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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.

CULTURE / Film

Mar 10, 2006

He molded a classic

At age 48, Nick Park sits at the top of his field. When it comes to 3D animation, only Tim Burton ("Corpse Bride") and Henry Selick ("James and the Giant Peach") can rival him. Working out of the Aardman Animation studios in Bristol, the soft-spoken, self-effacing clay boffin from Lancashire has garnered...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 2, 2006

Mortensen, Bello jump into the deep end

Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello, co-stars of "A History of Violence," show up for an interview at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo looking like, well, if not an item, close enough friends that they could be mistaken for one. (They even finish each other's sentences.)

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 10, 2006

The man who couldn't quit

With "Hoop Dreams" having just been inducted into The National Film Registry (of the Library of Congress), Steve James is clearly one of America's most respected documentarians. And with good reason: The 43-year-old, Virginia-born filmmaker brings a sensitivity and sustained focus to his films that few...

CULTURE / Film

Feb 2, 2006

Bana steps up to the plate

Director Steven Spielberg has avoided the usual press tour for his new film, "Munich," and who can blame him? The film speaks for itself, and anything he said could have pinned him down fatally when this film requires a certain ambiguity to work. And you can imagine the questions he would have gotten:...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 23, 2005

Echoes of Egoyan's mind

With "Where the Truth Lies," his 10th film, Canada's leading art-house director Atom Egoyan had reason to believe this would be his crossover hit. With Hollywood stars in his cast and a script based on a gleefully seedy novel by Rupert Holmes (once a singer who scored big with "The Pina Colada Song"),...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 8, 2005

Inside the belly of the beast

Jennifer Abbott's entire career as a filmmaker and editor has been involved with challenging people's perceptions. Her first documentary, "A Cow at My Table," was on the horrors of factory farming, and Abbott met her co-director Mark Achbar while working as an editor on his documentary on lesbian marriages...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 27, 2005

The man in black

For a man whose entire cinematic career has been devoted to portraying maladjusted types who don't fit in, Tim Burton is certainly comfortable holding a microphone in front of a crowd. Then again, that is the deal with artists: turn your oddities and idiosyncrasies into art and watch your childhood rejection...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 13, 2005

When revolution came to the big screen

1969 was a watershed year for American cinema, with two films in particular heralding significant changes to the movie-making industry. One was "Midnight Cowboy," the story of a hustler and a junkie on the streets of New York City, starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman; this became the first X-rated...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 15, 2005

Composing with an eye on the big picture

The Aichi Expo, with its theme on "Nature's Wisdom" and its pavilions packed with technological wonders, obviously sees no irony in its situation. This contradiction may be highlighted, however, when composer Philip Glass brings his ensemble to perform the music of "Koyaanisqatsi." Directed by Godfrey...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 11, 2005

Ojos de Brujo fueled by flamenco and much more

Monday is not the best night for going wild and dancing till your legs are about to fall off, but as they say here, "sho ga nai," for that's exactly what you'll have to do on May 30, when Barcelona's Ojos de Brujo hit Shibuya's Duo Music Exchange for their first-ever Japan show.

CULTURE / Music

Apr 17, 2005

The debut album by Niyaz is a delicious, intoxicating collection of songs, with a sound so fresh that it's impossible to reduce it to a particular genre. The band describes their sound as "21st-century folk music," and that's a start, but don't let that fool you: The rolling thunder of frame drums and...

CULTURE / Film

Dec 29, 2004

In the atrophied heart of America

Super Size Me Rating: * * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Morgan Spurlock Running time: 96 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Buffalo Soldiers Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Gregor Jordan Running time: 98 minutes Language: English Currently...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 29, 2004

This seemed like an off year for cinema. How bad was it? Well, I write a column for a women's monthly, and some months I couldn't even find one movie to recommend wholeheartedly. As usual, there were plenty of in-your-face junk flicks to wade through, but things like "Van Helsing" or "Catwoman" were...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 22, 2004

Can't hold down a good stereotype

Kiss of Life Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Emily Young Running time: 86 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Nathalie ... Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Anne Fontaine Running time: 105 minutes Language: French Currently...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 15, 2004

Dumb and dumber: revenge of the idiots

Jackass -- The Moive Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Jack Tremaine Running time: 88 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Bad Santa Rating: * * (out of 5) Director: Terry Zwigoff Running time: 91 minutes Language: English Opens...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 8, 2004

Captain goes down with the ship

Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow Rating: * * (out of 5) Director: Kerry Conran Running time: 107 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is yet another of those gazillion-dollar event flicks that's 90...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 1, 2004

The freaks that made good

End of the Century Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Michael Gramaglia Running time: 108 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] My first introduction to The Ramones came, fittingly enough for a film critic, in a cinema . . . but, hey, they were...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 29, 2004

Death or glory? Not another jingoistic story

The Alamo Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: John Lee Hancock Running time: 137 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] The battle of the Alamo, like Bunker Hill or the Battle of the Bulge, remains one of America's most sacred martial myths, which...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 26, 2004

Flying Rhythms, in keeping with the current taste in progressive minimalism, is a band stripped down to the core. You've got drums, percussion and . . . well, that's pretty much it, except for Dry & Heavy/Little Tempo member Naoyuki Uchida dubbing things out on the mixing desk. As evidenced in tracks...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 22, 2004

Getting under the skin of a serial killer

After "Hannibal" et al., seeing another serial killer flick was about as pleasant a prospect as being buried alive. It was a nice surprise, then, to find that director Patty Jenkins had made an intelligent, genre-defying film grounded in reality. Jenkins, who also wrote the screenplay, has been riding...

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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