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July 22, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 17, 2012

'The Avengers'

I saw the best actors of my generation destroyed by B-movie superhero madness, slumming crummy costumed, dragging themselves through the digital streets of universe Marvel, looking for a super-size paycheck, empty-headed hipsters burning for the ancient mythic connection to the star-system dynamo in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 16, 2012

"Nikkatsu 100: A Century of Japanese Cinema"

Tokyo's National Film Center is holding an exhibition tracking the development of the Japanese film company Nikkatsu Corporation, which this year celebrates its centenary.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 10, 2012

'Total Recall'

This is going to sound crazy, but I have this memory ... It's faded, like so many from the acid-house era, but I can clearly see Arnold Schwarzenegger playing this blue-collar kinda guy who comes home one day and finds his loving and beautiful wife, played by Sharon Stone, suddenly trying to kill him....
LIFE / Travel / TRAVEL INSIDER
Aug 8, 2012

Fly to Middle-earth with official 'Hobbit' airline Air New Zealand; Aeromexico orders 100 Boeing aircraft; Cathay launches digital magazine

New Aeromexico planes
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 27, 2012

'Take This Waltz'

It's the season of chaotic sensations and somber reflections. "Take This Waltz" feels so right at this time of year, if only to remind us of one of life's basic facts: What starts off as something new and shiny will eventually get old and rusty. A bowl of peaches left on the table is already speeding...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 13, 2012

Hitoshi Matsumoto gets big laughs in Japan but the comedian wants more

Comics who direct films may start by making audiences laugh, but if they are at all successful they typically turn serious. The classic example is Charlie Chaplin, who went from slapstick two-reelers to speechifying against totalitarianism in "The Great Dictator."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 1, 2012

Often-ignored immigration issue raised in new film

Several weeks ago, U.S. President Barack Obama said that he wants to allow younger undocumented immigrants who came to America as children to stay, and last week the Supreme Court struck down some provisions of Arizona's controversial law requiring police to check individuals they suspect of being in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2012

Film fest keeps it short

Once upon a time, short films actually played in cinemas, as an opening act for the feature presentation. But as feature films got longer and cinemas tried to squeeze in ever more screenings, the shorts eventually fell by the wayside. As a result they lost their position as the traditional calling card...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2012

'Act of Valor'

Ten minutes into "Act of Valor", I could practically hear the voice of Homer Simpson in my head, delivering his own critique of the movie: "Ooh, propatainment!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 8, 2012

'The Divide' / 'Bellflower'

Shibuya's Theater N may not exactly fit the definition of a grindhouse — its polite staff and lack of dodgy-looking stains on the seats rule that out — but any cinema doing a late-show revival of 1978's notorious "I Spit on Your Grave" earns the comparison. Theater N has been getting good mileage...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 3, 2012

Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name many of his works. Recently, indeed, I was amazed when...
CULTURE / Books
May 27, 2012

Japan through the monster's eye

THE MONSTER MOVIE FAN'S GUIDE TO JAPAN, by Armand Vaquer. ComiXpress.com, 2010, 48 pp., $15.00 (softcover)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 25, 2012

Play reveals manzai's U.S. roots

Watching the fast-paced, two-person manzai routines that characterize much of Japanese TV comedy these days, it's difficult to imagine that two key influences on that genre's birth were stars of cinema's silent era: Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2012

'Dark Shadows'

Dear reader, heed my warning: verily, the undead live. Not rotten-fleshed zombies or nocturnal ghouls, but old TV series from the 1960s and '70s, resurrected from the moldering vaults where they lay and given new life by devious Hollywood necromancers. In this deal with the Devil, they breathe new life...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2012

Filmmaker savors being in situation where threat of the unknown looms

A surfboard mounted against a sea of sludge, whimsically defiant to the ruinous tide of debris. It's the kind of quirky beauty you might expect from Michael Arias, an American filmmaker based in Tokyo. Arias' creative work, in film through to his recent photographs of Tohoku, all paint with the same...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2012

Clooney comes of age as land and loves collide

Of all the descriptors actor George Clooney gets pegged with, "father" is not usually among them. Academy Award-winner? Sure. Activist? Yes. Sexiest Man Alive? You bet. It was his turn as a dad in "The Descendants" last year, however, that earned him a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2012

'The Descendants'

If you were an actor, middle-aged or older and looking to revamp your career, landing a role in an Alexander Payne movie could be just the thing. On the other hand, collaborating with the man who brought to the world the twin masterpieces of midlife pathos "About Schmidt" and "Sideways" may mean that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 27, 2012

'Last Night (Japan Title: Koi to Ai no Hakarikata'

You know how it goes: An attractive married couple go out to a party one night wreathed in smiles but return some hours later in stony silence. The shot of the two of them in bed, backs turned toward each other and mutual profiles radiating dissatisfaction in the dark as sirens blare from the street,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2012

Asano goes for an A-1 hit with 'Battleship' film

History often repeats itself in the most interesting ways. In 1945, principal members of the Japanese government signed an agreement for total surrender of the country's armed forces to the United States atop the famed USS Missouri battleship, also known as the "Mighty Mo." Sixty-seven years later, audiences...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2012

'John Carter'

Just in time for the 100th anniversary of its first publication, "Tarzan" author Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars" gets the 3-D blockbuster treatment from Disney under the revised title "John Carter." This new franchise should have been a sure thing, with a novel that has endured in readers'...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2012

'The Artist'

One has to admire "The Artist" for it's sheer chutzpah: the idea that someone can make a silent, black-and-white movie in this day and age and achieve massive Oscar-winning success is nearly unthinkable.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2012

Japan's traditional arts held sway over silent era

Japan's silent-film era began with an exhibition of Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope film-viewing device in Kobe in November 1896, only about one year after the first-ever public film screening in Paris.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 25, 2012

An unserious look at the work of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu

NORIKO SMILING, by Adam Mars-Jones. Notting Hill Editions, 2011, 239 pp., ￡12.00 (hardcover). "I can hardly be accused of being an expert on Japanese film," Adam Mars-Jones assures us early in "Noriko Smiling," his monograph on Yasujiro Ozu's "Late Spring." Such protestations at the beginning of a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2012

'Bokutachi Kyuko: A Ressha de Iko (Take the "A" Train)'

Yoshimitsu Morita, who died last December at 61, would seem to be a classic example of a brilliant young independent filmmaker who ends up as a mainstream journeyman, a career path all too common in Japanese films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 16, 2012

'Take Shelter'

If there's one thing that's certain about predictions of the apocalypse, it's that none of them have been correct to date. The mother of all end-of-the-world predictions was 2012 — according to all that Mayan calendar mumbo-jumbo — and yet, here we are.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 16, 2012

'The Iron Lady'

In 1990, Ian (my brother's friend from Sheffield, England) came over to the house and showed us a fax that had been sent by his family. There was only one sentence, and it said: "You can come home now, she's gone." And that was how we learned of the political demise of British Prime Minister Margaret...
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Mar 13, 2012

Chanel's little black jacket

Since 1983, Karl Lagerfeld has steered Parisian brand Chanel as the world's reigning barometer of chic. Now he's about to bring a little bit of that haute charm to Tokyo with a series of events beginning on March 21.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Mar 6, 2012

A few of readers' favorite things; heated discussion on the burning issue of warmth

A selection of readers' responses to Debito Arudou's Feb. 7 Just Be Cause column, "These are a few of my favorite things about Japan":
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 4, 2012

In the realms of true love and devotion, few could fault Akiko Koyama

On Feb. 21, 1996, Akiko Koyama, the actress wife of renowned film director Nagisa Oshima, received a phone call at her home in Kugenuma Kaigan, Kanagawa Prefecture. It was from an official at the Japanese Embassy in London.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 2, 2012

'Hugo'

'Hugo" is in 3-D, rated PG in the United States and features two 12-year-olds traipsing around a 1930s Parisian train station. All the ingredients for a cozy Disney picture, but in actual fact this is a Martin Scorsese movie, which picked up five Oscars at last weekend's Academy Awards.
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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