Toshiro Mifune Articles

Toshiro Mifune (second from right) in Seven Samurai Akira Kurosawa would have turned 100 today. In celebration of his centenary, Turner Classic Movies is showing 26 of the director’s films throughout the month of March. Today’s Kurosawa series began early — at 3 a.m. Pacific Time — with a presentation of Sanshiro Sugata, the director’s earliest effort. Several little-known and little-seen early Kurosawas later (I [...]

The Academy had its John Hughes tribute on Sunday. Tonight, Turner Classic Movies is paying tribute to someone who may not be a household name in the United States, but who merits recognition as well. The guy, after all, made quite a few films that won awards here and there even though they were mostly in black and white, and didn’t star Rob Lowe, Macaulay [...]

THE BAD SLEEP WELL Review: Part I The saddest thing is that the corruption detailed in The Bad Sleep Well feels so minor league today that it seems almost childish when compared to Enron, Worldcom, and the many others in the years since. In a sense, Iwabuchi isn’t even the top criminal in the film. That title would belong to the corporation’s little-seen president, Arimura [...]

Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru / The Bad Sleep Well (1960) Direction: Akira Kurosawa Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Eijirô Hisaita, Ryuzo Kikushima, and Hideo Oguni Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Masayuki Mori, Kyôko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Kô Nishimura, Takeshi Katô, Kamatari Fujiwara, Chishu Ryu, Ken Mitsuda     By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica: Akira Kurosawa’s 1960 black-and-white Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru / The [...]