Matt Twomey - The Japan Times

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Matt Twomey

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Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Nov 14, 2004

Onscreen breakthroughs

Picture Pikachu on a noir trip, popped loose of the 2-D plane.

LIFE / Digital

Dec 5, 2002

Digital cameras get pocket-sized right

Those who bought their first digital camera several years ago spent upwards of 100,000 yen on bulky hunks that shot mediocre photos at best.

LIFE / Digital

May 2, 2002

IMAX 3-D puts outer space in your face

The astronauts are playing with their food.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 15, 2001

Hunting for justice in the Tokyo war tribunal

JUDGMENT AT TOKYO: The Japanese War Crimes Trials, by Tim Maga. University Press of Kentucky, 2001, 200 pp., $25 (cloth). Fifty-six years since Japan's surrender, World War II's legacy continues to make headlines: Compensation sought by sex slaves; Controversy rages over history textbooks; Prime minister's pledge to visit Yasukuni Shrine draws fire.

CULTURE / Film

Apr 25, 2001

When "based on a true story" flashes on the screen, many moviegoers are left cold, knowing that Hollywood obliterates so much of the truth in pursuit of dramatic arc and tried-and-true narrative formulas. Documentary film allows a much smaller margin for manipulation, and the best ones prove that truth is indeed stranger -- and more rewarding -- than fiction. While they can be hard to come by, several of the documentary gems listed here should be in larger video shops (or you can always buy them online).

LIFE / Digital

Mar 7, 2001

Bluetooth hopes to deliver 'new dimension in wireless technology'

Can't get enough of the Internet at your home and office?

CULTURE / Books

May 23, 2000

In Cambodia, hell looks like this

VOICES FROM S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison, by David Chandler. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 238, $17.95. Men, women and children are arrested on the basis of rumor, rounded up in trucks and hauled, without trial, to prison, where they are asked to give information about crimes of which they know nothing. As prisoners, they are beaten with sticks, tortured with electric wires, burned with cigarettes, forced to eat excrement. An interrogator pulls out his captive's fingernails until the prisoner manages to piece together a fiction that incriminates himself. The prisoner is then taken outside, bludgeoned to death with an ox-cart axle and tipped into a mass grave.

LIFE / Travel

Mar 8, 2000

Steaming winter away in Yamagata

Water's three states converge at ground level in Yamagata Prefecture in winter: The white stuff never seems to stop falling, and the hot spring water never fails to bubble up, sending steam into the chilly air.

BUSINESS

Jan 31, 2000

Gateway tweaks sales strategy by applying Dilbert principle

Gateway is bullish on Japan, especially on the smaller businesses it is targeting, and the computer maker is counting on a perhaps unlikely character to help make the sale: a mouthless, bespectacled, befuddled -- yet likable -- dweeb named Dilbert.

CULTURE / Books

Jan 18, 2000

Japan 00: An International Comparison. Tokyo, Keizai Koho Center 2000, 120 pp., 900 yen. The cost of living in Japan weighs heavily on everyone, but those of us who have come from other countries feel it more acutely -- we remember apples so cheap you'd think they grew on trees.

CULTURE / Music

Dec 17, 1999

Legendary Ray Charles shines and polishes his musical gems

It's an often-seen case: A talented musician comes in demand, and begins to tour, and tour. As time goes by, the repertoire becomes more established, and the same material gets retreaded, often going stale. Once-memorable lyrics and riffs begin to lose something from the abusive, exploitative repetition.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.

For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on

By Lance Henderstein

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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