Monthly Archives: December 2024

Best Albums 2024

Posted on December 30, 2024 by philipbrasor

After way too much consideration, I finally pared my shortlist of good albums down to a manageable top 10 and then some, a development that would seem to suggest there was a surfeit of great music this year. I’m not … Continue reading →

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Best Movies 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024 by philipbrasor

The three people who follow my movie reviewing exploits will notice an odd difference in this year’s best-of list: two-count-’em-two Japanese films. As I’ve written before, though I live in Japan I don’t see as many Japanese films as I … Continue reading →

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Review: Vision of Makhmalbaf

Posted on December 28, 2024 by philipbrasor

Mohsen Makhmalbaf left his native Iran in 2005 and has since established the Makhmalbaf Film House in London, where he produces his own movies and those of his wife, Marziyeh Meshkini, his daughters, Samira and Hana, and his son, Maysam. … Continue reading →

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Review: Occupied City

Posted on December 27, 2024 by philipbrasor

Award-winning filmmaker and visual artist Steve McQueen interweaves a variety of cinematic approaches into his documentary tapestry of Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of 1940-45. Based on the book Atlas of an Occupied City by Bianca Stigter, who is married … Continue reading →

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Media watch: SAS response to flight attendant’s plea transcends “customer service”

Posted on December 23, 2024 by philipbrasor

‘Tis the season, as they say, and in that light we thought we’d offer something positive in this space for a change, and where better to look in the Japanese media than Asahi Shimbun’s Mado column, which usually covers heartwarming … Continue reading →

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Review: Between the Temples

Posted on December 20, 2024 by philipbrasor

As a comedy, Nathan Silver’s chamber piece about two grieving people finding each other when they weren’t particularly looking for anyone gets off on misplaced expectations. In the opening scene, sullen Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman), a cantor who is taking … Continue reading →

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Review: My Imaginary Country

Posted on December 19, 2024 by philipbrasor

Patricio Guzmán’s three-part The Battle of Chile is not only the definitive visual history of the coup that overthrew Chile’s elected president, Salvador Allende, in 1973 and installed the dictator Augusto Pinochet (though, as Pauline Kael once pointed out, the … Continue reading →

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Review: The Making of a Japanese

Posted on December 15, 2024 by philipbrasor

Those of us who were educated in a Western school system may balk at the title of Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s documentary about what goes on at a Japanese public elementary school. It suggests that public education’s goal is indoctrination rather … Continue reading →

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Review: Alcarràs

Posted on December 14, 2024 by philipbrasor

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival, Carla Simón’s second feature is, like her first, set in the Spanish countryside, this time in the agricultural region of Catalonia, which is undergoing huge changes due to real … Continue reading →

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Review: Kraven the Hunter

Posted on December 13, 2024 by philipbrasor

The Sony wing of the MCU—the Spider-verse, to be more precise—continues its trudge toward the next blockbuster Spidey installment with the origin story of one of Peter Parker’s nemeses, who is positioned here as a hero in his own right; … Continue reading →

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