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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2010

'Harold & Maude'/'Brewster Mccloud'

Does anyone remember Bud Cort? My guess is that Johnny Depp does; more than a few of his early, quirkier performances — like the wide-eyed naifs of "Arizona Dream" or "Benny & Joon" — owe a great debt to Cort's work in the 1970s. Wes Anderson does: he cast him in "The Life Aquatic" as a nod to Cort's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 4, 2010

'Entre les murs'

Times may have changed, but a few things remain stolidly the same — and one of them is the middle- school classroom. Whatever else is happening out there, the classroom continues to pack a bunch of teenagers into a confined space, prop a teacher at the head of the room, and shut the door hoping for...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 4, 2010

Red and black and spread all over

The avant-garde generally gravitates toward absolutes; you're either with them or against them. But how often in history has progressive art been created in service of the state's one-size-fits-all ideology? Not many, and perhaps the best-known example is the group that appeared in a brief window of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 28, 2010

'Bright Star'

Jane Campion's heroines always seem to labor under the weight of suffering womanhood, even when they're empowered and supposedly in control (witness the prickly discomfort of "In the Cut's" Meg Ryan) but her latest, Fanny Brawne (played with dazzling excellence by Abby Cornish), in "Bright Star" is warm,...
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2010

Thailand is on the brink

HONG KONG — Graphic pictures from Bangkok last week told the grim story of bloodshed, death and destruction, of democracy challenged and mortally wounded. But they cannot convey the smell of burning, the terror of chaos in the center of a supposedly civilized modern capital city, or the human, moral...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2010

Globally minded director goes native

It's sad but true that Japanese directors with big reputations abroad are often odd men (or women) out back home.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2010

'Haru tono tabi (Travels with Haru)'

Masahiro Kobayashi is a unique figure in the Japanese film business. His knotty, idiosyncratic films, starting with the 1996 film "Closing Time," have never made much at the box office in Japan, though they have become favorites of foreign festival programmers. Four have screened at Cannes, including...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 14, 2010

'Enter the Void'

If "Lost in Translation" is the film you'd make when all you know about Japan are the pampered press junkets at Shinjuku 5-star hotels, then "Enter the Void" is what you would make if you never got beyond the Roppongi pub-crawl. Full of strip clubs, drug deals and loveless love-hotel sex, the latest...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 14, 2010

'From Paris With Love'

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that life got better after 50, he could have been prophesying about John Travolta. His career has been one of peaks and plunges, punctuated by some of cinema's most interesting fashion moments ("Saturday Night Fever" and "Battlefield Earth" come to mind). Ever since...
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
May 11, 2010

Cycling community offers helping hand to fair trade

During the three weeks between the Earth Day Festival in Tokyo on April 17 and Waorld Fair Trade Day last Saturday, cyclists and supporters of fair trade were busy threading their way through the dense Tokyo traffic with the help of a map that connected the dots between some of the main outlets selling...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 9, 2010

To realize its cultural potential, Japan must celebrate its strengths

Europe received a cultural shock of major proportions during the last quarter of the 19th century. The exquisite shikisai kankaku (sense of color), the startling spatial and compositional elements and the sublime craftsmanship of the Japanese arts took the continent by storm. Many well-known collectors...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 7, 2010

'Green Zone'

Hey, here's some news for you: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and elements of the administration of President George W. Bush deliberately deceived the public! If new Iraq war film "Green Zone" had come out with this plotline circa 2004, I would have cheered, but at this late stage...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
May 7, 2010

Righteous Kill

Director: Jon Avnet
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 7, 2010

Tortoise

Tortoise's blending of dub, electronica and jazz over its two decades in existence has established the instrumental five-piece as the band that brought progressive rock into the present.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 30, 2010

'The Box'/'9'

You'd be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of certifiably cult movies from the past decade, but Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko" (2001) is definitely one of them. This strange hybrid about a troubled teen and his invisible friend (a giant evil-looking rabbit named Frank) could best be described...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Apr 27, 2010

Craftsman gets creative with Yakushima wood

Derrel Grisham is an American, but it was a sense of nostalgia that drew him to the island of Yakushima off the southern coast of Kagoshima Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 23, 2010

'Johnny Mad Dog'/'Clash of the Titans'

For a quick snapshot of the alternate and opposing directions being taken by cinema in the 21st century, it's worth considering a pair of films on release this weekend: "Johnny Mad Dog," by French director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, is a provocative, intensely realist look at child soldiers on the rampage...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2010

IMAX to build more 3-D screens

Megascreen theater company IMAX Corp. said Tuesday it will expand in Japan in the latest in a series of international deals inked recently amid growing demand for 3-D movies following the success of the science fiction blockbuster "Avatar."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 16, 2010

'Moon'/'An Education'

If hell is other people, as existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously put it, then Sam Bell has the best job in the world: He leads a solitary existence on a lunar base, where he's the only human employee in charge of a mostly robotic-controlled installation that mines fusion energy from beneath...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Apr 9, 2010

"Native Land"

Scai the BathhouseCloses April 17
BUSINESS
Apr 5, 2010

Sharp boasts 3-D mobile tech

Sharp's latest 3-D displays deliver bright, clear imagery without the cumbersome glasses usually required for such technology. Now the bad news: They only work on a 7.5-cm screen held 30 cm from the viewer's face.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 2, 2010

'The Wolfman'

"The Wolfman" stars Benicio Del Toro, which normally means I would readily suffer pain and humiliation and even demonstrate some nonexistent rock- climbing skills if need be, just to see my beloved. It's a lonely quest in Japan, where Del Toro doesn't have quite the following he deserves: He's too craggy,...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 28, 2010

Tri-lingual system proposed for world communications

May 15, 1939
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 28, 2010

Study of Noh continues in West

Dec. 10, 1939
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 24, 2010

Sony steps back from 3-D rush; Panasonic reworks CD-blaster

LCD price system: Amid the expensive scramble to sell 3-D televisions, Sony has come up with a new series of high-definition LCD TV sets that are fairly reasonably priced.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 12, 2010

Yazaki opens up about 'Lies'

A leader of Japanese cinema's 1990s New Wave, Hitoshi Yazaki dropped off the radar for more than a decade, returning in 2006 with "Strawberry Shortcakes," a widely praised drama about four lonely women in search of, not just a partner, but reasons for living. In his new film, "Sweet Little Lies," the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2010

Molice channel silver screen on new album

"We're really inspired by Stanley Kubrick and we want to create a sound that reflects Kubrick's visual image," says guitarist Yuzuru Takeda of Molice. The band is due to release a new album titled "Catalystrock" later this month, and we're here in a small coffee shop on the band's home turf in Kokubunji,...
COMMENTARY
Mar 9, 2010

Intolerance in India putting artists to flight

CHENNAI, India — Indians have always taken pride in being a tolerant and understanding society, and the country's predominant religion, Hinduism, has often been described as a way of life that never relies on conversions, force or violence. These virtues, however, appear to be fading.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 5, 2010

'The Hurt Locker'

There's a moment near the end of "The Hurt Locker," Kathryn Bigelow's masterful look at life and death on Baghdad's mean streets, where one American sergeant — a cool, tough professional on mission after mission — finally breaks down and loses it after yet another close brush with death. "Another...

Longform

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