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November 22, 2024
 

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Kaori Shoji
Kaori Shoji writes about movies and movie-makers for the Film Page, plus takes a turn at the Bilingual Column. Biggest mistake of her career: taking the very dignified Nagisa Oshima to McDonald's for an iced coffee.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 9, 2015
'Comet' is not your typical feel-good love story
A personal theory of mine is that all relationships are phases we go through. Though not all phases are equal — some are more memorable than others. To Kimberly (Emmy Rossum) and Dell (Justin Long) in "Comet," their relationship was a long, incredibly eventful phase that neither of them ever really...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 4, 2015
A short history of 'real' bread in Japan
For most of modern history, the Japanese failed to understand the point of the baguette — known locally as furansu pan (French bread) — and shunned the globally coveted Gallic specialty, thinking it was hard and tasteless. Carried by almost every bakery in Tokyo, it was often isolated from the main...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 3, 2015
It's time for us to get to know a 'Bondo-san'
With industry speculation about the latest 007 vehicle, "Spectre," being the last round for Daniel Craig, it's a good time to rethink the whole James Bond persona. Does he have to be white? Does he have to wear those bespoke suits? Does he really need to have a British accent? Well, the accent might...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 2, 2015
'The Peanuts Movie' stays true to its comic strip roots
There are no grown-ups in "The Peanuts Movie." More importantly, there are no villains or evil schemes. There's a gentle, insecure little boy named Charlie Brown, his beagle and a gaggle of friends — that's about it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 2, 2015
Bertrand Bonello's edgy portrait of Yves Saint Laurent
"When I close my eyes, I see piles of clothing. When I open them, I see only darkness." So says Yves Saint Laurent (in a stunning performance by Gaspard Ulliel) in the movie "Saint Laurent," which opens here more than a year after it took Cannes by storm. It has since bagged multiple awards on the film...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 2, 2015
Michael Pollan's bestselling book 'In Defense of Food' to be adapted into documentary film
Now that the World Health Organization has decreed that processed meats are potentially hazardous, and a chain of hotels in Sweden has actually banned bacon, sausages and palm oil products from its breakfast menus, food is increasingly becoming a hot topic, both in real life and in the movies.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 25, 2015
Mark Osborne's 'Little Prince' adaptation keeps it in the family
A cinematic adaptation of "The Little Prince," Antoine de Saint-Exupery's beloved 1943 novella, is a risky proposition. There have been adaptations before, including the live-action version directed by Stanley Donen in 1974, but none have really captured the magic of the original book, or have done justice...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 25, 2015
Simon Curtis' 'Woman in Gold' an ode to heritage
'Woman in Gold" can perhaps be described as the sister film to "The Monuments Men" (2014). Both are fiction based on hard facts, and both involve the Nazi theft of major artworks during WWII. At their core is a deep love for art, and the conviction that art has an inherent power to trigger the noblest...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 18, 2015
'The Rewrite' stars Hugh Grant as himself
You know when you get that "getting old" feeling — it's when the film stars you once used to love and revere in sizzling love stories and action-packed melodramas of the late 20th century now appear in stories about aging parents, layoffs, sickness, bankruptcy, foreclosures and other stuff in life...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 16, 2015
Same-sex marriages? Japan's been there, done that, kind of
Japan may come off to the outsider as a repressive society, but on homosexuality, the country has consistently been fairly liberal and permissive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2015
Genial comedy 'My Old Lady' exposes darker side
'My Old Lady" will hold an enormous fascination for real-estate agents and homeowners over 40, but a sizable portion of the movie-going populace would perhaps miss the point of the story — and do so willingly. There are three central characters here, played by Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 11, 2015
Mitaka Community Cinema relives the glory days of local theaters
Ah, for the days of real movie theaters. Just as a certain Seattle-based company has made the brick-and-mortar bookstore obsolete, the real-deal cinema house died a slow death — first maimed by the multiplex and then killed by the Internet.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 4, 2015
Director Kazuaki Kiriya struggles to be taken seriously in Japan
Forty-seven-year-old filmmaker Kazuaki Kiriya is as famed for being a tall, flamboyant loudmouth — he married Japanese diva Hikaru Utada when she was 16 years old (and he was 35) — as he is for making sleek CG-heavy extravaganzas that never manage to do well at the box office. Now Kiriya has directed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 4, 2015
Sarik Andreasyan's thriller 'American Heist' falls short
'American Heist" is a bad movie with a glorious title. Think of the notables with "American" as a topper: "American Sniper," "American Beauty," "American Hustle," even "American Horror Story" had its merits. But "American Heist" takes a good, functional concept and turns it on its backside, not to mention...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 28, 2015
Agnes b. moves from fashion to film in 'Je m'appelle Hmmm...'
There is a sizable genre of films about fashion designers — Coco Chanel alone has spawned over a dozen movies, TV episodes and mini-series. But designers who make their own movies are a rarity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 28, 2015
Scream queen festival arrives in Tokyo
The point is to scream — a lot.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2015
Female fears at the dead center of J-horror
Japan is a scary place. It has inspired masters of horror over three centuries, from Akinari Ueda in the 1700s ("Ugetsu Monogatari") to Lafcadio Hearn ("Kwaidan") in the late 1800s, all the way to the 1990s, when Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cure" and Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" were released, spawning a new homgreown...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2015
Women are in trouble at the Tokyo International Film Festival
Bad things can happen to good women, especially in the movies. For me, the most intriguing films at TIFF this year feature women in trouble. Yes, men may be a lot harder to take down on-screen than women — requiring explosives, monsters and extremely fit assassins — but, in reality, girls are more...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 19, 2015
An increasingly bitter battle of the ages brews in Japan
The elderly believe that having worked themselves to the bone their entire lives, they deserve to have fun. Society, though, is becoming less sympathetic to this view.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 14, 2015
Photographic portal to a secret, bygone world
'The things happening on Tokyo's streets are always fascinating to me," Nobuyoshi Araki told me during an interview in 2012. Though best known for being the maestro of Japanese erotica, Araki has retained a particular love for street photography. Now 75, he still loves to prowl around the streets of...
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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