Lost In Translation

Catch 22

I am huge fan of Joseph Heller's seminal novel, Catch 22, and was excited to hear that it had been adapted as a miniseries for Hulu. It was adapted by Luke Davies and David Michod (whom I know best as a director) and has a cast of new faces (like Christopher Abbot as John Yossarian) mixed with established stars such as George Clooney, Kyle Chandler, Hugh Laurie among others. The cinematography set designs are amazing as is the period music. For the most part, Davies and Michod follow the novel pretty closely until the final episode. I was reading series recaps by a writer who had recently read the novel , so he was pointing out where the writers were straying from the source material. And I agreed with most of his criticisms and seeing this miniseries makes me want to revisit the classic novel and maybe I will.

All The Truth Is Out

I believe Matt Bai is correct in his appraisal of a major turning point in politics and journalism when Gary Hart was flushed out of the presidential race in 1987 for an alleged affair recounted in his well-researched book, All The Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid (2014). A lot of the big picture analysis that Bai and Hart make in this book has come true. Bai argues that asking Hart if he had committed adultery after staking out his lodgings to expose him in a scandal with Donna Rice changed the way that politics was covered and how the game would be played-the issues and ideas would take a back seat to character issues. In the after math of his scandal, Hart says: "I tremble for my country when I think we may, in fact, get the kind of leaders we deserve." Bai later suggests that show business and entertainment will capitulate and politics may become barren of ideas at all and most obvious is the current occupant, trump, bankrupt of any ideas other than repeal what his predecessor did and undo the government in general. Others have been leading the way for the reality of this administration fulfilling Hart's promise. In later years Clinton would be impeached for lying about an extramarital affair but the people didn't care-that must have been hard for Hart to swallow. But even worse, Trump with his lewd "locker room" talk, sex payoffs to former porn star mistresses (while his wife was recovering from childbirth as well), and multiple sexual harassment suits suffers no drop in numbers during his run. It seems after the midterm elections that there is a backlash to the political tabloid mentality of the Trump administration and the lack of a coherent vision with a score of new politicians who are armed with ideas. But the fact that a former reality TV star and failed businessman with no governing experience made it to the top does not bode well for the future of American politics.

Smashing The O-Line

Smashing The O-Line (1960) is one of five films by Seijun Suzuki collected in Seijun Suzuki:The Early Years Vol.2 The Border Crossing and Action Movies. It is another gritty crime film set in seedy port of Yokohoma. In this film Hiroyuki Nagao plays another journalist, Katori,as he did in two month prior in The Sleeping Beast Within, however, this journalist is amoral and relentless in his pursuit of the "big" story-drug trafficking from Hong Kong to Japan. His foil is the straight shooting Yuji Kodaka as Nishina. Some of Katori's indiscretions include working with a Chinese drug smuggler Wong, setting up a woman for drug possession after sleeping with her, allowing his sister to be raped instead of cooperating with a gang of criminals among other p¥offenses. The postwar wasteland of Yokohoma is far from being completely rebuilt and figures prominently int he film as does the racing jazz score and the film features a surprising amount of sex and violence for a film from 1960. It was yet another entertaining and well-made film from an underrated master. There's an additional commentary by critic Jasper Sharp as well as a short Tony Rayns on the Crime and Action Movies.

Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset (17)

Yoji Yamada's 17th episode, Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset (1976), is one of the best ones in the series I've seen so far. The initial dream sequence tells us that this was the summer of Jaws, since Tora (Kiyosumi Atsumi) dreams that he is hunting the shark-there's a great comedic bit where Genko (Naoki Tatsuta) is bitten in half by the shark. Once the story starts Tora brings home what he thinks is a homeless old man (Jukichi Uno),who upturns the household making demands thinking that he's at an inn. It turns out, that he is a famous and successful painter named Ikenouchi Seikan. Later Tora runs into him in old hometown of Tastuno, Hyogo prefecture near Himeji, a famous castle town. The town is hosting the famous painter and while living it up he meets a happy-go-lucky geisha named Botan (Kiwako Taichi), who later on a visit to Shibamata confesses that she too is broke, having lost two million yen (about $15,000 in 1976 dollars), her life savings, to one of her former customers, a callously unrepentant swindler. Tora-san and Taco (Hisao Dazai), the printing shop president next door to Tora-ya, become determined to recover Botan's lost money. Both of the guest stars give standout performances, and it seems that Taichi had a tragic car accident in 1992 that cut her life short.

The Catch

Nagisa Oshima's The Catch (1961) is the story of a downed black US pilot (Hugh Hurd) captured and imprisoned by rural villagers near Tokyo during WWII. Oshima is well known for his social issues films, his films are informed about his ideas about Japanese society and while these intellectual exercises are often interesting they often make for less than interesting films that feel overly didactic and contrived.The conflict arises between the village chief (Rentaro Mikuni) who wants to follow the letter of the law, while the villagers use the captive soldier as scapegoat for their frustrations related to war and the miserable life they are living in general. This theme calls to mind another Japanese film I recently saw that is set during the same time period and has the same theme, Legend of a Duel to the Death by Keisuke Kinoshita that is more effective in its critique of Japanese society. There are some interesting ideas and some artistry on display here, but it feels overlong and like something of a chore to get through.

Kobe 2019

My first stop was at In Tha Door Brewery, which I somehow missed on recent trips to Kobe. I found out about it in a New York Times article. I'm here for the annual JALT Pan SIG Conference at Konan University.

Session IPA.

My hotel this time around is near Kobe's Chinatown.

I was going to try a new gyoza (pot stickers) restaurant, but it was getting late so I went to a local classic, Hyotan, which was just up the street.

Nightlife.

Australian Green Ant Gin from Adelaide tasted at Bar Puzzle, a gin joint I discovered on my last trip.

Inside the Motomachi train station near Chinatown.

0 for 2 in visiting the Tadanori Yokoo Museum of Contemporary Art, two years ago it was closed due to typhoon damage. This time they were preparing the next exhibition.

It looks interesting though.

There was another museum I wanted to visit nearby, about a 15 minute walk toward the harbor, the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art.

There was an exhibition by Kyosai, one of my favorite Japanese artists.

Perhaps the ugliest public art I have ever seen.

The conference is in Nishinomiya, a wealthy suburb between Kobe and Osaka. It is sister cities with my hometown of Spokane, Washington.

Konan University Cube Campus is the conference location.

Back to school, this shop is called Gyoza Daigaku,("Gyoza University").

A couple of servings of garlic infused goodness.

More Chinatown in Motomachi.

The Sleeping Beast Within

I recently bough the Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years Vol. 2 The Border Crossing And Action Movies box set from Arrow Video that features: Eight Hours of Terror (1957), The Sleeping Beast Within (1960), Smashing the 0-Line (1960), Tokyo Knights (1961), The Man with a Shotgun (1961). I have already seen Eight Hours of Terror, so I started out with the Nikkatsu Noir, The Sleeping Beast Within (1960). it features Hiroyuki Nagato as Shotaro Kasai a news reporter dating Keiko (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) whose father Junpei Ueki has just returned to Japan after two years working overseas in Hong Kong. Shotaro and Keiko undercover a crime syndicate that her father has become part of after they investigate his going missing for several days. When Shotaro is trying to explain her father’s actions to the distraught Keiko, he points out that everyone has a sleeping beast in their heart which is capable doing terrible things when it awakens.The syndicate is run by a Sun God cult that has a temple in Hakone (and a private island near Kure, Hyogo). The investigations take us all over the seedy parts of Tokyo-Sghibuya and the more squalid bars of Yokohoma where the drug smuggling occurs. Suszuki does a great job of using on location shots in Tokyo, Yokohoma and one the road to Hakone with Mt. Fuji towering in the background. Furthermore, Susuki's adept use of movement within shots and his impressive use of interior geometry are factors that underline his compositional talent. For example, there's classical framing throughout the film as well as several memorable set pieces-including the final shot of a temple burning.

The Sad Part Was

I was excited to see English translations of works by Prabda Yoon, because I knew him as the scriptwriter of a couple great films directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Last Life in the Universe and Invisible Waves. The first one I read was the short story collection, The Sad Part Was (2000) translated by Mui Poopksaku. I suppose much of the humor and world play hasn't been conveyed due to cultural differences between English and Thai, but many of the stories are clever are entertaining-others not so much. Two of my favorites were "Marut by the Sea" which takes postmodern meta-narrative digs at he author himself and "The Crying Party", which is inexplicable but oddly moving.

Tora-san, The Intellectual (16)

In Yoji Yamada's 16th episode Tora-san, the Intellectual (1975), Tora (Kiyoshi Atsumi) decides that he needs to become educated. The film starts out with a spaghetti western dream sequence with Tora as the "Tiger Kid" saving Sakura (Chieko Baisho) once again. A young girl from Yamagata stops by Toraya thinking that Tora might be her father, but ti turns out it was a coincidence. However, Tora visits her mother's grave and a monk tells him that the woman regretted not having had an education which would have made her life easier. Tora vows to become educated. When he return he finds that the Head priest's (Chishu Ryu) niece Reiko (Fumie Kashiyama), an archeology graduate student, has started living in Tora's room at Toraya. She vows to be Tora's tutor. And in due course, Tora falls in love, but once again he is thwarted. And off he goes for the New Year's holiday in the south.

Lanny

A friend of mine lent me a copy of an acquaintance's, Max Porter's novel, Lanny (2019). I was impressed by the high rating on Good Reads, 4.39/5. And I have to admit I enjoyed the novel, but not as much as the other readers on the website. It focuses on a young professional yuppie family with a young artistic son, who live in a small village 60 miles from London. The experimental writing I felt was a two-edged sword, sometimes it was effective in providing, say, different characters' points of view. At other times I found it distracting-taking me away from the story at hand.