Category Archives: Movies

Review: 20,000 Species of Bees

Posted on January 5, 2024 by philipbrasor

The topicality of the Spanish film 20,000 Species of Bees is its main selling point, but focusing on its LGBTQ themes does it a disservice. Set in the Basque Country during the summer, the story centers on 8-year-old Aitor (Sofía … Continue reading →

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Review: Concrete Utopia

Posted on January 4, 2024 by philipbrasor

Um Tae-hwa’s disaster movie was South Korea’s official submission for this year’s International Oscar. It didn’t make the shortlist, and it’s easy to see why. Concrete Utopia plays like a genre movie, which normally don’t rate with Academy members. So … Continue reading →

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Best Movies 2023

Posted on December 27, 2023 by philipbrasor

Owing to Japanese distributors’ habit of taking their time to promote overseas releases, foreign films often don’t show up in theaters here until well after they’ve shown up elsewhere. This trend was exacerbated by COVID and thus I figure more … Continue reading →

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Review: Perfect Days

Posted on December 22, 2023 by philipbrasor

Wim Wenders’ ode to everyday wonder works best when its protagonist (Koji Yakusho), who could have been named Analog Man without raising anyone’s eyebrow rather than Hirayama, is simply going about his business, whether its cleaning the very stylish public … Continue reading →

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Review: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Posted on December 21, 2023 by philipbrasor

As a series, the Hunger Games movie tetralogy had one thing going for it that made it impossible to dismiss: The unrelenting cruelty of the whole concept of the titular games. And while I wasn’t completely convinced that the Armageddon-like … Continue reading →

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Review: First Cow and Showing Up

Posted on December 20, 2023 by philipbrasor

Though Kelly Reichardt‘s films have been screened for special programs and festivals in Japan and are available online through streaming service U-Next, none have ever received a proper theatrical release until now, when we get her two most recent features … Continue reading →

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Review: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Posted on December 16, 2023 by philipbrasor

Pardon me if I think the title of this British movie is a terrible idea. The first thing that will occur to many people is that Tina Turner song, and they will thus assume it’s about domestic violence. When they … Continue reading →

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Review: Fallen Leaves

Posted on December 15, 2023 by philipbrasor

Tonally and thematically, there isn’t much difference between Aki Kaurismäki’s newest film and his previous ones. The production design is still impeccably nondescript, the dialogue strictly utilitarian, the attention to quotidian detail limited to a lower class socioeconomic field. If … Continue reading →

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Review: The Taste of Things

Posted on December 14, 2023 by philipbrasor

This Belle Epoque-set adaptation of Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel about a well-to-do French epicure may be the most indulgently gorgeous entry into that sub-genre called food porn cinema. In the hands of director Tran Anh Hung, who used his sumptuous … Continue reading →

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Review: The Worst Ones

Posted on December 9, 2023 by philipbrasor

Right from the start, Lise Akoka’s and Romane Gueret’s fiction feature about an indie film crew making a fiction feature about disadvantaged kids in a suburban French town seems to be skewering the methodology of the Dardenne brothers. The director … Continue reading →

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