Tag - wide-angle

 
 

WIDE ANGLE

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 25, 2015
Welsh filmmaker John Williams has made it in Japan against all odds
It's not easy for anyone to make indie films in Japan. Audiences, venues and funds are all shrinking. And if you are not Japanese, you face additional barriers of language, culture and credibility. Even if your name is the only foreign one on the credits, many will consider your film not "really" Japanese,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 11, 2015
Mitaka Community Cinema relives the glory days of local theaters
Ah, for the days of real movie theaters. Just as a certain Seattle-based company has made the brick-and-mortar bookstore obsolete, the real-deal cinema house died a slow death — first maimed by the multiplex and then killed by the Internet.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 4, 2015
'Unbroken' finally gets a break in Japan
For the better part of a year, "Unbroken" has been unwatchable in Japanese theaters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 28, 2015
Scream queen festival arrives in Tokyo
The point is to scream — a lot.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 21, 2015
The foreign element at the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival
While covering the recently ended second edition of the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival, I again realized that being a non-native isn't always such a bad deal in a country that prides itself on its omotenashi (hospitality) to outsiders.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 14, 2015
Restored and rediscovered Kon Ichikawa films to screen at TIFF
With the centennial of his birth this year, Promethean director Kon Ichikawa (1915-2008) is due for a revival. The upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival is accordingly screening three of his films in its new Japanese Cinema Classics section.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 7, 2015
Tokyo's best art-house cinema reopens with Robert Altman documentary
When Yebisu Garden Place opened for business in Tokyo in 1994 you could walk through its marionette clock square, pass under a glass arch and find the best art-house theater in Tokyo — Ebisu Garden Cinema — tucked away beside a faux chateau. The debut film it screened was Robert Altman's masterpiece...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 30, 2015
Tokyo International Film Festival showcases classic anime, J-horror and yakuza films
The Tokyo International Film Festival, Japan's biggest film fest and a showcase for foreign movies that otherwise might never see the light of day here, will run from Oct. 22 to 31 this year. Opening the festival is Robert Zemekis' "The Walk," and the closer is local tearjerker "Kishuten Eki Taminaru"...
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 23, 2015
The verdict on Netflix Japan: far from extensive, but great for docs
Netflix has finally launched in Japan site after months of hype. But is it worth shelling out for?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 16, 2015
Mumblecore arrives in Japan, a decade late
The closest thing American cinema has had to a movement in recent years has been the self-deprecatingly titled genre, mumblecore, made up of lo-fi independent films that incestuously share cast, crew and concerns. Take the insecurity and self-obsession of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" mixed with the chatty...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 9, 2015
Kyoto International Art and Film Festival is a challenge to Tokyo's cultural power
The Kyoto International Film and Art Festival, which takes place from Oct. 15 to 18 in Japan's ancient capital, began as a sort of challenge to the local film industry's power center, Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 2, 2015
Japanese theater group travels to Europe by film
Getting a Japanese film on the international festival circuit isn't as easy as it sounds — and even more so for "Ao no Ran," the latest film in the popular Geki×Cine series that fuses stage production with cinema.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Aug 26, 2015
Will another Miyazaki save Japanese cinema from Hollywood?
In the 1990s, when I was reporting on the Japanese film business for a British trade magazine, big-budget Hollywood movies with splashy special effects dominated the local box office. And the industry consensus was that resistance — in the form of made-in-Japan effects extravaganzas — was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Aug 19, 2015
Tale of Tuscan beekeeping and family breakdown has a sting
Italian drama "The Wonders" opens on Aug. 22 and it's well worth a look (or two or three).
Japan Times
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...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Aug 5, 2015
The 47 ronin seek vengeance in medieval Europe
"Chushingura,"the 18th-century tale of the 47 ronin, is one of Japan's most beloved historical legends. And once again it has become fodder for a flashy Hollywood movie, this time called "Last Knights," starring Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen, and directed by none other than Mr. Flash himself: Kazuaki...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 29, 2015
Tokyo International Film Festival promises a more diverse selection this year
Second-guessing the programming of the annual Tokyo International Film Festival is a favorite sport of movie types in Japan — I've been doing it myself for years.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 22, 2015
In search of male 'members' great and small
Iceland has everything that matters. There's Bjork, of course. There's Skyr yogurt, widely acknowledged to be the best on the planet. And they've got a place called The Icelandic Phallological Museum, the world's only museum dedicated to the penis, run by Sigurour Hjartarson. For more than 40 years this...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 15, 2015
Hayao Miyazaki cleans up Japan
Rich, famous, semi-retired people commonly take up good causes (based on whatever they define as "good"), but animation maestro Hayao Miyazaki does things differently.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 1, 2015
Apocalyptic desert sci-fi and the drying Hollywood landscape
Apocalypse now, in the desert — that's the mood in American sci-fi films these days, as the epic Californian drought continues.

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'