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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2014

Short-film festival holds Tokyo edition

Short-film fever is hitting Tokyo this month, with festivals planned in arty-nooks and cinema-crannies across the capital. But not all short-film festivals are created equal — the good ones are both cleverly curated and take daring approaches in how they screen films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2014

Young Japanese filmmaker's dystopian dream

Several years ago, a film project of mine was selected for J-Pitch, a government-backed initiative that introduces new filmmakers to veteran producers outside Japan, in the hope (in my case, a faint hope) that they will co-produce an original film. At a J-Pitch seminar where new filmmakers delivered...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014

'Idai Naru, Shurara-bon (The Great Shurara-bon)'

Superheroes by definition have super powers. In Japan, instead of leaping tall buildings with a single bound, these heroes often shoot energy projectiles from their hands — easy and effective, save when your opponent has more wattage. This may seem childish, but it can be fun, as shown by all those...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014

Smaug the dragon to get fans fired up for 'Hobbit' sequel

The middle film in a trilogy can be a risky venture. The first film? Audiences are introduced to new characters and exciting possibilities. The final film? Hollywood pulls out all the stops to send those characters off with a bang. The middle? Well, directors often save their best tricks for the finale....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 2, 2014

'Insidious: Chapter 2'

"Insidious" is what happens when you take the director of one horror-movie franchise — "Saw" helmsman James Wan — and team him up with the producers of another — Jason Blum and Oren Peli of "Paranormal Activity." If that sounds about as promising as curry-mayonnaise pizza, well, it's not that bad:...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 2, 2014

'Odd Thomas'

Director Stephen Sommers is known for works such as "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and "Van Helsing"; in the words of one U.S. critic, he makes "watchable trash."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2013

Director Cuaron examines all angles when shooting 'space'

Last month, we heard Paul Greengrass, director of "Captain Phillips," talk in detail about his choppy, handheld, visceral filming style. This month, we get to hear from Alfonso Cuarón, director of the massive hit "Gravity," whose style is about 180 degrees different.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2013

'Man of Steel'

Director: Zack Snyder
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2013

'Hajimari mo Owari mo Nai (No Beginning, No End)'

When I first saw a trailer for Shunya Ito's "Hajimari mo Owari mo Nai (No Beginning, No End)," an all-but dialogue-free film starring dancer/actor Min Tanaka, I thought it might be a 95-minute performance piece — and thus better reviewed by a dance critic than by me.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2013

'Xue Di Zi'

During the Qing Dynasty, the Yongzheng Emperor was so suspicious of his courtiers and paranoid about dissenters that he established a secret squad that went about with portable guillotines — bladed wheels that could decapitate an opponent instantly. "Xue Di Zi" (released in the West as "The Guillotines")...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Nov 19, 2013

'Doctor Who' at 50: Charming but still a little too alien

In television's vast universe, there is perhaps no acquired taste that is more difficult to acquire than the taste for "Doctor Who," BBC's long-running sci-fi series about an alien dandy who navigates the time-space continuum in a phone-booth-style British police box. It's been on (and off, and then...
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 26, 2013

U.S. health care website to be fixed by end of November: White House

The White House announced Friday it was putting a private firm in charge of fixing its faulty health insurance website and set the end of November as a target date for working out all the bugs, the first indication of how long repairs may take.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2013

'Now You See Me'

So many directors these days seem to want to be Christopher Nolan: There's Zack Snyder aiming for "Dark Knight" portentousness with "Man of Steel" and Danny Boyle aping the false-reality trickiness of "Inception" with "Trance" to name but two. The latest wannabe is French director-gone-Hollywood Louis...
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 22, 2013

U.S. health site got OK despite flaw warnings

Days before the launch of President Barack Obama's online health insurance marketplace, government officials and contractors tested a key part of the website to see whether it could handle tens of thousands of consumer users at the same time. It crashed after a simulation in which just a few hundred...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Oct 10, 2013

Shakuhachi player finds the Zen in deer sounds

The shakuhachi reportedly came to Japan from ancient Egypt, and the instrument's pure tones have been used by Zen monks in meditation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2013

'R100'

The world premiere of Hitoshi Matsumoto's "R100" in the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness section must be frustrating for all those Japanese auteurs out there who got rejection letters from North America's most important festival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2013

'Chronicle'

The found-footage thing: It can be addictive. Though as a movie ploy, it always stumps me how the characters would actually go into a dark woods in the middle of the night ("The Blair Witch Project") or move their family into a house where a gruesome murder had taken place ("Sinister"). So much of the...
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

'The Wolverine' draws from other Hollywood hits set in Japan

Director James Mangold has claimed Japanese film influences on his Marvel comic adaptation "The Wolverine," including Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film "Kumonosu-jo (The Throne of Blood)." But the film, in which Hugh Jackman's immortal Wolverine character comes to Japan, falls in love with a local beauty and...
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 / Film
Aug 8, 2013

The dead get their day as zombies go mainstream

My first zombie movie was "Night of the Living Dead," viewed at a midnight screening at the old Harvard Square Cinema, attended by a small coterie of late-night freaks and stoners. With its relentless dread and entrail-chomping ghouls, it was a film beyond the pale of normal, daytime moviegoers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2013

'World War Z'

I recall watching "Quantum of Solace," the 007 movie directed by Marc Forster, and thinking, "This man should never have been put in charge of an action movie." A fine director of art-house fare such as "Finding Neverland" or "The Kite Runner," Forster handled his cherry chase scene — always a signature...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2013

Fox tackles history in 'Emperor'

Actor Matthew Fox saw his career take off in the 1990s with the role of Charlie Salinger in the American TV series "Party of Five," and he gained even more popularity as Jack Shephard, the central character in the innovative series "Lost." Now, though, his performance in the movie, "Emperor," in which...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2013

'Godzilla'

Director: Roland Emmerich
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 15, 2013

Clinton re-enters limelight, plans charitable work — for now

In her first major public appearance since stepping down as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton embraced key pillars of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda Thursday and said she will strive to act as an envoy between businesses, nonprofit entities and the federal government.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013

'The Great Gatsby'

Baz Luhrmann does justice to F. Scott Fitzgerald's most intriguing creation: Jay Gatsby, the man referred to in the book title as "The Great." As far as adaptations go, Luhrmann's version beats the 1974 version that starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow hands down. That was a sorrowful, soulful tale...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Maniac'

Elijah Wood, best known for his work in the "Lord of the Rings" series and for having been around since babyhood, is perhaps looking to branch out as an actor. That would explain "Maniac," a remake of the 1980 slasher movie recognized among horror fans as the precursor to "The Silence of the Lambs."...
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
May 22, 2013

Pearl jewelry exhibition; evacuation simulation symposium; political decision-making seminar

EXHIBITIONS
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 26, 2013

Murakami's 'Jellyfish Eyes' blends kawaii and creepy into a postquake critique

In the West he's been referred to as 'the other Murakami.' To those in Japan, the difference is so prominent that very few would ever confuse artist-cum-filmmaker Takashi Murakami with novelist Haruki Murakami.

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly