James Hadfield - The Japan Times

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James Hadfield

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Jul 13, 2016

The Qualite Fantastic! Cinema Collection festival has choice gems among the trash

Opened in 2012, Cinema Qualite has been a welcome anomaly amid the grim decline of Japan's once-vibrant "mini theater" (arthouse) scene.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 30, 2016

Retreat from the heat to the cinema this summer

The summer blockbuster is dead — or at least, it has ceased to exist as a distinct entity. Four decades after "Jaws" set the template for mass-market Hollywood spectacle, the so-called event movie has expanded its turf so dramatically that July and August, once the most fiercely contested box-office...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 29, 2016

'The Program': Stephen Frears cycles round the edges

From the NFL's deflated footballs to the bribery allegations besmirching Tokyo's Olympic bid, it can feel like the entire apparatus of professional sport has become hopelessly corrupt. But are the fans also complicit?

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 22, 2016

'Twisted Justice': Gangster black comedy is a shade off

In 2003, a Hokkaido cop named Yoshiaki Inaba was sentenced to nine years in jail, on charges including drug use and possession with intent to supply. During his trial, the former police inspector revealed that his impressive career record had involved an unhealthy degree of collusion with contacts in...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 1, 2016

There’s a real story behind the ‘Fake’ documentary

Everybody loves a good scandal, and they don't come much riper than the tale of Mamoru Samuragochi. The public unmasking of "Japan's Beethoven" — a celebrated "deaf" composer who turned out to be neither completely deaf nor the main author of his work — was one of the biggest domestic news stories...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 1, 2016

'Deadpool': Shooting off at the mouth and at the hip

Living in Japan, you get accustomed to scrolling through a film's release dates on IMDb, only to discover that it's arriving here months behind the rest of the world. Such has been the case with "Deadpool," which opened everywhere from the U.S. to the Republic of Macedonia back in February, but has taken...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 29, 2016

Forget clubbing: Outdoor festivals offer a natural alternative

When the revised adult entertainment business law comes into effect on June 23, bringing an end to Japan's archaic ban on all-night dance parties, it will mark the end of what has been a challenging period for the nation's nightclubs. But beyond the major metropolises, at campsites and off-season ski...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 18, 2016

'Hentai Kamen: Abnormal Crisis': Japan's pervy hero is top-crotch

If you're craving an alternative to the self-important bluster of Hollywood's never-ending superhero pageant, there's no need to wait until "Deadpool" opens in Japanese cinemas next month. For a quick fix of trashy comic-book irreverence, this homegrown product should do the trick nicely.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

May 11, 2016

Big issues in film short 'World of Tomorrow'

Given the limited options for theatrical release, short films are generally condemned to the purgatory of YouTube, which makes the case of "World of Tomorrow" especially striking. Since premiering at last year's Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize, this 16-minute animation...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 6, 2016

Review: Worldwide Session at Studio Coast

Gilles Peterson has spent his entire career buoyed by gushing enthusiasm, but when the London-based DJ and record label boss declared a gig in Tokyo on May 4 to be a "career highlight," he was probably being sincere.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 27, 2016

'Captain America': Civil War: Marvel shows Superman how it's done

Have we reached peak superhero yet? After spending the winter months watching "Jessica Jones" and "Daredevil" on Netflix, viewers can now subject themselves to a barrage of comic-book spectacle at their local multiplex. Following last month's clattering, messy "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" comes...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 13, 2016

'Youth': Sorrentino gets extra sentimental

"I don't want to read any more of it, write any more of it, I don't even want to talk about it anymore," said the novelist Philip Roth in 2012, as he announced his retirement from literature. "I'm tired of all that work. I'm in a different stage of my life."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 31, 2016

Ryuichi Sakamoto offers his thoughts on politics, Japan and how his music will change 'post-cancer'

"The Professor" is back in town. Last weekend, Ryuichi Sakamoto took the stage at Tokyo Opera City for the debut concert of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, a 105-strong ensemble of young musicians from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which counts him as its musical director.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 30, 2016

3-D pornography is still pornography

During the heyday of Japan's "pink films" (cinematic porn) in the 1960s and '70s, directors were given free rein over their pictures as long as they included at least one sex scene per reel. For the late Koji Wakamatsu, perhaps the genre's most famous exponent, this was an opportunity to smuggle experimental...

CULTURE / Music

Mar 13, 2016

The Nihilist Spasm Band: 51 years later it's still chaos

Japanese TV had never seen anything like it. During the final episode of irreverent variety show "Tamori's Music is the World" in March 1996, viewers were introduced to a group of silver-haired Canadians billed as "the Rolling Stones of noise music" — a sobriquet that clearly owed more to their age...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 9, 2016

The Greek auteur who cooked up 'The Lobster'

When a gifted director ditches their native tongue and starts working in English, it can be a fraught process. For every Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, there's a Wong Kar-wai or Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose career still hasn't recovered since he parlayed the Oscar triumph of his 2006 drama "The...

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 fates, like...

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...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.

The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan

By Johan Brooks

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Yamagata’s Zao Onsen Ski Resort is a classic beauty

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