SWEET BEAN is a deeply affecting tale of finding happiness by finding meaning. After watching this charmer, you might be tempted to try your own hand in creating a dorayaki, the pancake stuffed with sweet bean filling around which the story of three lonely people revolves. In fact, I defy you to resist. Cherry blossoms… Read More »
THE GRUDGE
As a culture, we are not unfamiliar with the concept of the cinematic reboot. Consider how many iterations of Batmans, Spider-men, and the Star Trek universe have arrived at our neighborhood theaters in the last decade. Not to mention the less than stellar attempt to revive the Fantastic Four, though, to be fair, the original… Read More »
SHOPLIFTERS (MANBIKI KAZOKU)
Palme d’Or winner SHOPLIFTERS is a radical deconstruction of family values in a world of dubious ethics. Set amid the throwaways of society, in this case Japan, it finds warmth and togetherness where we would least expect it, and from a family that is not so much scamming the system as they are a family… Read More »
OH LUCY! — Atsuko Hirayanagi Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. OH LUCY!, a serious comedy about love, identity, and escaping a rut, started as a short film that garnered a great deal of acclaim on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Filmmaker Atsuko Hirayanagi parlayed that, and the endless lucky breaks it generated, into a feature-length film that continues… Read More »
SILENCE
Academics are taught to write with a dispassionate yet highly detailed style for their scholarly treatises. That is the approach that Martin Scorsese has taken with SILENCE, his philosophically dense and immaculately rendered film of Shusaku Endo’s book of the same name. The result is a maddening film more to be admired than enjoyed as… Read More »
KAMPAI! FOR THE LOVE OF SAKE
Full disclosure. KAMPAI! FOR THE LOVE OF SAKE will make you want to seek out your nearest sake tasting. This, ahem, intoxicating documentary about the national drink of Japan, and the people who have made it their life’s work, is a paean to more than just rice wine. It is a consideration of tradition in… Read More »
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS continues Laika’s string of arresting, unconventional stop-motion animated films that are both sophisticated and enchanting. Like PARANORMAN and CORALINE, KUBO is audacious enough to tackle serious subjects and to do so with no pretense about the finality of death, or the reality of evil. Taking its cue from Joseph Campbell’s… Read More »