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November 23, 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
Apr 10, 2014
Geki×Cine marks 10 years of screen-stage marriage
You wouldn't know it to look at our poker faces, but deep down every Japanese is a drama queen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014
Polish history captured by a man who was there
He may be 88 years old and the director of 54 films, but Polish film giant Andrzej Wajda is still evolving as a storyteller. His latest, "Wałesa: Man of Hope," opens in Tokyo on April 5 (as "Wałesa: Rentai no Otoko") and marks his further foray into the realm of history as entertainment, following...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014
'Wałesa: Man of Hope'
Poland's legendary filmmaker Andrzej Wajda takes on Lech Wałesa, Poland's man of the people, in this fictional documentary "Wałesa: Man of Hope," and it comes as somewhat of a surprise.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014
'Enough Said'
Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been a comedic icon on American TV for two decades or so — her presence on "Seinfeld" no doubt kept several thousand people from slitting their wrists. She is the other half of why "Enough Said" works, and the question is, what took her so long to make it to rom-com cinema?...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014
'The Counselor'
Director: Ridley Scott
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2014
'Parked'
They say people can endure having nowhere to live, but having nothing to drive is licking the very bottom of the barrel. That fate hasn't come to "Parked" protagonist Fred Daly (Colm Meaney), at least not yet. But he's inching closer, as he eases his Mazda into a parking lot on Dublin's east coast. This...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2014
'21 Jump Street'
Jenko used to be a girl-magnet jock-god, so this high school thing should be a breeze for him. Not so for his cop buddy Schmidt (Jonah Hill), who was an overweight, bullied nerd and hasn't changed much since graduation. The surprise is that high school now functions as an equalizer and they're both treated...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2014
'The Call'
Director: Brad Anderson
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014
'The Broken Circle Breakdown'
Love is supposed to crush you and marriage is the fast track to long-time despair. Such dark truisms are flung about in "The Broken Circle Breakdown," a Belgian film whose spirit is so 20th-century Americana it may as well be draped in the Stars and Stripes. And those truisms seem so glamorous, recalling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014
'Saving Mr. Banks'
The word "no" comes out of the lips of P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) more frequently than any other (I counted five in less than 50 seconds of screen time). She often strings them together like beads, presenting them to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) himself, who only wants to take her book "Mary Poppins" and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
Director: Thor Freudenthal
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014
Surviving the latest trend in American cinema
Who is this man? The protagonist in "All is Lost" is also its sole character — an older (but astoundingly fit) stranded sailor portrayed by 77-year-old Robert Redford. He's unnamed, and does not speak except for right at the beginning of the film when he's reciting a letter to persons unknown. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014
'Frozen'
Frozen" is a story of two journeys: one of Princess Anna, who wants to rescue her kingdom from a permanent winter, and the other of her older sister Elsa, who (unintentionally) generated the blizzard that has entrapped their castle and its surroundings in mile-high dunes of snow.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014
'Philomena'
The Catholic Church in Ireland has much to answer for in "Philomena," the real-life story of an Irish woman who was thrown into a convent as a pregnant teenager and forcibly separated from her baby son when he was 3 years old. She spent the next five decades searching for him.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014
The Frozen Ground
Director: Scott Walker
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 9, 2014
I hereby take myself as my lawfully wedded yome
I was trudging home the other night with a dōryō (同僚, colleague) after another in a series of sābisu zangyō (サービス残業, unpaid overtime) sessions, debating whether to skip dinner or stop off at the nearest 24-hour sūpā (スーパー, supermarket). Out of the blue, my colleague asked...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014
'12 Years a Slave'
It's hard to resist comparing "12 Years a Slave" with "The Butler."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014
'RoboCop'
This reboot (roboot?) of Paul Verhoeven's 1987 kinetic action classic reprises the concept of man-as-machine and vice versa, this time in the blindingly white conference room of evil conglomerate OmniCorp, as its executives ponder how best to deploy their newest creation. This is police officer Alex...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014
'Oh Boy'
They say that the EU in its current state of capitalism is a mirror of America in the 1990s. (Remember what that was like? It wasn't all bad, really.) This certainly applies to the Berlin-set micro universe of "Oh Boy," whose very title smells like teen spirit — but it's actually set in the present...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014
'Do You Know What My Name is?'
There's no getting away from the fact that Japan is a super-senior society. Age is on our minds, so it's surprising how Japanese films dealing with old age are rarely upbeat, especially those tackling dementia and other mental illnesses that come with growing old.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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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