In The Great Passage—a film for which Yûya Ishii won Best Director from both the Japanese Academy Awards and Kinema Junpo—the decades-long story of dictionary…
Although widely dismissed during its initial premiere, Daguerrotype, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s first French-language production, finds the Japanese genre master in peak form; the first hour…
Japan Cuts—the largest screening event for new Japanese films in North America—just wrapped its 11th annual edition this week. Our one and only dispatch from…
Nikkatsu is in the process of rolling out a new crop of “romantic pornography” (or Roman Porno) films—a throwback to their heyday in the…
An action-comedy in the jiangshi (hopping vampire) tradition, Vampire Cleanup Department concerns Tim (Babyjohn Choi), a nerdy loner who is bitten on the ass…
The 16th annual New York Asian Film Festival recently ended its two-week run. We’ve already published two dispatches from the fest—for our third and final one, we have a…
The stateside media-consuming public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for standup comedy product (The Comedian, Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here, infinite podcasts) is the target audience…
It doesn’t even seem possible that Jack Kao’s played aging gangster roles for more than 20 years, but here we are. The frequent Hou…
The 16th annual New York Asian Film Festival (June 30th – July 16th) started its two-week run on Friday, and we’re putting together our beefiest coverage…
The 2017 BAMcinemafest ends this Sunday, and this dispatch concludes our coverage. Among the takes below, you’ll find several more holdovers from Sundance—including hit comedy The Big Sick and Alex…
#31: Too Dumb for Roman Numerals: The Sleazetacular ’80s of Charles Bronson & J. Lee Thompson Download episode here. Episode Description: The Reagan ’80s did funny things…
The 46th edition of New Directors/New Films concluded this past Sunday with Dustin Guy Defa’s much-discussed Person to Person. Our final dispatch from the festival takes a look…
#30: Hearts and Glowers: A Rough Ride Through Rom-coms of No Repute Download episode here. Episode Description: Like a chance encounter with a long-forgotten lover… like…
Through a career that’s spanned 16 mixtapes (four of them released commercially), three label deals (Cash Money Records, 1017 Records, and 300 Entertainment), and yet still…
If Damien Chazelle’s recent film La La Land essentially uses its every frame to try and justify its pastiche nature, through a sense of disenchantment,…
It’s heartening to realize that in a year of seemingly constant death—one in which the passing of great filmmakers was no exception—the best films here seemed intent…
Our top 25 performances, before whittling it down to the 10 you’ll find below, featured votes for two actors from Manchester by the Sea, two from Toni…
Just another year gone by—except songs seemed particularly vital for getting through these last 12 months. Not that you need me to tell you, but we…
Relationships fray without stated explanations in Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta—but the settings reveal what information characters don’t. Julieta (Emma Suarez) receives startling news from a friend…