James Hadfield - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 7, 2015

'Starred Up' shows British prisoners being unpleasant

In the language of Britain's penal system, "starred up" is the term used for a young offender who gets prematurely moved to an adult prison. Designated "single cell, high risk," 19-year-old Eric Love (Jack O'Connell) certainly looks like he's ready for the big time. When the officers strip search him...

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Oct 2, 2015

Kyoto's Weekenders Coffee keeps customers on their toes

To get a sense of how much the Japanese coffee scene has evolved over the past decade, pay a visit to Weekenders Coffee. This specialty coffee shop in northeast Kyoto — which marks its 10th anniversary next month — ranks among the city's most essential destinations for discerning caffeine junkies....

CULTURE / Music

Sep 21, 2015

When dub's Adrian Sherwood met experimental-rock trio Nisennenmondai

Austerity is a hell of a drug. Tokyo's Nisennenmondai has spent its 16-year career figuring out how to do more with much, much less. Since forming in 1999, the group has progressed from the well-mapped territories of instrumental noise-rock into a sparse, industrial zone bordering on the hinterlands...

CULTURE / Film

Sep 16, 2015

'Two Raging Grannies' try to figure out the global economy

As Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's scabrous political correspondent, has often observed, one of the ways that Wall Street protects itself is by cloaking its activities in jargon so dense and dull that it's impenetrable to the average observer. In "Two Raging Grannies," a documentary by Norwegian director...

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Sep 4, 2015

Roasted-on-the-spot coffee from Kyoto is going global

The five-story pagoda of Hokanji Temple has crowned the skyline of eastern Kyoto for more than a millennium — give or take the few times when it burned down and was reconstructed. Just down the lane from the current incarnation (constructed in 1440) sits a rather newer landmark, % Arabica, which has...

CULTURE / Film

Sep 2, 2015

White people on holiday are threatened by Asian stereotypes in 'No Escape'

In this globalized age, Hollywood studios can no longer afford to trample over local sensibilities. Earlier this year it was revealed that an upcoming thriller about an American family caught in a Southeast Asian revolution would be having its title changed from "The Coup" to the less provocative "No...

CULTURE / Film

Aug 12, 2015

A disfigured face drags ghosts back to postwar Berlin in 'Phoenix'

In Kobo Abe's 1964 novel "Tanin no Kao" ("The Face of Another"), a scientist left disfigured by an industrial accident dons a synthetic mask and poses as a different man in order to seduce his estranged wife. When she responds rather too readily to his advances, he reacts angrily, only to discover that...

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Aug 12, 2015

Director attacks critics who claim Japanese films fall short of Hollywood standards

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Shinji Higuchi, the director picked by Toho to revive its dormant "Godzilla" franchise, promised that his version of the iconic monster would be larger and more terrifying than its predecessors. However, the most hair-raising comment in the article was...

CULTURE / Film

Aug 6, 2015

Bryce Dallas Howard kicks her high heels up in 'Jurassic World'

Typical: You spend $150 million on your effects-heavy summer blockbuster, and all people want to talk about is a character's choice of footwear. When "Jurassic World," the long-gestating sequel to the original "Jurassic Park" trilogy, opened internationally in June, the film's producers probably weren't...

CULTURE / Film

Aug 6, 2015

New theme park, old problems, but 'Jurassic World' is still wild

Time hasn't been kind to Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park," the 1993 blockbuster that paved the way for every CGI-driven popcorn flick of the past two decades. But it isn't the movie's visual effects that betray its age: it's the setting. The film's titular theme park may have spent millions on cloning...

CULTURE / Film

Aug 5, 2015

Black depths of Swedish humor plumbed in 'A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence'

If Vladimir and Estragon, the hapless protagonists of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," had attempted to make a comedy sketch show, they might have ended up with something like "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence." This mordant, strikingly original work from Swedish director Roy Andersson...

CULTURE / Music

Jul 31, 2015

Never mind the lineup: Fuji Rock is more than music

It has only been three years since Fuji Rock Festival posted its highest-ever attendance figures, with a little help from Radiohead and The Stone Roses, but you wouldn't have known it from the steady drumbeat of glumness that heralded this year's edition. Following a lackluster showing in 2014, when...

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Jul 31, 2015

High-tech iced coffee cools the summer heat

As the Japanese summer reaches its sweltering zenith, a steamy cup of coffee in the morning no longer seems quite so inviting. It's time to drop your inhibitions, and reach for some ice.

CULTURE / Film

Jul 29, 2015

Ratcheting violence on Belfast's streets in '71

For the last three decades of the 20th century, Northern Ireland was mired in a toxic internecine conflict that came to be known as "the Troubles." Although bombings, assassinations, street battles and clashes with security forces claimed the lives of more than 3,600 people, it was an era defined as...

CULTURE / Film

Jul 22, 2015

'Wild Tales' and black comedy from the dark heart of Argentina

Forget about all the brassy, effects-laden blockbusters crowding the multiplexes this summer: For sheer entertainment value, none are likely to top this Argentine-Spanish anthology of comic shorts. Rich in black humor and satirical invective, "Wild Tales" became the most successful Argentinian movie...

CULTURE / Film

Jul 15, 2015

Walking the Australian Outback in a shirt and undies looks impossibly beautiful

What would compel a young woman to walk almost 1,700 miles across the Australian Outback, with only a dog and a quartet of camels for company? As real-life nomad Robyn Davidson (played by Mia Wasikowska) says at the start of "Tracks" — director John Curran's handsome biopic — "I believe that when...

CULTURE / Books

Jul 11, 2015

Modernity and magical realism in rural Japan

Tokyo may still be thriving, but in Japan's rural hinterlands, the country has already plunged into a state of advanced senescence. At the start of Kazuki Sakuraba's "Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas," the book's narrator surveys her hometown and struggles to reconcile the stories of its prosperous...

CULTURE / Film

Jul 9, 2015

Japanese winemaker reflects on life and disaster in this succinct New Zealand documentary

Today's documentarians may dream of making epic Frederick Wiseman-style films, but online audiences aren't usually so patient. Three hours? You'll be lucky to hold someone's attention for three minutes.

CULTURE / Film

Jul 8, 2015

The avalanche of cringe in 'Force Majeur'

When a crisis hits, it's hard to say how any of us will react. Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), a handsome alpha-male type, has managed to drag himself away from work to join his family on a skiing trip in the French Alps. The first day of the holiday passes without incident, but on the second, their lunch...

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Jul 3, 2015

Subtly subversive coffee in Tokyo's book district

There's a spirit of openness in the Tokyo coffee scene at the moment that's really quite refreshing. Rather than jealously guarding their secrets, the current crop of baristas and specialty roasters are talking, sharing and egging each other on.

author

Meta

Podcast

Longform

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

In your social network

In your inbox

In your social network

In your inbox