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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015

Ruben Pater: Current advancements in drone technology are worrying

Dutch artist Ruben Pater discusses drones and survival in the modern age:
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015

Kazuhiro Goshima: The sheer amount of information in 4K ‘exceeds’ reality

Japanese artist Kazuhiro Goshima discusses film, movies and everything in between:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2015

Welcome to New York: 'Abel Ferrara ignores a rich vein of intrigue and rushes to judgement'

The career of Abel Ferrara is a bit of an enigma. As a director who started with gnarly exploitation flicks before moving into more philosophical tales of sin and redemption, Ferrara is barely a presence in the U.S. outside his native New York City, and he hasn't had a hit with either critics or the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 2, 2015

'Ka' can help you sound less like Mr. Roboto

Knowing how you sound in Japanese is very difficult. For the first few months of study, perhaps even the first few years, the best you can hope for is to imitate sensei (先生, teachers) and tomodachi (友達, friends), geinōjin (芸能人, celebrities) and kishō yohōshi (気象予報士, weather...
PRESS / Publications
Feb 2, 2015

“The Japan Culture Book (Japanese/English)”on sale now

Enjoy Japanese traditional and cutting-edge pop culture
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jan 30, 2015

In less than a year, Tonko House earns an Oscar nomination

They had plum jobs at one of the best companies in the world. Their successes were the envy of their peers. But last summer, two peak-career professionals quit their lucrative day jobs to found a start-up. With no income or investment, they built their own studio, mostly by hand, and started working...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 14, 2015

The Judge: 'works better if you're a well-to-do, over-40 male'

There is a point in a woman's life — specifically, mine — when surprises in movies and in dates are just not all that welcome anymore. Which is why "The Judge" is a vehicle to like — very, very much. Robert Downey Jr. faces off with Robert Duvall in a patriarchal, angst-ridden mystery thriller...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 7, 2015

100 Yen Love: Punching your way out of an old paper bag

Boxing films share a similar arc, typically climaxing in a big bout that decides everything — at least everything relevant to the hero's fate. This does not always means triumph, as fans of the "Rocky" series know, but even in defeat the hero usually inspires respect and sympathy, at the very least...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 3, 2015

Getting a head start on wartime stories

From the "The Dirty Dozen" (1967) to "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), cinema audiences in Japan have flocked to theaters to watch Americans and Germans killing one another.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 1, 2015

Son of God: 'There is little to no poetic license taken here'

Just in time to be too late for Christmas is "Son of God," Hollywood's latest attempt to reboot the Jesus franchise. Director Christopher Spencer tries to give a more family-friendly version of the life of Jesus than the torture-porn brutality of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 29, 2014

Sony's 'Interview' fetches $15 million online in four days

"The Interview" earned more than $15 million in online sales in its first four days of distribution as Sony bypassed a wide theater release amid concerns from major cinema chains about threats of violence.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2014

Hacking of low brow movie raises high stakes issues

The movie 'The Interview,' featuring the supposed blowing up of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, is a sad commentary on the idiocies of our troubled times. It should not have been made.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 24, 2014

Our critics in the crossfire

The Japan Times' three film writers got together before Christmas to discuss their top picks of movies released this year. Unusually, this year both Giovanni Fazio and Kaori Shoji agreed on their No. 1, choosing "The Broken Circle Breakdown." Mark Schilling picked Mipo Oh's "Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku"...
WORLD
Dec 18, 2014

U.S. determines North Korea behind Sony attack as studio pulls movie

A U.S. government source said investigators had determined North Korea was behind a cyberattack on Sony Pictures as the studio pulled all plans to release its comedy, "The Interview," about an assassination attempt on the North Korean leader.
WORLD
Dec 18, 2014

Top U.S. theater chains delay screening Sony's 'The Interview' amid terror threat

Movie theater chain Regal Cinemas said on Wednesday it will delay showing Sony's North Korea parody "The Interview," while trade publication The Hollywood Reporter said AMC, Cinemark and Cineplex would also not screen the film, citing an unnamed source.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 17, 2014

Disney's 'Big Hero 6' reassembles Japan without the 'cultural cringe'

So we've all heard that it's hard to be a woman in Japan, but being a Japanese geek comes with its own troubles. For some, it's a life lived in front of glowing screens, a dateless existence spent in a six-mat tatami room with posters of idol group AKB48 plastered on the walls. But here's Disney's "Big...
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2014

Getting under Pyongyang's skin

North Korea's rant against the impending release of the Sony Pictures satire 'The Interview' could have been predicted. Rather than providing the new film priceless PR, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should have ignored the film as his father did with the 2004 satire 'Team America: World Police.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 3, 2014

Looking Japan's film-industry myths in the eye

Who doesn't love a listicle titled "(X) surprising things you never knew about (Y)"? What surprises me about a lot of commentary on the Japanese film industry — from insiders and outsiders alike — is how it substitutes judgment calls (usually of the "Japanese films are crap" variety) for out-in-plain-sight...
COMMENTARY / Japan / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 27, 2014

Censorship distortion of 'comfort women'

When Toho Studios wanted to turn 'The Life of an Alluring Woman' into a film, U.S. censors stepped in multiple times to demand script revisions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 26, 2014

Documentaries at the margins of modern life

There is no film festival in Japan quite like the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 26, 2014

Monica Z: 'Shaky rise of Sweden's best-loved chanteuse'

Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund was her country's best-loved chanteuse, but she wanted more. And the one thing that gave her a chance at global stardom? She could sing in English without a European accent.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 22, 2014

Hihōkan: Japan's vanishing sex museums

The real world ends beyond a thick, black curtain. On the other side is one of Japan's last remaining hihōkan (sex museum, literally "treasure palace") in the faded resort town of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture — a strange, dimly lit space of questionable morals and dated fantasies.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 21, 2014

Award-winning American director Mike Nichols dies at 83

Mike Nichols, a nine-time Tony Award winner on Broadway and the Oscar-winning director of films such as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," "The Graduate" and "Carnal Knowledge," died on Wednesday at age 83, ABC News said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 20, 2014

A personal invite to Planet Gondry

By coincidence, two tributes to baby-boomer auteurs are currently on display in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 19, 2014

Hurt-till-you-laugh approach to making comedies

When Yosuke Fujita's debut feature "Zenzen Daijobu (Fine, Totally Fine)" started making the international festival rounds in 2008, it charmed nearly everyone who saw it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 19, 2014

Withnail & I

Director: Bruce Robinson Language: English
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

Tatsumi: Godfather of alternative manga is reborn on film

Manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi has always enjoyed a certain level of fame in his home country, where he's known as the originator of gekiga, a hard-boiled style of manga from the 1960s-'70s. Overseas, however, it's only since 2009 that his reputation has risen meteorically, after an English-language...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

Ecotherapy Getaway Holiday: Finding feminism on the way to a waterfall

Doesn't every kid imagine being lost in the woods?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

Boyhood: 'Never has the passage of time on screen seemed so real or poignant'

The only reason I hesitate to give Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" five stars is that you will be expecting a masterpiece. And a "masterpiece" these days is all too often a film that is trying very hard for that status, weighted with its own self-importance. (Dare I cite "There Will be Blood" or "The Tree...

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