©Courtesy of Japan Cuts The compulsions of two hard-living characters reshape the worlds around them in their respective animated shorts. This produces artistic triumph in one case and family tragedy in the other. Yet, Anime fans will be duly impressed by both short films’ artistry and pedigrees. Despite their lengths, Bottle George, from Daisuke “Dice”…
Manga publishing is a ruthlessly numbers-driven business. Success is mostly dependent on sales and reader popularity polls. Nevertheless, it attracts artistic young people, who often keenly sensitive, somewhat neurotic, and even sometimes painfully shy. Those terms certainly describe either Ayumu Fujino or her middle school rival “Kyomoto the Truant.” Several apply to them both. Somehow,…
©Epic Pictures Su-hyuk broods hard, very much like the other titular men in “man” films, like Man on Fire (either of them) and The Man from Nowhere. He too is a jaded man of action, who must rescue an innocent child from a powerful criminal organization. After ten years in prison, Su-hyuk has no intention…
@Courtesy of Studio Ponoc/Netlfix Japanese anime filmmakers have a bizarrely fantastic track record translating British young adult fantasies for the big screen. Studio Ghibli notably adapted Mary Norton’s The Borrowers (as The Secret World of Arrietty), Joan G. Robinson’s When Marnie Was There, and Diana Wynn Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle (loosely, but it still counts),…
Even if you won fifteen Grand Slam tournaments and spent a record 237-straight weeks as the #1 ranked player on the ATP tour, knee injuries are a tricky business to bounce back from. Swiss tennis champion Roger Federer always assumed any surgery would spell the beginning of the end of his career—and he ruefully admits…
In 1987, Scott Turow kicked off the legal thriller craze with his surprise bestselling novel Presumed Innocent, which still boasts one of the most famous twist endings since Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Fans will happily view Apple TV+’s new series adaptation, even though they have already read the novel and seen Alan…
©Courtesy of Longride/Level 33 Entertainment England’s Lake District has a rich literary history, often involving bunny rabbits. Richard Adams’ Watership Down was set in the area, but for Kenzaburo Oshima’s wife Akiko, the Beatrix Potter connection was much more important. Her love of Peter Cottontail attracted her to Lake Windermere in her youthful student days….
©Courtesy of Disney+ Jim Henson must be the most recognizable puppeteer in American pop culture history. Of course, his Muppets are even more famous. Initially, he wanted to work in the new medium of television and puppetry turned out to be a convenient entry point. As fans know, he would eventually create original creatures for…
©Courtesy of Toho, and Crunchyroll. You really ought to give manga and anime credit for the way they teach teamwork and good sportsmanship. For instance, the recent anime film The First Slam Dunk and its source manga followed the ups and downs of a dysfunctional high school basketball team that somehow found a way to…
©Courtesy of Angel Studio China’s Cultural Revolution is having a pop-culture moment. In Netflix’s Three-Body Problem adaptation, the cruelty of the extreme Marxist movement causes a central character to literally turn against the human species. Dr. Ming Wang also witnessed the student revolutionaries’ brutality as a child during the 1970s, but in this film, he responds…
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