Akira Kurosawa

What is Ran? Akira Kurosawa period epic is not an adaptation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. Mieko Harada pictured. “Critical cribbing” is a term I coined in regard to the tendency of critics, in all fields, to not engage a…

Seven Samurai with Toshiro Mifune. 'Seven Samurai' analysis: Akira Kurosawa movie gets better after repeated viewings Some films get better after repeated viewings. Akira Kurosawa's 1954 black-and-white drama Seven Samurai / Shichinin no samurai is one of them. It fully…

Steven Spielberg The Color Purple Oscar snub: Whoopi Goldberg did receive a Best Actress nomination. Steven Spielberg's Best Direction Oscar nomination for his 1985 film version of Alice Walker's The Color Purple was a given. In fact, some felt the…

Maggie McNamara, William Holden in Otto Preminger's scandalous The Moon Is Blue Turner Classic Movies has a lot to offer tonight and tomorrow morning. There's a lot to say about the scheduled movies, but since time is short – the…

Watching Akira Kurosawa's 1948 black-and-white effort Yoidore Tenshi / Drunken Angel is an interesting experience, for he clearly had not mastered the art form, yet. Even so, there is so much that is good in Drunken Angel – touches that…

Toshiro Mifune (second from right) in Seven Samurai 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…

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the Berlin International Film Festival will mark its 60th anniversary with the retrospective “Play it Again …!,” featuring 40 films compiled by British film critic David Thomson from previous Berlin festivals. Among them are Curzio…

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…

The Bad Sleep Well with Toshiro Mifune. Akira Kurosawa's 1960 corporate corruption drama stars the filmmaker's favorite leading man, Toshiro Mifune, who “gets to display the full range of his acting chops” as a white-collar worker bent on revenge. Kurosawa…