Monthly Archives: July 2022

Media watch: Most famous witness to Okinawan mass suicide dies at 93

Posted on July 31, 2022 by philipbrasor

On July 19, Shigeaki Kinjo, a man who survived the Battle of Okinawa after killing his family in a mass suicide drive, died at the age of 93. Many media outets ran obituaries, with some going into more detail than … Continue reading →

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Fuji Rock 1999

Posted on July 30, 2022 by philipbrasor

For only the second time since 1998, I am not attending the Fuji Rock Festival (I don’t count last year’s, which I also didn’t attend, because it was seriously circumscribed by COVID restrictions), and I admit I miss it, so … Continue reading →

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Review: The Family

Posted on July 29, 2022 by philipbrasor

In most cinematic worlds, the bureaucracy is a cold and sometimes malevolent thing. At best it’s portrayed as a necessary evil, a facilitator of the social contract that has the dirty job of making contentious interactions work, even if that … Continue reading →

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Review: Jurassic World Dominion

Posted on July 28, 2022 by philipbrasor

The narrative idea that has made the Jurassic Park/World franchise so ludicrously successful from a financial point of view is not really the presence of dinosaurs in our world, but rather the insatiable desire of “science” to fiddle with the … Continue reading →

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Media watch: Akihabara rampage ground zero for a certain type of criminal motivation

Posted on July 27, 2022 by philipbrasor

On Tuesday it was reported that Tomohiro Kato, the man who in 2008 killed 7 people and injured 10 others on a crowded street in the Akihabara section of Tokyo, was executed at the Tokyo Detention Center. The hanging was … Continue reading →

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Media watch: Prosecutors emboldened by death of Abe

Posted on July 24, 2022 by philipbrasor

The media is now closely watching a criminal investigation that involves one of the former executives of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Haruyuki Takahashi is suspected of receiving ¥45 million from clothing maker/retailer … Continue reading →

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Review: A Serbian Film

Posted on July 22, 2022 by philipbrasor

Originally released in 2010, Srdan Spasojevic’s purposely repulsive meditation on his country’s spiritual rot is being rereleased in Japan in a sparkling renovated 4K version that seems hardly necessary given what the viewer has to watch, and yet much of … Continue reading →

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Review: Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache

Posted on July 21, 2022 by philipbrasor

Because of its function as a recording medium, cinema’s entire history is fairly well represented. Pamela B. Green’s documentary purports to bring to the public’s attention a woman filmmaker whose pioneering accomplishments, because she was a woman, have mostly been … Continue reading →

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Media watch: Politicians’ association with the Unification Church shouldn’t be surprising

Posted on July 20, 2022 by philipbrasor

A week or so before the recent Upper House election, my partner, M, received a call from a neighbor who asked her to vote for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. M said she had already voted by pre-election ballot for … Continue reading →

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Rage Against the Machine, July 2000, Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Japan

Posted on July 16, 2022 by philipbrasor

Rage Against the Machine is now in the midst of their long-delayed comeback tour in the U.S., so I’m taking the opportunity to post a review I wrote for the Japan Times in 2000 of one of their shows. For … Continue reading →

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