SWEET BEAN is a deeply affecting tale of finding happiness by finding meaning. After watching this charmer, you might be tempted to try your own hand in creating a dorayaki, the pancake stuffed with sweet bean filling around which the story of three lonely people revolves. In fact, I defy you to resist. Cherry blossoms… Read More »
THE TRUTH (La Vérité)
In Hirokazu Koreeda’s last film, the Oscar®-nominated SHOPLIFTERS, he incisively examined the ethics of capitalism, and its effects on one poverty-stricken, yet devoted, ragtag family ingeniously doing battle with a system designed to keep them down economically. In THE TRUTH, he moves the action from Tokyo to Paris to examine the ethics of veracity on… Read More »
GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
For most of GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, the eponymous monsters pretty much go about their business without taking any notice of the small, scuttling humans that flee in their wake. For their part, the humans, when they are not scuttling, are providing the exposition between bouts of special effects eruptions. Hence, if you don’t… Read More »
SHOPLIFTERS (MANBIKI KAZOKU)
Palme d’Or winner SHOPLIFTERS is a radical deconstruction of family values in a world of dubious ethics. Set amid the throwaways of society, in this case Japan, it finds warmth and togetherness where we would least expect it, and from a family that is not so much scamming the system as they are a family… Read More »
THE RED TURTLE
We are reminded in THE RED TURTLE how superfluous words can be. This animated fable from Studio Ghibli, aimed more at adults than at children, is a thoughtful film about the cycle of life, and a sublime cinematic achievement. A masterpiece, in fact. Starting with a shipwreck, it tells the story of a castaway marooned… Read More »
KAMPAI! FOR THE LOVE OF SAKE
Full disclosure. KAMPAI! FOR THE LOVE OF SAKE will make you want to seek out your nearest sake tasting. This, ahem, intoxicating documentary about the national drink of Japan, and the people who have made it their life’s work, is a paean to more than just rice wine. It is a consideration of tradition in… Read More »
WOMAN IN THE DUNES (SUNA NO ONNA)
WOMAN IN THE DUNES, based on the novel by screenwriter Kôbô Abe, is the kind of film that sparks all manner of discussion over what it all means. When it arrived stateside in 1964, it was hyped as being wildly erotic. Well, there are a few shy nude shots of the winsome leading lady, but its eroticism, replete… Read More »
PONYO (GAKE NO UE NO PONYO)
Hayao Miyasakis PONYO is a sweet-natured flight of fantasy that lacks any real sense of conflict or danger. It makes up for it, at least for the younger set, with a delightfully absurd internal logic that is perfectly keyed into the way small children see the world. All things are possible, including a little girl… Read More »
GHOST ACTRESS (aka DON
GHOST ACTRESS details the odd doings at a movie studio in Japan. Unlike the usual make-them-jump-and-scream approach to telling this story, writer/ director Hideo Nakata, who wrote and directed the Japanese film, THE RING, on which the current American release is based, has opted for creating a mood of gradually increasing unease tempered with the… Read More »
SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY, THE
Studio Ghibli has taken Mary Nortons classic novel, The Borrowers and made it uniquely its own, but its done so without losing what is best in Nortons story. The adaptation by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa may have been transferred the action to Japan, but the basic elements of loneliness, friendship, and the fragility of… Read More »