Author Archives: philipbrasor

Review: The Outrun and The Great Lillian Hall

Posted on January 9, 2026 by philipbrasor

The term “recovery drama” should induce winces and feelings of trepidation in serious moviegoers. Seeing yet another sad individual overcome the depredations of addiction and stand fully sober in the sun is meant to be soul-lifting but because the genre … Continue reading →

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Review: Caught Stealing and Yadang

Posted on January 8, 2026 by philipbrasor

Production designers are the new superstars of the cinema; or, at least, they should be since so many mediocre American movies in recent years have been lifted to near-greatness by their sets and general ambience. Darren Aronofsky’s newest film veers … Continue reading →

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Media watch: LDP still haunted by the ghost of religions past

Posted on January 5, 2026 by philipbrasor

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party continues to be plagued by associations with the former Unification Church (UC), which, of course, was the main source of the resentments that allegedly led a man to assassinate former LDP president and prime minister … Continue reading →

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Media watch: The grift that keeps on ticking

Posted on January 2, 2026 by philipbrasor

According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, human behavior is motivated by a “hierarchy of needs” that start at the bottom with physiological needs and then proceeds up in pyramid fashion to “esteem” and “self-actualization,” meaning psychological needs that must be met … Continue reading →

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Review: A Working Man

Posted on January 2, 2026 by philipbrasor

If it’s New Years, you can bet the latest Jason Statham movie will be opening in Japan. One of our more reliable action heroes, Statham can generally carry a lame script just with the cut of his scowl, and this … Continue reading →

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Review: In the Lost Lands

Posted on January 1, 2026 by philipbrasor

There’s obviously some guarantee of box office success in the husband-wife team of director Paul W.S. Anderson and actor Milla Jovovich that’s based on their long-running game adaptation series Resident Evil. Now that the series is reportedly finished, their dwindling … Continue reading →

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Best albums 2025

Posted on December 31, 2025 by philipbrasor

Since I typically wait until the last minute to compile this list I get to see other people’s beforehand, and the most common comment I read in the last month was that this was one of the best years for … Continue reading →

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Best movies 2025

Posted on December 29, 2025 by philipbrasor

With each passing year it gets more difficult to adhere to the qualifications for this list. It used to be simple: Any movie released theatrically in Japan for the first time. At some point I started eliminating films that were … Continue reading →

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Review: Sew Torn

Posted on December 20, 2025 by philipbrasor

Yet another acclaimed short subject expanded into a feature, Freddy Macdonald’s crime comedy definitely feels over-extended, but its main problem is that it’s weird for no good reason. First of all, it takes place in a small Swiss village where … Continue reading →

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Review: Magazine Dreams

Posted on December 19, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though a bona fide indie, this sophomore feature by Elijah Bynum comes across as a fairly big production owing to its star, Jonathan Majors, who at the time it was made was riding high as box office contender, having scored … Continue reading →

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