Tag - wide-angle

 
 

WIDE ANGLE

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 15, 2015
Hayao Miyazaki cleans up Japan
Rich, famous, semi-retired people commonly take up good causes (based on whatever they define as "good"), but animation maestro Hayao Miyazaki does things differently.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 1, 2015
Apocalyptic desert sci-fi and the drying Hollywood landscape
Apocalypse now, in the desert — that's the mood in American sci-fi films these days, as the epic Californian drought continues.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jun 17, 2015
7-year-old 'Detective Conan' deserves more credit
For the past two decades I've nurtured a secret love for Conan, the boy detective of the "Meitantei Conan" ("Case Closed") series — both Gosho Aoyama's manga, which started in 1994, and the TV anime that began in 1996. The Japanese movie industry may have had its ups and downs, but the annual feature-length...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jun 10, 2015
Where to find Japanese films screening in Tokyo with English subtitles
When I first started watching Japanese films at cinemas in Tokyo nearly three decades ago, screenings with English subtitles were nonexistent. I spent a month with my Japanese teacher at the time studying the script of Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha"("The Shadow Warrior") so I could puzzle out its feudal-era...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jun 3, 2015
Festival of off-center European films comes to Tokyo and Kyoto
One of the main goals of a film festival is to show movies that audiences won't get to see otherwise. For the festival operators there's another objective: testing reactions to films and stories, and using that information for marketing purposes. And with the number of film festivals being held in Japan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 27, 2015
Could Kiyoshi Kurosawa's win at Cannes change Japan's luck?
Kiyoshi Kurosawa won the best director prize in the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section on Sunday, but he also deserves a prize from the Japanese film industry for single-handedly turning its presence at the world's most prestigious film festival from a vague embarrassment to a cause for...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 20, 2015
Urban planning
"Inside Architecture — Dare mo Shiranai Kenchiku no Hanashi" is a fascinating look at the relationship between money and city planning, economy and architecture. The filmmaker behind this formidable documentary is 38-year-old Tomomi Ishiyama, a Fulbright scholar who studied at New York City University...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 13, 2015
Sign of the times as yakuza classic gets kudos at Cannes
In the early 2000s, when I was writing a book about yakuza movies, veterans of the genre's 1960s and '70s heyday I met had a fierce pride in their work but no illusions about its low ranking in the film-world hierarchy. In particular, the Toei studio's films about sword-swinging or gun-toting gangsters...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 22, 2015
The Zushi Beach Film Festival resists the ban on loud music and tattoos
Zushi Beach — a popular getaway for people seeking to escape Tokyo's stifling summer heat — may have banned "loud" music, tattoos and barbecues, but hey, at least it still has a film festival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 15, 2015
Jidaigeki revival?
The jidaigeki (samurai period drama) genre, whose films and TV series featuring sword-swinging samurai once dominated popular culture here, has long since fallen on hard times. In contrast to its 1950s peak, when jidaigeki accounted for nearly half the films in theaters, the genre has become something...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 8, 2015
Documentary on Japanese 'war brides' is gaining steam
The documentary-film scene just keeps getting better, and here's one recent example that strikes a chord. Three women (Kathryn Tolbert, Lucy Craft and Karen Kasmauski) — all first-born daughters of Japanese war brides who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s to wed Americans — have gotten together...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 1, 2015
Better call Saul to come fix Japan's streaming services
After "Breaking Bad" finished its five-year run in 2013, fans mourned the loss of one of the most gripping, innovative TV series they'd ever seen. When the head writer and executive producer of "Breaking Bad," Vince Gilligan, announced that there would be a spinoff series, people had their doubts, but...

Longform

People in cities across Japan will pop into their local convenience store for any number of products they believe will help them with a night of drinking.
Hangover cures are everywhere in Japan — but do they work?