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May 10, 2024
 

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WIDE ANGLE

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 20, 2016
'Here's Harold' sends Ikea flat-packing
Call me a crank, but I'm not a fan of Ikea — not even of its famed cafeteria. So when I heard "Here is Harold" was a "Down-with-Ikea!" movie, I wanted to fly straight to Norway and shake the director Gunnar Vikene's hand. Vikene is part of a growing movement of Scandinavian filmmakers who like...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 13, 2016
Apocalypse Now: tighter, cleaner and just as disturbing
Perhaps it's no surprise that as Donald Trump incites campaign rallies with his promise to torture more bad guys, along comes Col. Kurtz to remind us of "the horror, the horror" — his radical notion that the only way to defeat savagery is by becoming a savage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 30, 2016
Documentary delves into the darker side of Kawasaki
Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture is famed for three things: yakiniku barbecue restaurants, sex shops and a high crime rate. Though parts of the city are middle class, a grittier and lower-income image of Kawasaki has persisted through the years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 23, 2016
Tokyo cafe to screen controversial short films by Iranian director Keywan Karimi
Iranian filmmaker Keywan Karimi has been sentenced to one year in prison and 223 lashes for making "Writing on the City," a movie authorities consider anti-government propaganda and an insult to the religion of Islam. His subject: The history of Tehran from the 1979 Revolution to the present, as shown...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 16, 2016
What Japan can learn from French blockbuster 'Serial (Bad) Weddings'
Love between different races is one thing, and then there's marriage. Guess which is more complicated.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 9, 2016
'Fukushima: A Nuclear Story' stands out among 3/11 documentaries
The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster has been examined in hundreds of documentaries to date, counting all media, nationalities and languages. But "Fukushima: A Nuclear Story" stands out for one simple, powerful reason: Its central figure, Italian journalist Pio d'Emilia, was among the first foreign reporters...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 2, 2016
The drama of work: Exploring Japan's 'oshigoto' genre
There's a genre in Japanese fiction called oshigoto (work). It has been around for a while, but after the disasters of March 11, 2011, it really took off — perhaps we realized that the only thing going for us was a willingness to work our backsides off.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 17, 2016
Tokyo festival for 'alternative visions' is loaded with art films
The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2016 is on until Feb. 20 and is taking place in one of Tokyo's most highfalutin chunks of real estate: the area around Yebisu Garden Place in the Ebisu neighborhood.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 17, 2016
'Unbroken' opens in Tokyo with few complaints
In a small victory for freedom of speech, independent distributor Bitters End opened Angelina Jolie's controversial World War II prison camp movie "Unbroken" at Shibuya's Theatre Image Forum, and in the end there were no fascist sound trucks or other harassment — just a couple of aggro emails....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 10, 2016
The 11th edition of the Osaka Asian Film Festival
Tokyo tends to suck up all the media oxygen when it comes to film festivals and events in this country, but there's plenty going on beyond the capital's borders, as evidenced by the Osaka Asian Film Festival. The 11th edition of the festival, unspooling March 4-13 at venues in Osaka, will present a wide-ranging...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 3, 2016
Could an aging population save Japan's independent cinemas?
Only a few years ago, movie industry pundits sighed and said that cinema was dead (again), and that streaming networks would soon sweep that corpse aside.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jan 27, 2016
Gangster 'Whitey' Bulger has a lot to say about institutional corruption
"Black Mass" does a decent job of portraying the rise and fall of Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger and how he wound up as an FBI informant, but there's far more to the story. Director Joe Berlinger's 2014 documentary "Whitey: United States of America vs. James J. Bulger" — available online...
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jan 20, 2016
Two greats have passed away, so who's left to carry the burden of cinematography?
A golden age of Hollywood cinematography is slowly drawing to a close. Haskell Wexler, the director of photography who worked with everyone that mattered in the 1970s — Hal Ashby, Francis Ford Coppola, Terence Malick, Milos Forman, Mike Nichols — passed away on Dec. 27. Vilmos Zsigmond, an...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jan 13, 2016
A golden year for aging stars in film
A while back we heard that 50 is the new 30, but Hollywood has gone beyond that, as a whole new reserve corps of talent is emerging to tell us that 70 is the new 35, and that at 60 you're a mere baby.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jan 8, 2016
'The Forest' can't see the woods for the props
Mount Fuji now has worldwide fame thanks to its World Heritage status, but less-known is the fact that some of the surrounding area — specifically the Aokigahara Jukai forest — is a suicide hot spot. This is common knowledge among Japanese, especially those who live in the Kanto area, but who would...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jan 6, 2016
How 'Yo-Kai Watch' beat 'Star Wars' at the box office in Japan
As 2015 came to a close, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was the movie on everyone's lips, with fans dressed up in costumes and camping out to buy tickets, and a social media presence bigger than the Jabba the Hutt. Yet, despite breaking all box-office records on its opening weekend in the United States,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 16, 2015
Moviegoers suffering from motion sickness not enamored with CGI effects
Once upon a time, cinemas screening "The Exorcist" handed out barf bags to their patrons as a cheap gimmick. (The movie was so "sick" it would make you sick.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 9, 2015
Filmmakers explore Japan's infamous doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo, with mixed results
Today the saga of Aum Shinrikyo — a doomsday cult that killed 13 Tokyo commuters and poisoned many others with sarin gas in 1995 — seems like something out of a bad manga. What could have possessed so many well-educated middle-class people, to follow Shoko Asahara, a deranged guru who taught a mishmash...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 2, 2015
Michael Pollan's bestselling book 'In Defense of Food' to be adapted into documentary film
Now that the World Health Organization has decreed that processed meats are potentially hazardous, and a chain of hotels in Sweden has actually banned bacon, sausages and palm oil products from its breakfast menus, food is increasingly becoming a hot topic, both in real life and in the movies.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 25, 2015
Welsh filmmaker John Williams has made it in Japan against all odds
It's not easy for anyone to make indie films in Japan. Audiences, venues and funds are all shrinking. And if you are not Japanese, you face additional barriers of language, culture and credibility. Even if your name is the only foreign one on the credits, many will consider your film not "really" Japanese,...
Japan bread recalled after rat parts found inside packs
Pasco Shikishima has recalled 104,000 packs of its white Chojuku bread after parts of a rat's body were discovered in two of them.
Tokuryū, a new crime menace in Japan, emerges from the shadows
The National Police Agency coined the term "tokuryū" to classify individuals involved in dark part time jobs and quasi-gangsters, using the words "tokumei" (anonymous) and "ryūdo" (fluid) to reflect their characteristics.
Nearly 6 million elderly people in Japan will have dementia by 2040
The latest figure is significantly less than a previous projection released in 2015 that said more than 8 million people would have dementia by 2040.
Thanks, tourists. Views of Mount Fuji are now blocked.
Tourists pose in front of a convenience store with Mount Fuji on Friday in the town of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture. Local residents are upset over littering, overcrowding and the inconvenience caused by the visitors.
Is Modi’s party heading for a stunning election loss?
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign tactics have escalated, including anti-Muslim rhetoric and fearmongering, reflecting his ruling party's desperation.
Stormy seas ahead as Beijing and Manila trade barbs over secret deal
Philippine Marines wave to Philippine Navy personnel and the media during a resupply mission at their military outpost, the BRP Sierra Madre, a warship run aground in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in 1999, in the South China Sea, in March 2014.
Unlike 10 years ago, Japan's new security bill sparks little debate
The Lower House starts discussing a security clearance bill on April 19 in Tokyo.
After blockbuster boxing victory, what next for ‘Monster’ Inoue?
Naoya Inoue celebrates his victory over Luis Nery in their IBF-WBA-WBC-WBO super bantamweight title boxing match at Tokyo Dome on Monday.
Xi bristles as Macron and von der Leyen urge China to do more on Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen walk after their meeting in Paris on Monday.
How a Japanese scientist is turning the climate crisis into music
A screencap of a performance of Hiroto Nagai's “String Quartet No. 1 ‘Polar Energy Budget’” by the PRT Quartet

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
By Stephen Mansfield

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there
Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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