James Hadfield - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 6, 2016

'It Follows' goes after misogynist slasher film cliches

In the heyday of slasher films, the fastest way for characters to get themselves killed was by having sex. For a few bloodthirsty years following the release of John Carpenter's "Halloween" in 1978, audiences delighted in watching homicidal maniacs dispatch casts of copulating teens, before finally being...

CULTURE / Film

Dec 30, 2015

'Timbuktu' reflects on Malian lives touched by radical Islam

It's common for local distributors to resort to some dubious tactics when promoting foreign films in Japan: Worthy arthouse flicks are routinely saddled with tawdry Japanese titles, or slushy trailers more befitting of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Yet there's something particularly unfortunate about...

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Dec 11, 2015

Secrets of Lawrence of Arabia; a computer judges classical musicians; CM of the week: Panasonic

The Middle East is a region that seems defined by its ongoing factional disputes, many of which are difficult to make sense of. This week, NHK's documentary series "The Profiler" (BS Premium, Wed., 9 p.m.) attempts to shed some light on the background of some of those disputes by looking at the life...

CULTURE / Music

Dec 6, 2015

Punk survivor Phew changes direction on 'A New World'

Even as a child, Phew realized she was a bit different. "When I was at school, if the teacher told a joke and everyone else in the class laughed, I was always the one who couldn't see what was funny," she says. "I've always been like that."

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Dec 4, 2015

Coffee Amp turns the tables on Tokyo's imported coffee culture

For coffee lovers in Tokyo, the past five years have felt like a never-ending bonanza. Where once you might have trekked halfway across town to get a decent brew, now nearly every neighborhood seems to have its own micro-roaster or fancy coffee stand. Yet when Coffee Amp first opened in early 2010, at...

CULTURE / Film

Dec 2, 2015

'Spectre' relies on tired Bond film conventions

So this is it. After four outings as the world's best-dressed sociopath, Daniel Craig has announced that he's done playing 007. In a recent interview with London's Time Out, the 47-year-old actor declared with typically British understatement that he'd rather "slash my wrists" than sign on for another...

CULTURE / Music

Nov 15, 2015

Electronica producer Madegg gets warped on 'New' album

Something has gone awfully askew in the music of Madegg. The 23-year-old producer, real name Kazumichi Komatsu, used to delight in creating warm, shimmering electronica that seemed to come bathed in the lambent glow of a late summer evening.

CULTURE / Film

Nov 11, 2015

Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's 'White God' lacks teeth

Man and his best friend are having some serious relationship issues in "White God." Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's tale of a teenage girl and her beloved hound is the stuff of canine nightmares, set in a present-day Budapest that feels more like a dog dystopia.

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Nov 6, 2015

Maruyama Coffee lets the beans explain themselves

From the hip barista conjuring latte art to the kissaten (traditional Japanese coffee shop) owner working an archaic siphon machine, there's a lot of fuss and theater involved in preparing coffee. So it can be hard to get excited about the French press sometimes. It's the saxophone of brewing methods:...

CULTURE / Film

Oct 28, 2015

Killing time at the Tokyo International Film Festival

Covering a film festival can turn anyone into a stickler for scheduling. Key screenings and Q&A sessions always seem to overlap and priorities collide. Do you stick with the stodgy Japanese biopic that you're supposed to be writing about, or sneak out halfway through to go watch something more entertaining?...

CULTURE / Film

Oct 22, 2015

Spotlight on Harada films is well-deserved

Following last year's embrace of anime and "content," 2015 sees the Tokyo International Film Festival reassert its credentials as an event, first and foremost, for cineastes. One particularly welcome addition is the new Japan Now section, a roundup of recent and upcoming movies from the likes of Hirokazu...

CULTURE / Film

Oct 21, 2015

Rare orchids and misfit sex workers at the Tokyo International Film Festival

Some of the hottest tickets at TIFF each year are for films that have already secured a commercial release date in Japan. For all the high-minded talk about artistry and creativity, most viewers just want to see the big movies before everyone else. But spare a thought for the less commercial offerings...

CULTURE / Music

Oct 18, 2015

Radio personality Peter Barakan brings the world to Tokyo for Live Magic!

'I'm going off track again. Wait a minute." Midway through a lengthy digression about an "amazing" New Orleans band named Boukou Groove, Peter Barakan pauses, ever so briefly, to check the conversational signposts.

CULTURE / Film

Oct 14, 2015

'John Wick' lets Keanu Reeves out of 'The Matrix'

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Trevor Noah, the new host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," compared his surprise appointment to the casting of "The Matrix." Though the fact has now been consigned to an obscure bit of movie lore, the role of Neo — the po-faced hero so memorably played...

CULTURE / Music

Oct 11, 2015

Albino Sound explores angles on 'Cloud Sports'

When musicians from around the globe gathered in Tokyo last autumn for the 2014 edition of the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) — an intensive series of lectures, gigs and studio sessions that aims to nurture promising artists — many of the participants had already found a foothold within the music...

CULTURE / Film

Oct 7, 2015

'Starred Up' shows British prisoners being unpleasant

In the language of Britain's penal system, "starred up" is the term used for a young offender who gets prematurely moved to an adult prison. Designated "single cell, high risk," 19-year-old Eric Love (Jack O'Connell) certainly looks like he's ready for the big time. When the officers strip search him...

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Oct 2, 2015

Kyoto's Weekenders Coffee keeps customers on their toes

To get a sense of how much the Japanese coffee scene has evolved over the past decade, pay a visit to Weekenders Coffee. This specialty coffee shop in northeast Kyoto — which marks its 10th anniversary next month — ranks among the city's most essential destinations for discerning caffeine junkies....

CULTURE / Music

Sep 21, 2015

When dub's Adrian Sherwood met experimental-rock trio Nisennenmondai

Austerity is a hell of a drug. Tokyo's Nisennenmondai has spent its 16-year career figuring out how to do more with much, much less. Since forming in 1999, the group has progressed from the well-mapped territories of instrumental noise-rock into a sparse, industrial zone bordering on the hinterlands...

CULTURE / Film

Sep 16, 2015

'Two Raging Grannies' try to figure out the global economy

As Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's scabrous political correspondent, has often observed, one of the ways that Wall Street protects itself is by cloaking its activities in jargon so dense and dull that it's impenetrable to the average observer. In "Two Raging Grannies," a documentary by Norwegian director...

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Sep 4, 2015

Roasted-on-the-spot coffee from Kyoto is going global

The five-story pagoda of Hokanji Temple has crowned the skyline of eastern Kyoto for more than a millennium — give or take the few times when it burned down and was reconstructed. Just down the lane from the current incarnation (constructed in 1440) sits a rather newer landmark, % Arabica, which has...

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