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BATSU FILM FESTIVAL BLOG

Our Favorite Japanese Films of 2018

Our Favorite Japanese Films of 2018


*NEW ISSUE*
NOVEMBER 2017
VOL. VIII - The Modern Canon

Vol. VIII - The Modern Canon Find out more on MagCloud)
VOL VII RETRO2016 OUT NOW

VOL VII
RETRO2016 OUT NOW

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VOLUME 6 OUT NOW


Cinema Adrift

Film reviews, Blu-ray/DVD reviews, defenses of films, and a slight bias towards Japanese film. Cinema Adrift aims to cover a diverse set of films and is always looking for contributors.




New releases.
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention released Absolutely Free fifty years ago this month. Smother your daughters in chocolate syrup.

#mothersofinvention #frankzappa #absolutelyfree #callanyvegetable #brownshoesdontmakeit
Oxhide (Liu Jiayin, 2005)

#cineriftmocan

RECENT POSTS
Jason's Favorites of 2018
Jan 5, 2019
Jason's Favorites of 2018
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Michael Myers and Mary Poppins returned, entertainment famine and brain cell death in the wake of the Infinity War despite record breaking war bonds sold, and the caps lock was turned on when writing on the whiteboard. Let’s all be frank about the good movies from 2018.

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Jason's Favorites of 2017
Dec 23, 2017

A24 batted a thousand, but Neon is hot on their heels. Also: Edgar Wright rights his past wrongs with substance and superhero movies finally become good thanks to Amazonian golden bondage play. For All the Daddy's Love in the World.

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Dec 19, 2017
Film Review: On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo)
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Dec 19, 2017
Nov 7, 2017
Film Review: Radiance (Naomi Kawase)
Nov 7, 2017

EDITOR'S CHOICE: Kawase's film is profound and emotional, relating the unspoken quality of art to human connection.

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Nov 7, 2017
Nov 6, 2017
SDAFF 2017: Claire's Camera (Hong Sang-soo)
Nov 6, 2017

Shorter than most of his other films but just as alluring.

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Nov 6, 2017
Nov 6, 2017
Film Review: Have a Nice Day (Liu Jian)
Nov 6, 2017

A tired crime premise allows room for throwaway moments to become the substance.

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Nov 6, 2017
Oct 31, 2017
Film Review: Dragonfly Eyes (Xu Bing)
Oct 31, 2017

Compiled from thousands of hours of CCTV, reality tries to fend off melodrama in Xu Bing's foray into feature film making.

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Oct 31, 2017
Oct 13, 2017
Book Review: Unchained Melody - The Films of Meiko Kaji by Tom Mes
Oct 13, 2017

Tom Mes' overview of Meiko Kaji's career is more than an overblown Arrow Video booklet even if it doesn't spend very much time in her post-Snowblood career.

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Oct 13, 2017
Oct 10, 2017
Film Review: Friend Request
Oct 10, 2017

Not as impressive as Unfriended but held up by a strong metaphor for net-narcissim.

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Oct 10, 2017
Aug 28, 2017
NYAFF 2017: Rage (Lee Sang-il)
Aug 28, 2017

EDITOR'S CHOICE: Lee Sang-il returns to the work of Villain author Shuichi Yoshida for a bleak look at the impossibility of connection and the failings of both trust and suspicion. 

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Aug 28, 2017

7 Best Movie Cats

April 11, 2015 in Lists, Essays/Features

1. Hausu (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)
The ghost cat in this film takes on many forms from being an actual tangible cat, a framed painted representation of a cat, to a cat spirit jumping out of said painting.  It is also the inspiration for a great shirt.

2. The Cats of “Rent-a-Neko” (Naoko Ogigami, 2012)
Ogigami has said she wanted to include a shot of a cat in every film she does and in this one, about a woman who rents out cats to help people cure their loneliness, it is a rare occasion to see a shot without a cat lounging about in the background.

3. The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)
Marlowe wakes up in the 70s and the one to interrupt his big sleep is a cat very particular about the canned stuff.

4. The Making of Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
When you are watching the film, if you even notice the cat in the scene, you think it is just a cat that happened to be there and they kept it in. But no, this cat was part of the plan and in this part of the documentary on the making of Bergman’s epic, you see the pains of getting a scene to work in which you need to coordinate a carriage with horses, actors, and a cat with wrangler.

5. Blind Woman’s Curse (Teruo Ishii, 1970)
Another film in which the cat is linked with curses and spirits. The cat has evidently stuck in people’s minds more, an alternate title being Black Cat’s Revenge, the actual title refers to the dragon tattoo just as prevalent, if not more so.

6. Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindo, 1968)
Shindo's other kaidan about the vengeance of two women against the military who raped and murdered them. Their power and vengeance takes the form of the titular black cat. One of the film's greatest images are the sequences of the women leaping over unsuspecting men in the pitch black of the set.

7. Go (Doug Liman, 1999)
The only thing I can remember about this movie is this cat who can read thoughts and communicates through subtitles.

← Review: Tracked (Hideo Gosha, 1985)Blu-Review: Massacre Gun (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1967) – Arrow Video →
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