916 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Japanese (Page 34)

80 minutes into Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, the titular surprise attack finally arrives. It is, without a doubt, one of the most virtuosic action set pieces ever committed to the screen, a flawlessly orchestrated symphony of carnage that burns for close to 40 minutes. Everything that you could possibly hope for from a maximalist, hyperkinetic blockbuster spectacle is here. There’s fire cascading, plumes of black smoke rising, bullets and bombs raining down, planes tumbling from the skies, boats being torn asunder, and bodies being flung about like ragdolls. Annihilation and national tragedy have never looked so stunning or—and it feels gross saying this—felt so exhilarating. Continue Reading →

Cruella de Vil is an A-List villain in a B-List franchise. Sure, 101 Dalmatians and its spinoffs have their charms, but no other aspect in the franchise has the staying power of Cruella and her iconic theme song. It’s no surprise that Disney would release an origin story for the character with Craig Gillespie’s Cruella. It’s a logical step for the company to take, but the iconic villain presents a major stumbling block: how can you make a villainess whose traditional motivation is to kill dogs for a coat into a likable hero, or at least an antihero? Continue Reading →

In the 30 years since it made its infamous debut, there have been bigger critical and commercial catastrophes unleashed upon multiplexes than Hudson Hawk (1991). And yet, while most of those disasters have been duly forgotten, it continues to loom large as the ultimate Hollywood cautionary tale of what can happen when a performer riding the absolute peak of their cultural ascendancy is given the chance to make literally anything that they want and it turns out to be something that evidently no one else wanted. Continue Reading →

Film Comment used to run a semi-regular feature entitled “Guilty Pleasures” in which they would invite someone to write a piece about films that have often been ignored or reviled by critics and the public but for which they still maintain a deep love for any number of reasons.  These articles were always fun to read but I must confess that the notion of a so-called “guilty pleasure” is one to which I have never quite subscribed. My feeling is that if a movie gives you some form of pleasure—either because it is genuinely good or because of its camp value—you should be able to celebrate it without feeling any guilt over whether or not it conforms to general standards of artistic acceptability. Continue Reading →

In Four Good Days, when heroin-addict Molly is asked what her triggers are, what could get her to use again, she replies, “My life’s a trigger…” Fellow addict Amanda Wendler takes things a step further, though, proclaiming, “Reality’s a trigger.” But Amanda isn’t another character in Molly’s story—she’s the inspiration behind it. In 2016, the Washington Post chronicled a few days in her fight for sobriety in their much lauded article, “How’s Amanda? A Story of Truth, Lies and American Addiction.” Continue Reading →

After a four-year absence, Master of None returns to Netflix with a new tone and new focus, but it still grapples with the same emotional beats of the first two seasons. This time around, creator Aziz Ansari focuses his efforts behind the camera, only appearing in two brief cameos in season three’s five-episode arc. Instead, all of the action is focused on Denise (Lena Waithe) and her partner Alicia (Naomi Ackie), who are rusticating in a cottagecore fantasy that not even TikTok could call sustainable. Rather than the buzz of traffic and the cramped quarters of the city, we see Denise and Alicia’s relationship develop against the bucolic splendor of open fields and towering trees. Continue Reading →

The long-time horror screenwriter's eerie-boarding-school-set first feature is worthy work that takes full advantage of its spooky setting. Seance is counting on one thing to keep the scares coming. Times may change, trends may come and go, but any organization that prides itself on its elitism, and thus its insularity, never will. Make no mistake, there are also some damn good performances, technical choices, and just enough ambiguity to keep audiences in a state of suspense, if not outright fear. And yet, it’s this core truth that powers Seance through its 92-minute runtime, and thank goodness it doesn’t try to overextend its reach. Continue Reading →

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “May you live in interesting times,” understand this: we’re living in them right now. It’s a historically awful time of racial unrest, an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor, and a global pandemic that’s coldly highlighted how little many of us care about our fellow humans. Optimism is in very limited supply at the moment, and so we cling to the little things that give us joy, and a reason to keep going the next day. Things like Lil Nas X’s Twitter feed, or Ted Lasso, or Lady Gaga branded Oreo cookies. Things like Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar, which in better times might have made barely a blip on the pop culture radar, but right now feels like a cool drink of water on a very hot day, and is a cult hit in the making. Continue Reading →

M.O.D.O.K. isn’t set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but it is firmly set in the newest trend in adult-sewing American animation. Popularized by Rick & Morty and BoJack Horseman, these cartoons put on an exterior dick jokes and fart gags but are actually about deeper explorations of weighty turmoil’s. Considering this phenomenon has produced shows like Horseman and Harley Quinn, it’s one of the better TV trends out there. The best parts of M.O.D.O.K. exemplify why. There’s something enduringly impressive about balancing out raunchiness with genuinely insightful drama. Continue Reading →

If you happen to stumble upon the Wikipedia page for Spiral, the ninth and newest feature film in the Saw franchise, you find a goldmine full of stories, exaggerations, and words strung together that you hardly believe are real. Chris Rock, the star and executive producer of Spiral, ran into Michael Burns, the Vice Chairman of Lionsgate, at a friend’s wedding in Brazil. They chatted about the horror genre, with Rock expressing intent to take his career on a different path.  Continue Reading →

While Those Who Wish Me Dead is coming out in theaters this weekend (be safe, especially if you're not vaccinated!), it's probably the movie to benefit most from Warner Bros. pandemic-fueled decision to simultaneously throw their releases up on HBO Max. From stem to stern, Taylor Sheridan's latest feels like the kind of movie you'd find on old-school HBO in the '90s, or FX or TNT, watching with your dad over a holiday weekend. It's silly, forgettable schlock, and yet I can't get too mad at it. Continue Reading →

In the not too distant future, Las Vegas has become even more of its own world. A wall of armored shipping containers has sealed off the Entertainment Capital of the World. Sneering armed guards patrol a vicious hybrid of quarantine and refugee camp at the wall's edge. And on July 4th, on the orders of a dopey, malignant, unnamed president, Sin City will burn in nuclear fire. Why? The zombie apocalypse. Fortunately for the world, the plague of undeath was stopped in the sleepless city. With the zombies contained, Vegas was left to rot. But while the city crumbled, its infamous fortunes were preserved - sealed away in counting rooms, slot machines, and vaults. Why risk going in to retrieve it when insurance covers disaster (brain-eating or otherwise)? Because it's money. And that is the pitch Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) gives to haunted, lonely, zombie war hero Scott Ward (Dave Bautista).When Tanaka abandoned the Bly Casino, he left $200 million untaxable, untraceable dollars in its vault. If Ward assembles a team to go into Vegas, crack the vault, and retrieve the money, $50 million of the haul is his to do with as he will. Ward, a lost man searching for some sort of purpose and looking for a way to make things right with his estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell), agrees. Ward gathers his crew - his war buddies Maria Cruz (Ana de La Reguera) and Vanderhoe (Omari Hardwick), bitterly caustic helicopter pilot Peters (Tig Notaro), zombie-killing influencer Mikey Guzman (Raùl Castillo), Guzman's warrior pal Chambers (Samantha Win), oddball safecracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer) and, at Tanaka's insistence, oily security man Martin (Garret Dillahunt). Kate, the mercenary coyote Lilly (Nora Arnezeder), and a loathsome guard called Burt (Theo Rossi) join them at the city proper. Continue Reading →

Hollywood's year-long hiatus on major comic-book adaptation movies has left ample room for streaming services to pick up the slack and then some. Amazon, for example, has wisely curated high-profile releases from existing superhero stories that subvert the genre in ways that would probably ring unfamiliar if attempted by the more mainstream Marvel and DC fare. The Boys is all about poking a gory hole in how superheroes can be vapid, unchecked, and even monstrous celebrities. Invincible just ended its first season with a bang of a finale, taking its colonizer version of Superman to task. And then there's the curious case of ‌Netflix's Jupiter's Legacy.  Continue Reading →

Guy Ritchie hasn't worked with Jason Statham, the tough-guy lad whose breakout performances in Lock, Stock and Snatch helped propel him to A-list action stardom, since 2005's twisty pseudophilosophical gangland thriller Revolver -- a film critics at the time called "impenetrable" and "stupid". It's a shame, then, that their long-overdue reunion, Wrath of Man, succumbs to many of the same tricks and traps as their previous collab, but without any of the perverse flash that made the former at least grimly interesting. Continue Reading →

In a perfect world, every sitcom would have a first season that never sees the light of day. That’s because it usually takes a season for the actors to grow comfortable in their characters’ skins, and for the show’s writers to fine-tune the dynamics of the ensemble into something compelling. The new season of Apple TV+’s Mythic Quest is a perfect example of a show finding itself after taking ten episodes to figure things out.  Continue Reading →

Just a few days after he passed, it was clear that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 would be Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final film. Back in 2012, Lionsgate made the financial decision to milk a fourth movie out of the Hunger Games trilogy, keeping their cash cow going until November 2015. While Catching Fire made for a worthwhile outing in its own right, the back half of the series does its best to annihilate any goodwill it’d accumulated.  Continue Reading →

Welcome to the Criterion Corner, where we break down some of the month’s new releases from the Criterion Collection. #1073: Memories of Murder (2003), dir. Bong Joon-ho Memories of Murder (Criterion) Long before he set the world on fire with Parasite, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho was carving out a powerful presence as one of the country's great cinematic masters. While he made his early furtive steps towards worldwide notoriety with the stellar 2005 monster picture The Host, his second feature, 2003's Memories of Murder, showcases his intriguing command of tone and deep fascination with moral gray areas. And thanks to a 4K restoration that's been distributed by NEON and now comes to the Criterion Collection, Western audiences have another opportunity to revisit this burgeoning classic. While discussions about police misconduct and their utility as an institution have been raging the last couple of years, Bong recognized their systemic flaws as early as Memories of Murder. Loosely based on South Korea's first big serial-killer case in the late '80s, Bong's film flits between three detectives as they try to track down a murderer of young girls in a sleepy farm town called Hwaesong. There's Park Doo-man (Bong stalwart Song Kang-ho), the head detective who's convinced he can suss out the truth by looking in a man's eyes; Cho Yong-koo (Kim Roi-ha), a blustering Dirty Harry-type much more likely to beat suspects than to negotiate with them; and Seo Tae Yoon (Kim Sang-kyung), a young but smart big-city detective from Seoul who has more hands-off methods to investigate the murders. Continue Reading →

Star Wars fans, are we ready? Because it’s time for Star Wars content to return and both delight  and hurt us all in that inimitable Dave Filoni way. We love it, though. Star Wars: The Bad Batch is the newest Star Wars series to land on Disney+ and the first in their projected slate of new Star Wars programming. “Aftermath," the feature-length premiere of The Bad Batch, written by Jennifer Corbett and Dave Filoni, and directed by Steward Lee, Saul Ruiz, and Nathaniel Villanueva, is a sweeping introduction to new challenges and new characters, but also a love letter to the stories that have come before. Continue Reading →

Pulsating at the heart of Twixt are pains all too familiar to legendary writer-director Francis Ford Coppola. Third-string horror novelist Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), the “bargain-basement Stephen King,” arrives for a book signing in the town of Swann Valley, where, unappreciated and unable to overcome a case of writer’s block, he’s forced to confront his insignificance, his sullied legacy, and the feeling that he has nothing valuable left to say or give. Continue Reading →

After long and celebrated careers, certain directors reach a point where they’ve accomplished most of what an artist could reasonably hope to accomplish. They’ve gotten at one time or another critical acclaim, commercial success, popular recognition, and hopefully personal satisfaction. And with time, they become that fabled thing – the Old Master. They may, at this point, lack the industry clout or the financial resources that they once had, but they retain an immortal distinction, a legacy that can’t be erased. Some of them, like George Lucas, openly fantasize about using their tremendous wealth to turn away from popular movies and into experimental work. Others, like Martin Scorsese, hold enough influence to keep making major films, but often it seems like they’re unable to make a small film again. Francis Ford Coppola went ten years without directing before returning, in his seventies, to the game with Youth Without Youth and in his 2009 film Tetro he made a most interesting thing – a young man’s film.  Continue Reading →

Come back to a simpler time. A time when people were left shocked and awestruck when a remarkable pop culture event occurred, one that dumbfounded many and helped inspire a cultural shift, one where viewpoints that had previously been derided and ignored were placed at the center of an increasing number of narratives.  Continue Reading →