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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 22, 2007

Beirut dramatist seeks new strategy

Lebanese dramatist Rabih Mroue returns to Tokyo International Arts Festival this year with the world premiere of his new play, "How Nancy Wished that Everything was an April Fool's Joke," three years after making his TIF debut. It is a work that reflects the fluid situation of Lebanese society after...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 9, 2007

'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'

People tend to talk about "chick flicks" a lot, you know, the kind of film that stars Anne Hathaway or Holly Hunter and has people stressing a lot about their relationships. There's an assumption that certain sort of films will only play to female audiences, but you never hear about the flip side of...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 3, 2007

Love Stories: the five rules

All is fair in love and war, but still there are rules. At least -- according to a romance-reading colleague -- there are rules in love stories.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2007

Tokyo's dark side

Welshman John Williams first came to Japan in 1988, intending to stay two years, write a script and return to Britain to make a movie. He ended up making eight shorts, a documentary and finally a feature film -- the drama "Firefly Dreams" -- all in Japan and with Japanese casts and crews. Released in...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2007

An unflinching account of a cinema legend

Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies With Akira Kurosawa, by Teruyo Nogami. Stone Bridge Press: Berkeley, University of California Press, 2006, 296pp, $25 (cloth) Great directors, once dead, inevitably attract biographers, memoirists and critics in large numbers who chronicle and critique every aspect...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 12, 2007

'Brothers of the Head'

There's a scene near the end of the punk-rock documentary "D.O.A." where The Sex Pistols are playing a country and western ballroom in San Antonio, near the end of their ill-fated 1978 tour. The band hold the stage penned in by a baying mob, barely able to make it through their songs as the crowd pelts...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 12, 2007

A collection of the semifamous

Purposely or not, bands tend to create personas along with their music. The persona is usually based on that of the lead singer or otherwise most conspicuous member, and musicians who find that their needs for self-expression don't jibe with their group's persona either quit for solo careers or set up...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 16, 2006

Focusing on the elusive imagery of identity

Why would a young photographer from Venezuela studying in Japan choose to spend valuable time recording the lives of Japanese-Brazilians in Brazil?
JAPAN
Dec 14, 2006

Obituary: Takeomi Nagayama

Takeomi Nagayama, chairman of theater and cinema production house Shochiku Co., who was praised for his postwar efforts to promote kabuki, died of acute leukemia at a Tokyo hospital Wednesday morning, his family said. He was 81.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 12, 2006

Students spread their wings

Ever since Japan opened its doors to the West, English has been zealously studied in Japan's high schools, night schools, universities and companies.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Nov 28, 2006

Keiko Hisano

Keiko Hisano, 25, is a production controller for Nakabo Japan Co. Ltd., an Osaka-based knitwear manufacturer that produces clothing for many famous brands. Hoping to eventually become a designer, she is happy now just to be at the base of the design pyramid, whether running up and down Omotesando with...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2006

Award-winning documentary film on Megumi Yokota debuts in Japan

and his wife, Sakie, look at messages posted Saturday in a theater in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, by viewers of a Canadian documentary about their daughter, Megumi, who was abducted by North Korea in 1977. KYODO PHOTO
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 17, 2006

FILMeX shows size doesn't matter

Tokyo FILMeX enters its seventh year as the smaller, friendlier, artier alternative to the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 1, 2006

Hisashi Inoue: Crusader with a pen

So wide-ranging are 71-year-old Hisashi Inoue's talents and activities that it is difficult to know which to focus on at the expense of others.
COMMENTARY
Sep 2, 2006

A bridge to Latin America

The amount of Japanese cultural and educational activities conducted in Latin America has been flat or in decline over the last five years. The Japan Foundation, the largest Japanese nonprofit organization engaged in international cultural exchange, spent around 800 million yen on activities related...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 26, 2006

EmmazMarket: for instruments from Mideast

As part of July's weekend Zushi Festival, Minoru Fushimi took the live stage in front of the station and, after introducing his instrument, began to play.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2006

Yokota film to debut here in November

The critically acclaimed documentary "Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story," about the girl kidnapped by North Korean agents, will hit Japanese screens in November, a distributor said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2006

U.S. documentary on Yokota shown in L.A. theater

An award-winning documentary about Megumi Yokota's abduction by North Korea made its Los Angeles debut Friday. Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim, who wrote and directed "Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story," were featured guests at the ArcLight Cinema in the Hollywood area. The husband-and-wife filmmaking...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2006

Will polluters pay for climate change?

PRINCETON, New Jersey -- I am writing this in New York in early August, when the mayor declared a "heat emergency" to prevent widespread electricity outages from the expected high use of air conditioners. City employees could face criminal charges if they set their thermostats below 25.5 C. Nevertheless,...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 4, 2006

Movies with musical theme screened for free in Ebisu

The "Star Light Cinema Festival" is currently screening popular movies with a musical theme free of charge at Yebisu Garden Palace in Ebisu, Tokyo. It is the seventh time that the shopping complex has hosted the festival.
LIFE / Language
Jul 25, 2006

When muzukashii means more than 'difficult'

I wish I had a share of Google stock for every time I have heard a Japanese person tell me that their language is "aimai na gengo (an ambiguous language)." How did this bizarre notion originate, and why do many Japanese entertain it? And what's more, can a language itself be ambiguous, apart from the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 23, 2006

Ordinary is illuminated

OZU YASUJIRO: TWO POSTWAR FILMS -- Late Spring & Early Summer, translated, by D.A. Rajakaruna. Colombo (Sri Lanka): Godage International Publishers (PVT) Ltd., 178 pp., $15 (paper). In Japan, in distinction from other countries, film scripts are sometimes read as literature. Those written by Yasunari...
COMMENTARY
Jul 19, 2006

Cultural diplomacy in the Middle East

Political and economic stability in the Middle East is vital to ensure Japan's energy security and to reduce risks in the global economic system. In the interests of this region's mid- and long-term political stability, it is clearly desirable for "democratization" in the region to take root deeply and...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 14, 2006

Revisit '60s new wave, U.S. 'indie' cinema

Ever wanted to see Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 blueprint for the French new wave, "A Bout de Souffle," starring an impeccably cool Jean-Paul Belmondo, on the big screen?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 6, 2006

Through the looking glass with Gilliam

At age 64, Terry Gilliam continues to confound. "Tideland," his latest and perhaps most challenging film, was an excursion into low-budget and fast shooting for the director, who is known for tortuous production difficulties. (See the documentary "Lost in La Mancha," about his failed attempt to shoot...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 4, 2006

How not to lose your cool with the kids this summer

July and August are brutally hot across most of Japan, and for parents with young children at home, the challenge is on to somehow enjoy the summer without getting bitten, burned or bummed out.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 27, 2006

Warner Japan taking greater interest in local movie scene

Warner Entertainment Japan Inc., a subsidiary of U.S. media giant Time Warner Inc., plans to acquire more Japanese films and increase local production of movies in response to the growing popularity of domestic films, said William Ireton, who was named president of the company in May.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 23, 2006

Period drama masterworks screened

The Japan Foundation Film Series presents a program of classic jidaigeki (Japanese samurai period dramas), "The Masters and Jidaigeki," from the 1950s and '60s in Tokyo, June 23-25. All films are screened with English subtitles.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 16, 2006

Behold a make-believe world

The work of Tokyo-born filmmaker Junichi Okuyama, widely known by his nickname of "Mr. Experimental Film," will be marked at the weeklong "Anarchy Film Festival," from June 16.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 10, 2006

Intolerance to the arts is growing in India

MADRAS, India -- The recent anger against director Ron Howard's latest film, "The Da Vinci Code," reminds us that intolerance against artistic freedom is growing in a world that we thought was past caring about such issues.

Longform

Things may look perfect to the outside world, but today's mom is fine with some imperfection at home.
How 'Reiwa moms' are reshaping motherhood in Japan