I’ve had a busy week but it has been good busy with work progressing well, getting
I posted a review of Wasted Eggs (2018) on Monday, a week after it was first posted on V-Cinema. I then posted a review of Snake Beneath the Flower Petals (2016) from Rina Tanakawho I interviewed along with some of her cast and crew at the Osaka Asian Film Festival after a screening of Filled With Steam (2017).
This week has been good for me. I’ve had to take charge of a VR lounge where I work and that was okay. I’m arranging a trip to see Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film Shoplifters (2018) with friends from work and a trip to see Tampopo (1988) with my mother and sister. There’s also a night at a Japanese restaurant with friends from work at the end of December.
In between all of that, I’m continuing to study Japanese, watch and review films and exercise. I watched a couple of titles from the early 2000s called… I posted reviews for Looking for my lost sunflowers (2014) and Girl, Wavering (2015), both from Noriko Yuasa, the director of Ordinary Everyday (2017) which wowed me at this years Osaka Asian Film Festival. My review for Wasted Eggs (2018), a drama examining the social pressures that affect Japanese women – specifically the expectation that they get married young and have kids – was posted on V-Cinema on Monday.
This week I posted about the 2018 edition of the London International Animation Festival with the many wonderful animated films from Japan. I also posted a review for Vision(2018) which I wrote for V-Cinema earlier this month. I have watched a zombie film from Japan called I Am a Hero (2016). You may have read my manga review which I posted two or three years ago as part of my Summer of Splatter. I also started watching Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind.
I have instituted a new sort of learning and writing regime whereby all of the film stuff is done at the start of the week and the end of the week is dedicated to learning languages. This week I posted some news articles about the release of SABU’s 1996 film Dangan Runner and the a series of free events in London dedicated to the actor Kinuyo Tanaka. I watched Triple 9 (2016), Train to Busan (2016) and Inuyashiki (2018) this week and I’m planning on watching something tonight but the list of titles is pretty large so I don’t know what yet. The image above is from Haruneko… I want to watch Seoul Station…
Third Window Filmsare back again with the release of a 90s classic Dangan Runnerby the director SABU (Mr. Long, Happiness, Miss Zombie). It is his directorial debut and is the world’s first Blu-ray and remastered DVD release and it contains a treasure trove of extras including an interview with the director. It gets released on November 12th on Blu-ray and DVD. Here are the details.
Life has been a bit of a trudge recently. I’m in the middle of a 12-day work week with early starts in the morning. I’ve just started doing film festival feedback forms. The weather is getting darker and colder. I managed to get a good dose of sleep last night and keep up my exercise routine so I’m feeling good. I need to get some dynamism back. Anyways, I posted reviews for Vampire Clay(2017) and Re:born(2017) and my review for Naomi Kawase’s film Vision(2018) went live on v-cinema. I hope you guys have managed to watch some great films.
Re:Born stars Tak Sakaguchi, a fighter, action-director, director and actor. Since his debut in Ryuhei Kitamura’s 2000 zombie action film Versus, he has been a staple of the cult cinema scene. Even if the films he acts in are comedic gore-fests from the likes of Yudai Yamaguchi (Deadball) and Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) he tends to make an impact because he has the charisma and martial arts skills needed by a good action hero. He can act and has shown this in works that stretch across genres with Osaka Snake Road: Snake of Violence, Alive, Shinobi: Heart Under Blade and Meatball Machine: Kodoku. His best role was as a failed-actor given one more shot in Sion Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell? which, if you had to watch one performance, is the one I’d recommend. Re:Born gives him the stage he deserves to show his martial-arts skills.
Interesting week at work insofar as a new exhibition has opened and I’ve had a nice time introducing art to people whilst doing my regular job. I also met a progressive young artist who I think I had good chemistry with which inspires hope and I had a bunch of great conversations with trusted workmates. Still, I’ve got to do something more with my time…
I watched a whole grip of Japanese films although the horror film I chose for Halloween was a Japanese found footage film that sent me to sleep. I posted reviews for Snow Woman(1968) and Sore dake (2015).
I’ve had a decent week what with work at the day job and getting film reviews done. I also managed to finish a book my sister bought for me which is cool. To be honest it was the first fiction book that I’ve finished in quite a while and so I feel good. Inspired. I posted reviews for After the Storm (2016) and Sweet Bean (2015) to highlight two great performances from Kirin Kiki. Halloween next week so stay tuned for a spooky film I’m going to review!
It is time for another weekend trailer post and it has come after a somewhat productive week film-wise. I watched a couple of Japanese films from the 1960s and continued my role as social media/writer guy for a film festival and I managed to write three reviews. I’ve set aside time to watch three classic Japanese films tomorrow after exercise and Japanese practice. I published an article about Kiki Kirin who passed away last month and a review for Still Walking (2008) this week.At least I’m not overworking myself in my day job.
