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James Hadfield

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 9, 2016

Odious politicians could learn from 'Escobar: Paradise Lost'

As Donald Trump closes in on the U.S. presidency, it's worth remembering that the demagogic real-estate mogul is far from the most odious individual to have pursued a career in politics. Take Pablo Escobar, for instance: The notorious drug kingpin briefly served as a congressman in his native Colombia...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 24, 2016

Tarantino has a lot to say about nothing in 'The Hateful Eight'

Stranded by a blizzard in the wilds of post-Civil War Wyoming, a posse of Quentin Tarantino alumni convenes at a remote cabin for a murderous reunion party. They're an impressive bunch — weathered, whiskered and heavily armed — but their master's wit seems to have abandoned them to their...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 11, 2016

Apple fans get a fairly good origin story

'It's like five minutes before every launch, everyone goes to a bar and gets drunk and tells me what they really think," laments Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) during the closing stretch of Danny Boyle's buoyant, breathless biopic. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has done an ingenious job of condensing Walter...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 10, 2016

Japan's unofficial rebuttal to 'The Cove'

For the past few weeks I've been having flashbacks of a video that a vegan acquaintance posted on Facebook. Shot on a hidden camera, it depicted hundreds of fluffy male chicks getting conveyed into an industrial grinder, their punishment for being deemed surplus to requirements. Omelets haven't tasted...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 17, 2016

Inspiration that comes in dreams and rice balls

Ichiko Aoba takes her seat at an old-fashioned coffee house in Tokyo's Shibuya district, and places a sketchpad and a plump pouch of rolling tobacco on the table. During the hour-long conversation that follows, the tobacco goes untouched, but the sketchpad gets a thorough workout. As she talks, the 25-year-old...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 6, 2016

'It Follows' goes after misogynist slasher film cliches

In the heyday of slasher films, the fastest way for characters to get themselves killed was by having sex. For a few bloodthirsty years following the release of John Carpenter's "Halloween" in 1978, audiences delighted in watching homicidal maniacs dispatch casts of copulating teens, before finally being...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 30, 2015

'Timbuktu' reflects on Malian lives touched by radical Islam

It's common for local distributors to resort to some dubious tactics when promoting foreign films in Japan: Worthy arthouse flicks are routinely saddled with tawdry Japanese titles, or slushy trailers more befitting of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Yet there's something particularly unfortunate about...

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Dec 11, 2015

Secrets of Lawrence of Arabia; a computer judges classical musicians; CM of the week: Panasonic

The Middle East is a region that seems defined by its ongoing factional disputes, many of which are difficult to make sense of. This week, NHK's documentary series "The Profiler" (BS Premium, Wed., 9 p.m.) attempts to shed some light on the background of some of those disputes by looking at the life...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 6, 2015

Punk survivor Phew changes direction on 'A New World'

Even as a child, Phew realized she was a bit different. "When I was at school, if the teacher told a joke and everyone else in the class laughed, I was always the one who couldn't see what was funny," she says. "I've always been like that."

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Dec 4, 2015

Coffee Amp turns the tables on Tokyo's imported coffee culture

For coffee lovers in Tokyo, the past five years have felt like a never-ending bonanza. Where once you might have trekked halfway across town to get a decent brew, now nearly every neighborhood seems to have its own micro-roaster or fancy coffee stand. Yet when Coffee Amp first opened in early 2010, at...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 2, 2015

'Spectre' relies on tired Bond film conventions

So this is it. After four outings as the world's best-dressed sociopath, Daniel Craig has announced that he's done playing 007. In a recent interview with London's Time Out, the 47-year-old actor declared with typically British understatement that he'd rather "slash my wrists" than sign on for another...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 15, 2015

Electronica producer Madegg gets warped on 'New' album

Something has gone awfully askew in the music of Madegg. The 23-year-old producer, real name Kazumichi Komatsu, used to delight in creating warm, shimmering electronica that seemed to come bathed in the lambent glow of a late summer evening.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 11, 2015

Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's 'White God' lacks teeth

Man and his best friend are having some serious relationship issues in "White God." Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's tale of a teenage girl and her beloved hound is the stuff of canine nightmares, set in a present-day Budapest that feels more like a dog dystopia.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Nov 6, 2015

Maruyama Coffee lets the beans explain themselves

From the hip barista conjuring latte art to the kissaten (traditional Japanese coffee shop) owner working an archaic siphon machine, there's a lot of fuss and theater involved in preparing coffee. So it can be hard to get excited about the French press sometimes. It's the saxophone of brewing methods:...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 28, 2015

Killing time at the Tokyo International Film Festival

Covering a film festival can turn anyone into a stickler for scheduling. Key screenings and Q&A sessions always seem to overlap and priorities collide. Do you stick with the stodgy Japanese biopic that you're supposed to be writing about, or sneak out halfway through to go watch something more entertaining?...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 22, 2015

Spotlight on Harada films is well-deserved

Following last year's embrace of anime and "content," 2015 sees the Tokyo International Film Festival reassert its credentials as an event, first and foremost, for cineastes. One particularly welcome addition is the new Japan Now section, a roundup of recent and upcoming movies from the likes of Hirokazu...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 21, 2015

Rare orchids and misfit sex workers at the Tokyo International Film Festival

Some of the hottest tickets at TIFF each year are for films that have already secured a commercial release date in Japan. For all the high-minded talk about artistry and creativity, most viewers just want to see the big movies before everyone else. But spare a thought for the less commercial offerings...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 18, 2015

Radio personality Peter Barakan brings the world to Tokyo for Live Magic!

'I'm going off track again. Wait a minute." Midway through a lengthy digression about an "amazing" New Orleans band named Boukou Groove, Peter Barakan pauses, ever so briefly, to check the conversational signposts.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 14, 2015

'John Wick' lets Keanu Reeves out of 'The Matrix'

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Trevor Noah, the new host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," compared his surprise appointment to the casting of "The Matrix." Though the fact has now been consigned to an obscure bit of movie lore, the role of Neo — the po-faced hero so memorably...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 11, 2015

Albino Sound explores angles on 'Cloud Sports'

When musicians from around the globe gathered in Tokyo last autumn for the 2014 edition of the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) — an intensive series of lectures, gigs and studio sessions that aims to nurture promising artists — many of the participants had already found a foothold within the music...

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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Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

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