[ The following observations were originally posted to my Twitter account. The text is reproduced here with minor edits for clarity. ] I...

Synopsis: After Mongol invaders wipe out his entire clan, samurai Jin Sakai is forced to confront the fact that his rigid “code of honor”...

Decided to cap off Japan Cuts 2020 with yet another short film double feature: See You on the Other Side: Director Yoko Yamanaka...

In Tora-san, My Uncle, the forty-second episode of Yoji Yamada’s long-running Tora-san series, the eponymous peddler surrenders the role...

Tora-san Meets the Songstress Again, the fifteenth entry in Shochiku’s sprawling Tora-san saga, begins with the eponymous peddler...

Continued to make the most out of Japan Cuts’ online edition with a screening of Mrs. Noisy, a thoroughly engrossing film that spins a...

A huge portion of this year’s Japan Cuts lineup is dedicated to honoring the legacy of the late Nobuhiko Obayashi—painter, pianist,...

I watched Shell and Joint on the Japan Cuts website and, well... uh... Look, sometimes I’ll pretend to be confused by a movie for comedic...

Japan Cuts added a surprise screening to this year’s lineup: The Day of Destruction, directed by Toshiaki Toyoda (who also submitted...

Watched Fukushima 50 on the Japan Cuts website. The trailer for this dramatization of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster makes it...

Today, I finally watched my most highly anticipated Japan Cuts screening of 2020: Special Actors, a zany comedy about a guerrilla theater...

The wonderful weirdness of Labyrinth of Cinema left me feeling a bit mentally exhausted, so I decided to give myself a break by sampling...

After dragging my feet for several days (I’m not ashamed to admit that I found the three-hour running time to be somewhat intimidating),...

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I should approach watching Tora-san, Wish You Were Here, never mind reviewing it. It was, after all, made to...

For my second Japan Cuts screening of 2020, I decided to stick with the light and fun atmosphere established by On-Gaku: Our Sound. Extro...

This year’s online-only edition of Japan Cuts has officially commenced... and honestly, it’s sort of a mixed blessing. On the one hand,...

Watched The Half of It. As far as Netflix’s extensive library of Young Adult movies goes, this is a pretty solid effort. It’s your...

Dragon Quest V (or, more specifically, the Nintendo DS remake) is one of my favorite video games. Although the JRPG mechanics are hardly...

[Now that I’ve finally completed The Last of Us Part II, I’d like to share a few more random, disorganized observations that I originally...

Logged into Netflix to watch A Whisker Away, Studio Colorido’s charming followup to the equally enchanting Penguin Highway. The plot...