I miss the superb bento selection at my old 7-11, but they've got bawls here! I've been trying to get my hands on that stuff for years. Not too sweet, perfect amount of carbonation and best of all -- highly caffeinated. Now if it was just half the price we could get some work done.

After what feels like my longest streak of did-I-really-just pay-5-dollars-to-rent-this piece-of-crap-movie, we finally watched something good in Crash. A heavy, heavy emotional film full of racial stereotypes (some of which I didn't know existed) and intertwining human relationships that I could not recommend more.

I'm really loving the new album from Death Cab for Cutie - Plans. The video for the single Soul Meets Body reminds me of The War of the Worlds, minus the vaporization of bodies and the pending extermination of all human life. All those musical notes coming out from under the ground and slowly dying off in the end, and the acting is, well, you decide. I've noticed a lot of talk about this major label release being a more refined, cleaner sounding album and while I agree and enjoyed previous Death Cab efforts I find the criticisms misplaced cool-kid whining.

I've been spending large chunks of my weekday afternoons writing at Serious Coffee downtown. Fairly priced good strong coffee, friendly enough staff and free Wi-Fi. Starbucks can't compete with that, although I do prefer the Starbucks decor to Serious Coffee's grandkids-have-sticky-hands upholstered seats with the plastic still on.

One of the last books I purchased before leaving Japan was a reprint of William Eggleston's Guide. Eggleston's homage to the mundane accompanied his one-man show, and the first of colour photographs exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976.

In filmmaker Michael Almereyda's newly released documentary, William Eggleston in the Real World, he "poses a fundamental question to the renowned photographer: What does it mean to see the world so differently that "common" images are converted into unforgettable photos?" Now I just have to figure out how to see this film short of traveling to New York.

William Eggleston on the web:

The Eggleston Artistic Trust

Salon Brilliant Careers on Eggleston

Getty Museum

Metacritic reviews of In the Real World

Dear Michael Bay,
"I wasn't feeling the love triangle at all, either. It just seems like Kate Beckinsale's character would hump whoever wasn't dead at the time, and as a result my heartstrings remained untugged."

Dear Michael Bay,
"what were you thinking in the climax where Smith and Lawrence drive the bad guy's Hummer through a shanty town, destroying every building in their way? People have to live there, and they just drive through those houses. By the time this scene arrives we've already seen bodies flying everywhere, an unbelievable number of shots fired all during the film, and really graphic depictions of people shot to death with blood everywhere."

Dear Michael Bay,
"Step the #$%$@ away from Optimus Prime, mother$@%#er."

Dear Michael Bay, or To Whom It May Concern:
"At different moments in your film, whether intentionally funny or not, I laughed several times. I should mention here that I often use laughter as a defense mechanism."

Submit your letters to Michael Bay - submit@vudeja.com

I watched Bad Boys II last night, well about an hour of it, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for restoring, with a vengeance, my dislike of Action movies. For what it's worth, I'm glad it was you. All the best.

Anthony Lane's review of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Sounds like a real lucasuckfest. It's open season on George and sadly, as much as I dislike the last two films (not including battle scene in Attack of the Clones) I'll still be giving him my 1,700 yen if only to be on the same page when I read reviews like this.

While not a complete waste of 90 min, ethnic stereotypes and dick and fart jokes aside, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was my guilty pleasure of the day. Not much of an endorsement, but who knew the Beastie Boys were rapping about a real place. All I knew was that their fries only came in one size. American comedies rarely make it to Japanese theaters (doesn't translate well, goes double for stoner comedy) or rental for that matter so I normally hear about them via weblogs or friends and co-workers who come back from overseas, usually meeting ridicule when admitting I haven't seen, nor heard of Old School (since watched), Dude, Where's My Car? (in the pipe) and Harold and Kumar (check) among others.

With all that talk of burgers during the film tonight's dinner was a no-brainer. Your basic burger (with ground coriander seed, cumin, mustard and fresh parmesan) and the chips baked with olive oil, a whole bulb of garlic and sprinkled with rosemary salt (bashed rosemary, salt and lemon zest).

If you have yet to see Wes Anderson's latest The Life Aquatic run, don't walk to your local theater. Normally I wouldn't recommend this type of film for everyone, but for the sake of clarity I will recommend this film for everyone. A true original, The The Life Aquatic takes more risks than The Royal Tenenbaums as the last few scenes of the film could have easily been animated and none in the audience would have batted an eye, anything at that point was expected.

I'm a huge fan of Anderson's brand of humor, but this is not a laugh-out-loud comedy, as some in our theater may have believed (this was in Canada). For the first 45 minutes a couple behind us roared with laughter every time Bill Murray opened his mouth, expecting every syllable to be just that funny. Despite the ultra-high price of going to the theater in Japan, we both longed for a place where people kept their stupid comments and habits of mimicking lines at home, and you can also buy beer at Japanese theaters which is always a plus in my book. The soundtrack isn't half bad either. David Bowie, Devo, The Stoogies, four acoustic Bowie covers in Portuguese, and a couple cool songs by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh (do we detect a pattern here?).

And if you liked those retro Zissou branded Adidas featured in the movie you may be in luck, red cap and Speedo complete with the updated triple-Z Zissou logo optional, and rather questionable.

During our few days off from parental duties two weeks ago we took in Michael Mann's latest film Collateral. I guess you could say I'm sort of a closet Tom Cruise fan, if not only for the predictable formula of most his movies, though his last two films left a horrible taste in my mouth. Collateral is equally predictable in it's plot but that's just fine with me, that's not why we watch action movies. Cruise plays his first bad-guy role brilliantly, and that silver suit -- insert Miami Vice joke here.

I especially enjoyed the added touch of Audioslaves's song Shadow on the Sun on the varied soundtrack along side Miles Davis (which I will learn to appreciate in time). There seemed to be a lack of hype surrounding this movie here, and I feel it aided my enjoyment from having no overblown expectations --- take note Wachowski brothers.

The Frontline documentary, Rumsfeld's War is now available online. The joint project between PBS and The Washington Post is an interesting take on the real players behind the scenes and how the civilian leadership (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney) basically bitch-slapped the uniformed military command at the pentagon into submission, thus botching the Iraq war planning.

What I found most interesting was the complete reversal of roles from the uniformed military command (Powell) dealing with the press day in and day out during the first gulf war, and the secretary of defense (Cheney) off to the side, to the present day operation with the secretary of defense (Rumsfeld) taking control and uniformed military command (General Myers) in the background.

Sure, Bush seems as incompetent as a five year old, and I wouldn't trust him to make me a sandwich, but people shouldn�t ignore the real brains (or lack of) behind the curtain, with their ideological assumptions of how to use and abuse American power.

From the crew that brought us Sundown Sessions comes the Sunscreen Film Festival. An independent short-film contest for both first-time and veteran filmmakers. The submission deadline is October 22nd and the 10 finalist films will be screened Sunday November 21st in Shimokitazawa.

For all the details download the official info pack (pdf 1MB).

The Sixth Sense made an actor out of Bruce Willis and if it wasn't for that punk Haley Joel Osment would have been solid gold. I rather enjoyed Signs and Unbreakable despite the bad reviews, watching them in the theater and renting the latter a few times afterward. So it wasn't difficult deciding what to see yesterday.

In my opinion The Village is M. Night Shyamalan�s best film to date and as an added bonus no snot-nosed Haley Joel Osment. By all means read what the critics have to say but don't let that stop you from watching and judging the film on your own. Because heaven forbid you may actually enjoy a few plot twists. There's no doubt M. Night Shyamalan uses trademark gimmicks in his work like plot twists, Hitchcock like horror scenes and so forth. And to be honest there's not a whole lot to those twists in the story, but it's the suspenseful mood he creates out of basically nothing which I think makes him a great filmmaker. Long live the franchise I say. Well as long as that prissy Haley Joel says away. I hate that kid.

A few select lines from a short film by Shawn Morrison whose weblog hosts two other shorts "Glass" and "Fork". His about page in the form of a mock interview with Burt Reynolds is also worth the read.

We rented this film shortly after Masako and I started to date back in Canada. It had been out of the theaters for more than a year and honestly didn't make a huge impression on me at the time. I was renting roughly ten movies a week for 49 cents from a shop called Video Update and wanted to introduce Masako to some Canadian cinema. Lately, almost subconsciously, I've been choosing films with some kind of daughter story and as Masako can attest since Frankie's birth I've become quite the blubbering idiot when watching these. Shopping for dvd's for Frankie I grabbed this one for myself.

The Sweet Hereafter is the story of a lawyer, played by Ian Holm, who travels to a small grief stricken town in the aftermath of a deadly school bus accident in hopes of securing the families in a class action lawsuit. A somewhat jumbled timeline explores lives before and after the accident and one of the sole survivors played by Sarah Polley, whose own father-daughter relationship leaves me scratching my head.

Ian Holm's character Mitchell would seem like any other "ambulance chaser" if it wasn't for his own tragic relationship with his drug addict daughter when he recalls a story from her childhood when he came close to having to preform an emergency tracheotomy. His three year old daughter innocently staring up at him as the camera pans to show the knife in his hand ready to cut into her throat if she should stop breathing. It's an incredibly powerful scene, watching a parent confronted with the ultimate nightmare and ultimate responsibility.

Put Frankie to sleep and watched the last of three DVD's rented last weekend. Having passed by this film since it came out on rental, and only faintly remembering the theater run, I figured it would round out my other selections. Nicholson, Cage and Clooney ---safe bets, usually.

I'd have to agree with Erik's review in saying this remake of the 1972 Sci-Fi romance is one of the most visually appealing films I've seen in a long time, if not the most. Slow moving in the film's mixture of earth flashbacks and space scenes, but that slow pace just helps in making it all the more emotionally powerful. I love the theme of a "second chance" and the question it poses regarding knowinly choosing fantasy or cold reality to feel someones love again, a theme I enjoyed in Vanilla Sky. IMHO George Clooney's best performance to date, and I'd say the same for Soderbegh but will hold my breath till Che is released before possibly having to repeat that claim.

A good gauge on how much I enjoyed a film is whether or not I'm still thinking about the story the next morning. That of course helps when watching the movie before going to bed but, nevertheless an impressive feat.

On the train this morning I couldn't help but think how eerily normal all the characters where in that film. From Warren's painfully everyday grandmother-esque wife Helen, "don�t dilly-dally", to his friendly trailer park neighbour and occupational therapist wife. Warren Schmidt's total moron for a future son-in-law Randall, as he tries humorously to shovel air during Warren's father of the bride speech. A speech in which Warren desperately tries to recall a pleasant moment shared by the two of them. These types of characters aren�t usually written into Hollywood movies and for understandable reasons. They remind us how average we really are and how funny we aren't (most of the time).

After ejecting the disc and returning it to the blue padded Tsutaya envelope Masako and I shared a moment. Without words we came to agreement that we would never get old and normal, and that if I ever started collecting ceramic figurines that she should promptly put me out of my misery.

This afternoon Masako and I made a our way to Odawara from my in-laws place to see Deep Blue. Not to be confused with Deep Blue Sea, this Deep Blue, Deep Throat staring Linda Lovelace or another film by the name "Deep Blue Sea, The" from 1955 which I never heard of, just found on imdb when researching this paragraph.

Deep Blue (the one we saw) is a beautifully filmed documentary from the BBC series The Blue Planet fit for the big screen. A wide IMAX screen would have done more for the film but who am I to judge. Directed by Andy Byatt and Alastair Fothergill with all accompanying music by the Berlin Philharmonic, it's like watching the discovery channel on a really big TV.

Narrated by Michael Gambon, I can't help but notice that a british narrator always seems to raise the educational content of what you're watching. If Michael Cane was to narrate COPS it would be described as an educational look into the American inner city and trailer park criminal justice system, then promptly droped from FOX.

Some of the footage was a little grainy and may have felt more comfortable on the cutting room floor, or rather in the cutting room garbage can. All was forgiven after the impressive arial feeding frenzy, a swim though a school of jelly fish and unbelievable shots of creatures that thrive beyond the range of natural light in the depths of the marianas trench. The film's website has a wealth of information in the form of behind the scenes videos and interviews but unfortunately because of the Flash I'm unable to link to anything specific so you'll just have to explore the depths of that one on your own.

If Wayne Campbell worked in the IT Industry, he'd have an extensive collection of expired security passes and a lanyard for every colour in the rainbow.

Rumors are flying around that Eric Bana will be the next Agent 007. Bana would become the second Aussie Bond since George Lazenby's one shot deal in 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

I thought Eric Bana did a great job when he played a member of the elite Delta Force in Ridley Scott's jingoistic military ad "Black Hawk Down". I fell asleep watching Hulk on the plane and something tells me pretty much anyone could have played that roll but I can't quite imagine the roll of Bond played by Bana, well not just yet. I'm no fan of Bond films but I hope they make the right choice or we may see the Bond franchise take a turn for the worse ala Batman.

Last night I was one of a hundred or so lucky people to be the first to see Fahrenheit 9/11 in Japan. It was a private screening set up at Toho Cinema in Roppongi Hills for members of a group called Democrats Abroad Japan and the press. I'm neither a Democrat (I'm Canadian) nor a member of the press, so how did I get a ticket? A nice lady from the DAJ by the name of Lauren Shannon happen to check my site and asked me to take pictures during the evening. Felt cool being asked "Who you with?" while checking in at the press table. "The Times", or "The Post" I wanted to say.

The film was exactly what I expected it to be, excellent. No big surprises or changes of heart for me as my despise of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq was well established already. Some photos I took during the evening can be found here. Unfortunately I could not attend the post screening party as the last train forced me to run out of the theater while the credits were rolling. Sticking around and taking more photos would have been great but killing time in a coffee shop till the trains start running at 5 am is not my idea of fun.

Just finished watching a 29 minute documentary critiquing the American mainstream media's "march to war" and war coverage called Independent Media in a Time of War.

A speech by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman spliced with independent images of civilian casualties and flashy CNN, MSNBC and FOX graphics touting "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and "Target Iraq". Most interesting for me was the comparison between CNN and CNN International when the statue of Saddam was pulled down. For American consumption on CNN video and images of Saddam's statue being toppled was shown over and over again all day, while over at CNN International a spilt screen was showing the scene from Baghdad on one side and photos of Iraqi civilian casualties and injuries on the other half. Personally I was watching CNNj and didn't see any split screen during coverage on that day.


I highly, highly recommend you take the time to watch this. (requires Real Player)

You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train is a new documentary film from Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller on historian, teacher, activist and author of A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn, which is currently on my growing reading list. Due out July 23 in limited release it should work as a good one two punch following Fahrenheit 9/11.

The Boston Phoenex's Matt Ashare had this to say; Update: Here's the official site plus a trailer featuring a song by non other than Pearl Jam (Down from Lost Dogs).

1. Dude, we're so bad-ass sneaking into a documentary film.
2. I don't even know why I'm here. I already voted for Fantasia.
3. Well if you're already going to the gun check, thanks. Be careful it's loaded.
4. Why does this Moore fellow criticize our poor president? It's not his fault he's a sorry excuse for leader and had to lie to get us into Iraq but we're at war damn it!
5. I heard Bush makes a cameo.

Saturday, Masako and I, leaving Baba to baby-sit, headed to the cinema to see the latest Hollywood SFX film. We decided to take the SUV as it was pretty hot outside and having to walk to the train station just seemed well, troublesome. Even if we got stuck in traffic we could just crank the A/C anyway.

Arriving at the theater we quickly confirmed our seating at the automatic ticket kiosk, ironically flanked by three theater staff. Two machines, three staff.

No trip to the cinema would be complete with out a visit to the snack bar. I went for the Big Freeze special set. That's a Large popcorn with double golden topping, Large "Brain Freeze" slush drink in limited edition collectors cup. The poster said something about collecting all five cups, and when I do I'll be happy as the boy in the poster seemed to be. Masako got the same.

I give the film two enthusiastic thumbs up. Lots of thrills and spills, including my 1.8L beverage during that timber wolf scene! *chuckle* no biggie, there's always more where that came from right.

If you haven't guessed already the film was The Day After Tomorrow and I did bring away a few important lessons. One, Will Smith is going to be in a really cool robot film sometime soon that will challenge the way we think about um, robots. And second, that kid from Harry Potter is no longer a kid. Those must have been some long filming days as Harry seemed to be sporting a five O'clock shadow in some scenes. Oh and the Vice President in the film reminded me of no one in particular. Especially no one in the current Bush administration that is.

Disclaimer: For those readers in which English is not their first language or for those without a sense of humor please know the following;

We don't own a car and haven't for the past five years. We take the train everywhere. Mostly everything else you can dismiss as poorly crafted sarcasm except for the ticket kiosk thing. That was just plain weird.

hibakusha, the documentary masako and i helped with (post production) will be showing in shibuya starting march 20 and playing untill april 23 at eurospace *map*. we're even listed in the film credits, but don't think our names will be found on imdb any time soon.

i have one free ticket and one discount ticket, so if you're in tokyo and interested please let me know and i'll send you the tickets. the film will also be playing in osaka, sendai and sapporo.

"within less than ten years a handful of global companies will own directly or through license the actual genes that make up the evolution of our species."

this is not science ficton but a chilling quote taken from a new documentary now playing in canadian theaters. "the corporation" is from canadian film makers mark achbar, joel bakan and jennifer abbott. mark achbar also directed the film manufacturing consent: noam chomsky and the media, which was the most successful canadian feature documentary ever made. i got this from noam chomsky's book understanding power published in 2002 but I think another film produced by now defunct canadian production house salter street films may have topped it, michael moore's bowling for columbine.

synopsis: THE CORPORATION engages us in a darkly amusing account of the institution�s birth as a legal �person� whose prime directive is to produce ever-increasing profit for it�s shareholders regardless of the cost to anyone, or anything else. this pathological nature wasn�t always written in stone. 150 years ago a corporation was merely an organized way of doing business. today it is a global power. view trailer

Last night Masako and I went to the first screening of a film in Shibuya she helped translate. This was by far the smallest theater I've ever been in, and would be safe to say that the screen was smaller than most big screen TV's. Theater aside we enjoyed the film.

Hibakusha at the End of the World is a documentary film about victims of radiation poisoning. It starts in 1998 in Basra, Iraq interviewing children with acute radiation poisoning caused by US weapons made with depleted uranium, and their struggle to treat patients with little to no medical supplies due to UN sanctions.

The film then moved to Hiroshima Japan and talked with an 85 year old survivor of the bomb, Dr. Shuntaro Hida. Dr. Hida was one of the first to treat radiation poisoning during the American occupation of Japan.

As a group they then traveled to the community living within sight of the Hanford Nuclear plant, birth place of the bombs dropped on Japan. We are then given a brief tour of "the death mile" by Tom Bailie, an area farmer who has been actively suing the government for the community for over 14 years. Tom showed the de-classified government documents dating back to 1946 showing the Department of Energy knew that they were harming people with low dose radiation from the reactor and by intentionally spraying iodine-131 on their homes and farms.

Overall I think the film dragged on a little and could have cut some of the scenes in half while still making the same strong point, watch any two hour documentary and you will feel the same. Anyone interested in independent documentary films should check this one out and look for Masako's name in the credits! It will be playing July 4th and 5th in Tokyo. See the website for more info

English website/Japanese website

no, not yet actually. I swear I'm like the only geek that has yet to see this film. The original Matrix I saw twice in Victoria and one more time when it came out here in Japan, and rented/downloaded numerous times. That's my ticket above. I don't know what others think but I'm finding it reallly hard to not read Reloaded reviews by accident every day. First week it was released overseas every day I saw an article in google news. Even when I'm warned "The review on the blog page is designed to be spoiler-free" i still don't wanna take the chance. But I did read the Matrix Reloaded review by ex-New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. If you read that one could you please send me the link, I can't seem to find it again.