Monthly Archives: April 2019

Media Mix, April 28, 2019

Posted on April 28, 2019 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about clothing that’s appropriate for work and other situations. Though dress codes are certainly not limited to Japan, there seems to be a feeling here, especially in media circles, that it’s only natural for companies … Continue reading →

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Review: Just Only Love/What Is Love?

Posted on April 23, 2019 by philipbrasor

When Rikiya Imaizumi’s latest movie premiered last year at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the official English title, Just Only Love, sounded a bit like nails on a chalkboard. The IMDb lists the movie’s English title as What Is Love?, … Continue reading →

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Review: Shazam!

Posted on April 21, 2019 by philipbrasor

Boosted as a welcome light touch for the DC Comics movie universe, this rambunctious, somewhat unfocused comedy doesn’t really pass muster as a proper superhero feature, and it’s difficult to tell whether that’s the point. If you broke it down … Continue reading →

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Review: Stan & Ollie

Posted on April 20, 2019 by philipbrasor

Jon S. Baird’s loving tribute to the legacy of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy falls into a trap common to biopics of performers. The film focuses on an episode in the comedians’ career that occurred late in life, thus allowing … Continue reading →

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Review: Shusenjo

Posted on April 19, 2019 by philipbrasor

In the press synopsis for his documentary, American director Miki Dezaki calls the comfort women issue “perhaps Japan’s most contentious present-day diplomatic quandary,” which is true to an extent but misleading in terms of scale. The issue of the comfort … Continue reading →

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Review: Beautiful Boy

Posted on April 15, 2019 by philipbrasor

Kudos to director Felix Van Groeningen for managing to fuse two different memoirs about the same topic into a movie that doesn’t become a mine field of conflicting points-of-view. The true story of Nic Sheff’s decade-plus battle with drug addiction … Continue reading →

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Media Mix, April 14, 2019

Posted on April 14, 2019 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about the Aegis Ashore anti-missile system that Japan says it will set up in Akita and Yamaguchi Prefectures. The bulk of the column references a conversation between journalists Shunji Taoka and Osamu Aoki on the … Continue reading →

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Review: Lean On Pete

Posted on April 12, 2019 by philipbrasor

It’s tempting to imagine that the British director Andrew Haigh is encountering the milieu of his latest film with the same kind of fresh awareness that the audience encounters it as it watches his movie. There’s something about this depiction … Continue reading →

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Review: First Reformed

Posted on April 11, 2019 by philipbrasor

Though I rarely acknowledge such matters, Paul Schrader was royally screwed last February when he failed to receive the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his latest film. It was bad enough that Ethan Hawke, who won all sorts of awards … Continue reading →

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Review: Vice

Posted on April 5, 2019 by philipbrasor

The comic challenge for Adam McKay, who made his name with Will Ferrell vehicles, in depicting the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney is not that no amount of satire could make the George W. Bush administration seem more … Continue reading →

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