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

Feb 4, 2011

'The King's Speech'

The Prime Minister (ours) is on Twitter. That's basically a so-what situation given the present digital (and alas, political) climate, but a mere five or so decades ago, people in public office were much more selective about their methods of exposure. In fact, some of them had a definite aversion to...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 28, 2011

'Copie Conforme (Japan title: Tosukaana no Gansaku)'

"Copie Conforme" is intimate without being intrusive, blending insight and cynicism to portray the dynamics of a marriage that never was.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 21, 2011

'Apart Together (Japanese title: Saikai no Shokutaku)'

What do two people — once man and wife — do when they meet for the first time in over half a century? Answer: They sit down to eat. Or at least, that's the case in this carefully polished jewel of a film, "Apart Together" ("Saikai no Shokutaku" in Japan), which won the Silver Bear at the...

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jan 19, 2011

Paying respect to the Japanese toilet god

One of the mildly disconcerting surprises awaiting the foreign visitor to Japan is the sheer abundance and creativity of its toilet facilities, public and otherwise.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 14, 2011

German-born Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin has made a rapid climb up the ladder of cinema success: three major award wins in six short years including "Head On" (2004) and the dark, soulful "Edge of Heaven" (2007). Issues of immigration, ethnic diversity and the conflicts that rise from Eastern tradition...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 7, 2011

'The Social Network'

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year in December and his upfront portrait photo on the cover echoed the upfront portrait photo of the "Social Network" movie poster. Though both show well-groomed guys in their 20s, there's something a bit creepy about the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 31, 2010

2010 top movies: Japan feels a crazy little thing called love

This was the year of love in Japan. Not that there was a sudden rise in the marriage rate (ain't happening), but you could sense a certain savviness about love-related issues that wasn't present before.

CULTURE / Film

Dec 24, 2010

'Charlie St. Cloud (Kimi ga Kureta Mirai)'

Charlie St. Cloud is blessed: Not only does he have a fantastic name (just screaming for a Hollywood treatment, in fact), he's also young, incredibly cute, and has just got a ticket to Stanford via a boating scholarship. For all that, he's humble and sincere, hailing from a working-class background and...

CULTURE / Film

Dec 17, 2010

The reviews were mixed when "Welcome" won the European Parliament's 2009 Lux Prize, awarded to films that show "the process of building Europe in a different light." Previous winners were the highly acclaimed "The Edge of Heaven" and "Lorna's Silence" — and criticisms of "Welcome" focused on the...

CULTURE / Film

Dec 10, 2010

'Film Socialisme'

Jean-Luc Godard once said in an interview in the magazine Cahiers du Cinema during the 1980s that 1960's "A Bout de Souffle (Breathless)" was his least favorite of his own films. The interviewer responded that he understood, and that the problem with Godard's first, most watched and most commercially...

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Dec 8, 2010

When even teachers run to get things done

It's here: Shiwasu (師走, the month of December), whose kanji characters are composed of shi (師, teacher) and hashiru (走る, running) — put them together and you get a month so busy and jam-packed with events that even teachers have to sprint to get everything done.

CULTURE / Film

Dec 3, 2010

Ridley Scott has never been one to cushion the blow when it comes to sticking it to modern consumerist society. From "Blade Runner" to "Thelma & Louise," "Black Hawk Down" to "American Gangster," the diseases of so-called civilization become exposed in tableaux of greed, discontent and a cunningly...

CULTURE / Film

Nov 26, 2010

'The Killers (Kiss & Kill)'

Mark Bittman of the New York Times once wrote that real cooks don't need big kitchens or the latest culinary gadgetry — cooks just cook, in pretty much any circumstances, and they are mostly fueled by the will to produce something delectable.

CULTURE / Film

Nov 19, 2010

'The Experiment'

With some movies, there's nowhere to go but down. "The Experiment" is one such experience, when, after the first few minutes of cozy hopefulness (a loving couple discussing a trip to India and how to finance it), darkness closes in, smothering the senses like a polyester blanket. Oxygen, please!

CULTURE / Film

Nov 12, 2010

When Katie (Alexandra Lamy) meets Paco (Sergi Lopez) during a cigarette break at the cosmetics factory where they both work, her life is about a step shy of being in the dumps. The job is hard, she's underpaid, and her husband walked out on her years ago — leaving Katie to pay the bills and look...

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Nov 10, 2010

Six-mat chic: Small spaces suit us just fine

As the minimalism movement gains momentum in the United States, it's probably a good idea to re-examine the concept on our own shores. Minimalism is a Japanese birthright — what Western culture views as monkish habits, Zen aesthetics or the joys of simplicity, the Japanese have pretty much taken...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 5, 2010

Portrait of the artist's mother as a young woman

Even today, you'd have to go far to run into a radical individual like Leonie Gilmour. But in America in 1901, to meet a young woman like her must have been on par with witnessing a comet.

CULTURE / Film

Nov 5, 2010

"Adequate" is the name of the game in Mira Nair's ("Monsoon Wedding" "The Namesake") biopic of the iconic American pilot Amelia Earhart. With other subjects, adequate may have been fine — but for this particular woman and vehicle, "adequate" just doesn't pack enough firepower to get the film off...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 29, 2010

'All God's Children Can Dance'

Someone I knew in college said that the success of Haruki Murakami's fiction lay in the fact that everyone in his stories got laid. Someone else said the only Japanese to have love and sex on a regular basis were Murakami's characters. As for my friend Greg, he came to Japan after reading his fill of...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 22, 2010

First-time director takes on Murakami

Many filmmakers say the difficulties of adapting a best-selling novel to the screen can be daunting. How about the challenge of adapting a story by a foreign best-selling author ("All God's Children Can Dance" by Haruki Murakami) from a country one had never visited (Japan) and to choose the project...

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

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