Lost In Translation

Sri Lanka (Cancelled)

I went to bed Christmas night a bit after midnight and set my alarm for 6:59 am in order to catch the 8:02 Nartia Express train to Narita airport (which is over an hour from Shinjuku) for my winter vacation to Columbo Sir Lanka. The next morning I woke at 8:37 and the alarm hadn't gone off (I set it last night to see if it would go off and it did). I quickly got dressed (my bags were already packed) and tried to see if I could still make the flight which was scheduled for 11:20. I made it to Shinjuku station and tried to get the bus-which I was in time for at 9:00, but it was sold out. The operator suggested the Skyliner Express about 20 minutes away in Nipporri. This is where I made a mistake instead of waiting for the next train I should have taken a taxi and I might have made it in time-as it was I arrive 40 minutes before my flight, but Sri Lankan Airlines service closes an hour before a flight.

Now I had officially missed my flight I called my travel agent who gave me two options-fly through Abu dhabi on Qatar Airlines for an additional ¥93,000. The other option was wait until December 29th-four days after my initial flight. The third option was to cancel for 2/3 of the ticket rebate. There was no way I was going to pay more to fly way out of the way on the day of. Four days seemed unreasonable to wait and almost cut my time in Sri Lanka in half. Keeping in mind that I will be spending a week in LA and three weeks in SE Asia in February-I decided to cancel the ticket. It was a quick emotional decision and maybe not the right one, but 9 plus hours both ways for five days was not appealing.

Update:I checked on the Thursday flight, ¥153,200-no thanks.

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On

It's no surprise that Shoehei Imamura helped with the planning of Kazuo Hara with his documentary film The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987). It is just the kind of documentary that would appeal to Imaura-Hara follows Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old WWII veteran notorious for his protests against Emperor Hirohito, as he tries to expose the needless executions of two Japanese soldiers during the war. We learn at the beginning of the film that Okuzaki was imprisoned in Kobe for 13 years and 9 months for plotting to assassinate a former Prime Minister, shooting pachinko balls at the emperor with a sling shot, and distributing pornographic pictures of the Emperor outside a Tokyo department store. He is one of 30 surviving members of a platoon that fought in Papua New Guinea and he is driven to find out why two low ranking soldiers were executed for desertion 23 days after the war ended. Eventually, it comes out that the unpopular low ranking soldiers were executed for cannibalism for the superior officers. Ohuzaki is a piece of work-his sanity is never questioned and he will result to violence to get his answers on camera. These themes of WWII atrocities and anger at those who were in charge are common themes in the documentaries of Imamura as well. Ohkuzaki is aided by his loyal wife and by the end of the film he has gone back to Papua New Guinea to pray for the souls of dead Japanese soldiers, but he film shot there was confiscated by the Indonesia authorities. He decides that he should kill the officer who called for the execution of the two low ranking soldiers, but is unable to kill him tries to kill his son instead. The son survives and Okuzaki goes back to prison for attempted murder, soon after his wife dies. It is a fascinating film that brings up some unpleasant topics that most modern Japanese try to whitewash history-just as these war survivors try to live on as if these things had not happened.

The Best TV Shows of 2016

This was a difficult list to compile since there were many more than 10 shows that I enjoyed watching, but these were for me the best of the best:

    1. O.J.: Made in America

    2. The Night Of

    3. Better Call Saul S02

    4. Narcos S02

    5. The Night Manager

    6. Westworld

    7. Gomorrah S02

    8. Veep S05

    9. Atlanta

    10. Hap and Leonard

Honorable Mention: Horace and Andy, Strange Things, Silicon Valley, Girls, Game of Thrones

Saturday Night And Sunday Morning

Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960) is the directorial debut of Czech-born Karel Reisz, and is the known as one of the original "angry young man" films of the 60s. It also displays what woudl be known as "kitchen sink realism." Albert Finney plays a young working stiff, Arthur, looking to live life to it's fullest and avoid falling into "the family trap" like so many of those around him. He is having an affair with a married wife of a co-worker, Rachel Roberts, all the while courting a n younger woman, Doreen, Shirley Ann Field. The film is based on a mostly autobiographical novel by Allan Silitoe and the brash young anti hero seemed to strike a chord with audiences as it proved to be a very successful film at its initial release. There are some classic lines of dialogue that have stood the test of time as well such as "I want to go where there's life and there's people," inspired The Smiths song, "There's  A Light That Never Goes Out." Another is "Them was rotten days," a line said by Aunt Ada (Hylda Baker) in the film, which is on the run out groove on the B-Side of The Smiths album The Queen Is Dead. "Don't let the bastards grind you down!"

Island Of Blood

I mainly got Anita Pratap's book Island Of Blood (2003) as background reading for my upcoming trip to Sri Lanka. It delivered on that front in the first section, "Sri Lanka: A Ravaged Nation" but I was equally impressed with the other sections of the book: "Afghanistan: The Doomed Nation," "Ayodahya: The Cycle of Revenge," and  "The Survivors: The Faces of Human Tragedy." Pratap has had a long and varied career as a print and TV journalist fro Time and CNN. She has seen some terrible sights in her career and lived to tell the tale of these tragic events. Most notably the civil war in Sri Lanka, but she has witnessed other wars and countless tragedies and has reported admirably. It is a sort of modern history as told by a journalist-which is the best war to have your history told in my opinion. Her writing style is very lively and focuses on people's stories-in this collection often her own-she will relate a story about a vacation in one of her favorite places before going on to explain how horrible Afghanistan was in the late 90s for example. It was a compelling collection of memorable stories she had covered over the years.

The Rickshaw Man

When I think of Toshiro Mifune I usually think of the films he made with Akira Kurosawa, but he had a streak of excellent performances in interesting films directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. The first films I saw were the "Samurai Trilogy" (1954-56), three films based on the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That being said I was also impressed by The Rickshaw Man (1958). Mifune delivers his trademark "physical" role of Matsu "the Outlaw"(a title appropriated by Imamura in one of his documentaries) a larger than life rickshaw man in Kokura, Kyushu. Evidently, this is a remake of an earlier film, but i have never seen the previous film. Matsu befriends a small boy and becomes the surrogate father after the boy's father dies. He also carries a torch for the boy's mother played by Naruse regular Hideko Takamine. In this film we get to see Mifune win a running race,beat up several school boys in a big fight, and expertly play the taiko drum. The storyline is somewhat melodramatic, but Mifune carries the film with his charismatic performance-it is entertaining and worthwhile.

Medium Cool

I was inspired to see Haskell Wexler's thought provoking film Medium Cool (1969) after hearing praise for it in Mark Cousin's compelling documentary on film, The Story of Film: An Odyssey. The key to Haskell's message comes at the start and conclusion of the film, but in between he touches on several other relevant and poignant themes that people were facing in America at the end of the 60s. It seems that his main theme, of when does the news take precedent over the real-life events that are being captured-was inspired by his work as a cameraman in Vietnam. It was also interesting to know that Wexler originally had John Cassavetes slated to play the lead cameraman, which was played Robert Forster. It basically follows his life-professionally and personally as a cameraman covering an number of stories-the biggest of which is the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago that erupts in violence among the protests. The film is mostly shot in cinema verite style with fictional and nonfictional content, which makes it feels as though you are watching a documentary, rather than a feature film. Many issues such as racial discrimination, state control, and Vietnam are broached throughout the film. Apparently the title comes from Marshall McLuan's observation that TV is a "cool" medium and that the "cooler" the medium, "the more someone has to uncover and engage in the media" in order to "fill in the blanks." The film questions the role and responsibilities of television and its newscasts.

Midnight's Children (Film)

This film adaptation of a beloved novel, Midnight's Children (2012) was penned by the author himself, Salman Rusdie-who also served as narrator. It was filmed in Sri Lanka by Deepa Mehta and captures the essence of times in the tropics gone past. I read the novel back in graduate school so I can't remember how close it is to the original, but even though Rushdie wrote the screenplay-I expect it was a much simpler story. However, it was a welcome diversion-lush and lyrical in its images.

The Standford Prison Experiment

I thought the film and real life events from which The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) was based on were a fascinating look on human nature. It seems that there was some bad science behind the experiment which seems unusual since it was Stanford after all. Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez did a good job of creating the experiment and there was a good ensemble cast as well.

Atlanta (TV Show)

I had been hearing a lot of good things about Atlanta, the new FX TV series that is essentially a Donald Glover project. I was a fan of his from Community. I wasn't sure what it was going to be like. I expected comedy-and it is funny at times. However, I didn't expect a hip hop Louie. It is dark and depressing at times as well. It is certainly one of the best new shows of the year.