Nude

Examines the exhilaration and heartbreak of the adult-movie industry and how AV stars create and inhabit their new identities. This evocative work leaves open whether or not it was worth it. An unexpected tour-de-force, and one of the best contemporary fiction pieces on becoming a porno actress—in any country.
Read full review

Norwegian Wood

Masterpiece of the famous Haruki Murakami novel from Vietnamese-French director Tran Ahn Hung and an all-Japanese cast featuring Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) and Kenichi Matsuyama (Death Note). With highly nuanced performances, this meditation on death, loss and its emotional toll hits home.
Read full review

Ikechan to Boku

Manga has become the most common source material for Japanese film, but the majority are aimed at children—and thoroughly banal. This story of a boy with a little blob named Ikechan defies the mold. Manages cute and meaningful at the same time.

Air Doll (Kuki Ningyo)

Follows an inflatable sex doll (Korean actress Doona Bae—Cloud Atlas) that develops life and goes out into the world. She experiences reality as a child and its insight into beauty and humanity—a thought-provoking and surreal work.
Read full review

Pyuupiru 2001-2008

[pictured top]
Shot over seven years, we see an artist gain confidence in his art while undergoing a sexual transformation. An intimate portrait by documentarian Daishi Matsunaga on the search for an androgynous, idealized body—a must for those interested in art and sexual identity.
Read full review

© The New York Times and First Thought Films

Fashion is what you’re wearing. “We all get dressed for Bill,” says Vogue editor Anna Wintour. She’s talking about legendary New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham. This shy, spry, 82-year-old braves the streets of Manhattan all day every day on his venerable bicycle, dressed invariably in a French trash-collector’s jacket, snapping photo after photo, not unlike a war photographer, intensely focused on people on the street and what they chose to put on that morning. Don’t call him a fashion photographer. He could care less about haute couture. He lives in monastic simplicity in an artist’s studio in Carnegie Hall that is up to the ceiling in filing cabinets, with a small space for a cot. The bath is down the hall. This quiet, modest man is contradictorily almost invisible yet a New York institution. At a reception honoring him, he spent most of his time photographing the guests. All in all, he’s one of the most completely and purely happy people you will ever find. And this film will make you happy, too. No passion for fashion needed. Because Bill’s talent is simply noticing, something many of us have forgotten how to do.

© 2012 Gambit Pictures Limited

It looks like it’s funny, from its retro, Pink Panther-like opening credits to its farcical setups, fart gags and lost-my-pants slapstick. But not far into this stilted remake of the 1966 Shirley MacLaine/Michael Caine flick you realize what’s missing: you’re not laughing. Brit art curator Colin Firth enlists American cowgirl Cameron Diaz to dupe his obnoxious boss (Alan Rickman) into buying a fake Monet crafted by Tom Courtenay. These actors neither stretch their talents nor enhance their filmographies. Stereotypical Japanese businessmen notably offensive. Scripted by the Coen Brothers. Hard to tell.

© 2012 ALLIANCE FILMS (UK) LIMITED

A self-centered true crime hack (Ethan Hawke) desperate for a new hit book moves his unsuspecting family into a house in which the previous inhabitants were hanged en masse, with one child still missing. He finds some unsettling Super 8 footage that seems to be “family” snuff films, in that entire families are ritually burned, drowned or even lawn-mowered. Ick. Develops like a mystery thriller before plowing into supernatural horror. Ending a bit over the top, but a credible Hawke holds it together. Relentlessly paced, well crafted, above average boo movie with a fittingly discordant score.

© 2011 Eames Office, LLC

You may never have come into contact with Charles and Ray Eames, but your butt most likely has. The architectural-school dropout and his wife, the painter who rarely painted, are most commonly associated with the ubiquitous bentwood “Eames chair.” But their influence goes way beyond that. Their iconic and groundbreaking mix of the practical and the aesthetic fairly flowed out of their wonderfully prolific design studio in Venice, CA. They made numerous short films, designed the IBM logo, housewares and exhibitions. A must-see for designers.

© 2012 MVLFFLLC. TM & © 2012 Marvel. All Rights Reserved

2008’s Iron Man was a fun flick, mainly because of Robert Downey Jr.’s unique, irreverent and even believable portrayal as the brash-but-brilliant industrialist-turned-superhero. The 2010 sequel was, I thought, dutiful and a bit forced, and I really don’t remember much about the bombastic The Avengers. But I’m glad to say that everyone’s favorite skewed-hero Man in a Can is back in form with IM3. As with the first film, this one works because Downey spends a lot of time outside his ferrous super-suit engaging in his inimitable, rapid-fire one-liners. A highlight is Ben Kingsley, an absolute hoot as “The Mandarin,” an expectations-subverting super-villain whose vengeful, scorched-earth campaign against Tony Stark and all he holds dear severely (and sorry about this in advance) tests his mettle. Guy Pearce again demonstrates his range as a convincing secondary (or is it primary?) villain, one of those dreaded smarmy successful nerds. And of course Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle reprise their roles as Pepper Potts and Colonel Rhodes. Well paced, excellent special effects (in pointless 3D), pretty funny, entertaining from start to finish and a satisfying, character-driven balance of action, comedy and sci-fi.

© Caid Productions, Inc. All rights reserved./©Mattel, Inc

This fun, stylish and male-baffling look at those things that cover your feet (women’s, that is) consists largely of interviews with very wealthy—what you’d have to call “Imeldic”—ladies who have shoe closets bigger than my 2DK. The humble shoe is examined from the sociological, historical, cultural and psychological perspective—and let’s not leave out the erotic. Or the obsessive. Also represented are designers like Manolo Blahnik, and a lot of people speaking in French. But mostly it’s rich ladies talking about this pair of Jimmy Choos they just hadda have but have never worn. Baffling. Japanese title: Watashi ga Kutsu wo Ai Suru Wake. (60 min) Showing from May 11

© EL DESEO S.A.

Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues has won international attention for his work, which often deals with gay themes. His films have not been widely seen in Japan, but Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro Toshima-ku) will hold an all-night screening of his features, shorts and documentaries on May 11.

If you have a love of cinema and a morning free, check out the ongoing series of digitally-remastered classic films presented at 10am at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (6-10-2 Roppongi Minato-ku). Pretty Woman (1990) is on through May 17, followed by West Side Story (1961; May 18-31), Rio Bravo (1959; June 1-14), Lawrence of Arabia (1962; June 15-28) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975; Jun 29-Jul 12). KM

© GAGA Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Now Koreeda will have another shot at the Palme d’Or when the cinema elite descend on the resort town May 15-26. His just-completed feature Like Father, Like Son [pictured] stars author/actor Lily Franky as a loving father who finds the boy he has raised for six years is not his biological son, due to a hospital mix-up. It is one of 19 films in the “official selection” program.

Fellow Japanese director Takashi Miike is heading to France with his thriller Shield of Straw. Other high profile entries in the competition include Roman Polanski’s Venus in Furs, Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra on the entertainer Liberace, and the Coen Brothers’ folksinger drama Inside Llewyn Davis.

After having been invited countless times, Steven Spielberg finally cleared up his schedule enough to serve as this year’s jury head. “My admiration for the steadfast mission of the festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none,” the Lincoln director said.

Like Father, Like Son will open in Japan on Oct 5.

© Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

The story revolves around Masashi (Takuto Sueoka), a boy who has come from a tsunami relocation center to a small town in Japan. At his new school, he learns that every child gets a Friend, something like a robot spirit totem controlled by technological devices to serve the child. This allows Murakami to create a whole range of otherworldly creatures while focusing on Kurage-bo (“Jellyfish boy”), Masashi’s totem.

Visually inventive, Murakami mixes live action and animation to create a compelling flick. While the idea seems to borrow a bit from the great manga-based film Ikechan to Boku (2009) and it is a children’s story; overall this is a fine cross-genre jump for Murakami.

Japanese title: Mememe no Kurage (100 min)

© 2012 VILLAGE ROADSHOW FILMS (BVI) LIMITED

The “Hat Squad” was an elite unit illicitly sanctioned by legendary LAPD Chief William Parker in 1949 to play dirty with Mickey Cohen and drive the Mob out of El Lay. Fascinating story. Go rent the 1996 Mulholland Falls for more. But this tawdry, stylishly empty Untouchables wannabe is closer to Dick Tracy, and so dumbs down and amps up the story for the multiplex crowd that it plays more like a preposterone-drenched Fantastic Four sequel with tommy guns. Talent wasted in this dim-witted celebration of righteous bloodshed includes Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte, Ryan Gosling, and Emma Stone.

© The British Film Institute 2013

Highly derivative (of Michael Mann and Christopher Nolan), style-over-substance Brit coppers-and-robbers kill-‘em-up. Solid performances by James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Peter Mullan and Andrea Riseborough are repeatedly undermined by writing rife with risible dialogue and plot twists you can spot from a mile away. And the thing’s so convoluted that it must at one point be explained in one of those at-gunpoint monologues. Looks great, but I don’t remember believing a thing in it. Bright side: Pretty good Bad Movie potential if you consume it with friends and a few drinks.

©2012 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved

After a decade of dithering disastrously in California politics, Arnold Schwarzenegger is indeed back, doing what he does best: acting terribly in mindless, morally dubious, gun-glorifying shoot-‘em-ups. Swa-chan is getting on in years, but apparently that’s okay these days if you throw in a few old-guy jokes (“I’m gedding too auld for dis”). The plot has him as sheriff in a small border town near Mexico, toward which an escaped cartel kingpin is racing in a super-corvette that “can outrun helicopters.” You get the idea. It’s mostly shooting and killing, catchphrases, clichés and corpses.

© 2012 Cogans Film Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Of all the movies about mob hit men, etc., few are more gritty, unglamorous or wickedly amusing than this stylish adaptation by Andrew Dominik of George V. Higgins’s Cogan’s Trade. Dominik’s previous effort was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which I thought was well made but offputtingly art-house. Less so this sideways look at the daily business of being a hood. Hit men too apparently have to work at a discount in this bad economy. Who knew? Brad Pitt’s charismatic-but-callous assassin character has had it about up to here with the banality of the corporate-type mob committees (represented by Richard Jenkins) that must approve each whack. Is organized crime just capitalism in a more raw form? Effective appearances by Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini remind us that we’re not far from GoodFellas or The Sopranos territory, but gangster-action-flick fans may find this dialogue-driven effort a bit slow (filmmakers prefer “deliberately paced”). Be warned, however, that when it turns violent, it’s pretty explicit. Ingeniously, all this dystopian savagery and nihilistic notions is thought-provokingly played against an overlay of Obama’s hope-and-change philosophy during the 2008 presidential campaign. Hey, it’s just business.

© 2012 Blueprint Pictures (Now) Limited, BBC and The British Film Institute. All Rights Reserved

Jeez. Sometimes they should sell tissues at the popcorn stand. But this unabashed tearjerker is made a tad less mawkish by Dakota Fanning’s sassy turn as a 17-year-old girl who has lived with leukemia for four years. She elects to halt her debilitating chemo and start in on her bucket list: shoplift, do drugs, lose virginity. This latter is helped by conveniently having Jeremy Irving (War Horse) as a neighbor. I don’t get why she’s so nasty to everyone around her, though. Makes her rather unlikable. This cancer weepie will resonate with some more than others. I’ve sat through worse, but better, too.

© 2012 Next Stop Production. LLC

The latest from Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but also Green Hornet) is an hour and a half of intense teenage effusiveness, about a few dozen insanely energetic Bronx high-school kids sharing a city bus home on the last day of school before summer. These soon-to-be-adults yearn, spurn, chatter, flatter, bully and befriend as they jockey for status. It’s not a doc, but every scene is meticulously crafted to play like one. Gondry spent two years with these kids at an after-school acting program weaving their real lives into the script. Starts off irritating; grows on you.

© Hysteria Films Limited, Arte France Cinema and By Alternative Pictures S.A.R.L.

Back in the Victorian era, any hint of a sex drive in women was considered a disorder called “female hysteria” and was “cured” effectively, one might say ecstatically, by inducing orgasm through vaginal massage. (A-Heh!) Long story short, this is the elegantly and humorously told story behind the invention of that milestone of human progress, the electric vibrator. (The film opens with: “This story is based on fact. Really.”) Maggie Gyllenhaal, sporting a credible British accent, is spot-on as a plucky proto-feminist, but the chemistry-free romantic subplot with Hugh Dancy is, well, flaccid.

© 2012 Cinereach Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved

The desolate, poverty-stricken island wilderness off New Orleans known as the “Bathtub” is home to a small community of fiercely self-sufficient people who think it’s wonderful. And none more so than a defiant and brave five-year-old named Hushpuppy (played by an astounding rookie named Quvenzhane Wallis) through whose eyes and mind we experience the story. Meanwhile, mythical Ice Age bison liberated by the same climate change that threatens the Bathtub, presumably representing post-affluent America, make their way south. This dark fairy tale is a joyful, challenging and life-affirming movie experience.

Photo by Kevin Mcgue

“I have been with my wife for 36 years, and she has seen me start many scripts and not finish. This time she said ‘if you don’t make this movie I’m going to leave you,’ Hoffman recalled during a recent visit to Tokyo. “I said, ‘If I make it and it is not a hit, I am leaving you,’” the two time Oscar-winner joked.

The result of this challenge from his wife is Quartet, set in a British home for retired musicians. “We see older people, but we think they are far away from our reality. But then we wake up one morning and we are one,” said the filmmaker, who gave his age as “75 and a half”. Hoffman praised his “heroic” cast, including Maggie Smith, who continues to work at the age of 78 despite problems with her eyesight and the need of a cane.

He also hired musicians in their 70s and 80s for bit parts, explaining that many of them had not had work offers in 20 or 30 years. “How many of you have a parent or a grandparent who have been told, ‘You are too old. We are firing you.’?” Hoffman asked while speaking of an “older people revolution.” “This is a film set in a retirement home, but the people refuse to retire.”

Quartet is currently screening at Bunkamura’s Le Cinema, 2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku; www.bunkamura.co.jp

© 2013 GULLANE (THOMAS) LIMITED

And now for some more grown-up fare… Those who wish to revisit Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) before the remake arrives this fall, head over to Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro Toshima-ku; www.shin-bungeiza.com), where the first-ever adaptation of any Stephen King novel is playing in a program of cinema classics, April 28-May 13. Also on offer are Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) and Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).

The Oscar-nominated Danish film A Royal Affair will finally get a Japan release at Bunkamura’s Le Cinema (2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku; www.bunkamura.co.jp) from April 27. It tells the true story of Johann Friedrich Struensee, royal physician to the Danish court in the 18th century, who used his influence to modernize the country and bed the queen at the same time.