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Reviews
Gyarakushî kaidou (2015)
If you can't make it space, you can't make it anywhere!
This charming, simple, but complexly-written movie is a great answer to those questions:
What happens in "The Hitchhiker's Guide Restaurant at the End of the Universe" on a slow night?
and
What happens in "The Star Wars Cantina in Mos Eisley" when they are not filming a new installment?
Demonstrates once again that good science fiction movies DO NOT require galactic budgets, just extraterrestrial imagination.
Tôkyô gomi onna (2000)
lyrical movie set in contemporary Tokyo
A slow paced but enchanting movie... like Cafe Lumiere, it has some great shots of modern Tokyo and an even more realistic feel. However, I, for one, would probably not have watched an identical movie set in New York, for me much of the fun is in the Tokyo setting.
I have added it to the list of 10 or so Japanese/Japan-related movies that I recommend to friends.* A simple story, based on a young Tokyo woman who is obsessed with the man who lives above her in their apartment house, and sorts almost religiously through his trash. Eventually she schemes to run into him in real life and, maybe, the collision between dreams and reality sets her off on a different course. (Not much of a spoiler, but better safe than sorry).
The subtitles I saw seemed a bit weak in spots and it was a shame that they didn't translate Yume no Shima**... the place where the main action of the movie ends... kind of stops from completing the loop of the story.
The Netflix disc that I saw also had an interesting biography of the director's previous work. The other review on this site says that the movie seems a bit amateurish, but this information makes it clear he's earned his chops.
* let's see:
Stray Dog
Cafe Lumiere
Mr. Baseball
Walk Don't Run
Bounce KO Gals
Tony Takitani
Tokyo Monogatari
TenKouSei (Changing Schools... I haven't seen a translated version)
Always San Choume no Yuuhi (Always 3rd Precinct Evening Sun)
Stupeur et Tremblements (Fear and Trembling)
** Dream Island (might also be construed as a spoiler)