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January 06, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

'Upside Down'

Here it is: the movie equivalent of a crazy, distracting, impossibly attractive lover. Everything about "Upside Down" is nutso preposterous but it draws you in and locks you in a warm embrace, declaring undying love and promising mystery and eternal longing forever more. If there was a way I could go...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2013

'Reading Cinema, Finding Words: Art after Marcel Broodthaers'

Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) was a man of many talents — a poet, filmmaker and artist — whose cerebral and witty approach to art often resulted in unusual and amusing works. He used found objects, everyday items, photography and text to create visual puns in collages and installations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2013

'Hope Springs'

Feminism is redefined in "Hope Springs," a tale of two 60-somethings locked in a marriage gone stale and opting for a week of intensive marriage counselling in a picturesque Maine town.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2013

Spirits linger in the trinkets of Hiroshima's dead

They say most people have one or more defining childhood incidents — something that sets the course of their adult life and molds their personality. Filmmaker Linda Hoaglund had one, and it was so striking that to this day she can still remember the flush on her face, the tingling of her skin and the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2013

'The Man With the Iron Fists'

It's no secret that producer/rapper RZA — nee Robert Fitzgerald Diggs — is a big fan of vintage chop-socky films; his group Wu-Tang Clan lifted its name from one such flick. RZA has worked steadily at crossing over into cinema, starting with a soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch's Zen hit-man film "Ghost...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jul 19, 2013

That's me in the picture: how 'selfies' became a global craze

It starts with a certain angle: A smartphone tilted at 45 degrees just above your eyeline is generally deemed the most forgiving. Then a light source: the flattering beam of a backlit window or a bursting supernova of flash reflected in a bathroom mirror, as preparations are under way for a night out....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2013

Family issues abound in Delpy's comedy sequel

If you were into art-house cinema in the 1990s, you were into Julie Delpy, whether it was her boho-romantic Celine in Richard Linklater's classic "Before Sunrise," her ice-cold vixen in Krzysztof Kieslowski's magisterial "Three Colors: White," or even the clichéd hooker-with-a-heart in Roger "Pulp Fiction"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2013

'The Paperboy'

Swamp trash melodrama unfolds with stylish 1960s grittiness in "The Paperboy" and demonstrates Nicole Kidman's ability to fashion herself into an angel fallen to Earth in the guise of a hooker. She plays Charlotte Bless, a peroxide blonde who makes no bones about having just one interest in life: men....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 12, 2013

Okinawan musician, club owner keeps folk traditions going strong

The back streets of Naha were dark, making it more difficult to find Shima-Umui, a music club run by Okinawan folk singer Misako Oshiro. The torpid air and smell of papaya rinds from a nearby bin spoke of the subtropics. A small sign, barely visible from the street, directed customers to the basement...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2013

'Un Vie de Chat (Paris Neko Dino no Yoru)'

Speaking with "Monsters University" producer Kori Rae the other day, the conversation turned to the possibility that digital animation may have hit some sort of plateau. While I don't expect Pixar to stop pushing the boundaries, it was nevertheless surprising to hear Rae say the following: "We are getting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 4, 2013

'New' Royal Ballet spans the frontiers of dance

For the first time in three years, one of the world's most esteemed ballet companies is bringing its talent to one of the world's most appreciative audiences, as part of a tour that explores the parameters of dance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2013

'A Late Quartet (25-nenme no Gengakushijuso)'

The astonishing thing about "A Late Quartet" is that Woody Allen didn't make it. It has the Allen look — set in a resplendent and privileged Manhattan, with lingering shots of apartment interiors; the Allen-like cast — consisting of some of the most talented actors in American cinema playing members...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013

'Stanley Ka Dabba (Japanese Title: Stanley no Obentobako)'

The politics of the bento (lunch box) are embedded in the Japanese DNA and most of us have an ingrained sense of the power play brewing inside one's lunch. Which is why "Stanley Ka Dabba" (international title: "Stanley's Tiffin Box") will strike a chord."Stanley Ka Dabba" hails from Bollywood, but it's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jun 14, 2013

Gatsby-inspired cocktail at Swissôtel Nankai Osaka; summer bar at Grand Hyatt Fukuoka; Spanish fair at Royal Park Hotel

Gatsby-inspired cocktail at Swissôtel
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

'Olympus Has Fallen'

This latest bit of Hollywood "propatainment," "Olympus Has Fallen," is basically "Die Hard" in the White House, with Gerard Butler's disgraced former Secret Service agent trying to save the president (Aaron Eckhart) from a team of crack North Korean commandos who plan to pry America's nuclear launch...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

'Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir'

Laurent Bouzereau's documentary on one of cinema's greats is pretty simple in structure: Producer Andrew Braunsberg, an old friend of director Roman Polanski ("Chinatown," "Tess") visits him for a long conversation about his life and career. The subtext is that this takes place in 2009, when Polanski...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

Size doesn't matter: Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia celebrates 15 years

The short film gave birth to the cinema — the first narrative film, 'The Great Train Robbery' (1903), is all of 11 minutes long, but the format is now in the shadow of the full-length feature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Oldboy' director casts dark shadow on Hollywood

“Stoker,” a film so rich and chocolatey with nuance and innuendo you could eat it with a spoon, is, amazingly, directed by a filmmaker who doesn't speak English.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Oblivion'

I have seen the future and it looks like about half a dozen other sci-fi films poured into a cauldron and left to smelt. Influences are one thing, but "Oblivion" is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, its plot composed almost entirely of bits hacked off from other well-known films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 24, 2013

Son of Cronenberg debuts with sickly body horror

Imagine you are David Cronenberg, a filmmaker but also a parent. You tell your kids that your job is making movies; naturally, they want to see one. So which do you show them? "Scanners," with its exploding heads? "Rabid," where porn-star Marilyn Chambers drinks human blood? Or maybe "The Fly," where...
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Ranpo's novella of a desecrated grave continues to send shivers

There has long been a taste in Japan for the bizarre and abnormal. The experimental Taisho Era was no exception. A desire for sensory experience existed even in cinema. During a funeral scene, for example, an attendant might light sticks of incense in the theater, drawing the audience into the ritual....
CULTURE / Film
May 10, 2013

Hawke film exploits the gruesome myth of snuff

In "Sinister," the new horror movie starring Ethan Hawke, a man explores the attic of his new home and finds a box of old Super 8 film reels. After his family goes to bed, he pours himself a whiskey and watches them: At first it's normal home-video sort of stuff, a family goofing around in their backyard...
Japan Times
WORLD / EU SPECIAL 2013
May 9, 2013

EU Film Days returns for 11th edition, including a work from Croatia

EU Film Days, which has been one of the most popular events during the annual EU-Japan Friendship Week, introduces selected works of cinema from EU nations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 3, 2013

'Fear and Desire'

"Fear and Desire," Stanley Kubrick's very first film from 1953, is something every aspiring filmmaker should see. Why? Well, not for the reasons you may think; what this film shows quite clearly is that before there was Stanley Kubrick, genius perfectionist director without peer, there was Stanley Who?,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 21, 2013

Views of Japan through Western films

Most readers encountering a book called 'Under Foreign Eyes: Western Cinematic Adaptations of Postwar Japan' will expect it to contain an interesting claim or claims about these Western representations of Japan, and that the claim or claims will be buttressed by sophisticated analysis of the films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Apr 13, 2013

How keeping it real took Matt Damon to the top

In 1987, when Bruce Springsteen wrote the song "Ain't Got You," he was the biggest rock star in the world. He had vast estates in New Jersey and Beverly Hills, and he had not long returned from a honeymoon at Gianni Versace's villa in Lake Como. "Ain't Got You" was Springsteen's attempt to make a self-aware...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2013

Funahashi: 'Good stories don't need happy endings'

A graduate of the University of Tokyo's cinema studies course, Atsushi Funahashi studied directing at the School of Visual Arts in New York and shot his first two films, “Echoes” (2002) and “Big River” (2005), in the United States.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2013

'Cosmopolis'

We want to like this movie, "Cosmopolis." David Cronenberg fills his movies with concepts and ideas, then turns them into something stupendous and horrible. Sigmund Freud is finished, Don DeLillo is next. But his cinema is losing its narrative quality the same way that painting did once upon a time....
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Apr 10, 2013

Pop tourism gains traction

Pre-flight shopping at Narita airport a couple of weeks ago, I passed a mannequin sporting a light-blue necktie and a turquoise wig with pig tails dangling down to its mini skirt. The vision spoke volumes: It was Hatsune Miku, of course, Japan's holographic, animated virtual pop star, beloved fashion...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 5, 2013

Audiard's method: as slow and steady as the waves

My first impression of director Jacques Audiard is that he's almost as wired as the street-punk hero of his film "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," fidgeting in his chair, desperate for a smoke, jumping in mid-translation to clarify a point. Entering his sixth decade, Audiard shows no signs of slowing...
The real-life violence that inspired South Korea's 'Squid Game'
Riot police march in front of the main building of Ssangyong Motor in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on Aug. 6, 2009.
Japan’s ‘quiet revolution’ of luxury travel nears fruition
Scheduled to welcome its first guests in early 2025, the Waldorf Astoria Osaka is just one of many luxury hotel openings Japan has seen in recent months.
Tomiko Itooka, the world's oldest person, dies at 116
Tomiko Itooka died of old age in a nursing home for the elderly in the city of Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture.
Nippon Steel rejection shows national security means whatever you want
An entrance sign for Nippon Steel's East Nippon Works Kashima Area facility is pictured in Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture, last month.
CDP chief Noda rejects grand coalition with LDP
Former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, speaks during a news conference in Ise, Mie Prefecture, on Saturday.
‘Fracture’ dissects 100 years of Japanese graphic design
Ian Lynam's "Fracture" is the result of 15 years of research and production and excavates 100 years of Japanese graphic design history from the Meiji (1868-1912) to Showa eras (1926-89).
Taking a page from Ukraine war, SDF carves out growing role for drones
An Air Self-Defense Force airman sets up a drone during a bilateral live fire exercise at Draughon Range, near Misawa Air Base, in Aomori Prefecture in July 2023.
Brooklyn brewers take on sake, America's new hip tipple
A brewer stirs the mix for making sake at a brewery in Tokyo.
Tokyo falconers keep ancient traditions soaring
A falconer during the Suwa Falconry Preservation Society's event in Tokyo on Friday. Falconry predates recorded history, originating, scholars believe, when nomadic herders observed birds of prey hunting and recognized their potential as partners.
Traveling for sake's sake: The emergence of brewery tourism in Japan
Tonoike Sake Brewery has been gearing their brewery toward tourism since the late 1980s, attempting to lure tourists to the town of Mashiko.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

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
By Kathryn Wortley

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