Kaori Shoji - The Japan Times

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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

Oct 12, 2012

In a working-class part of the city of Leeds in northern England, a man in the grip of an alcoholic rage beats a dog to death. This is just one of many harrowing moments in "Tyrannosaur."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 5, 2012

'The Samaritan'

One resounding truth about guys in the movies is this: They don't last. Five years ago I was fantasizing about dinner with, oh, Mel Gibson (I know, I know. Terrible taste). Or Jason Statham (even worse). While on-screen, these guys did what they do best, which is offing evil-doers in crowded public venues...

CULTURE / Film

Sep 28, 2012

'The Bourne Legacy' / 'Haywire'

If going to the movies has taught me anything, it's that being a spy ain't easy. Even if the guy is a graduate of the School of Uber-spies, with perfect abs and hair streaming in the wind as the bad guys in black Mercedes come yelling in Euro accents. In fact, the more uber a spy is, the more tribulations...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 28, 2012

Food-themed festival serves up tasty films to chew on

Cinephile foodies, rejoice: The Tokyo Gohan Film Festival kicks off Oct. 6 and runs through Oct. 21. Now in its third year — and with a spinoff event in Osaka held Oct. 6-14 — it's a showcase of films all related to food. Not just one, lonesome movie such as "Dinner Rush" (though that's included...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 21, 2012

'The Hunger Games'

In 2000, filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku came out with his adaptation of the novel "Battle Royale," a dystopian fable set in a near-future totalitarian Japan where a law called "BR" has been established to keep ninth-graders under strict control in a world of torturous fear and brutal murder. Twelve years later,...

Japan Times

LIFE / Language

Sep 17, 2012

Going with the flow, in water we trust

In the Tokyo area, August was a month of hideri (日照り, brutal sunshine), the effects of which were accelerated by the setsuden (節電, energy-conserving) mood. Many of us trudged through the streets under a blazing sun, clutching a towel in one hand and a water bottle in the other.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 14, 2012

'Like Someone in Love'

The definition of "sublime" goes through a subtle overhaul in Abbas Kiarostami's latest "Like Someone in Love," filmed in Tokyo and featuring an all-Japanese cast. To witness the movie is to experience a massive who-would-have-thought-moment. This is Kiarostami we're talking about: one of the world's...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 7, 2012

Watching "Safe House" reminded me of something a savvy girlfriend once said to me: "When a guy tells you that his top-secret real job is working for the CIA, get out of the relationship as fast as you can." Not because of the obvious risks such a job may involve, she said, but because "the guy is a big...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 31, 2012

It's often said that the Japanese are blissfully ignorant of race issues that occur in the West while being overly (sometimes absurdly) alert to those same issues at home, even as they have no idea how to deal with them. With this in mind, it's a little tempting to think what would happen if a remake...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 24, 2012

'The Grey' / 'Facing Ali'

The Grey" could be a welcome sight for those of us panting in summer's dog days of heat and humidity: miles of ice and snow stretching way into a horizon that merges with a forbidding, indeterminate sky. But in the next second, you realize this is a desperate tale of survival, unfolding in an Alaskan...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 17, 2012

Dogtooth" shows the kind of stark, nightmarish images that assail the senses during a fretful summer nap, when the body soaks the sheets and you're disoriented for a while afterward. What just happened here? It's not easy to say, except that the long procession of bizarre scenes evoke the distinct sensation...

Japan Times

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Aug 13, 2012

This ain't no cure for the summertime blues

How are you looking vacationwise? Do you have a chunk of time set aside for genuine relaxation and that most wonderful of Western concepts: Fun? Personally speaking, it's nearly impossible for me to enjoy summertime, as the season is fraught with traumatic memories. The reason for this boils down to...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 10, 2012

The last time I saw Paul Giamatti in a lead role was in "Sideways" (2004), when he played a middle-aged guy who stole money from his aging mother to winery-hop in Napa Valley. Now Giamatti resembles a trusty musical instrument, fine-tuned to the exact specifications of what can only be described as Giamatti-ness....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 3, 2012

'Remembrance (Japan title: Ano Hi Ano Toki Ai no Kioku'

The memories of World War II grow dimmer in the Japanese collective consciousness, but, as the month in 1945 that the war ended, August is a time of remembrance and of sharing stories among family or in the media. Of these, love stories come few and far between, primarily because love affairs were taboo...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 27, 2012

'Take This Waltz'

It's the season of chaotic sensations and somber reflections. "Take This Waltz" feels so right at this time of year, if only to remind us of one of life's basic facts: What starts off as something new and shiny will eventually get old and rusty. A bowl of peaches left on the table is already speeding...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 20, 2012

'Brave" is the impetuous, irreverent new child to come out of the Pixar kingdom, and it is unlike previous Pixar movies for the following reasons. 1) The main character is a human teenage girl. 2) The whole thing is set in medieval Scotland and not some unspecified U.S. suburbia. 3) It explores the mother-daughter...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 20, 2012

'Le Cose che Restano'

In this day and age, who has the time to sit through an Italian movie 6½ hours long?

Japan Times

LIFE / Lifestyle

Jul 17, 2012

Suteteko: Hanging out in underwear is a cool way to survive the summer heat

Picture this: A man comes home from work on a summer evening. The intense heat of the day has abated and he goes into another room to change out of his suit. He emerges wearing a simple ensemble of underwear consisting of an undershirt (sleeveless or not) and a pair of suteteko — which can best...

Japan Times

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jul 16, 2012

Japan's sticky, hot, windy summer gives women the blues

Ever wondered why there are so many female Japanese tourists in Hawaii at this time of year? Never mind the statistics and official answer to that, I'll give it to you straight in one short word: utsu (鬱, depression). The joshi (女子, women) of this country get seriously depressed in the summer and...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 13, 2012

'Big Miracle (Japanese title: Daremo ga Kujira wo Aishiteru)'

Can a relationship expert also be an environmentalist? The answer is yes, if he's director/writer Ken Kwapis, who has done an unlikely hopscotch jump from the chuckle-inducing love story "He's Just Not That Into You" in 2009, to an outright saving-the-whales vehicle three years later. "Big Miracle" is...

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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