An Appropriate 100th Post: The Emperor and the Wolf Comes Home
A Japanese-language edition of The Emperor and the Wolf is in the works. A few weeks ago I received an email from a researcher asking for my original interview transcripts, to ensure accurate...
View ArticleRomney’s Wagonload of Corpses
Mitt Romney is not the first obscenely wealthy businessman to run for president. Not that many years ago Ross Perot, whose estimated worth in 2012 is about $3.5 billion, ran in two consecutive...
View ArticleOnly in Hollywood
An email by Peter L. Winkler, author of Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel, reminded me of something that happened during a rare visit to Los Angeles by my father. During his stay the...
View ArticleThe Real Top 100
The controversial new BFI/Sight & Sound poll of 846 film critics and historians in which they famously knocked Citizen Kane out of the top spot in favor of Vertigo (1958), is generating a lot of...
View ArticleThe French They Are a Funny Race
Anyone out there have a copy of this Blu-ray? It was on sale, and I was really looking forward to it, only to discover upon its arrival that no English subtitles can be found or otherwise accessed,...
View ArticleNo Parking?
I ride my Honda Little Cub to my local bank to make an ATM withdraw. I park my motorcycle where all the bank’s customers park their various bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles, a large space adjacent...
View ArticleThe Mammy’s Cuss
Watching the new Blu-ray of <I>Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein</I> (1948) last night, I was reminded of a true story exemplifying the notion that, back in the forties, audiences...
View ArticleUnheralded and Semi-Unheralded Films
I’ve been outta sight, outta mind of late, for reasons I’ll go into at a later date. More to follow over the next few days, but in the meantime why not mosey over to Paul Rowlands’s site to read an...
View ArticleMegalonomania
So…the latest word from kaiju fandom (the world of Japanese monster movies for you civilians) is that recently shipped copies of Media Blasters’ supposedly bare-bones DVD of Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)...
View ArticleNot So Cool
Many Americans are under the confident but mistaken impression that the United States is the absolute best at everything, from military supremacy to the manufacture of pogo sticks. In Japan, the psyche...
View ArticleArticle 0
In otherwise famously polite Japan two bafflingly incongruous phenomena in search of an explanation. The first involves the issue of handicapped parking. In Japan there is parking reserved, presumably,...
View ArticleSkyfall
Skyfall didn’t open in Japan until December 1st and for a variety of reasons though mainly to avoid the crowds, I waited until this afternoon, Tuesday, to see it. I ended up going by motorcycle, my...
View ArticleKurosawa vs. Hollywood
Back in 1999 and 2000 I researched and wrote my joint biography of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, The Emperor and the Wolf, which was published by Faber in February 2002. A pivotal chapter in the...
View ArticleKing of the Monster Kids
In the world of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, encompassing not just movies but everything from genre fiction to poetry, art and even porn, Forrest J Ackerman (1916-2008) was an iconic figure....
View ArticleDonald
Donald Richie, the great observer of all things Japanese, died in Tokyo this afternoon around 4:00 pm. He was 88. In this Internet age of ours, I learned the news in a short email from Manhattan-based...
View ArticleWhat We Didn’t See at the Oscars
Readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of the 007 series, and what with this being the tail-end of James Bond’s 50th Anniversary, was looking forward to the Academy Awards’ promised “Tribute to...
View ArticleA Special Report: Streaming, Physical Media, and the Future of Home Video
Last month, my old friend Stephen Bowie and I compiled an instant message conversation for simultaneous publication on both our blogs. The subject was streaming video, but as we chattered back and...
View ArticleUniversal Studios Home Entertainment: Your BD-59s Suck and You Know It
Nearly a decade ago, Universal’s home video department began releasing some of its classic movies and television shows on double-sided, dual-layered DVDs, or DVD-18s as they’re called. Some of these...
View ArticleFacebooking
I was struck today by the pros and cons of Facebook, which at various times have enabled wonderful new friendships, rekindled long-dormant ones, but also created enormous conflicts requiring far too...
View ArticleRay Harryhausen
Special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, dead at 92, would no doubt have been pleased by the surprisingly prominent (and mainstream media) obituaries news organizations like the BBC and CNN are filing,...
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