Cop Out: ©2010 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.

Jersey auteur Kevin Smith’s latest and most juvenile film is this flaccid buddy-cop opera starring Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis (zilch chemistry) that thinks it’s way funnier than it is. In this homage to a genre that no one ever really liked, two disgraced cops slog through a forest of bodily function jokes to retrieve a baseball card from Mexican drug smugglers, whom they eventually bust, leading in the end (if you’re still in the theater) to their redemption, yada yada. It’s gutless, irritating and boring. Didn’t crack a smile. This is the kind of moviemaking that Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy) would once have ridiculed. Sad.

JAPAN TODAY

Smap singer Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, 36, and actress Yukie Nakama (Gokusen, Trick), 30, will star in a TBS miniseries set in the 1960s called 99-year Love: Japanese-Americans. The drama tells the story of a Japanese family that immigrated to the United States 99 years before the story is set. Kusanagi will play a second-generation Japanese-American—and, with the help of prosthetics, that same character’s father—while Nakama appears as his wife. Seattle Mariners superstar Ichiro Suzuki will make an appearance in archival footage showing him at bat. According to producers, they decided to add a clip of Ichiro “because he is an example of a man that transcends racial stereotypes, to contrast the content of the show.” The series will air in five 2-hour segments starting November 3. “I really hope this show strikes a chord with not only Japanese viewers, but Americans as well,” Kusanagi said. Nakama, meanwhile, says she found great value in the project. “I feel like I’ve really accomplished something landing this part. The story deals with heavy issues, so I feel I must work hard to do justice to the subject matter.”

Shibuya’s Cinema Vera (1-5 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku; www.cinemavera.com) is opening its vaults to show a collection of masterpieces from the history of cinema, September 4-October 1. The lineup includes works that will be familiar to any student who has sat through film 101 class, namely Citizen Kane (1941; pictured) and Battleship Potemkin (1925), as well as lighter fare like the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup (1933).

Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku; www.shin-bungeiza.com) continues its series of tributes to world filmmakers with an all-night marathon of movies by acclaimed documentary director Frederick Wiseman on September 11. Wiseman trained as a lawyer before turning to directing relatively late in life, creating cinéma vérité docs on the social institutions that shape American life. Note: all films in English.

Micmacs à tire-larigot (translated as “Non-stop shenanigans”), the latest film by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, is screening at Ebisu Garden Cinema (www.kadokawa-gardencinema.jp/yebisu) from September 4. As with Jeunet’s earlier film, the international hit Amelie, happenstance plays a major part: the central character is the victim of a random shooting and later finds himself living in the city dump with a group of misfits.

Unless noted, Japanese films screen without English subtitles. Non-English-language films are shown with Japanese subtitles only

©2007 2929 Productions LLC

The satire in this send-up by Barry Levinson (Wag the Dog) of the Hollywood film machine is constant and sly. So sly, however, that those not directly involved in the “movie business” may miss most of it. I loved it, but I can understand how it could seem a tad tedious to cinematic outsiders. Central character Robert De Niro, an A-list producer with a string of flops, has to deal with a variety of personal-relationship issues while at the same time trying to rescue his latest film, a moody Sean Penn thriller that concludes with the shooting of a dog. Michael Wincott is great as the bad-boy, prima-donna Brit director, and Bruce Willis does some of his best work as, well, a temperamental, abusive, overweight Bruce Willis. Looks like he’s having fun. Anyway, egos are stroked, backs are stabbed, business is done. And art suffers. But even if you’re part of the tiny target audience, the film may seem a bit choppy, as it’s a fictional adaptation of the episodic memoirs of veteran producer Art Linson (Fight Club, Heist). Top-notch cast includes Robin Wright Penn, Catherine Keener, Stanley Tucci and John Turturro.

©2010東映ビデオ

The Hana to Hebi film series holds a special place in Japanese cinematic history. The first movie, a roman porno work released in 1974, was adapted from Oniroku Dan’s series of novels, and it starred the genre-leading actress Naomi Tani. Though the film was a huge hit, friction between Dan and the Nikkatsu film studio meant that no further movies were made from his novels. In 2004, the series was resurrected with controversial former tarento Aya Sugimoto playing the role of the sexually submissive heroine, Shizuko. This time around, Shizuko is portrayed by Minako Komukai, another controversial actress who got sacked by her management company following a drug arrest in 2008. Hana to Hebi 3 represents her high-profile comeback, and the flick’s sexual antics are significantly amplified from past versions. Set in Italy, the story concerns a cellist who is lured to the remote house of a rich businessman. Awaiting her there is a team of sexual trainers, one of whom is portrayed by real-life rope master Go Arisue. With its mix of bondage, S&M, torture and sex, this film is not for the prudish. English title: Flower & Snake 3. (122 min)

Warner Bros

One hundred Harry Potter fans—or “Potterians,” as they are referred to by the Japanese media—gathered for a special event at Shinjuku Piccadilly movie theater on August 11 to commemorate 100 days remaining until the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In a video message, actor Daniel Radcliffe, 21, who said that about half of his fan mail comes from Japan, told the group: “I’m really honored to be able to participate in the making of one of the greatest fantasy movies of all time.” Part One of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released in Japan on November 19, and the cast are expected to come here to mark the occasion. Part Two will follow next July.

©Last Dancer Pty Ltd and Screen Australia

Bruce Beresford’s (Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy) adaptation of the autobiography of Chinese ballet star Li Cunxin is kind of an Asian Billy Elliot, and just as heartwarming. Li was plucked at the age of 11 from his home and family in Shandong Province and taken to Beijing to be trained in classical ballet. Years later, while on a three-month cultural exchange program with the Houston Ballet, the young dancer decides that, despite a lifetime of “America Evil” indoctrination, he wants to stay. Even in Houston. This means, of course, that he can never see his family again, which in turn sets up a fairly predictable reunion scene later in the movie that’s moving nonetheless. In fact, the emotional button-pushing is frequent and not subtle, but Beresford’s craft is great, and he makes it tolerable. Chi Cao seems a bit bewildered and stiff in the lead role, but this actually befits his character. Bruce Greenwood shines as the Houston company’s director. Also Kyle MacLachlan and Joan Chen. Large parts are in Mandarin, and in theaters it will be subtitled only in Japanese, so I recommend putting this on your list of movies to rent at some future date.

Toilet: ©2010“トイレット”フィルムパートナーズ;

Japanese directors periodically and wisely shake off the bonds of Japan’s “creative” system and go off to study filmmaking overseas, usually with the dream of becoming a “breakthrough,” cross-cultural phenom. Then in the end they merely shoehorn some half-assed gaijin actors into Japanese stereotypes, write a lame, self-indulgent story around them, include an oddball or two, and hope someone will call it art. (Someone will. It’s not.) Toilet has no character development, the pacing sucks, the editing’s nonexistent, the camerawork’s pedestrian, and you’re lucky I don’t have any room left for the plot. Major bore.

©Les Films Marceau

Fans of European horror films should head to Shinjuku Musashino-kan (3-27-10 Shinjuku; http://shinjuku.musashino-k.jp) to catch Spirits of the Dead (1968; pictured), playing from August 28. The omnibus film sees directors Federico Fellini, Louis Malle and Roger Vadim (in Italian, French and English respectively) each try their hand at adapting a story by the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe, tied together by narration from Vincent Price.

Also in the vintage horror category, Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku; www.shin-bungeiza.com) will hold an all-night marathon of films based on stories by horror writer Edogawa Rampo, whose pen name was a play on Edgar Allan Poe. The lineup includes the campy Black Lizard (1968), starring current TV celeb Akihiro Maruyama as the leader of a gang of jewel thieves, and writer Yukio Mishima as a taxidermic specimen of “the perfect man.” The event takes place August 28.

The Hara Museum in Shinagawa (4-7-25 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku; www.haramuseum.or.jp) has kicked off its Blank Museum series of music and films that are designed to take advantage of the building’s unique, Bauhaus-inspired space. The “Blue Night” event on August 27 takes the bold step of showing Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993), which is a soundtrack of the director and friends reminiscing about his life and work accompanied by a static blue screen (Jarman had lost his eyesight due to AIDS-related complications). The screening will be followed by a performance by ambient musicians Keiichiro Shibuya and Etsuko Yakushimaru.

Unless noted, Japanese films screen without English subtitles. Non-English-language films are shown with Japanese subtitles only.

©2010 「NECK」製作委員会

This bizarre piece of comedy-horror is pretty far off the wall, and only marginally funny. It starts with a vignette of Sugina (Sumina Teramoto) as a bratty child who delights in frightening her friends. Years later, she’s a graduate student (portrayed by Saki Aibu) at a respected university, where her highly prized work consists of trying to attract ghosts. Toward that end, she tricks football captain Tomokazu (Junpei Mizubata) to her lab and puts him into a wooden box with only his head protruding. When no ghost appears, the jock starts working with Sugina to improve her “Neck machine.” They enlist the help of film producer Eiko (Chiaki Kuriyama) and TV writer Takashi (Yuta Hiraoka), who has, coincidentally enough, constructed his own Neck machine in a haunted house in the woods. This annoying film tries to capitalize on the success of Japanese horror movies, but it’s a joke with no punch line. (97 min)

©2010 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

The plot barely exists, the dialogue’s dumb, the characters are shallow, the action’s pointless, and it lacks the smallest trace of intellectual stimulation. Hey—it’s Sex and the City for males! This mildly entertaining two hours of preposterone-fuelled, compacted trash is based, of course, on the cheeseball ’80s TV show starring George Peppard and Mr. T. The series was about an elite quartet of Army Rangers, Vietnam vets (updated to Iraq vets here), who go on the lam after being framed for a crime. Here’s the lineup, then. (Lineups are what you do when you don’t have much else to say.) Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) is the team’s gruff, wisecracking alpha male. The mohawked B.A. Baracus is played by the very large wrestler Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who tries hard but falls a tad short of Mr. T’s “amoletchoolive” attitude. Bradley Cooper does the womanizing Faceman honors, and Sharlto Copley gets the most laughs as Mad Murdock, the team’s brilliant but unhinged pilot. Also Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel and Brian Bloom. The fact that everyone is annoyingly smug saps the suspense, but if you can abide the inanity, you won’t be bored.

She hasn’t appeared in a film since 1973, but Brigitte Bardot’s blonde tresses and alluring pout are still inextricably linked with classic French cinema. From August 28 through September 28—the actress’ 74th birthday—Shinjuku theater Musashino-kan (3-27-10 Shinjuku; http://shinjuku.musashino-k.jp) pays tribute with screenings of five Bardot films from her heyday in the ’50s. Highlights include …And God Created Woman (1956; pictured), about a young vixen who torments her former lover by marrying his brother, and Plucking the Daisy (1956), in which Bardot plays a ballet dancer moonlighting as a stripper.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is the repository of Dutch national culture, so when a team of international architects began ripping the guts out of the building in 2003, protestors brought the project to a standstill. Seven years later, many masterpieces can only be seen by workers in hard hats. A documentary on the troubled renovation, The New Rijksmuseum (2008), is screening from August 21 at Shibuya’s Eurospace (1-5 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku; www.eurospace.co.jp).

The National Film Center in Kyobashi (3-7-6 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku; www.momat.go.jp) is paying tribute to Japanese animation pioneer Noburo Ofuji from August 20-September 5. Working in the ’20s and ’30s, when celluloid was prohibitively expensive, Ofuji meticulously cut out backgrounds and characters from colored chiyogami paper, giving his work a distinctly “Japanese” feel. Later in his career, the director experimented with bringing live actors and animated characters together onscreen.

Unless noted, Japanese films screen without English subtitles. Non-English-language films are shown with Japanese subtitles only.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore: 2009 VILLAGE ROADSHOW FILMS (BVI) LIMITED

The original movie, a 2001 CG-lips-on-talking-animals flick, was so forgettable that I recently watched the entire thing on DVD, thinking it was this charmless sequel, and not a single frame rang a bell. This ain’t no Babe. I’m not even going to go into the plot, since there’s nothing here for adults save numerous 007 references (title, opening credits, gadgetry, theme song by Bette Midler à la Shirley Bassey), and your kids won’t care. The lines the poor beasts are given could be construed as cruelty to animals. Could have done without the waterboarding joke. Will appeal to kids under 10. Make that 8. Okay, 6. Note: all local screenings are dubbed in Japanese.

©若松プロダクション

Koji Wakamatsu’s films from the 1960s were plotless orgies of sex and violence (and sexual violence). They shocked, mystified and scandalized the entire country, never more so than when Affairs within Walls (1965) became one of the first Japanese films to be accepted at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival. In fact, Wakamatsu’s entire oeuvre reflects his radical leftist politics, delivering implicit attacks on all forms of authority. In some ways, Caterpillar is the culmination of his career. Also invited to the Berlin Film Fest, it tells the story of Kurokawa (Shima Ohnishi), an Imperial Army soldier who rapes and massacres his way through occupied China. After returning home limbless and gruesomely scarred, he’s revered as a “soldier of god.” Long-suffering wife Shigeko (Shinobu Terajima, who won the Silver Bear for best actress at the Berlin fest for the role) must cater to his every need, usually sexual. Caterpillar’s condemnation of Japanese imperialism, war crimes and blind acceptance of authority, as well as sexual violence against women, is powerful and explicit. Laced with archival footage, this film is nothing short of a masterpiece. (85 min)

IMAGE.NET

Actress Miki Nakatani, 34, will once again play the role of an “unfortunate woman” in the upcoming movie Hankyu Densha, which deals with people whose lives intersect on the Hankyu Imazu railway in Hyogo. Nakatani’s character is a 30-something OL whose fiancé is stolen by a younger coworker. The actress played a similar role in the 2006 film Kiraware Matsuko no Issho (Memories of Matsuko)—and her performance swept that year’s awards ceremonies. Filming for Hankyu Densha, which is set to open next summer, will begin in December. The film is to feature real trains from the Hankyu Imazu line, with some scenes to be shot inside specially commissioned carriages with the cooperation of the railway. Rumor has it that the production may also include cameos by the renowned all-female Takarazuka theater troupe, which is based in the area.

Pretty good as remakes go, even with the old fish-out-of-water storyline that was hackneyed 26 years ago (underdog New Kid in School finds Wise Mentor who helps him go up against Big Bully in Final Sporting Event). In this darker but more grounded version, the action has moved to China, Ralph Macchio is now Will Smith’s charismatic kid Jaden, and Pat Morita’s Oscar-nominated Mr. Miyage has morphed into an excellent, low-key Jackie Chan. Many moviegoers will be surprised at this rare display of Chan’s acting chops (sorry), and the role of chop-socky teacher is far more appropriate to his age (56) than some of the forced action/comedy work he’s done of late. And kudos to Wang Zhenwei for his scary portrayal of the high-kicking alpha bully. Gorgeous location shots. Could have used a bit more humor, and since the sport has been changed to kung-fu, what’s with the title? These are quibbles. I had a good time, or at least a better time than I expected. Note to Bad Movie fans: The Karate Kid, Part II (1986) is one of the best. Takes place in Japan. Kind of.

Fun, gloriously bizarre George Clooney military-satire vehicle about what we are told was a covert US Army psychological-warfare unit in the ’70s called the “New Earth Army,” which trained “psychic spies” to utilize New Age peace-love-dope techniques to influence the enemy. It becomes apparent not far in that this is a one-joke movie, and it fails to carry its opening momentum into the third act, when it shifts its focus from parody to plot. Nevertheless, it’s like, cosmic, man, watching the likes of Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Stephen Lang having fun at work.

© 2009 TORNASOL FILMS - HADDOCK FILMS - 100 BARES PRODUCCIONES - EL SECRETO DE SUS OJOS (AIE)

Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku; www.shin-bungeiza.com) continues its series of tributes to the great filmmakers of the world with an all-night marathon of works by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Known for his literary approach to the science fiction genre, Tarkovsky added metaphysical and spiritual themes to mind-bending futuristic films like Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979). Both are included in the screening, along with the dreamlike autobiographical movie The Mirror (1975).

Also at Shin-Bungeiza from August 16-28 is a program of provocative Japanese films about the country’s involvement in WWII. Highlights include Japan’s Longest Day (1967), about the 24-hour period leading up to surrender on August 15, 1945, and The Firefly (2001), in which veteran actor Ken Takakura (The Yellow Handkerchief; Black Rain) plays a kamikaze pilot who survived the war.

Unless noted, Japanese films screen without English subtitles. Non-English-language films are shown with Japanese subtitles only

The latest product of Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney, an evil collaboration bent on dazzling preteen boys out of their allowances, is this uninspired fantasy (is that an oxymoron?), a shameless and utterly predictable SFX-driven Harry Potter rip-off. Disney apparently even saw fit to throw into the profit pit its own classic title scene from Fantasia, where Mickey Mouse battled the broomsticks. Ironically, this is the most interesting thing in the movie (faint praise). Slumming cast includes Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel and Monica Bellucci, and thank heavens for Alfred Molina, the only really watchable actor.