Sono's Love Exposure playing this Monday in LA!

Hi Blog,

Just stumbled on the news that Sono Sion's 4 hour magnum opus AI NO MUKIDASHI (Love Exposure) will be screening this coming Monday, May 4th, 2009 as part of the Los Angeles Asian Film Festival.

I watched this back in March and have to say that without question it's the best film by Sono Sion that I've seen. Is it flawed? Yeah. But there's something incredible about watching a 4 hour long exploitation film about Catholic guilt, up-skirt photography and revenge.

Those in the loop about current Japanese film (which includes just about everyone who reads my blog, so I'm preaching to the converted) will already know about this. But for those who don't please check out these links for more info. (Japan Times; Jason Gray; Ground Report)

I will end this by saying I did a very interesting interview with Sono Sion for Midnight Eye where we talked at length about the making of Love Exposure as well as his highly anticipated adaptation of the legendary (and totally excellent) history of Black Metal book, LORDS OF CHAOS. Look for that on Midnight Eye in the coming months.

Here's a link to the LA screening.

And here's the trailer:


ps - I've been told that LOVE EXPOSURE, which played at Shibuya's EURO SPACE, was a smash hit and broke all box office records there. Not bad for a 4 hour long movie!

Angelinos! Kurosawa Kiyoshi Coming to LA 3/10!

Hi Blog,

Just learned that Kurosawa Kiyoshi will be giving a talk at a Japan Film Festival** symposium next Tuesday, March 10th!

I've met him several times and even had an opportunity to interpret for him and can promise you that it's well worth your time to attend this talk. (Plus, it's free!) Not only is Kurosawa one of the best directors currently working in Japan, he's also very intelligent and articulate with an encyclopedic knowledge of world cinema -- as to be expect from a man who is both a professor and critical film theorist.

Japan Film Festival Symposium co-hosted by JVTA/ UCLA-JABA
Theme: Creating Films for an International Audience

Date: March 10 (Tue)
Time: Open 4:30pm　Start 5:00pm
Place: UCLA Korn Convocation Hall
Admission: Free

Special Guest: Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Japan Film Festival Committee and Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy are proud to present prolific Japanese director; Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Mr. Kurosawa will speak about his experiences as a director and explain how to correlate Japanese culture through film. There will be a Q&A session at the end of this presentation.

Do not miss this exciting event!!

Due to the limited seating, please RSVP to contact@jffla.org with your name and number of attendees.

http://www.jffla.org/event?lang=en

Incidentally, I'm betting that the Japan Film Festival will screen TOKYO SONATA, even though it played at the LA Film Festival last November.

Link to the Midnight Eye interview with Kurosawa Kiyoshi.

Here's the trailer for one of my personal Kurosawa faves, CURE:



** This is the same film festival that I spoke at last year.

Midnight Eye Best of 2008!

Hi Blog,

Woah, so I'm like totally, totally, really, unbelievably late in posting this. And I'm sure that most of you fine folks who read this blog have already checked it out so maybe this is totally useless, and yet I'll announce it nonetheless...

The Midnight Eye Best of 2008 list is finally up on-line! As usual, I'm represented there. This is something like year seven for me to contribute to the list and as always, you should keep in mind that this is just one man's opinion. (For better or for worse...)

The one film that I would've totally added to my list if I had seen it in time is Johnnie To's SPARROW. What an amazing film. It's as if LE SAMOURAI were a light-footed musical with some Johnnie To ELECTION tossed in for good measure. Anyway, it'll undoubtedly show up on my best of 2009 list, just as a super advanced head's up.

Here's the link.

Studio 4ºC UPDATE: Genius Party Box Set & Mind Game in Los Angeles

Hi Blog,

I'm happy to report to two tasty bite-sized bits of Studio 4ºC news: the mind-blowingly awesome and totally worth your time in every way possible anime MIND GAME will play in Los Angeles this FRIDAY night at midnight. Although it's a digital projection (can't be helped, I suppose) it is Studio 4ºC sanctioned and as such, it should be supported.

Now why should you go and see this? Two reasons really: it is one of the most inspiring films I've seen in a long time -- seriously, you will leave the theater reassessing and reprioritizing your life. Also, you will come to an perspective shifting realization that animation in the west is trapped in some 20th century stasis like a mosquito in amber while Studio 4ºC's animation has been created and broadcast to us like Ranman aliens with higher evolved aesthetics and execution. (Or something.)

Anyhoo, do see the film. It's playing at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles. Friday. Midnight. Details here.

Also, I just received an email from a producer at Studio 4ºC and she is happy to announce that the uber-excellent GENIUS PARTY and GENIUS PARTY BEYOND will be released this March in a 3-disc box set in Japan. Although, Midnight Eye has been slow to post our critical picks for 2008, those two films easily made my best of list and if I ever get off of my ass and write it, I have a lot of thoughts to share about those films that I'd like to put in a review.

But, come on Rucka, is GENIUS PARTY really that good? Well, to be frank, since it's an 'omnibus' collection there's the good stuff and the not so good stuff. But what's always so cool about watching a Studio 4ºC release is that when the good stuff works, MAN does it work! As the west trends towards photo-realism and CGI, Studio 4ºC is working on challenging the very form of anime: from experimenting with the use of voice talent all the way to choosing new ways of photographing and animating their cell animation. (Some of it bordering on experimentalism.)

Maybe, eventually, we'll see this kind of fresh thinking out here in the west. But in the meantime, I'm sure it'll show up on the internubs on March 21st with sub par fansubs (although, it could be like the MIND GAME DVD and have excellent subs already on it?) and that'll be the way that the fans will be able to watch it until a proper export edition comes out...

You can buy it through Amazon Japan.

Lots and LOTS of previous posts about MIND GAME and Studio 4ºC here!

Interview that I did with the head of Studio 4ºC, Ms. Eiko Tanaka, here!

One more for Late Bloomer: Roger Ebert is a fan?!

Hi Blog,

Roger Ebert watched Shibata Go's LATE BLOOMER and likes it. Crazy.

"You watch for a while and the movie is tough going. Then it takes hold and you begin identifying with Sumida. He is a bad, bad man. You can sort of understand that."

Link.

Oodles of previous Late Bloomer posts.

Midnighteye review and Shibata Go interview. The first ones in English, btw.

POUNDING! Yubari Fantastic Film Festival Short Film Winner "A Woman Who is Beating the Earth" is On-line!

Hi Blog,

Got a missive from Señor Tom Mes -- my friend and editor at Midnighteye central-- telling that the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival jury award winning short "A Woman Who is Beating the Earth" (「大地を叩く女」aka. Daichi o Tataku Onna) can [at the moment] be watched on-line.

あらすじ：

In a meat shop in a half-deserted shopping center, a woman is pounding pork tenderloin, making it just the right thickness for cutlets. Pounding! And pounding! The pounding beat gets faster and louder, and the earth starts to tremble. This is an amusing film, expressing the feelings of a woman with sounds with a completely new style and approach. It is another version of "Carne" by a woman director. The film, ambitiously directed, invokes the instincts of the viewers. It will for certain become a cult hit.

I've been up to my ears in work and family stuff so I haven't had a chance to peep it yet, but I plan to scoop out 21 minutes in the next 24 hours to watch it.

But really guys, how can Isshin Inudo and Tom Mes be wrong?

Watch it here.

Link to Yubari program page with the director Inoue Tsuki's pic and blurb.

おそいひと ー Late Bloomer

Hi Blog,

My close friend Shibata Go's long finished delirious psycho freak-out LATE BLOOMER (Osoi hito) has finally started its official theatrical run in Japan this past December 1st at PorePore Higashi Nakano ポレポレ東中野. Telling of Sumida - a barely ambulatory handicap man who speaks with the aid of a Japanese speak and spell-- and how he becomes a serial murderer, it is one of my favorite films that's come out of Japan in the past five years.

There's nothing I can say here that I haven't already written about on Midnighteye (Shibata interview link), so I'll leave you with those links. Suffice to say, Shibata has earned his moment in the sun-- this film has taken almost 7 years to get to this point. Seriously. Regardless of what you might think of the film, it's nice that Shibata can finally put this film to rest and get on to newer projects (of which I can't speak about at the moment). お疲れ様！

Oh and one more thing, my review has been translated and quoted on both the Chirashi for the film and on the website; how's that for nepotism?

Nightmare Detective Review on Midnighteye

Forgot to post this when it went up, but my review of Tsukamoto Shinya's NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE (aka. Akumu Tantei) is now up on Midnighteye. I had a chance to see it opening day in Tokyo and mention my thoughts about that in the review. Check it out if you have a chance.

Link to previous NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE posting.

Kateigaho International Does Midnighteye

Busy days here, but I'm trying to get some new posts up.

I meant to post this several weeks back and this is being mentioned more as a head's up since Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp have yet to post anything about it on Midnighteye, but the new issue of KATEIGAHO International Edition, a Japanese lifestyle and culture magazine in English, has as one of its features a focus on modern Japanese cinema.

But as the title of this post indicates, as part of their Japanese cinema focus Kateigaho asked Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp (the founders of Midnighteye) to talk about modern Japanese cinema and submit a list of must see films. The choices are interesting-- but not surprising if you read their reviews with any regularity-- and whether you agree with all of the choices or not (I don't...) it's definitely worth a peek.

The rest of the Japanese Cinema round up is actually surprisingly interesting and not nearly as obvious in its focus on current Japanese cinema than one would have expected. The interviews and essays are pretty interesting and surprisingly timely and would be a good reference volume, if you collect such things.

Issues of Kateigaho are available at your local Japanese book shop-- but be warned, they are pricey at ¥1,260 (!). (Conceivably, these are magazines you can keep on your coffee table for eternity... which might assuage your bruised wallet.)

Here's a link to an old interview with Tom and Jasper about the genesis of Midnighteye.

REVIEW: BUSHI NO ICHIBUN (aka. Love and Honor) on Midnight Eye and a bit on Producer Yamamoto Ichiro

My review of Yamada Yoji's multi-award winning BUSHI NO ICHIBUN (aka. Love and Honor), which I watched in Okinawa back in January, is now up on Midnight Eye. Link.

In a weird bit of coincidence, I spent all day this past Saturday with the producer and co-writer of the film Yamamoto Ichiro, who is temporarily residing in Los Angeles. An incredibly nice chap and totally unassuming, it was very fascinating talking to him about his work as a Shochiku producer and in particular his work with Yamada Yoji (the director, of course, of BUSHI NO ICHIBUN).

One of the interesting things he mentioned was that Yamada Yoji is the last remaining director in Japan who still has a studio contract (with Shochiku)-- an interesting piece of anachronism, I thought. In addition, he mentioned that he could come to Yamada with a film idea, but of course, given Yamada's status, he really chooses which projects he will do (and the studios follow his wishes).

Yamamoto Ichiro also mentioned that one of his jobs was to show Yamada Yoji films as a way of stimulating his creative juices. A cool piece of trivia: The film that inspired the excellent TASOGARE SEIBEI (aka. Twilight Samurai)? John Ford's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE.

Apparently, Yamamoto Ichiro is in the US on a government funded arts scholarship to load up on classic American films that he can then use as references for Japanese directors when he goes back to Japan. As my friend Marc Walkow and I commented to one another, "I can't even imagine the US government doing something like that."

Let's hope that Yamamoto will go back to Japan chock-full of good films that will inspire more directors.

And here's to good movies in general.