Japanese Horror Classics: GOKE, HAUSU at the Egyptian

House by Nobuhiko Obayashi (top); Goke, Bodysnatcher from Hell by Hajime Sato (bottom)

Schedule and synopses from the American Cinematheque website.
Wednesday, September 23 – 7:30 PM
Japanese Cult Classics Double Feature:
HOUSE (HAUSU), 1977, Janus Films, 87 min. This long-lost fantasy/horror masterpiece from director Nobuhiko Obayashi has finally surfaced in America. Oshare can’t wait to spend the summer with her father…until he informs her that he plans to remarry. She decides to go away with some friends to visit an estranged aunt…who, unbeknownst to the girls is immortal and can only remain that way by feeding on virgins. Her evil house, with its girl-devouring piano, does the killing for her. Based on an idea given to the director by his then 7-year-old [...]

by Andre Soares | September 23, 2009   
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TOKYO SONATA, I LOVE YOU, MAN Buzz

At GreenCine Daily, Vadim Risov on Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata, which opened this weekend in New York (it’ll open in Los Angeles on March 27):
"Two-thirds of the way in, Tokyo Sonata is a nicely observed low-key drama just unnerving enough to keep you on edge: Kurosawa’s framing is always a bit cluttered and claustrophobic, and his willingness to sit and watch for a little too long makes it seem like violent disaster is always just on the verge of breaking out. And then suddenly it does and all hell breaks out."
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At Cinematical, Eugene Novikov is enthusiastic about Paul Rudd’s star turn in the comedy I Love You, Man, directed by John Hamburg, written [...]

by Deborah Arthur | March 14, 2009   
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Japanese Academy Awards 2009

2009 Japanese Academy Awards
2009 Japanese Academy Award winners: Feb. 20, 2009
 

Yojiro Takita’s Departures, about an unemployed cellist who finds work as a professional corpse-beautician of sorts, was the big winner at the 2009 Japanese Academy Awards, bagging a total of 10 trophies (out of 13 nominations), including best film, best director, best actor (Masahiro Motoki), best supporting actor (Tsutomu Yamazaki), best supporting actress (Kimiko Yo) and best screenplay (Kundo Koyama), along with wins for cinematography, lighting, sound and editing.
In addition to winning this year’s best foreign-language film Oscar, Departures also took top prizes at the Montreal and Palm Springs film festivals, and, with a US$32 million gross, has turned out to be one of Japan’s [...]

by Massimo David | March 1, 2009   
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RASHOMON: Monday Nights with Oscar

Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic Rashomon, which officially introduced Japanese cinema to the world at large, will be the next film presented as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Monday Nights with Oscar.” The East Coast premiere of the new digitally restored print of Rashomon will take place on Monday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
Though it revolves around the rape of a woman and the murder of her Samurai husband, Rashomon, co-adapted by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s stories "Rashomon" and "In a Grove," is less a crime drama than an examination of the mind-boggling nature of truth. [...]

by Andre Soares | November 17, 2008   
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BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT

Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)
Direction: Shoijiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki, Toshiyuki Kubooka, Jong-Sik Nam. Screenplay: Brian Azzarello, Alan Burnett, Jordan Goldberg, David S. Goyer, Josh Olson, Greg Rucka; based on Bob Kane’s character. Voices: Kevin Conroy, David McCallum, Gary Dourdan, Corey Burton, Jason Marsden, Jim Meskimen, Kevin Michael Richardson, George Newbern
 

 
Batman: Gotham Knight is a direct-to-DVD animated film in six segments, each directed by a different East Asian filmmaker. The animation quality, both in terms of character and environment detail, exceeds that of the animation found in all the Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, and all the other Batman animated films. The fore and backgrounds aren’t after thoughts; they have as much care [...]

by Reginald Williams | July 16, 2008   
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