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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 5, 2014

Horses power across time and places

As a wee nipper I'd sometimes be treated to donkey rides on our local beach at Port Talbot in South Wales, but the first time I sat astride a pony was near my home in Neath when I was 8. Around then, the old dairyman occasionally let me join him as he made his daily rounds with his horse-drawn cart collecting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

Polish history captured by a man who was there

He may be 88 years old and the director of 54 films, but Polish film giant Andrzej Wajda is still evolving as a storyteller. His latest, "Wałesa: Man of Hope," opens in Tokyo on April 5 (as "Wałesa: Rentai no Otoko") and marks his further foray into the realm of history as entertainment, following...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

'Blue is the Warmest Color'

Remember being a teen. Remember the gossip amongst your friends about who had a thing for you, the awkward dates, the stolen kisses. Remember the crushes that came and went all too easily, and then recall the arrival of something else entirely: first love. Remember the overwhelming feeling of getting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

'Enough Said'

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been a comedic icon on American TV for two decades or so — her presence on "Seinfeld" no doubt kept several thousand people from slitting their wrists. She is the other half of why "Enough Said" works, and the question is, what took her so long to make it to rom-com cinema?...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014

'The Lego Movie'

Read almost any overseas review of "The Lego Movie" and it will say what a clever, riotous laugh-fest it is. So why, then, at a recent Tokyo screening, was not one giggle heard over the course of 100 minutes? Why did it feel like a movie designed to give your kids ADD: hyperactive, loud and relentless?...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014

'Tomodachi to Aruko (Walking With a Friend)'

Akira Ogata's "Tomodachi to Aruko (Walking with a Friend)," which screened in the Japanese Cinema Splash section of last year's Tokyo International Film Festival, is one of many recent Japanese films about the problems of the elderly in this rapidly graying country. Unlike nearly all these films, its...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

Director: Thor Freudenthal
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2014

Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii

The international success of Japanese animation films at the box office over the past two decades can largely be put down to the work of two men: Academy Award-winning director Hayao Miyazaki and the self-proclaimed "stray dog of anime," Mamoru Oshii.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014

Surviving the latest trend in American cinema

Who is this man? The protagonist in "All is Lost" is also its sole character — an older (but astoundingly fit) stranded sailor portrayed by 77-year-old Robert Redford. He's unnamed, and does not speak except for right at the beginning of the film when he's reciting a letter to persons unknown. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014

'Gloria'

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" Lennon and McCartney posed the question, and "Gloria" provides an answer. Gloria, played by Paulina Garcia, is a 50-something divorcee whose children have grown up and moved out; she lives by herself in Santiago, Chile, with the occasional company...
BUSINESS / TRAVEL INSIDER
Mar 4, 2014

SAS business class, keeping safety fun, high-flying patrol

SAS business class
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014

'Lovelace'

"Lovelace" is a film that comes bifurcated, with a big red line down the middle separating its two acts into "The Dream" and "The Bummer."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014

'Oh Boy'

They say that the EU in its current state of capitalism is a mirror of America in the 1990s. (Remember what that was like? It wasn't all bad, really.) This certainly applies to the Berlin-set micro universe of "Oh Boy," whose very title smells like teen spirit — but it's actually set in the present...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 22, 2014

Father documents autistic son's schooling; Nikkatsu founder's story dramatized; CM of the week: Suntory

Until about 15 years ago, many children with developmental disabilities did not receive special attention, but now some 116,000 special education students throughout Japan attend classes in regular elementary schools, and the number is increasing every year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2014

'The refusal of time' is worth every minute

The former Rissei Elementary School site, nowadays an occasional cultural events center, was earlier home to the Kyoto Dento, the electric company whose technology helped industrialist Katsutaro Inabata to demonstrate the Lumière Brothers' cinématographe camera in 1897 — Japan's first experience...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2014

'Jeune & Jolie'

François Ozon's "Jeune & Jolie" ("Young & Beautiful") is a mystery — not in the sense of whodunit, but why.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2014

'Top of the Lake'

Director: Jane Campion, Garth Davis
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 8, 2014

NHK drama takes a wild stab at a dying art

The hero of 'Uzumasa Limelight' has made his living for half a century as a kirare-yaku in sword-fighting movies. Kirare-yaku have a specific role: Their job is to die on screen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2014

Could 'Snowpiercer' be Bong's ticket out of Korea?

There's a scene in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic sci-fi fable "Snowpiercer" that turns the tables on how Western audiences perceive non-English-speaking Asian characters in what is — for all intents and purposes — a Hollywood production.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2014

Crushing drama through the eyes of little Maisie

Filmmakers Scott McGehee and David Siegel aren't known for blockbusters, but their films, including the duo's 1994 debut feature "Suture," have a reputation for artful framing and pensive little spaces of silence in the dialogue. McGehee and Siegel attribute this trick to their deep admiration for Japanese...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2014

'Dakishimetai: Shinjitsu no Monogatari (I Just Wanna Hug You)'

Of Japanese medical melodramas there is no end. Targeted largely at the female audience, they appear on the lineups of Toho and other major distributors with the regularity of cherry blossoms in April.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2014

'The Lone Ranger'

Director: Gore Verbinski
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2014

Hiraki Sawa’s dream world: Worth the pause for thought

Sometimes it can be irritating visiting an exhibition of video-based art. You come in halfway through one of the videos or near the end of another, and you feel that you've missed something and wonder if you should stick around to watch it from the start.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2014

Why Winding Refn doesn't care if you hate his movie

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn was a film-school dropout who gained sudden acclaim at the tender age of 24 with his ultraviolent 1996 film "Pusher," which was eventually developed into a trilogy. He reached wider audiences with "Fear X" (starring John Turturro) and British crime flick "Bronson,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2014

Fukada's young castaways on adulthood's shores

Born in Tokyo in 1980, Koji Fukada released his first film in 2004, but his breakthrough was 2010's "Kantai (Hospitalité)," a witty black comedy about a mysterious stranger who talks his way into a job at a small Tokyo printing shop and is soon insinuating himself into the lives of the shop's proprietor...
Japan Times
JAPAN / AT A GLANCE
Jan 5, 2014

Bustling Shinjuku, the inn district that never sleeps

Tokyo's Shinjuku district never goes to sleep.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 31, 2013

Tokyo prepares to get schooled in the art of beats

Although the major spectacle looming on Tokyo's horizon is undoubtedly the 2020 Olympics, there is one event this year that will be eagerly anticipated by anyone who spends longer on their gym playlist than their workout: The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) is set to take place here in October.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2013

'Linhas de Wellington'

Only the brave and devoted moviegoer should tackle this monstrosity of a period film. Clocking in at close to three hours and featuring a 1,000-plus cast of European multinationals, "Lines of Wellington" (as it was released in English) is a cinema project of gargantuan proportions, devoted entirely to...
CULTURE / Film
Dec 19, 2013

'Cutie and the Boxer'

When 59-year old Noriko Shinohara calls herself "Cutie," you'll want to take her word for it. She grabs the viewer at the opening scene of the documentary "Cutie and the Boxer," which plays out like something from an early Jean-Luc Godard movie: It's early morning, and she's brushing out her long, silvery...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan