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July 22, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2013

'L'Ecume des Jours'

Lovingly crafted by Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), modern cinema's DIY auteur, "L'Ecume des Jours" is a celebration of the nicely weird. Gondry has always loved and nurtured society's attractive misfits, wonderful people who happen to be allergic to office cubicles or one-night...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2013

'Heaven's Gate'

The 1970s are fondly remembered now as an insanely creative and risk-taking era for American cinema, and there's one infamous film that is generally blamed for bringing it all to a crashing halt: "Heaven's Gate." Director Michael Cimino had cleaned up at the Oscars with "The Deer Hunter," and seemed...
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 13, 2013

How television seduced the world — and me

Like most people my age — 51 — my childhood was in black and white. That's because my memory of childhood is in black and white, and that's because television in the 1960s (and most photography) was black and white. All the TV programs I watched were black and white, and their images form the monochrome...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 12, 2013

Short films to get screen time in Sapporo

The eighth annual Sapporo Short Fest received 3,746 submissions from 94 countries. Organizers have whittled that number down to 99 films that will screen during the competition.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 7, 2013

The message in recent food-garbage films doesn't go to waste

For those who still take in movies at theaters it's a great season for garbage, and I'm not talking about the usual summer blockbuster fare. Last month, Fatih Akin's documentary "Garbage in the Garden of Eden" (aka "Polluting Paradise"), about a landfill project in the beautiful Cambrunu region of Turkey,...
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

Kobayashi film explores Japan's suicide problem

A folk-singer-turned-filmmaker who went to France in 1981 to apprentice under his idol François Truffaut, Masahiro Kobayashi may have failed in his quest (he couldn't work up the courage to press Truffaut's doorbell), but after returning to Japan became a prolific scriptwriter for pinku (softcore...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

'Nihon no Higeki (Japan's Tragedy)'

What is a good death? For certain Japanese Buddhist priests it was sokushinbutsu — self-mummification. As practiced by members of the Shingon sect, it was a decade-long process that culminated with the priest's descent into a stone tomb to meditate in darkness, without food or water, until the final...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

'Upside Down'

Here it is: the movie equivalent of a crazy, distracting, impossibly attractive lover. Everything about "Upside Down" is nutso preposterous but it draws you in and locks you in a warm embrace, declaring undying love and promising mystery and eternal longing forever more. If there was a way I could go...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2013

'Reading Cinema, Finding Words: Art after Marcel Broodthaers'

Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) was a man of many talents — a poet, filmmaker and artist — whose cerebral and witty approach to art often resulted in unusual and amusing works. He used found objects, everyday items, photography and text to create visual puns in collages and installations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2013

'Hope Springs'

Feminism is redefined in "Hope Springs," a tale of two 60-somethings locked in a marriage gone stale and opting for a week of intensive marriage counselling in a picturesque Maine town.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2013

Spirits linger in the trinkets of Hiroshima's dead

They say most people have one or more defining childhood incidents — something that sets the course of their adult life and molds their personality. Filmmaker Linda Hoaglund had one, and it was so striking that to this day she can still remember the flush on her face, the tingling of her skin and the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2013

'The Man With the Iron Fists'

It's no secret that producer/rapper RZA — nee Robert Fitzgerald Diggs — is a big fan of vintage chop-socky films; his group Wu-Tang Clan lifted its name from one such flick. RZA has worked steadily at crossing over into cinema, starting with a soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch's Zen hit-man film "Ghost...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jul 19, 2013

That's me in the picture: how 'selfies' became a global craze

It starts with a certain angle: A smartphone tilted at 45 degrees just above your eyeline is generally deemed the most forgiving. Then a light source: the flattering beam of a backlit window or a bursting supernova of flash reflected in a bathroom mirror, as preparations are under way for a night out....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2013

Family issues abound in Delpy's comedy sequel

If you were into art-house cinema in the 1990s, you were into Julie Delpy, whether it was her boho-romantic Celine in Richard Linklater's classic "Before Sunrise," her ice-cold vixen in Krzysztof Kieslowski's magisterial "Three Colors: White," or even the clichéd hooker-with-a-heart in Roger "Pulp Fiction"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2013

'The Paperboy'

Swamp trash melodrama unfolds with stylish 1960s grittiness in "The Paperboy" and demonstrates Nicole Kidman's ability to fashion herself into an angel fallen to Earth in the guise of a hooker. She plays Charlotte Bless, a peroxide blonde who makes no bones about having just one interest in life: men....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 12, 2013

Okinawan musician, club owner keeps folk traditions going strong

The back streets of Naha were dark, making it more difficult to find Shima-Umui, a music club run by Okinawan folk singer Misako Oshiro. The torpid air and smell of papaya rinds from a nearby bin spoke of the subtropics. A small sign, barely visible from the street, directed customers to the basement...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2013

'Un Vie de Chat (Paris Neko Dino no Yoru)'

Speaking with "Monsters University" producer Kori Rae the other day, the conversation turned to the possibility that digital animation may have hit some sort of plateau. While I don't expect Pixar to stop pushing the boundaries, it was nevertheless surprising to hear Rae say the following: "We are getting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 4, 2013

'New' Royal Ballet spans the frontiers of dance

For the first time in three years, one of the world's most esteemed ballet companies is bringing its talent to one of the world's most appreciative audiences, as part of a tour that explores the parameters of dance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2013

'A Late Quartet (25-nenme no Gengakushijuso)'

The astonishing thing about "A Late Quartet" is that Woody Allen didn't make it. It has the Allen look — set in a resplendent and privileged Manhattan, with lingering shots of apartment interiors; the Allen-like cast — consisting of some of the most talented actors in American cinema playing members...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013

'Stanley Ka Dabba (Japanese Title: Stanley no Obentobako)'

The politics of the bento (lunch box) are embedded in the Japanese DNA and most of us have an ingrained sense of the power play brewing inside one's lunch. Which is why "Stanley Ka Dabba" (international title: "Stanley's Tiffin Box") will strike a chord."Stanley Ka Dabba" hails from Bollywood, but it's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jun 14, 2013

Gatsby-inspired cocktail at Swissôtel Nankai Osaka; summer bar at Grand Hyatt Fukuoka; Spanish fair at Royal Park Hotel

Gatsby-inspired cocktail at Swissôtel
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

'Olympus Has Fallen'

This latest bit of Hollywood "propatainment," "Olympus Has Fallen," is basically "Die Hard" in the White House, with Gerard Butler's disgraced former Secret Service agent trying to save the president (Aaron Eckhart) from a team of crack North Korean commandos who plan to pry America's nuclear launch...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

'Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir'

Laurent Bouzereau's documentary on one of cinema's greats is pretty simple in structure: Producer Andrew Braunsberg, an old friend of director Roman Polanski ("Chinatown," "Tess") visits him for a long conversation about his life and career. The subtext is that this takes place in 2009, when Polanski...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

Size doesn't matter: Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia celebrates 15 years

The short film gave birth to the cinema — the first narrative film, 'The Great Train Robbery' (1903), is all of 11 minutes long, but the format is now in the shadow of the full-length feature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Oldboy' director casts dark shadow on Hollywood

“Stoker,” a film so rich and chocolatey with nuance and innuendo you could eat it with a spoon, is, amazingly, directed by a filmmaker who doesn't speak English.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Oblivion'

I have seen the future and it looks like about half a dozen other sci-fi films poured into a cauldron and left to smelt. Influences are one thing, but "Oblivion" is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, its plot composed almost entirely of bits hacked off from other well-known films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 24, 2013

Son of Cronenberg debuts with sickly body horror

Imagine you are David Cronenberg, a filmmaker but also a parent. You tell your kids that your job is making movies; naturally, they want to see one. So which do you show them? "Scanners," with its exploding heads? "Rabid," where porn-star Marilyn Chambers drinks human blood? Or maybe "The Fly," where...
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Ranpo's novella of a desecrated grave continues to send shivers

There has long been a taste in Japan for the bizarre and abnormal. The experimental Taisho Era was no exception. A desire for sensory experience existed even in cinema. During a funeral scene, for example, an attendant might light sticks of incense in the theater, drawing the audience into the ritual....
CULTURE / Film
May 10, 2013

Hawke film exploits the gruesome myth of snuff

In "Sinister," the new horror movie starring Ethan Hawke, a man explores the attic of his new home and finds a box of old Super 8 film reels. After his family goes to bed, he pours himself a whiskey and watches them: At first it's normal home-video sort of stuff, a family goofing around in their backyard...
Japan ruling bloc loses majority in Upper House after election drubbing
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who serves concurrently as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, leaves at the party's headquarters following announcement of Upper House election result projections in Tokyo early Monday.
‘Japanese First’ Sanseito emerges as powerful force after Upper House poll
Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya in Tokyo on Sunday night
Foreign residents closely follow Japan's election and party pledges
A police officer walks past posters of Liberal Democratic Party candidates, as well as one showing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, outside the party's headquarters in Tokyo on Sunday. As Japan’s foreign population continues to rise, one of the talking points during Sunday’s election was how the country should deal with the increase of international residents.
Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
Voters in Tokyo reflect shifting political views across Japan
Pedestrians walk in front of an election notice board displaying posters of candidates in Tokyo on Sunday.
Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
Pentagon looks to unleash ‘military drone dominance’
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hosts a drone demonstration at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on July 10.
‘Noto Democracy’ and the slow work of civic change
Yukio Iokibe’s “Noto Democracy" centers on Motoyuki Takii, a former junior high school teacher who publishes a handwritten newspaper every month to encourage the residents of Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture, to engage in local politics.
In microbes we trust: Embracing the nature of fermented food
You don't need an oven to make Kenji Morimoto's easy and delicious Miso Sticky Toffee Crepe Cake.
Touring the Silk Road — without leaving Tokyo
One of the entrances to Pao Compound, a nine-story Silk Road-inspired complex in Tokyo's Higashinakano neighborhood

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan
By Alex K.T. Martin

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