Author Archives: philipbrasor

Media watch: Does cancelled concert indicate Japan’s real intentions toward Kurdish refugees?

Posted on March 10, 2025 by philipbrasor

On Feb. 24, the Japan Kurdish Cultural Association (JKCA) was scheduled to hold a concert with a Kurdish singer at the Saitama Kaikan in Saitama Prefecture, but it was cancelled the day before. According to the Saitama Shimbun, the reason … Continue reading →

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Review: Wicked and Presence

Posted on March 7, 2025 by philipbrasor

In the end, any review of a movie adaptation of a popular Broadway musical must contend with diehard fans of the stage version, who will invariably love the film because it was most likely made with them in mind. Any … Continue reading →

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Review: Playground

Posted on March 6, 2025 by philipbrasor

Stories about bullying normally address the power dynamics that develop among children in a closed environment, with adults being out-of-the-loop because victimized children, by nature, resist exposing themselves as being seen as either weak or duplicitous toward their peers. In … Continue reading →

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Review: Devils and Because I Hate Korea

Posted on March 5, 2025 by philipbrasor

Oh Dae-hwan has attracted a huge fan base with his TV shows, in which he usually plays romantic leads. One especially popular historical drama presents him as a man masquerading convincingly as a woman. Given the protocols of Korean show … Continue reading →

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Review: Music for Black Pigeons and The Gesuidouz

Posted on March 1, 2025 by philipbrasor

The weird thing about a lot of documentaries about musicians is that they tend to short change the music itself in that, unless they are actual concert films, they rarely showcase full songs. Jazz documentaries tend to be different since … Continue reading →

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Review: Anora

Posted on February 28, 2025 by philipbrasor

What’s refreshing about Sean Baker’s movies isn’t so much their realistic take on the lives of sex workers and others who survive outside of what could be called polite society, but rather how those characters’ status informs their outlook in … Continue reading →

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Review: Revolver and Project Silence

Posted on February 27, 2025 by philipbrasor

Korean cinema’s special facility with genre movies has allowed it to veer from reliable formulas even while exploiting those formulas to the max. Revolver is a shakily plotted crime noir that sticks so resolutely to a single idea that it’s … Continue reading →

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Review: Tatami

Posted on February 26, 2025 by philipbrasor

As political thrillers go, Tatami represents for multiple national purviews just as a film project. It’s a U.S.-Georgia co-production because most of the money was raised by Americans (one of whom is Israeli-American) and the movie was shot and set … Continue reading →

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Media watch: All public toilets are not created equal

Posted on February 23, 2025 by philipbrasor

Inbound tourists invariably rave about Japan’s superior security and hospitality, and while you often hear them comment positively about smart toilets, it’s usually in the context of how surprisingly common they are. However, we’ve almost never heard anyone talk about … Continue reading →

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Review: Dogs and War (Inu to Senso)

Posted on February 22, 2025 by philipbrasor

Japanese filmmaker Akane Yamada makes movies about domestic animals, often those caught up in disaster situations. She did one about the pets that were abandoned or otherwise unhoused following the Tohoku earthquake of 2011, and apparently received pushback from people … Continue reading →

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