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Japanese Cinema Blogathon: Matango
Coffee coffee and more coffee —
... in for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors who were horribly disfigured, or the more recent victims of Minamata. Kenji struggles both physically and emotionally to retain his human identity, only to find that while he has refused to surrender his sense of self to become a mushroom person, neither is there a place for him in human society. In the conclusion of Matango, the greatest horror is that of finding yourself alone.
For more Japanese Cinema, visit Wildgrounds.
Bloomsday
The Listening Ear —
While I work on a couple posts for the Japanese Cinema Blogathon - let us honor the day - though how, how? It has been some years since I have read the book - making it hard to come up with a neat little commemorative quote. NOt that you're going to get too far trying to sum up Joyce in a sentence or two... but still... I know reading it, the first time, it was the newspaper section - "IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS" - that gave me the first jolt - the first indication that things were going to change. (Though I knew enough of the book to know they were ...
Japanese Cinematography Sampler
The Listening Ear —
I've been pointing to Wildgrounds' Japanese Cinema Blogathon for a while now - I suppose it's time to add something of my own. It should come as no surprise (just look at the top of the page) that this is a subject near and very dear to my heart. I've been working on a somewhat more - uh, what's the word? geeky? cerebral? wordy? - essay for a while - that's taking a while to get right... So let's jump in with something a bit simpler - a fairly quick celebration of one of the most wonderful aspects of Japanese film - their utterly unapologetic love for extravagant cinematography ...
Two of the Best Film Titles Ever
Eternal Sunshine Of The Logical Mind —
[image] This post is part of the Japanese Cinema Blog-a-thon being held from June 15-21 over at Wildgrounds . The wonderful folks at Kino just happened to release both of these great titles on the same day about a month ago. While one title reflects the joyful anarchic spirit of Japanese Pop cinema from the 60s, the other economically summarizes pretty much the entirety of its plot in 4 words (and lays out the fun simplicity of many of the 60s crime films). [image] "Detective Bureau 2-3: Go To Hell Bastards!" Rat-a-tat pulsing snare drums blast out of the ...
Why I Love Ozu
The Listening Ear —
This is not the great big Ozu screed I alluded to last night - that involves some unloved Ozu films that, well, I love... but it has occurred to me that I have never, here or (really) anywhere else, quite written a simple statement of Why I Love Ozu. Allusions here and there, and some reasonably precise comments on the Film Walrus blog - but nothing definitive. But a blogathon is perfect excuse for this sort of thing, so off we go. It was watching this shot, roughly, when I realized Ozu was my favorite filmmaker: ...
Late, Strange, Ozu
The Listening Ear —
Remembering Yasuharu Hasebe (1932-2009)
C I N E B E A T S —
... Akira Kobayashi in Yasuharu Hasebe’s Black Tight Killers (1966) While I was trying to write a post for the Japanese Cinema Blogathon currently happening at ...
