Monthly Archives: November 2024

Review: Weekend Rebels

The latest in a series of German movies on the theme of neuro-divergency was a box office hit in its native land, and it’s easy to see why. Clearly a mainstream effort, Weekend Rebels is based on a popular blog-turned-bestseller … Continue reading

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Media watch: Three countries stake their claim on Okinawa

Our column this month in the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan’s Number 1 Shimbun is about the government purposely neglecting to report two sexual crimes allegedly perpetrated by U.S. military personnel stationed on Okinawa to the Okinawa prefectural government. The … Continue reading

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Review: The Animal Kingdom

I already started having problems with the premise of this horror-fantasy in the first minutes, despite how masterfully conceived the opening scene is. A father, Francois (Romain Duris), and his teenage son, Emile (Paul Kircher), are sitting in a Paris … Continue reading

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Review: Robot Dreams

Straightforwardly a film about loneliness and the search for connection, Pablo Berger’s animated feature, based on a graphic novel by Sara Varon, eschews dialogue for a rich sound design that complements its colorful, densely built 2D visuals. The setting is … Continue reading

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Tokyo International Film Festival 2024

Here are links to the articles I wrote for this year’s TIFF website. Thanks to Karen Severns and Fumi Kawakubo. Or Utopia Q&A She Taught Me Serendipity Q&A TIFF Lounge: Payal Kapadia and Hirokazu Kore-eda The Englishman’s Papers Q&A Lust … Continue reading

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Review: Gondola

The German director Veit Helmer is famous for shooting movies in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, though the locations seem to have less to do with thematic settings than with convenience. His latest is set in Georgia, and in interviews … Continue reading

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