blood'

It's 1898, somewhere in Southern California. A grit-encrusted silver miner works in his pit, scrabbling for a find. In wordless scenes, in the middle of nowhere — set to a queasy sweep of strings — we see this man fight with nature to get at her resources, sinews bulging as he hacks away...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 18, 2008

'Paranoid Park'/'You, the Living'

Spree killer, rock star, average teenage skater. Director Gus Van Sant sees all three in much the same light: emotionless, affectless, blank. Numb characters for a numb generation? Or is Van Sant's penchant for an aesthetic — an aloof, arty minimalism — blinding him to things like personality,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 11, 2008

'Michael Clayton'/'Lions for Lambs'

America's rightwing bloviators like to go on about "liberal Hollywood." They have half a point, but they neglect to notice that for every "Erin Brockovich" or "JFK," there's a "300" or "Top Gun." It's just that the rightwing viewpoint tends to be subsumed as flag-waving patriotism or military superiority...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 4, 2008

'Curse of the Golden Flower'

Having established himself in the 1990s as one of China's leading directors, Zhang Yimou spent the past decade making two types of film: small, contemporary and supremely sentimental ones such as "The Road Home" and "Happy Times," or big, lavish, action-packed period-epics like "Hero" and "House of Flying...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 28, 2008

'Things We Lost in the Fire'

How easily we are numbed by routine. We wake up each morning expecting the world to be much like it always is, barely aware that one day we will awake to find that someone so close, so needed, in our lives is no longer there.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 21, 2008

'My Blueberry Nights'

What in the world has happened to Wong Kar-wai? The freshest, most effortlessly cool man in cinema since the mid-1990s, Wong seems to be floundering at the moment. For a director whose style once seemed all about being free, off-the-cuff, jammed out, and playful, his most recent flicks show every sign...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 14, 2008

'No Country for Old Men'

Joel and Ethan Coen have proven themselves skilled at three types of films over the years: thrillers ("Fargo"), comedies ("The Big Lebowski"), and just plain weird ("Barber"). Often the lines between the three are blurred: "The Big Lebowski" has a noirish detective story holding together the jokes, while...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 7, 2008

"Jumper" is one of those films that feels like it was a marketing strategy before it was a script. Or maybe it was one of those films where they had a cool new special effect and just needed to throw together something resembling a story to showcase it in. Or maybe it was both: create one shot of star...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 29, 2008

It's a joy to see an actor who once seemed nothing more than a bimbo, a pretty face, mature into a real actor of far greater range.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 22, 2008

'Elizabeth: The Golden Age'

Our challenge this week is thus: Is it possible for a director to make a historical film and not have it wind up either: A) totally boring like "The Sun," Aleksandr Sokurov's film about Emperor Hirohito, or B) completely over-the-top and ludicrous like "300"?

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 15, 2008

'Fast Food Nation'

Once upon a time, the spread of freedom and democracy was measured in the spread of hamburger franchises. Beaming network correspondents would report from places like Moscow or Beijing on how formerly gray and monolithic communist societies had opened their doors to the Golden Arches. This, truly, was...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 8, 2008

'The Kite Runner'

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 1, 2008

'Lust, Caution'

All movies require some suspension of disbelief, but some need a lot more than others. I had an easier time swallowing "Beowulf" than director Ang Lee's latest, "Lust, Caution." "Beowulf" trades in fantasy so you make the leap; "Lust, Caution" seeks to explore real human emotions and rings hopelessly...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 25, 2008

"Bee Movie," the latest animated feature from DreamWorks Animation, is about as funny as its title. B-movie, get it? It's a rather weak pun, more so considering there already was an ironically titled "B-Movie" made in 2004.

CULTURE / Film

Jan 18, 2008

The nature documentary has long been a staple of the small screen, whether its NHK or the BBC, but in recent years more and more have been showing up in the cinemas.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 11, 2008

'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'

The story of Western outlaw Jesse James gets rewritten for every generation — indeed it was being rewritten even while he lived. As the former confederate guerrilla-turned-bandit embarked on a spree of bank and train robberies in the 1870s, gunning down unarmed bystanders repeatedly, James was...

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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