“Desert of Namibia,” about a caustic 21-year-old Japanese wanderer, embodies its protagonist’s listlessness to a fault. Director Yôko Yamanaka was still a teenager when she made her debut feature “Amiko” in 2017, a sharply funny high school film with the jagged, quick-cut energy of a YouTube travel vlog. It marked her as a Gen Z voice to watch. “Desert of Namibia” similarly follows a young woman trying to find herself, but it swings stylistically in the opposite direction, holding and zooming for hilariously, sometimes painfully long. Your mileage may vary, as the film has a tendency to meander off course, but that is exactly its intention.
Actress Yuumi Kawai is immediately magnetic as Kana, a young Tokyo woman hinted to have roots in a different city or country, but the film is often opaque about important details. While shot with straightforward clarity, its narrative, like its protagonist’s mood, feels enveloped by fog.
Actress Yuumi Kawai is immediately magnetic as Kana, a young Tokyo woman hinted to have roots in a different city or country, but the film is often opaque about important details. While shot with straightforward clarity, its narrative, like its protagonist’s mood, feels enveloped by fog.
- 5/27/2024
- by Siddhant Adlakha
- Variety Film + TV
What's in a roar? Well, if it belongs to a ginormous prehistoric reptilian monster like Godzilla, it matters as much as what the creature represents or makes us feel. Godzilla's roar has evolved over the years — the original sound resembled a shrill "Skreeeonk!" as described in Dark Horse's "Godzilla" comics, and went on to alternate between deep, guttural sounds and high-pitched screeches that feel otherworldly. Akira Ifukube, who created the score for Ishirō Honda's "Godzilla", was the one who crafted the monster's distinctive disyllabic roar. This was not an easy task to accomplish, especially in 1954, when most creature sounds were created organically with minimal reliance on technological tweaks. How did Ifukube and Honda decide on a sound that would go on to constitute the heart and soul of such a beloved character?
For starters, Ifukube did not believe that Godzilla should roar at all, as the creature's reptilian...
For starters, Ifukube did not believe that Godzilla should roar at all, as the creature's reptilian...
- 5/11/2024
- by Debopriyaa Dutta
- Slash Film
The original 1954 "Godzilla" was directed by Ishirō Honda, butithout minimizing his importance, it's impossible that the film would have turned out the same way without the special effects Director Eiji Tsuburaya. Portraying a giant monster with the convincing scale of Godzilla had almost never been done before and crafting the monster was Tsuburaya's responsibility.
Tsuburaya had a prolific career that began almost 30 years before he worked on "Godzilla," and included previous collaborations with Honda on the war films "Eagle of the Pacific" and "Farewell Rabaul." Today, though, he is mostly remembered as "the father of Tokusatsu" or effects-heavy Japanese film/TV. Such productions typically depict actors in costume as giant monsters, robots, or superheroes. Tsuburaya earned this title not just through his work on "Godzilla" and subsequent films (such as "Rodan"), but by creating the 1967 TV series turned media phenomenon "Ultraman."
While Ultraman is a hero, Godzilla is (at least...
Tsuburaya had a prolific career that began almost 30 years before he worked on "Godzilla," and included previous collaborations with Honda on the war films "Eagle of the Pacific" and "Farewell Rabaul." Today, though, he is mostly remembered as "the father of Tokusatsu" or effects-heavy Japanese film/TV. Such productions typically depict actors in costume as giant monsters, robots, or superheroes. Tsuburaya earned this title not just through his work on "Godzilla" and subsequent films (such as "Rodan"), but by creating the 1967 TV series turned media phenomenon "Ultraman."
While Ultraman is a hero, Godzilla is (at least...
- 2/4/2024
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
When the monster was invented in 1954, Godzilla stood as a symbol of nuclear devastation. Indeed, in March of 1954, shortly before Ishiro Honda's film "Gojira" was made, a group of fishermen aboard the ship Daigo Fukuryu Maru was exposed to radiation from a nearby American nuclear bomb test in the Bikini Atoll. One of the fishermen died of radiation poisoning and their fish were irradiated, causing a public panic about the safety of their food and the effects nuclear fallout may be having on the local fauna. As all cineastes know, Godzilla was an animal mutated by nuclear tests, turning into a nuclear-powered, unstoppable force of destruction. Godzilla echoed the devastation of the nuclear bomb that Japan had suffered at the hands of America. Honda's original "Gojira" is a somber and downbeat film about how weapons of mass destruction will never be done destroying us.
In the years since...
In the years since...
- 1/26/2024
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
The Berlin Film Festival today unveiled further titles for the 2024 edition of its Berlinale Special Presentations sidebar section alongside its classics program. Scroll down for the full list of titles announced today.
Highlights from the latest drop of Specials titles include Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, a feature documentary about influential British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger narrated by Killers of the Flower Moon filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The feature is directed by David Hinton and features rare archival material from the personal collections of Powell, Pressburger, and Scorsese.
Love Lies Bleeding, the latest feature from British filmmaker Rose Glass will debut in the Specials program. The feature stars Kristen Stewart alongside Katy O’Brian. A short synopsis describes the pic as “a romance fueled by ego, desire, and the American Dream.” The film will arrive at Berlin following it’s debut at Sundance.
Abel Ferrara is...
Highlights from the latest drop of Specials titles include Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, a feature documentary about influential British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger narrated by Killers of the Flower Moon filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The feature is directed by David Hinton and features rare archival material from the personal collections of Powell, Pressburger, and Scorsese.
Love Lies Bleeding, the latest feature from British filmmaker Rose Glass will debut in the Specials program. The feature stars Kristen Stewart alongside Katy O’Brian. A short synopsis describes the pic as “a romance fueled by ego, desire, and the American Dream.” The film will arrive at Berlin following it’s debut at Sundance.
Abel Ferrara is...
- 1/15/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Japanese cinema has been on a somewhat successful stalemate for years now, with the titles produced (at least the ones we manage to sea in the West out of the 600 the country produces every year) retaining the same, relatively high quality, even though no particular steps forward have been made for years now Regarding the state of the industry in 2023, you can read the very informative article by Mark Schilling, but the thing I have to mention is that, despite the issues, local movies definitely have four things working quite well for them, particularly this year. First of all, the big names deliver almost always, with Miyazaki, Hamaguchi and Koreeda proving the fact this year also. Second of all, the quality of anime remains high as always and thirdly, some efforts at different cinematic approaches continue to take place, even though they can almost exclusively be found in low budget and short films.
- 12/19/2023
- by AMP Group
- AsianMoviePulse
You didn't have to be a horror aficionado to appreciate the enormity of "Freddy vs. Jason" in 2003. This was two of the titans of the slasher genre finally going head-to-head in a bloody free-for-all. Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees had slashed, stabbed, and otherwise punctured our collective pop cultural consciousness for years by then. As a young kid who had yet to see any of the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Friday the 13th" films, even I knew exactly what was being referenced the first time I saw the scene in "Christmas Vacation" where Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) dons a hockey mask while taking a chainsaw to his gigantic Christmas tree.
Crossover films of this ilk have largely gone the way of the dodo since "Freddy vs. Jason" came out. We're now 80 years removed from Frankenstein's monster meeting the Wolf Man for the first time in Universal's Og Dark Universe,...
Crossover films of this ilk have largely gone the way of the dodo since "Freddy vs. Jason" came out. We're now 80 years removed from Frankenstein's monster meeting the Wolf Man for the first time in Universal's Og Dark Universe,...
- 8/15/2023
- by Sandy Schaefer
- Slash Film
Despite this one being a mediocre season for Asian cinema, Nyaff still managed to include a number of gems in its huge program, once more justifying its place as the biggest festival of Asian cinema in the Western world. With an obvious focus on titles by and about women, the programmers offered a diverse selection that included the whole spectrum of genre films from the whole region, while also of note was the inclusion of a plethora of shorts, both live-action and animation. Japanese and Korean (family) dramas, action and horror from Asean countries, while the Chinese mainland cinema highlighted a couple of captivating stories. Comedies are still a mixed-bag, at least for the Western audience, but some progress is also evident in that category also. Without further ado, here is a list of this year's coverage of New York Asian Film Festival
You can read the full reviews by...
You can read the full reviews by...
- 8/4/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Godzilla was once a monster well suited for Cold War symbolism, but times changed. And as written in the book Japan’s Favorite Mon-star, author and film historian Steve Ryfle suggested “the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fading of the global nuclear threat” may have played a part in Toho’s drastic decision to kill off its most celebrated character.” Death wasn’t unheard of for Godzilla; after all, the atomic monster perished in its first two appearances. The only difference in 1995 was Godzilla was no longer a mere metaphor for ruin and despair. So much had changed since Tomoyuki Tanaka’s creation embodied the nuclear horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Godzilla had somehow become a hero, albeit a complicated one in the ‘90s and onward.
While the last leg of the Shōwa age depicted Godzilla as Japan’s foremost protector, the next installment of movies...
While the last leg of the Shōwa age depicted Godzilla as Japan’s foremost protector, the next installment of movies...
- 12/9/2022
- by Paul Lê
- bloody-disgusting.com
It's almost time for DesignerCon! The annual art and design convention is hitting the Anaheim Convention Center in California from November 18 through November 20 with over 300,000 square feet packed with over 700 vendors, art and custom collectible shows, live demonstrations, and tons more. Of course, that's the perfect place for our friends at Mondo to release a bunch of cool new exclusives that fans will want to get their hands on.
/Film is proud to debut every single one of the exclusives that Mondo will be bringing to DesignerCon 2022, including "The Shining: A Visual and Cultural Haunting," a vinyl record and book bundle featuring exclusive essays, original recollections, contributions from cultural luminaries, and art and visual ephemera. There's also plenty for Godzilla fans, including an assortment of collectible figures featuring the King of Monsters and a few of his adversaries from over the years, as well as some fantastic artwork. "Masters of the Universe...
/Film is proud to debut every single one of the exclusives that Mondo will be bringing to DesignerCon 2022, including "The Shining: A Visual and Cultural Haunting," a vinyl record and book bundle featuring exclusive essays, original recollections, contributions from cultural luminaries, and art and visual ephemera. There's also plenty for Godzilla fans, including an assortment of collectible figures featuring the King of Monsters and a few of his adversaries from over the years, as well as some fantastic artwork. "Masters of the Universe...
- 11/16/2022
- by Ethan Anderton
- Slash Film
Can you believe it’s been 68 years since we first heard the pitter patter of Godzilla’s city-crunching feet? And the excitement has never abated. “He’s an all-purpose monster,” as director John Carpenter enthuses while sitting down with Den of Geek. “Anything you need, he’s there for you.”
Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira), directed by Ishirō Honda, is a horror landmark and a science fiction legend. Its atomic-powered star, the enormous, atomically mutated dinosaur we call Godzilla, is the embodiment of a country’s fears and a beloved icon of destruction. Produced and distributed by Japan’s premiere monster factory Toho Co. Ltd, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, Honda’s 1954 film created the kaiju (big monster) genre, reinventing the motion picture industry by miniaturizing more than budgets for maximum payloads, and spawning almost 30 sequels.
Shout! Factory TV thinks that is a reason to celebrate. Beginning on Godzilla...
Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira), directed by Ishirō Honda, is a horror landmark and a science fiction legend. Its atomic-powered star, the enormous, atomically mutated dinosaur we call Godzilla, is the embodiment of a country’s fears and a beloved icon of destruction. Produced and distributed by Japan’s premiere monster factory Toho Co. Ltd, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, Honda’s 1954 film created the kaiju (big monster) genre, reinventing the motion picture industry by miniaturizing more than budgets for maximum payloads, and spawning almost 30 sequels.
Shout! Factory TV thinks that is a reason to celebrate. Beginning on Godzilla...
- 11/2/2022
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Once upon a time, "Gojira" was a creature of the atomic bomb. This is no longer the case. Through years of evolution, "Gojira" drifted from nuclear anxieties. Its successors developed their own iconography: moths, plants, three-headed dragons. In the process, these monsters became inhabitants of a fantasy world drifting further and further from our own. This does not mean that new kaiju movies are bankrupt per se. The Heisei "Gamera" films of the 1990s are genre films, concerned only with being the best giant monster movies they can be. Yet they are some of the best films of their era regardless, with their own memorable characters and ideas. 2016's "Shin Gojira" reclaimed its titular monster as a political metaphor. Rather than drive audiences away, it instead became a major critical and commercial success in Japan. Kaiju still have life in them yet.
Even so, the original "Gojira" stands alone in film history.
Even so, the original "Gojira" stands alone in film history.
- 10/9/2022
- by Adam Wescott
- Slash Film
Ishirō Honda's 1954 kaiju film "Godzilla" became a cult phenomenon that eventually birthed the ever-expanding "Godzilla" franchise, which is still a significant part of Japanese pop culture. Although Honda's original is very much a spectacle with a prehistoric monster at the center of the tale, the film is also intensely melancholic, as it reflects the socio-political situation in Japan at the time. As Japan was still recovering from the aftermath of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the shots of a radioactive beast terrorizing the streets of Tokyo in "Godzilla" deeply resonated with audiences.
The fact that Honda's "Godzilla" spawned more than 30 sequels is a testament to its influence on popular culture, and one would assume that the film's cult hit status was a given at the time of release. This, however, was not the case. "Godzilla" was conceived during a time of great uncertainty in the film industry,...
The fact that Honda's "Godzilla" spawned more than 30 sequels is a testament to its influence on popular culture, and one would assume that the film's cult hit status was a given at the time of release. This, however, was not the case. "Godzilla" was conceived during a time of great uncertainty in the film industry,...
- 10/6/2022
- by Debopriyaa Dutta
- Slash Film
Ten years after the success of “Godzilla”, it became more than evident that the popularity of the kaiju was nowhere near the end and had arguably only just begun. With the commercial acclaim of both “Mothra” and the ambitious “King Kong vs. Godzilla”, producer Toho would continue the franchise with now one more entry per year, staring with “Mothra vs. Godzilla”, which saw the giant reptile with the star of Ishiro Honda’s movie just a few years prior. While the feature also shows the technical advances when it came to shooting these kinds of movies, it also stayed true to the themes which Honda and co-author Takeo Murata had introduced in the first movie of the franchise, namely the battle of man vs. nature and the danger of nuclear technology, with the director’s skepticism seemingly have grown over the past decade if the story is any indicator.
Buy...
Buy...
- 8/29/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
When looking at the landscape of Japanese cinema, it is hard to imagine it without the likes of Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Yasujiro Ozu, which, much due to their re-discovery and evaluation by European critics and film festivals, have gained a reputation of being part of the quintessential cinematic canon. However, when the boutique label Criterion announced their release of an edition of the first “Godzilla”-features, the event was met with both excitement from cinephiles, but also criticism, since many though there were many other titles more deserving of a treatment such as this. Among many other features, what this discussion highlighted was the narrow scope of many filmfans and so-called connoisseurs of the medium, but also the fact that Ishiro Honda, despite being highly regarded among his peers, most notable Kurosawa himself, never truly received the kind of acceptance his colleagues did. If there is any feature...
- 7/4/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
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