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JAPAN
Apr 8, 2008

Official defends 'Yasukuni' screening for lawmakers

Defending the government's involvement in giving lawmakers an advance screening of a documentary on Yasukuni Shrine, a senior Cultural Affairs Agency official argued Monday it was appropriate to show Diet members a film partially funded by taxpayers' money.
EDITORIALS
Apr 6, 2008

Freedom-of-expression gantlet

Four movie theaters in Tokyo and one in Osaka have decided not to screen "Yasukuni," a documentary on Japan's war shrine. Rightist groups protested against the planned screenings with vehicle-mounted loudspeakers and harassing telephone calls. Most movie theaters cited possible inconveniences to the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 21, 2008

'My Blueberry Nights'

What in the world has happened to Wong Kar-wai? The freshest, most effortlessly cool man in cinema since the mid-1990s, Wong seems to be floundering at the moment. For a director whose style once seemed all about being free, off-the-cuff, jammed out, and playful, his most recent flicks show every sign...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 14, 2008

'The Darjeeling Limited'

As an American filmmaker with no particular pedigree (like the Coppolas or Hustons), Wes Anderson's penchant for exclusiveness could have put him in a precarious position in the aggressively democratized world of Hollywood cinema. As it turns out, he occupies a not unenviable niche, probably because...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 14, 2008

'Yurei vs. Uchujin'

Even film directors need a break from the routine, don't they? Especially Takashi Shimizu, who has spent much of this decade making seven installments of his hit "Grudge (Ju-on)" J-Horror franchise, including two films for Hollywood, about vengeful ghosts who move from victim to victim like viruses....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 7, 2008

'4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days'

A young woman is about to get an abortion. On the morning of the crucial day, what's on her mind and how does she deal with it?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 7, 2008

'Jumper'

"Jumper" is one of those films that feels like it was a marketing strategy before it was a script. Or maybe it was one of those films where they had a cool new special effect and just needed to throw together something resembling a story to showcase it in. Or maybe it was both: create one shot of star...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 7, 2008

Hewar

Forget the iffy politics: Syria has got some great music. It is the country of legendary oud (lute) maestro Farid Al-Atrash as well as Sabah Fakhri, an iron-larynxed singer who for many years held the world record for the longest uninterrupted vocal performance (10 hours). More recently, the likes of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2008

'Evening'

Lest we forget what it is to be a woman, there's always the chick flick to remind us exactly what this may imply. In the case of "Evening," the implying rather has the effect of a tidal wave. There they are, all the usual suspects: love (unrequited and otherwise), weddings, marriages, careers, motherhood,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 17, 2008

In Japan, there's a 'quiet revolution' afoot

First of two parts
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2008

'Sisters'

"Sisters," the remake of the 1973 cult movie by Brian de Palma, is living proof of the culinary adage that fresh is always better. There's so much here that's just been scooped out of the can and nuked in a microwave — most of what had made the original "Sisters" compelling and scary has been reheated...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 10, 2008

Kurosawa cohort tells illuminating Showa tails

Alongside great artists are those who witness their triumphs and setbacks, recording behind-the-scenes episodes that illuminate the processes of art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2008

'The Kite Runner'

Horror movies, especially those of the J-Horror kind, often try to scare us with vengeful ghosts. The real ghosts in our lives, though, aren't those who crawl out of TV screens but the ones who haunt our memories. These ghosts exist as regrets, and trying to exorcise them can be a long and painful process....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2008

'American Gangster'

According to gangster-cinema logic, a gang boss wallows in crime and murder largely because he feels obligated (often willingly so) to look after the people on his turf: to keep the streets safe, his family well-fed and his business thriving. The contradiction is, of course, that by doing so a gang boss...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2008

Newly democratic Bhutan in a tight spot

MADRAS, India — Bhutan is now a democracy. Its transition from a monarchy to a democracy has been smooth. The tiny country, where Buddhism is the state religion, has been applauded by the world for changing with the times, and not waiting to be pushed like Pakistan, which has stubbornly refused to...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2008

'Earth'

The nature documentary has long been a staple of the small screen, whether its NHK or the BBC, but in recent years more and more have been showing up in the cinemas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2008

'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'

The story of Western outlaw Jesse James gets rewritten for every generation — indeed it was being rewritten even while he lived. As the former confederate guerrilla-turned-bandit embarked on a spree of bank and train robberies in the 1870s, gunning down unarmed bystanders repeatedly, James was also...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2008

Passing politics from generation to generation

'La Faute a Fidel!" is, in a sense, a project engineered by daughters. Director Julie Gavras' father is the famed prorevoltionary director Costa Gavras, its lead actress Julie Depardieu is the daughter of Gerard, France's most treasured actor. And Nina Kervel, who was age 9 when the film was made, comes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2008

'Silk'

It took a long time for me to recover from the blast of bullsh*t Orientalism that was "Memoirs of a Geisha." There were the usual symptoms: nausea, shaky hands and an attack of shudders every time I passed by the Oriental Bazaar on Tokyo's Omotesando avenue, among others.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Dec 30, 2007

From start to sale in 15 secs

What looks like NASA's mission-control center is actually the world's biggest, most high-tech car auction.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 21, 2007

Celebrate Chaplin's life in film

With his little mustache, oversize pants, bowler hat and walking stick, Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), known as the Little Tramp, became the greatest comic icon in the early 20th century, and his ingenious mime still captivates audiences today.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007

Inspired by repression

I am a very private person," says Marjane Satrapi, author of "Persepolis" and co-director of the new film based on her graphic novels. It's a curious statement coming from someone who's poured her own life into an autobiographical novel, but as she repeatedly pointed out to The Japan Times, it's not...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 21, 2007

The art of youth

An Aladdin's Cave of small, distinctive retail spaces, the Laforet building at a main crossroads in trendy Harajuku has been a shopping magnet for young people since it opened in 1978. This year, for instance, more than 3,000 lined up outside awaiting the start of its New Year sale. And whereas its Shibuya...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007

'Persepolis'

When Art Spiegelman's "Maus" came out in 1986 (a later edition would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1992), many mused that the graphic novel had come of age. Finally, it seemed, it was possible to meld words and pictures with the richness, depth, and insight of a novel. All sorts of topics could be tabled now,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2007

He's in the realm of the senses

Francois Ozon is a filmmaker renowned for adopting a different style with every film — he has made scathing, pseudo-pornographic short features ("Sitcom," "See the Sea"), a rich, velvety musical ("8 Femmes"), and a restrained but sensual tale of bereavement ("Under the Sand"). His latest, "Angel,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 6, 2007

Look back in anger

One way to learn what happened in one of history's most noxious but disputed episodes is to ask Satoru Mizushima. After what he calls "exhaustive research" on the seizure of the then Chinese capital Nanjing by Japanese troops in 1937, estimated to have cost anywhere from 20,000 to 300,000 lives, Mizushima...
CULTURE / Film
Nov 30, 2007

'The Nativity Story'

Motherhood is a rum thing to begin with but motherhood in the mid-teens, in superconservative ancient Nazareth, engaged to a man you've never met and who is definitely not the father of the baby — well, then it would be time to hit the panic button, if only such a thing had existed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 22, 2007

Festival swaps mobsters for something 'safe'

In days past, a film festival held within rough-and-tumble Kabukicho might be assumed to feature a sampling of the work from gangster-flick director Seijun Suzuki ("Tokyo Drifter," "Branded to Kill"), or perhaps "Yojimbo," the Akira Kurosawa classic where a samurai arrives in a village run by two groups...

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