“When the house is going up in flames, does what’s on the TV matter?” That’s the question I kept asking myself as I sat down to write this year-end column. In October, Michael Luo, then an editor for The New York Times, was accosted on the street by a woman yelling, “Go back to China!” […]
‘Kaboom’: A college sex comedy sci-fi thriller
March 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment
“Kaboom,” the new film from Gregg Araki, has been described as “sexy” and “silly.” It is certainly both of those things. However, it’s also suspenseful, thoughtful and surprisingly frightening. The film is a college sex comedy sci-fi thriller and Araki does a graceful balancing act, with the disparate genre element — until he takes the […]
ENTERTAINMENT RE-ORIENTED: Portrait of the superhero as a young man: Kato in the new ‘Green Hornet’
January 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Since it was relegated to a garbage dump January release, expectations for “The Green Hornet” were low, despite it being a collaboration by critical darlings Seth Rogen, the screenwriter and lead actor, and Michel Gondry, the director. After seeing the film, most audiences felt they got the mess they expected. After seeing it myself, I […]
‘Astro Boy’ Falls Short of Tezuka’s Trademark Storytelling Style
November 5, 2009 by Leave a Comment
This past month, Astro Boy, one of Japan’s greatest icons, made his debut in U.S. movie theaters. The new film, appropriately titled “Astro Boy,” is directed by British animator David Bowers (“Flushed Away”) and produced by Hong Kong’s Imagi Studios’ (the CGI-animated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) — with some oversight by Tezuka Productions, the company […]
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