In a Lonely Place
In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray (They Live by Night, Rebel Without a Cause) and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria...
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1 min read
Tanuja Ramachandran: Hunter-Seeker
This has to be the first novel about a narcoleptic Indo-Canadian mercenary with a sari and sexy midriff who wreaks vengeance upon a...
2 min read
Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories
Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories (2009) is a collection of works by Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927). I'd seen Akira Kurosawa's 1950...
2 min read
Giri/Haji
BBC Two's eight-part series Giri/Haji is the best TV I've seen so far in 2019, and that includes this year's The Handmaid's Tale and...
3 min read
Earthquake Bird
Another guilty Netflix pleasure, Earthquake Bird is as predictable as it tries not to be. Labeled as a "psychological drama mystery...
2 min read
An Orchestra of Minorities
This is the first novel I've read by Chigozie Obioma, and to be honest I had a hard time getting through it. An Orchestra of Minorities...
1 min read
Encounters with Kyoto
Encounters with Kyoto: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 3 (2019) is an absorbing, at times amusing collection of twenty-two storytellers'...
2 min read
Quichotte
Salman Rushdie's Quichotte (2019) is a chaotic bunch of things neatly woven together. In places (separately or simultaneously) a...
2 min read
Ran
Akira Kurosawa's final epic, Ran (or 乱, which can mean riot, war, disorder, and disturb), released in 1985, is based both on legends of...
3 min read
The Water Magician
The Water Magician is a 1933 silent film (with benshi accompaniment) by Kenji Mizoguchi. Takino Shiraito (played by Irie Takako) is a...
1 min read
The Image Factory
The Image Factory: Fads & Fashions in Japan (2003), by Donald Richie, takes a penetrating and frequently humorous look at Japan’s styles...
2 min read
Tokyo March
Tokyo March (Japanese: 東京行進曲, or Tōkyō kōshinkyoku) is a 1929 silent film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi which was originally screened with...
2 min read
The Blue Angel
Here's a German film from 1930 that hasn't lost its entertainment value over the past 90 years. Compelling throughout and visually...
2 min read
A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture
A Japanese Mirror, published in 1984, is Ian Buruma's dissection of the myths that imbue the darker segments of Japan's culture. He...
2 min read
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World
Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak's novel entitled 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World (2019) is two series of events...
2 min read
In the Realm of the Senses
Never seen anything like this. Intensely disturbing, sexually explicit, beautifully framed and shot, and based on actual events, In the...
2 min read
Our Little Sister
I watched Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters (2018) earlier this year and really enjoyed it. Our Little Sister (2015), also written and...
1 min read
Action in the North Atlantic
Action in the North Atlantic (1943; also called Heroes Without Uniforms) is a black-and-white war film starring Humphrey Bogart and...
5 min read
Osaka Elegy
Osaka Elegy (Japanese: 浪華悲歌, Naniwa Elegy) is a 1936 film written and directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and featuring many of the same actors...
2 min read
The Plot Against America
Philip Roth's 2004 novel, The Plot Against America, is counterfactual history centered around Roth himself as a young boy growing up in...
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