Movies April 2018

Posted on April 2, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here are the movie reviews I wrote for the April issue of EL Magazine, which was distributed in Tokyo last weekend (a little later than normal due to a printing error).

Black Panther
By now it’s difficult to separate the hype surrounding this extraordinary blockbuster from its qualities as a work of art, and while art may not necessarily have been what the filmmakers were after foremost, they certainly endeavored to make this latest entry in the expanding Marvel Comics universe more momentous than other recent superhero movies. But even within the preordained structural conditions that come with Marvel movies, Black Panther stands out, and not just because almost all the characters are black. Director Ryan Coogler has already proven, with Creed, that he can take a popular and beloved predigested film series and make it fresh by rejiggering its focus to appeal to black audiences. What distinguishes Black Panther is its attention not only to the action details all moviegoers demand these days, but to the particulars of the black experience in nuanced and refined ways. The quick, effective opener explains the fictional African country of Wakanda and its development as an advanced nation thanks to the auspicious arrival of a meteor eons ago carrying a vital metal called vibranium. The futuristic city built upon this element is kept mostly shielded from the world, but the tribes that thrive under its dominion continue to practice the ancient traditions, only with more responsibility because of their blessing. Wakanda is a utopia, and Coogler’s genius is in contrasting it with the lot of people of color throughout the world, in particular African-Americans. The requisite conflict, in fact, is precipated by one of Wakanda’s royalty, N’Jobu, exiling himself to California due to his objection to Wakanda’s self-imposed neutrality in the face of his race’s subjugation at the hands of “colonizers.” He is sought out by his brother, T’Chaka, who finds him in Oakland and brands him a traitor, killing him in the process, thus setting the stage for when N’Jobu’s son, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), challenges T’Chaka’s son, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), for the throne of Wakanda. By this time, T’Challa is king, and thus assumes the identity of Black Panther, whose super powers are derived from vibranium, some of which is stolen by a white arms merchant (Andy Serkis) being chased by the CIA. This plot development makes for the only really uncomfortable bit in the movie, since T’Challa must work with the American government to get back his metal. It also means the CIA is instrumental in helping Wakanda fight off Killmonger’s scheme to bring Wakanda out of the shadows and on to the world stage as a righteous defender of the oppressed, and it’s hard not to argue with that, especially when it’s couched in Jordan’s street smart dialect. In fact, Killmonger’s mission, even as it runs up against the noble heroics of Black Panther, never feels compromised. You almost wish he’d wipe that stupid grin off the CIA’s face. (photo: Marvel Studios) Continue reading →

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Media Mix, March 18, 2018

Posted on March 18, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about train groping, or “chikan.” Though I think it’s apparent from the overall tone of the column, it should be noted that the majority of male commuters do not grope, and, most likely, the men who protest women-only train cars are not gropers either. However, if you watch the YouTube video that’s linked in the first paragraph, which shows what happened on February 16 on the Chiyoda Line, you can sense a very powerful attitude of condescension on the part of the male protesters, who counter the women’s vocal objections to their presence with a very childish response, as if they were elementary school boys teasing girls on a playground. This attitude demonstrates the sort of mindset that Prof. Muta refers to in the Asahi Shimbun interview. These men, believing themselves to be above the issue of chikan, mock women who regain a measure of relief from at least temporarily being spared the possibility of unwanted touching. These men think that while they themselves aren’t chikan, the very existence of women-only cars implies that all men have such a potential, and that offends them personally. But it’s not their feelings that are the issue. Almost every woman I have met in Japan, whether Japanese or not, has told me she has been touched at least once while riding on a crowded train. It’s not a rare occurrence, and while some women have built up a kind of carapace out of cynicism and exhaustion, many have become psychologically damaged by the repeated intrusions. Maki Fukasawa, in the “Golden Radio” report, said that many high school girls refuse to go to school because they have been so traumatized by groping. The protesters may think they are somehow doing the right thing by standing up to discrimination (the male commentators on No Hate TV point out that Dr. Sabetsu, mentioned in the column, is a former left wing agitator who ended up as a kind of libertarian racist), but in truth they are simply perpetuating the male-dominant narrative. Just because a man doesn’t grope, it doesn’t necessarily mean he respects women.

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Media Mix, March 4, 2018

Posted on March 4, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about the media’s treatment of mental health issues, which have been in the news lately. The main thrust of the article is that, influenced by government policy, which has always advocated for isolating people diagnosed with “mental disorders,” the press mostly takes a sympathetic but nevertheless shikata ga nai (“it can’t be helped”) attitude. They rarely question government statements that defend past policy as being acceptable at the time, even when organizations like the Japan Bar Association show that such policies were clearly unconstitutional at the time. The Eugenics Protection Law, which allowed medical institutions to sterilize people with disabilities for the express purpose of safeguarding the gene pool, was mirrored in other countries like Germany and Sweden, both of which have apologized for their respective policies and compensated victims. Japan has done neither and doesn’t seem to think it’s necessary. In the Asahi article cited in the column, the writer, Junji Kayukawa, says that 24,991 sterilizations were performed under the law—16,475 of them without patients’ consent—and 58,972 abortions. He mentions several cases that imply some subjects of the law were simply incovenient to their families, who asked doctors to sterilize them. In many of these cases, they simply came from impoverished backgrounds and likely did not receive sufficient education, so they were “diagnosed” as being somehow “mentally deficient.” One of these people, a woman who eventually married, is suing the government. The problem goes beyond the lack of official accountability. The increasing acceptance of prenatal checks through blood tests to discover any “abnormalities” in fetuses that could develop as birth defects has prompted expectant parents to abort fetuses that may have problems. Kayukawa is afraid this practice is simply maintaining the Eugenics Law under a new guise. If the media properly explained the Eugenics Law as an historical fact that society should learn from, then people could understand more fully their rights as human beings. Continue reading →

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Media Mix, Feb. 25, 2018

Posted on February 25, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about the Shitamachi bobsled project. As mentioned in the column, the Japanese government was involved in the project for a time with subsidies. According to the Diamond Online article cited, the money came from a METI-related organization called Japan Brand, which supplied funds for up to three years. The purpose was to “promote Japanese high tech” and get the sled exhibited at overseas trade shows, and to that end the plan was fairly successful. METI reported that the sled did attract attention, but, as Diamond points out, the sled never really got that much attention in Japan itself. That’s not Japan Brand’s mission. Basically, the Shitamachi project wanted to highlight machi-koba knowhow in order to make the Shitamachi brand world famous, but in reality the brand’s luster has been fading for decades in Japan itself, and without local support it was difficult to get the rest of the world interested. Consequently, the project secured advertising tieups with various local companies, including Hikari TV, Itochu, Toshiba, and, most significantly ANA, which even painted the Shitamachi Bobsleigh logo on some of their airplanes, a move that must have confused customers who had never heard of such a thing. Diamond stressed that all of this PR activity was mostly happening in a vacuum since the mainstream press didn’t seem that interested in the project if it wasn’t actually being used in a real sport, and bobsledding isn’t exactly a popular Japanese pastime. That’s why the contract with Jamaica was so important.

It’s also why the photo op with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was a big deal. Reportedly, one of the officials of the project committee, Junichi Hosogai, is a friend of Abe’s and made the arrangements. Hosogai, according to No Hate TV, is another of Abe’s supporters with ties to right-wing organizations, and, of course, his involvement sparked controversy on the Internet, which critics saying that the Shitamachi Bobsleigh Project was another “friend of Abe” money scandal, but there’s no evidence that the Japan Brand subsidies were pushed by Abe, though, obviously, Hosogai’s friendship couldn’t have hurt. The thing is, the project itself was so poorly conceived that this conspiracy scandal angle may have been the only means of getting the media interested outside of a major Olympic player adopting the sled. Perhaps they should have played it up more.

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February 2018 albums

Posted on February 16, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here are the album reviews I wrote for the February issue of EL Magazine, which was distributed in Tokyo last month.

Beach House 3
-Ty Dolla $ign (Atlantic/Warner)
Ctrl
-SZA (Epic/Sony)
Though he’s been a fixture on the West Coast music scene since 2012 and garnered a few radio-level hits in the meantime, Ty Dolla $ign has maintained a relatively low profile. Some might even say he’s been overly cautious in his approach to the kind of stardom that is his for the taking and which he has yet to actually take. There’s something to this theory in the first song off his new album, in which he contemplates what makes or breaks a star in the business he’s in, and in the most unironic way he explains it simply: hard work. But he doesn’t want you to confuse intensity of purpose with thematic ambition. The songs on Beach House 3 are instantly relatable and only personal in the sense that Ty feels them. He’s more interested in craft than message, but that doesn’t mean the message lacks heft, only that it doesn’t presume drama. Hooks are the overriding consideration and the main appeal of the album, but his particular brand of R&B is built on stories that hold up under scrutiny. Sex for Ty is not something to fret over. He always seems to have nice things to say about his exes, and the loping rhythms and major key melodies convey a relaxed, who-needs-to-be-uptight kind of vibe. Even his naturally coarse timbre feels pleasantly sanded down, probably because he’s often juxtaposed with rappers—Future, Wiz Khalifa, YG—whose sound is even rougher. The cover says it all: jams that leave the bedroom for the beach, where everybody can enjoy themselves without having to worry about intimacy. SZA, a more self-regarding R&B star, has also been leery of the limelight, and Ctrl is actually her major label debut after a string of self-releases that were promising but mytsifying. SZA is entirely self-created, a bedroom R&B producer who sings well and writes even better. Reportedly, it took her so long to release Ctrl because she wanted to get all the personal, dramatic details right. This was going to be an album about romantic reckonings, and for once the lofty ambitions have been achieved in a bigger than expected way. The feeling is even more acute in Japan, since the album is only being released here now, six months after it came out in the U.S. So in a year when it was difficult to listen to any music without wondering how the guys treated the girls and the girls put up with the guys, the album is distinctive in its brand of R&B candor. Focused less on sexual transgression than on emotional insufficiency, she schools her lovers in no uncertain terms, all the while testing her own resolve as both an artist and a human being. Her slithery beats pull you into her embattled imagination, a place where honesty of feeling struggles with the demand to make her intentions clear. Continue reading →

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Media Mix, Feb. 11, 2018

Posted on February 11, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about welfare reform. Though the column was prompted by the Fukushima lawsuit that seems to have spurred the government to address the lack of educational opportunities for young people in families that receive assistance, the general thrust of the proposed reforms is that the government wants to save money. Some will get more in benefits, but the majority will get less. It should be noted that welfare ranks are increasing by the day, mainly among the elderly, so reductions are to be expected, but in many cases it is families with children who will see their income decrease. In particular, single parents—which in Japan means single mothers—will have a tougher time. On a recent posting on Blogos, Chieki Akaishi, the head of Single Mothers Forum, talked about the proposed welfare reductions and their specific effect on single mothers. After the proposals were covered by the media, she started receiving phone calls from single mothers who are worried about having their benefits cut. One was a woman with a sixth grade daughter who used to work full time but had to quit due to health problems. She’s fortunate in that a “relative” has allowed her to live in a house the relative owns, but nobody in her family helps her out financially. She receives the child welfare allowance (jido fuyo teate) and some other benefits, but it only amounts to ¥52,000 a month. She applied for livelihood support (seikatsu hogo) but the city official she talked to told her she would have to get rid of her car first. Formally, cars are allowed for welfare recipients but they have to prove that they only use them for taking children to the doctor and looking for work. The woman lives in a rural area and needs the car for other things that the city office does not deem necessary, such as shopping or driving her daughter to school. There are almost no buses where she lives, but still the city office deems her automobile to be “not essential” to her well-being. Akaishi volunteered to accompany the woman to the city office and help her negotiate in order to keep her car and still get the livelihood support, since she obviously qualifies for it. For some reason, the woman rejected the offer.

The woman’s situation is not that unusual, and for single mothers matters may, in fact, get worse. According to Tokyo Shimbun, as part of the government’s welfare reform the mother-child benefits (boshi kasan, which is mainly for single parent households) will be cut by an average of 20 percent. Also, assistance for children’s public education up to junior high school—money to buy supplies, etc.—will be “adjusted,” meaning specifically that the program will be expanded for high school students but curtailed for pre-school children. Opposition lawmakers have protested that the overall effect of these changes will confound efforts to “reduce childhood poverty” in Japan. It’s as if the government were giving something with one hand and taking something away with the other.

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February 2018 movies

Posted on February 3, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here are the movie reviews I wrote for the February issue of EL Magazine, which was distributed in Tokyo last week.

The Beguiled
The MeToo movement gives Sofia Coppola’s adaptation of Thomas Cullinen’s novel, previously filmed in 1971 with Clint Eastwood, an extra layer of subtext that actually makes it more interesting. Colin Farrell plays a wounded Union soldier who is found in the woods of Virginia by a student of a nearby boarding school for girls. The headmistress (Nicole Kidman) takes in the enemy soldier and dresses his wounds, allowing him to stay until they heal. In the meantime, the shut-in students and their French teacher (Kirsten Dunst) develop emotional attachments to the soldier that he doesn’t discourage at all. In fact, it his active toying with each young woman’s affections that eventually leads to tragedy. Coppola indulges her well-known penchant of letting production design speak for her characters, but for once the characters seem fully formed, maybe because Coppola didn’t have to make them up. But the suspense isn’t taut enough, and there’s a frustrating lack of emotional detail that no amount of gingham and lace can make up for. (photo: Focus Features LLC) Continue reading →

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XTC interview, March 1999

Posted on February 2, 2018 by philipbrasor

A recent discussion I read online about XTC made me look on the web for an interview I did with Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding in Tokyo in early 1999 after they had just released the first volume of their Apple Venus series. I couldn’t find it so I’m reposting it here for everyone’s edification. It originally appeared in The Japan Times.

Since they don’t tour or make videos, XTC give interviews. Lots of them. Colin Moulding, the group’s soft-spoken bassist reckons he and his partner, guitarist Andy Partridge, have done something like a million since they began promoting their new album, Apple Venus, Vol. 1, last fall.

When I mention that most groups tour to support a new album, Partridge laughs. “That’s an interesting word, ‘support’,” he says. “If it has to be supported, then we’d rather the record company support it.” The comment is interesting, since the band no longer records for a major label, having painfully extricated itself from the clutches of Virgin Records. They recorded Apple Venus themselves and then signed distribution deals with regional labels. We’re sitting in an enormous conference room of one of them, Pony Canyon, which is putting a lot of money and effort behind the record in Japan, where XTC is a cult band of enormous influence. Continue reading →

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Woman Rush Hour

Posted on February 1, 2018 by philipbrasor

In today’s Japan Times there is a feature about the comedy duo Woman Rush Hour, who were all over the media in December because they won the grand prize in a high-profile TV comedy competition. I had planned to write about them for my first Media Mix column of the new year but when I learned a staff writer would be covering the group in depth I held off. This is the incomplete first draft of the column I had in mind. It covers a few points that aren’t in the JT feature, which includes exclusive comments from Yusuke Muramoto, the brains behind the act.  Continue reading →

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Media Mix, Jan. 28, 2018

Posted on January 28, 2018 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about a special issue of Aera dedicated to the end of banking. The headline is slightly misleading, since it implies that AI will be the death of the banking industry, and while that’s true to a certain extent, the column mainly talks about the end of banking culture. Banks, or, at least, similarly functioning financial institutions will survive, but probably without the kind of strictly organized human resource structure they have now. In that regard, it’s worth noting that the most visible technological feature of banks, namely ATMs, are also headed for the scrap heap, if the powers-that-be who control banks can have their way. A different article in the Asahi Shimbun series cited in the column says that one of the chief aims of all banks in Japan is to go completely online, thus obviating the need for ATMs, which, despite the fact that they saved banks money by replacing personnel and their attendant costs, are still expensive to manufacture, set up, and maintain. Of course, if 100 percent online banking is to be a reality, then Japan will have to shake its addiction to cash, and, obviously, the appeal of cryptocurrencies is centered on the idea of ridding the world of filthy lucre. Japan is behind the rest of the world in this regard. Credit and debit cards are still more widely accepted in other countries than they are in Japan, and while cards are another financial fixture that will likely be adapted or phased out with the development of AI, they seem like a stage any advanced economy needs to go through first. Personally, I can’t wait to be done with cash.

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