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The consumption tax increase next April will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people's financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the impact of the hike, experts say.
Every parent is all too familiar with The Tantrum. The screaming, the flailing arms, the angry head butting — and the timing (normally in the most inconvenient public place possible).
International events undermine Japan's democracy. Shame on the International Olympic Committee for being a party to it.
Tucked away behind the main museums in Ueno, the Tokyo University Art Museum may not be on most people’s radar, but it is definitely one of the city’s top museums in terms of curatorial quality. Whenever I go there, I am always delighted by ...
Francisco Liriano showed up at PNC Park on Tuesday afternoon in a suit with his suitcase packed for a trip St. Louis. The message reverberated through the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse. After 21 years away from the playoffs, it was time for the best story ...
On the one hand “Elysium” is the last of this year’s summer blockbusters, the new Matt Damon star vehicle and the Hollywood debut by South African director Neill Blomkamp, acclaimed for his debut aliens-among-us feature “District 9.” On the other, this is a political ...
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 ...
The post-”Twilight” boom in all things vampire continues, but this latest undead flick comes from Irish director Neil Jordan (“The Crying Game”), whose 1994 adaptation of Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” well preceded the current trend. Clara and Eleanor are “sucreants” — vampires ...
Two things stand out about 2010 animated comedy “Despicable Me”: The hero, Gru (Steve Carell), is a villain (a philosophical oxymoron in itself), and he’s not that despicable. Sure, he freeze-dries people in front of him in line at Starbucks and tries to grab ...
Director: Kathryn Bigelow Language: English Kathryn Bigelow’s study of the decadelong hunt for Osama bin Laden will either fascinate or infuriate. Shown through the eyes of an iron-willed intelligence analyst (played by Jessica Chastain), the film insists that it was one woman’s hunch — ...
Director: Nick Murphy Language: English Chilling British crime thriller “Blood” stars Paul Bettany and Stephen Graham as cop brothers investigating the murder of a 12-year-old girl in a coastal town. Under the glare of public outrage, Joe (Bettany) tries to nail the most likely ...
Director: Kazuaki Kiriya Language: Japanese (subtitled in English) On Sept. 24, Paramount Catalog will release an English-subbed Region 1 DVD of Kazuaki Kiriya’s “Casshern.” This 2004 sci-fi epic about a mutant revolt in a post-apocalyptic world has the crazed ambition, visionary reach and even ...
Biographical movies can be a daunting task. Their subjects often have larger-than-life stories that are focal points for controversy. Actor Bill Murray says that what attracted him to the role of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in “Hyde Park on Hudson,” was less ...
For all intents and purposes, “Hyde Park on Hudson” should have you on hello. Instead, it may leave you feeling the tiniest bit revolted. Focusing on the events of a weekend in the life of 32nd U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, arguably the best-loved ...
Shinji Aoyama is the director as cinephile. That is, while winning awards for his own films, including two prizes at Cannes for his 2000 drama “Eureka,” he has long been a serious student of films by others, beginning with his days at Rikkyo University ...
In 1971 the Nikkatsu studio, desperate to stave off bankruptcy, switched production to the then-burgeoning genre of softcore pornography. Made mostly by young directors promoted after their elders fled, the films were hardly intended as high art. Instead their main selling point was simulated ...
While it never seems to be as high-profile as the “Iron Man” or “Spider-Man” franchises, the “X-Men” series is actually the longest-running Marvel Comics series on the big screen, and it’s the one that opened the gates to Marvel’s current dominance. For my money, ...