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Aug 27, 2015

Still Alice / Aeon Cinema Kyoto Katsuragawa / 2015-08-29 to 2015-09-04

Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 27, 2015

'Evil, mental illness not mutually exclusive': Gunman gets 3,318 years for cinema massacre

Condemning movie massacre gunman James Holmes to 12 life sentences and the maximum 3,318 years in prison for his rampage in a midnight screening of a Batman film, a Colorado judge said on Wednesday that evil and mental illness are not mutually exclusive.
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 futile....
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 8, 2015

Weeklies' summer specials feature sports, crimefighting, frozen treats and horror

The National High School Summer Baseball Tournament this year observes its 100th anniversary, and Asahi Geino (Aug. 13) recalls 10 hard-fought games at Koshien Stadium that fans still remember. In a short follow-up, the magazine introduces the "new monster," as he's being called, 16-year-old Kotaro Kiyomiya,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 5, 2015

Black depths of Swedish humor plumbed in 'A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence'

If Vladimir and Estragon, the hapless protagonists of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," had attempted to make a comedy sketch show, they might have ended up with something like "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence." This mordant, strikingly original work from Swedish director Roy Andersson...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 27, 2015

A crash course in wartime Japanese terminology for foreign demons

Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, here's a look at the words, phrases and concepts that found wide usage in the fateful years leading up to 1945.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jul 25, 2015

Gunman in Louisiana theater rampage had history of mental illness

A 59-year-old man once hospitalized for psychiatric care was identified by authorities on Friday as the gunman who fatally shot two people in a rampage at a central Louisiana movie theater before killing himself as police closed in.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jul 18, 2015

Survivors of Colorado theater rampage want gunman put to death

After all 165 guilty verdicts were read and Colorado's movie massacre gunman was taken back to a cell to await his fate on Thursday, many of his victims smiled and hugged and said James Holmes must be executed for justice to be done.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2015

Russia's dissidents return

It is high time for Russians to be reminded of the ideals on which perstroika were based.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 25, 2015

Julianne Moore shines as Alzheimer's patient in 'Still Alice'

Flashback to 1995 when a new actress named Julianne Moore was beginning to get noticed for her work in the Todd Haynes film "Safe," where she played an affluent Southern California suburbanite who becomes afflicted with a mysterious environmental illness. Some 20 years and four Oscar nominations later,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2015

Turkey's master of slow-boil cinema keeps his characters simmering with tension in 'Winter Sleep'

This may seem an odd form of praise, but Nuri Bilge Ceylan does boredom awfully well. The Turkish director's last film, "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (2011), was a police procedural that had been denuded of the drama you'd normally expect from the genre. Yet as its protagonists trudged fruitlessly from...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Jun 13, 2015

Take on the samurai in Edo Period Toei

When my parents were young, action movies were about gunslingers, sheriffs and saloons. For my in-laws in Osaka, however, cinema was more about swords and samurai.
JAPAN / Media
Jun 12, 2015

Times advisory board meets, offers recommendations

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 27, 2015

Capturing the grief and confusion of an immigrant Asian mother

Asian mothers always seem to overdo it — both in real life and in cinema.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 27, 2015

Why does the surrealism in Ryan Gosling's 'Lost River' fail?

'They flooded a bunch of towns when they dammed the river. That's why they call this Lost River," says Rat (Saoirse Ronan), a character in actor Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, "Lost River."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 26, 2015

Queens' tale speaks to now

Though it's 40 years since Italian playwright Dacia Maraini wrote "Mary Stuart," this story of two queens — Elizabeth I of England and Ireland and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots — remains as relevant now as ever in its portrayal of two women burning with anger about their exploitation by men despite...
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2015

The must-see list is long at Short Shorts film fest

When it comes to getting a movie fix these days, more people opt for their computer screens than venturing outside to a theater. Hollywood has countered this trend with a slew of 3-D blockbusters and cinematic largesse, but how does the short film fare?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 15, 2015

The 3-D world of NHK yx Koyxen's abstract techno

Kohei Matsunaga does not see things like you and I see things. Take the 3-D glasses that he is rarely photographed without, for instance. Throwaway red-and-blue anaglyph paper frames from cinema's distant past, they have become an apt visual trademark for the Osaka-based artist, who delights in operating...
Japan Times
WORLD / EU SPECIAL 2015
May 12, 2015

Unity in policy making, peacekeeping

Japan Times
WORLD / EXPO MILANO 2015
May 3, 2015

Wide variety of events welcome Milan visitors

From May 1 through Oct. 31, Italy will host the Expo Milano 2015, a global event bringing together 145 countries, three international organizations, 13 nongovernmental organizations, many corporations and citizens to address issues related to the global food challenges, nutrition, the culture of food...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 25, 2015

Fighting to recover from the ocean's wrath

On April 11, Wataru Takeshita, the minister for reconstruction of the areas most seriously affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, met in Kamaishi with local government representatives to discuss the budget for Iwate Prefecture. After the meeting, the mayor of Kamaishi spoke to the press and said...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 23, 2015

From dusk till dawn at Roppongi Art Night

For all the criticism that can be levelled at the conventional "white cube" gallery space — its quasi-religious, sanitized hush and incongruity with large-scale interactive installations and other emergent forms of media art — as a visitor, it's at least unlikely that you'll wander into the path...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 9, 2015

Charli XCX hits her J-pop groove

"I've tried to immerse myself in Japanese culture," says Charli XCX, international hit maker and Britain's next big pop-star-in-waiting. Of course, that's the sort of comment you might expect the 22-year-old to make on the eve of her first headline shows in the country this week, bringing her breakthrough...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 1, 2015

Exporting ‘Wild Style’: Fab 5 Freddy remembers when Bronx hip-hop invaded Tokyo

Flashback to the Japan of 1983: Childish idol Seiko Matsuda was topping the charts, Japanese guys were trying to dress like Boy George and kids in discos vainly watched themselves dance in floor-to-ceiling mirrors as Frankie told them to "Relax." Believe it or not, this is the exact moment hip-hop hit...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2015

Is Asian cinema caught in a festival feeding frenzy?

On March 5, tickets went on sale for Joe Hisaishi's concert at a 1,200-seat theater in Udine, Italy — and they were sold out in less than a week. In Japan, where Hisaishi is well known as a composer for his soundtracks to films by Hayao Miyazaki, Takeshi Kitano and many others, this rush for tickets...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 11, 2015

The Terrorizers: 'a masterpiece about Taiwan under the influence of money and globalization'

Along with Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, Edward Yang was one of the leading auteurs of Taiwan's New Wave Cinema. Yang, who died in 2007, was considered one of the most talented filmmakers of his generation and though most of his titles never made it the U.S., he was respected by film buffs and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2015

Annabelle: 'a low-budget porcelain Satan from doll hell'

Now that "Ted" has made it OK for stuffed animals to have a life and hang out with Mark Wahlberg, you'd think cinema would open that door to dolls as well. No such luck: Annabelle, a creepy girl doll resembling Chucky from "Child's Play," turns out to be a porcelain Satan from doll hell.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 18, 2015

A long, painful look into the whirlpools of World War II

The 1985 Holocaust documentary "Shoah," directed by Claude Lanzmann — screening until Mar. 6 at Tokyo's Theatre Image Forum — feels more like evidence than cinema. At 9½ hours, and filled with straight-to-the-camera testimony from concentration camp survivors, Nazi guards and many other eyewitnesses,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 11, 2015

Is Japanese cinema sinking into a self-censorship swamp?

One great thing about living in Japan is the consideration, or omoiyari, people here commonly show for others. My newspaper delivery guy climbs the 25 steps to my front door and deposits a copy of The Japan Times in my mailbox every morning, rain or shine. His colleagues in the U.S. — my home country...
Japan Times
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 6, 2015

Timing of Redknapp's resignation called into question

Was it a dodgy knee or to save face that Harry Redknapp resigned as manager of Queens Park Rangers?

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