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Mark Schilling

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 10, 2008

'Shiawase no Kaori'

Here's an obvious but often neglected rule: Never see foodie movies — films that revolve around the preparation and consumption of scrumptious-looking food — on an empty stomach. Watching Gabriel Axel's Oscar-winning Danish movie "Babette's Feast" (1987) — the "Citizen Kane" of foodie movies —...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 3, 2008

'Achilles to Kame'

Zeno's paradoxes are ancient mind games that undermine common-sense assumptions about reality. In the most famous, "Achilles and the Tortoise," a fast runner and a tortoise start at the same time toward the same goal, the tortoise with a head start — say it must cover 10 meters while the runner must...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 26, 2008

Kiyoshi Kurosawa has long been filed under "horror director," though his take on the genre is anything but standard. The villain of "Cure," his deeply creepy 1997 breakout film, is not a maniac with a sharp-edged weapon but a blank-faced drifter who hypnotizes his victims into killing themselves.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 19, 2008

'Kodomo no Kodomo'

Teenage pregnancy has always been with us, but attitudes toward it have changed. A generation ago, the situation of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's daughter — 17, pregnant and unwed — would have inspired conservative tut-tutting. Now it's a cause of conservative celebration.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 12, 2008

'Paco to Maho no Ehon'

Tetsuya Nakashima is being hailed as a genius by the Japanese film world, an epithet that didn't occur to many in the 1990s when his pitch-black comedies, including "Natsu Jikan no Otonatachi (Happy-Go-Lucky)" (1997) and "Beautiful Sunday" (1998), were playing to tiny audiences here and getting little...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 5, 2008

Aculture's attitude toward death is always going to be something of a mystery to outsiders, even ones who try to immerse themselves in the local language and customs. I had my own cultural shock when my wife's father passed away, and I experienced the Japanese funeral process for the first time.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 29, 2008

'Detroit Metal City'

Soichi Negishi (Kenichi Matsuyama) hates what he does for a living. After every night on the job, he can't wait to strip off his work clothes and relax with his favorite light J-Pop tunes. With his pudding-bowl hairdo, goofy grin and foppy gestures, he looks like the younger Japanese brother of Jim Carrey's...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 22, 2008

Omnibus films — collections of segments, usually by different directors — are hard commercial sells, but rarely complete disappointments.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 15, 2008

Nostalgia keeps changing. The music, TV shows and junk food that leaves one generation misty-eyed are regarded by the next as quaint curiosities from a distant past, until they finally pass into that dead, hallowed realm known as history.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 8, 2008

'The Sky Crawlers'

The Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force fought the Luftwaffe for supremacy over the skies of Britain in 1940, became famous for not only the heroism of the Allied defenders, who saved the country from Nazi invasion, but their high casualty rates, especially among the young, inexperienced...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 1, 2008

'Yami no Kodomotachi'

In our anything-goes age, pedophilia remains one subject that makes everyone from film industry executives to ordinary fans nervous, to put it mildly. In "Lolita," Stanley Kubrick made the title character older than the 12-year-old in Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel, while suggesting the sex rather...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 25, 2008

'Kimi no Tomodachi'

Kids often make friends easily — and lose them quickly. The boy who was your best buddy yesterday has today found a new friend, a new crowd, a new world that doesn't include you. He has moved on — and you're just part of the receding scenery.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 18, 2008

'Guilala no Gyakushu — Toyako Summit Kiki Ippatsu'

Political comedy is conspicuous by its absence on Japanese TV. Where are the shows that skewer politicians in the manner of American news satires "The Colbert Report" or "The Daily Show"? One might as well as search for the habitat of the Japanese unicorn (a bird that never flew).

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 11, 2008

'Gake no Ue no Ponyo'

Hayao Mizayaki is the reigning giant of Japanese animation — and the Japanese box office. Since "Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service)" in 1989, every Miyazaki film has been a smash hit, drawing the widest possible audience. In 2001, his coming-of-age fantasy "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 4, 2008

'Hana Yori Dango: Final'

Japanese TV networks and other makers of films for the masses have developed a formula for megasuccess: Produce a movie that is essentially a superspecial of a popular TV drama series. "Hero," which revived a smash-hit 2001 series about a punkish public prosecutor, was of this mold — and become the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 27, 2008

'Aruitemo Aruitemo'

Family drama is the default setting of serious Japanese cinema. No matter what genre first brings Japanese directors fame or fortune, be it Sci Fi/fantasy, yakuza epics or horror, they often end up making a family drama, especially if they want to establish their auteurist credentials. The Western used...

CULTURE / Film

Jun 27, 2008

Director Kore'eda on his '24 -hour' epic

Hirokazu Kore'eda began directing in 1991, while working for TV Man Union, a major TV production company. His first theatrical feature, 1995's "Maboroshi no Hikari" (English title: "Maboroshi"), was selected for the Venice Film Festival competition — a rare honor for a tyro director. His international...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 20, 2008

'The Magic Hour'

Koki Mitani is the reigning king of comedy in Japan, as the writer and sometimes director of a string of hit stage plays, TV series and three feature films that culminated in 2006 with "The Uchoten Hotel (Suite Dream)." This laugh-packed take-off on the 1932 Greta Garbo classic "Grand Hotel," based on...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 13, 2008

'Kamisama — no Puzzle'

Directors and producers who score big hits become big powers in the industry, ipso facto. They can consequently make films that would get their less successful brethren laughed out of a pitch meeting. A new case in point is "Kamisama no Puzzle (God's Puzzle)," an SF thriller by hit-making director Takashi...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 12, 2008

One man, two worlds

Ryosuke Hashiguchi is one of the few gay filmmakers in Japan to have had a measure of popular success making films with gay themes. His third film, "Hush" (2002), about a gay couple whose life changes when one of them is drafted into becoming a father by a desperate woman, was an indie hit, as well as...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

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