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Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 3, 2015

Getting a head start on wartime stories

From the "The Dirty Dozen" (1967) to "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), cinema audiences in Japan have flocked to theaters to watch Americans and Germans killing one another.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 1, 2015

Son of God: 'There is little to no poetic license taken here'

Just in time to be too late for Christmas is "Son of God," Hollywood's latest attempt to reboot the Jesus franchise. Director Christopher Spencer tries to give a more family-friendly version of the life of Jesus than the torture-porn brutality of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 29, 2014

Sony's 'Interview' fetches $15 million online in four days

"The Interview" earned more than $15 million in online sales in its first four days of distribution as Sony bypassed a wide theater release amid concerns from major cinema chains about threats of violence.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2014

Hacking of low brow movie raises high stakes issues

The movie 'The Interview,' featuring the supposed blowing up of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, is a sad commentary on the idiocies of our troubled times. It should not have been made.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 24, 2014

Our critics in the crossfire

The Japan Times' three film writers got together before Christmas to discuss their top picks of movies released this year. Unusually, this year both Giovanni Fazio and Kaori Shoji agreed on their No. 1, choosing "The Broken Circle Breakdown." Mark Schilling picked Mipo Oh's "Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku"...
WORLD
Dec 18, 2014

U.S. determines North Korea behind Sony attack as studio pulls movie

A U.S. government source said investigators had determined North Korea was behind a cyberattack on Sony Pictures as the studio pulled all plans to release its comedy, "The Interview," about an assassination attempt on the North Korean leader.
WORLD
Dec 18, 2014

Top U.S. theater chains delay screening Sony's 'The Interview' amid terror threat

Movie theater chain Regal Cinemas said on Wednesday it will delay showing Sony's North Korea parody "The Interview," while trade publication The Hollywood Reporter said AMC, Cinemark and Cineplex would also not screen the film, citing an unnamed source.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 17, 2014

Disney's 'Big Hero 6' reassembles Japan without the 'cultural cringe'

So we've all heard that it's hard to be a woman in Japan, but being a Japanese geek comes with its own troubles. For some, it's a life lived in front of glowing screens, a dateless existence spent in a six-mat tatami room with posters of idol group AKB48 plastered on the walls. But here's Disney's "Big...
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2014

Getting under Pyongyang's skin

North Korea's rant against the impending release of the Sony Pictures satire 'The Interview' could have been predicted. Rather than providing the new film priceless PR, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should have ignored the film as his father did with the 2004 satire 'Team America: World Police.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 3, 2014

Looking Japan's film-industry myths in the eye

Who doesn't love a listicle titled "(X) surprising things you never knew about (Y)"? What surprises me about a lot of commentary on the Japanese film industry — from insiders and outsiders alike — is how it substitutes judgment calls (usually of the "Japanese films are crap" variety) for out-in-plain-sight...
COMMENTARY / Japan / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 27, 2014

Censorship distortion of 'comfort women'

When Toho Studios wanted to turn 'The Life of an Alluring Woman' into a film, U.S. censors stepped in multiple times to demand script revisions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 26, 2014

Documentaries at the margins of modern life

There is no film festival in Japan quite like the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 26, 2014

Monica Z: 'Shaky rise of Sweden's best-loved chanteuse'

Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund was her country's best-loved chanteuse, but she wanted more. And the one thing that gave her a chance at global stardom? She could sing in English without a European accent.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 22, 2014

Hihōkan: Japan's vanishing sex museums

The real world ends beyond a thick, black curtain. On the other side is one of Japan's last remaining hihōkan (sex museum, literally "treasure palace") in the faded resort town of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture — a strange, dimly lit space of questionable morals and dated fantasies.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 21, 2014

Award-winning American director Mike Nichols dies at 83

Mike Nichols, a nine-time Tony Award winner on Broadway and the Oscar-winning director of films such as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," "The Graduate" and "Carnal Knowledge," died on Wednesday at age 83, ABC News said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 20, 2014

A personal invite to Planet Gondry

By coincidence, two tributes to baby-boomer auteurs are currently on display in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 19, 2014

Hurt-till-you-laugh approach to making comedies

When Yosuke Fujita's debut feature "Zenzen Daijobu (Fine, Totally Fine)" started making the international festival rounds in 2008, it charmed nearly everyone who saw it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 19, 2014

Withnail & I

Director: Bruce Robinson Language: English
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

Tatsumi: Godfather of alternative manga is reborn on film

Manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi has always enjoyed a certain level of fame in his home country, where he's known as the originator of gekiga, a hard-boiled style of manga from the 1960s-'70s. Overseas, however, it's only since 2009 that his reputation has risen meteorically, after an English-language...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

Ecotherapy Getaway Holiday: Finding feminism on the way to a waterfall

Doesn't every kid imagine being lost in the woods?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

Boyhood: 'Never has the passage of time on screen seemed so real or poignant'

The only reason I hesitate to give Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" five stars is that you will be expecting a masterpiece. And a "masterpiece" these days is all too often a film that is trying very hard for that status, weighted with its own self-importance. (Dare I cite "There Will be Blood" or "The Tree...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet: 'He may be a blonde American boy but he has the soul of a self-effacing Zen monk'

In "The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet," the running-away letter 10-year-old T.S. Spivet (Kyle Catlett) leaves for his parents has got to be one of the most moving epistles in cinema history. Brimming with modesty, formal but warmly polite, it could have been written by a nice Japanese son. "I have...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Nov 7, 2014

Readers' letters: carrying ID, subway 'saviors,' JA rackets, Taiji alternatives and goats

A selection of emails received in response to recent Community articles.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 29, 2014

The Equalizer: 'Like an argument between a couple who have been married too long'

When "Eastern Promises" came out in 2007, I felt like it signaled the end of an era for a certain kind of cinema gangster. The Italians were finished. The Chinese didn't cut it anymore. The new kids on the block were the Russian Mafia and they were the meanest of the lot — neck deep in abduction and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2014

Vision of anime's future at Tokyo International Film Festival

The Tokyo International Film Festival, running through Oct. 31, is no longer Asia's biggest or most important festival — that honor is now claimed by the recently held rival Busan film festival. But its 27th edition — the first to reflect the full influence of TIFF's current director-general, Yasushi...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2014

TIFF Critic's Picks: Films from countries famed for unrest and oppression

According to TIFF's visual programming director Yoshihiko Yatabe, the semiofficial theme for this year's festival is "People on the Edge." They may be pursued, stuck in a rut, in dire trouble or just plain confused, but their stories are some of the most compelling at this years festival. These films...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2014

TIFF Critic's Picks: Japanese directors to watch

Despite TIFF's anime focus this year, its lineup of live-action Japanese films is as wide ranging as ever, with one glaring exception: Classic Japanese movies are almost nowhere on the program, and only one Japanese film, Daisuke Yoshida's "Kami no Tsuki (Pale Moon)," is being shown in the competition....
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 22, 2014

DLE, Toho to use theater screens as testing ground for new characters

DLE and the movie theater unit of Toho, the creator of 'Godzilla,' announced plans Wednesday to use the slot between trailers and the feature as a content incubator starting next month, pitting new characters in a popularity contest and sharing the intellectual property rights.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Oct 17, 2014

BIFF 2014 plays down unavoidable controversies

The biggest event of the year for South Korea's film industry is the opening night of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which marked its 19th year Oct. 2 to 11. Whether or not they have films screening at the festival, almost all the major Korean movie stars show up and strut the red carpet...

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A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake