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...

[The following post is not a review of The Last of Us Part II. Because I have not yet finished the game, I cannot offer a full, complete,...

Onward isn’t Pixar’s best effort (it’s difficult to compete with the likes of WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3), but it’s definitely the...

Ventured out to Metrograph to catch a screening of the gorgeous new 4K restoration of Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong. This stylish,...

Shot/reverse shot is about as basic as film language gets: one character speaks; a second responds, back and forth in perfectly matched...

As has become my custom of late, I would like to elaborate on my favorite scene in Ride Your Wave. Unfortunately, because it occurs near...

[Despite my best efforts, the following review contains MINOR SPOILERS (though most of them are only by implication); consider yourself...

[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS for No Country for Old Men and The Bad Sleep Well; you have been warned!] Spoiler alert: In...

Ventured out to Japan Society to catch a screening of Poem, the third and final installment in director Akio Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy...

Watched The Best Years of Our Lives on the Criterion Channel. The “coming home” narrative has been one of the most popular sub-genres of...

WONKA: But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted… he lived happily every after!...