Kaori Shoji - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Meta

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

Jul 9, 2010

'The Bounty Hunter'

You know you're at the movies when the on-screen newsroom is full of vivacious, handsomely paid people busily moving to and fro. Also, when the supposedly ace reporter shows up for work every day in the highest heels and tightest miniskirt ever sold at Barneys, not to mention swinging her gorgeously...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 2, 2010

'Let the Right One In'

With the cinematic love story on the endangered species list (SATC has a lot to answer for), it's truly gratifying when something as romantic, lovely and sweetly satisfying as "Let the Right One In" appears on the horizon. It restores your faith in men. In dating. In the whole myth that someone special...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 25, 2010

A Japanese diver who signed up to travel and work aboard a Sea Shepherd (the renowned, independent ocean conservation society) boat told a local magazine that, initially, she was apprehensive because of her nationality. Coming from a nation that does continuous battle with ocean conservationists, she...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 18, 2010

There's a terrible reality to "The Road" — a sickening, no-exit sensation of being in a waking nightmare. An old Woody Allen maxim has it that people don't want too much reality from the movies; "The Road" on the other hand, has no interest in what people want but what they can endure.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 11, 2010

Filmmaker Raymond Depardon is a committed man. He traveled to the remote and isolated Haute Garrone region of southwest France for a solid decade, meeting and interviewing an ever-dwindling community of farmers who had chosen to work the land in the way of their ancestors.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jun 9, 2010

A land of harmoniously secretive married couples

Japanese people have become more kojinshugi (個人主義, individualistic) and aware of their personal identities than they were 20 years ago, according to recent media reports. True, members of the younger generation have no problem addressing each other by first name (and this happens even among casual...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 4, 2010

The watcher of humankind: prizewinning director Cantet

Laurent Cantet's films are highly detailed, meticulously observed and they almost always take place in work situations.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 4, 2010

'Entre les murs'

Times may have changed, but a few things remain stolidly the same — and one of them is the middle- school classroom. Whatever else is happening out there, the classroom continues to pack a bunch of teenagers into a confined space, prop a teacher at the head of the room, and shut the door hoping...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 28, 2010

Jane Campion's heroines always seem to labor under the weight of suffering womanhood, even when they're empowered and supposedly in control (witness the prickly discomfort of "In the Cut's" Meg Ryan) but her latest, Fanny Brawne (played with dazzling excellence by Abby Cornish), in "Bright Star" is warm,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 21, 2010

"There are those who go to war and those who are left behind, with each experiencing a different kind of hell." This is a translation of an excerpt from a letter found among the possessions of a Nagasaki woman widowed when her husband was killed in action during World War II. Though it was displayed...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 14, 2010

'From Paris With Love'

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that life got better after 50, he could have been prophesying about John Travolta. His career has been one of peaks and plunges, punctuated by some of cinema's most interesting fashion moments ("Saturday Night Fever" and "Battlefield Earth" come to mind). Ever since...

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

May 12, 2010

Teishokuya: cheap eats that never go out of style

Times will change, empires will rise and fall, but thankfully some institutions are set, if not in bronze, then at least in good old concrete. By this I mean the backstreet teishokuya (定食屋, diner), specifically the tasty one in my neighborhood. At lunchtime the place is crammed with businessmen...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 7, 2010

'Whip It (Roller Girls Diary)'

Having been a star player in Hollywood her entire life, Drew Barrymore views the set from the other side of the camera, in "Whip It" (released in Japan as "Roller Girls Diary") — a wobbly but adorable, whip-smart feature debut. Barrymore, whose own screen presence is always wildly ingratiating,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 30, 2010

'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire'

"Precious" is a "woman's movie" — it speaks to women, rubs them rightly or wrongly, touches a few raw nerves. Male viewers may find it hard to stomach. The scene in the screening room after the lights came on reflected this. The distributors were grouped around the entrance doors, collecting the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 23, 2010

'Le Concert (Orchestra!)'

For once, a movie's Japanese release title tops the original — that exclamation mark at the end of "Orchestra!" captures the clunky exuberance of this story that clutches at the hearts and ears of all music lovers, whatever the genre.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 16, 2010

'Carriers (Phase 6)'

With the pollen-infused, mask-wearing allergy season in full swing, our thoughts will no doubt at some point turn to viral outbreak — or so the Japanese distributors of "Carriers" (released in Japan as "Phase 6") are likely hoping. This little-seen, under-appreciated horror film that opened in...

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Apr 14, 2010

What the nation's girl sports managers offer Japan

One of the best-selling books of the past month is called "Moshi Kokoyakyuno Jyoshi Manejyaga Drucker no Management wo Yondara"(「もし高校野球の女子マネージャーがドラッカーのマネージメントを読んだら」"If the Girl Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker's...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 9, 2010

'Io, Don Giovanni'

A pivotal moment in Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" is when sex fiend Giovanni's servant tells one of his master's conquests how many women he has had over the years. In Europe and Turkey, the total tops 3,000 and, upon hearing this, the girl swears vengeance.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 2, 2010

"The Wolfman" stars Benicio Del Toro, which normally means I would readily suffer pain and humiliation and even demonstrate some nonexistent rock- climbing skills if need be, just to see my beloved. It's a lonely quest in Japan, where Del Toro doesn't have quite the following he deserves: He's too craggy,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 26, 2010

'Shutter Island'

There's a huge dollop of conventionality at work in Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" — but it's hard to say whether that emanates from the story's particular backdrop (suit and fedora-hatted mid-1950s) or Scorsese's own, atypical lapse into connect-the-dots storytelling. Not to say that conventionality...

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports