First of all I'd like to wish a big omedetou gozaimasu to Midnight Eye on their first 10 years of existence! Midnight Eye is the Grandaddy, the Godfather, the Goombah of Japanese cinema websites. Don't believe me? Look at the illustrious list of people M.E. has interviewed over the past decade. Or the fascinating selection of in-depth essays and overviews of Japanese cinema trends and history in the feature archive. The review archive is constantly growing, and contains numerous titles which have never been reviewed anywhere else. It's been a pleasure contributing over the years (see links to some of my pieces in the right hand column of the blog). Through Midnight Eye I've also forged friendships with founders Tom Mes & Jasper Sharp, and US honcho Nicholas Rucka, which is priceless.
To celebrate, Midnight Eye has published our lists of the best Japanese films of the first decade of the 21st century. See the results here.
The lists (which include that of loyal site designer Martin Mes) are interesting in that everyone seemed to take a different approach and has different thoughts for the future. I declined to write a blurb about each film as I had either written about them before on previous annual best of lists or they're so well-known no more needs to be said. All of my titles except a couple appear elsewhere on the page.
When you're done reading all that, vote for your own and leave comments on what you think are the shining examples of Japanese cinema from 2000-2009.
Also part of the latest update is a fantastic interview with directing it-girl Andô Momoko, who speaks about her startling debut Kakera - A Piece of Our Life (Kakera,『カケラ』). Trace back from my March 11 entry to read more.
For those of you in Tokyo, the film opens at Eurospace On April 3. According Kakera's Japanese twitter page, there's also an event at HMV Shibuya tomorrow (March 31).
And in a very rare release pattern for a Japanese film, it's simultaneously screening in London at the ICA beginning April 2nd (details here), to be followed by other venues. Adam Torel's Third Window Films is really doing its part to support distribution of great J-cinema in the UK. Jasper Sharp writes about this and other emerging indie filmmakers on his blog here.
Here's to the next 10 years of Midnight Eye!
Update: For those reading this post through an RSS feed, you may want to check the comments where once again logboy provides a list of all the available English-subbed DVDs for the writers' picks. Happily, it's almost all of them.
8 comments:
Cheers Jason! Can't believe it's been 10 years already, and the path it has taken us all on, but wow, its sort of amazing how many friends have been forged out off this and the influence it has had. Here's to another 10!
shall i try a dvd breakdown again? subbed in english, the writers choices were:
dead or alive 2 (R2 UK, R1 USA as part of box)
tokyo sonata (UK DVD & BD (zone-free), R1 USA)
vibrator (R1, R3 K with OST CD)
moon and cherry (upcoming R1 DVD)
strawberry shortcakes (R2 J & R3 K)
air doll (R2 J, upcoming R3 HK, R2 UK)
doing time (R1)
snake of june (R2 UK & R1 USA)
blue spring (R3 HK & R1 USA)
audition (R2 UK, R1 USA & BD)
battle royale (R2 UK tin)
GITs 2 Innocence (USA BD, R2 UK and R1 DVD)
mind game (R2 J, R4 Aus)
canary (R2 J)
still walking (R2 J, upcoming UK)
love exposure (R2 UK)
taste of tea (R2 J, R1 USA)
kamikaze girls (R3 HK, R1 USA, R2 UK & UK BD)
late bloomer (R1 USA)
twilight samurai (R3 HK, R2 UK, R1 USA)
electric dragon (R1 USA)
nobody knows (R1 USA, R2 UK, R2 J, R3 HK)
graveyard of honour (R1 USA)
spirited away (blimey... everywhere)
hanging garden (R2 J)
bright future (R2 UK, R3 K, R2 J, R1 USA)
tony takitani (R2 J, R3 HK, R1 USA, R2 UK)
zatoichi (...various)
waterboys (R3 HK, R2 J)
adrift in tokyo (R1 Can)
i just didn't do it (R3 HK)
hana (R2 J, R3 HK, R1 USA)
it's pretty much all but a couple of them.
odd thing about the readers voting list is that the titles the writers picked weren't necessarily included. kind of glad the list of choices wasn't a collection of all those available to choose from of previous years best-ofs.
From what I can tell the readers' voting list is based on the best performing titles in readers poll past rather than anything the writers have chosen, with an option for "other" of course.
...and the winner is, "other!".
:)
LOL.....are you idiots serious with that list? It's the stupidest thing I've read since you claimed that Sammo Hung was dead. No wonder you guys are the laughing stock of japanese eiga scholars and have zero credibility. Go back to jacking off to Jackie Chan and leave the eiga discussion to those who have an actual clue.
I didn't claim Sammo Hung was dead -- I wrote an entry entitled "Japanese media reports Chinese media reports Sammo Hung has died..." and doubted the veracity. Original article is even still online here.
I like Jackie well enough but I've only seen one of his films in the past ten years - the world premiere of Shinjuku Incident in HK last year, so erm...Yeah.
With "laughing stock" and "jacking off" you're showing your age. There has to be something better to do with your time when you're in your 40s and beyond...
...the only one's missing from the writers choices, in terms of making a subbed appearance somewhere, are "united red army" (perhaps suffering from being too long, or too clever - i don't know which, maybe both), "kafka's a country doctor", ryuichi hiroki's "it's only talk", "this world of ours", and "now, i".
a film that gets a mention outside the lists, but within the context of the feature, but which i didn't mention above, is "who's camus anyway?". this one did get a very obscure USA release - and i recommend it if you like films that are an absolute puzzle to figure out and enjoy the shift in the overall story that's both dramatically huge and quite a challenge to fathom where the pivotal moment lies. smart storytelling in that one, and one of the most impressive wolf in sheep's clothing films i've seen.
...on a side note, i'd like to add that although i've been regularly making a bit of an arse of myself with my attempts to contribute or share my interest in japanese films for some seven years or so, during my time contributing to twitch and in the times since - and this is particularly the case with jasper sharp, don brown and jason gray, though also with nick rucka and tom mes to a lesser extent - the biggest motivator was that although i'd regularly get snippets wrong, fail to grasp the detail, and generally show i was (and still am) a relative beginner (largest factor being because i still languish behind the language barrier) that these people all managed to not lambast or belittle me for wanting to give things a go. they simply joined in, gave a little support, had a quick chat, set me right or pointed things out when we got talking - and this helped me feel it was worthwhile keeping going because they made an effort that showed they accepted other people's interest without making a definition between pro and amateur, or between newcomer and relative old-hand, without defining what's good or bad taste, and so on.
in other words, midnighteye's contribution, as far as i am concerned, is to play their part without taking the more typical familiar internet route of bashing people or setting themselves apart with any conscious attempts to "big themselves up".
Thanks for the comments, logboy. You've copiously tracked DVDs, websites and Japanese film in general over the years -- it's not for nothing.
There's no place for elitism in fandom but I value consistency, longevity and giving credit where it's due.
I also highly respect people who take the plunge and try to make a living off what they love -- that's why I gushed more than usual in the entry.
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