A Colt Is My Passport (拳銃は俺のパスポート)

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  • 拳銃は俺のパスポート (A Colt Is My Passport), 1/9/23 (Mon)

If Sergio Leone had made a yakuza flick, it would probably look a lot like Nomura Takashi’s fine A Colt Is My Passport, including its no-talk-all-action star Shishido Joe in the Clint Eastwood role, the final shootout in a deserted landscape, and Ibe Harumi’s superb Morricone-like score. (The film was released a year after the completion of Leone’s Dollars Trilogy.) It also borrows a moment from Hawks’ Rio Bravo when Joe’s erstwhile companion, played by half-British pop singer Jerry Fujio, is handed a guitar that just happens to be sitting there (“It’s been a while. Sing something”) and croons a ballad. Itami Juzo’s 1980s comedy Tampopo is famous as a takeoff on a spaghetti Western, but this film beat that by two decades, though as homage rather than parody. Others have noted touches of the French New Wave in the detailed way that Joe puts together his weapon for the initial kill and later carefully builds the bomb for the climactic scene.

Still, the creative and confident way these elements are used gives the film a vibe all its own. Continue reading →

This Gun for Hire

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  • This Gun for Hire, 1/3/23 (Tues)

Frank Tuttle’s 1942 film is supposedly a pioneering noir classic, but it has aged badly in its stale dialogue, stereotypical characterizations, and limp acting. A killer named Raven is hired to retrieve some valuable information for a client but is double-crossed when the money received from the client turns out to be marked bills that have been reported as stolen. He then becomes both hunter and hunted as he seeks revenge on the client while being sought by the police. Continue reading →

Burt Bacharach

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  • Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach’s death isn’t really the end of an era since his era ended a long time ago. But his overall work with Hal David marked the last great contribution to the classic American songbook, and his catchy melodies and quirky rhythms made him one of the most distinctive composers of his day back when musical styles were going in a completely different direction. I remember wondering even at the time how “Close to You” became such a massive hit on normal rock stations, but I’m glad it did. I’ve written about him before in a West End show dedicated to his music, Close to You. I also recalled a concert he gave in Tokyo some years back and am reprinting my thoughts below. RIP.

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Assassination (暗殺)

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  • 暗殺 (Assassination)

1/1/23 (Sun)

The Edo government, aiming to make peace with rival forces in Kyoto, hires a local ronin (unemployed samurai) for protection as its representatives travel to forge an agreement. The ronin agrees to help but turns on the government once in Kyoto. He is subsequently assassinated for his betrayal.

That’s the simple version of the story underlying Shinoda Masahiro’s ever-shifting 1964 kaleidoscope of a biography of Kiyokawa Hachiro, the two-timing ronin who played a minor role in Japanese history. Continue reading →

Beau Travail

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  • Beau Travail

12/08/22 (Thurs)

In Claire Denis’ disjointed 1999 film, Galoup, a sergeant in the Foreign Legion in Djibouti who basks in the imagined approval of his commander, is upset when an unwitting rival enters the picture after heroically saving victims in a helicopter crash. The kid is young, muscular and effortlessly good looking, and seems to stand above and apart from the usual misfits that make up the Foreign Legion (such as a less attractive Russian who seeks to join). When the commander learns that the boy was abandoned as a baby and found in a stairwell, he shrugs and mutters approvingly, “It was a good find,” upsetting Galoup even more. Galoup’s obsessive jealousy at thinking himself displaced in his commander’s affections leads him to take action against the kid: seizing the chance when he catches him giving water to a fellow soldier who is being punished, he takes the boy out into the desert, gives him a broken compass, and dumps him in the middle of nowhere. The consequences prove severe for everyone.

The film, based loosely on Billy Budd, has an unmistakably homoerotic feel with plenty of shirtless men and suggestive camerawork from start to finish, though Galoup’s motivations are left ambiguous: he could just as well be upset at the thought of being usurped power-wise as taken by the kid’s otherworldly beauty (or, for that matter, the commander’s masculinity). Still, the inclusion of music from Britten’s opera Billy Budd suggests that the director knew very well what she was doing. The idea of a all-too-beautiful interloper disrupting the military order is reminiscent of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and Nagisa Oshima’s Gohatto, but those are more straightforward and compelling in story terms.

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Cabaret (film)

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  • Cabaret, 1/22/23 (Sun)

I hadn’t seen this film since it came out in 1972 and vaguely remember loving it. So when it showed up this month as part of a local theater’s morning classic film series, I jumped at the chance to catch it again on the big screen. It was much talked-about in its day for taking on themes like sexual liberation, anti-Semitism, homosexuality, abortion, and societal complacency in the face of evil, all in a musical format. It’s not the first musical to feature Nazis – The Sound of Music beat them to that. But that was a story of resistance to an established regime, whereas Cabaret examines how society got that way in the first place. The theater was impressively full for a movie over half-a-century old.

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Flower Drum Song (film)

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  • Flower Drum Song, 1/20/23 (Fri)

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s mini-hit musical must have seemed old-fashioned even in its day (1958) given the quality of shows playing elsewhere on Broadway at that time, which included My Fair Lady, West Side Story and Gypsy. It pursues the well-trod theme of a generation clash between immigrants and their native children, i.e., tradition vs. assimilation, but this time in a Chinese-American context. The characters could easily be Italian, Jewish or Irish, but the Asian theme provides new visual and musical possibilities that must have attracted the creators, who already had two huge Asia-related hits under their belt.

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American Utopia (film)

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  • American Utopia (film)

11/5/22 (Sat)

I didn’t know much about David Byrne, but several friends had raved about the Broadway run that was caught on film by no less than Spike Lee – a curious combination. This is basically a concert by a more-or-less expressionless Byrne accompanied by nine musicians and two dancers (a dynamic black woman and a campy redheaded man whose garish lipstick was the brightest thing on stage). Byrne was front and center in numerous spoken soliloquies and all musical numbers, though he allowed all performers to have a moment in the spotlight. He’s not the smoothest mover – I now have an idea of what I must look like on a dance floor – but has great stage presence. Byrne gave the glorified concert a theme of sorts in his initial speech: holding a model of a brain in hand, he pointed out that we lose connections within our brain as we age and expressed hope over the course of the show that we can connect again. Apparently the song list was a mix of the familiar and obscure, though most of his big hits are said to have made the cut. The audience was reportedly older, not a surprise given his age (upper 60s at the time), the nostalgia factor for viewers, and Broadway’s typically outlandish ticket prices.

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The Crucible (National Theatre)

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  • The Crucible

11/1/22 (Tues), London National Theatre

A splendid production. The play itself feels overly long with way too many characters and some leaden dialogue, but there’s no denying its powerful narrative drive. The theme is always relevant but felt particularly so after the shocking treatment (at least from a non-American perspective) of those with alternative views during the past several years.

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My Neighbor Totoro (stage version)

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  • My Neighbor Totoro

10/27/22 (Thurs), Barbican

You have to be brave to take on a piece as beloved as this 1988 film, one of the most famous of all Japanese anime. I wonder if the Japanese creators preferred a foreign production so as to avoid dealing with overheated domestic expectations. The Tokyo production of Spirited Away was spectacular but simply put the movie on stage (think Beauty and the Beast), and the question here is whether Totoro would take a more theatrical approach (think The Lion King).

The results were magical. Continue reading →

Marvellous

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  • Marvellous

10/25/22 (Tues), West End

A friend selected this play, apparently thinking from the photos that it was some kind of circus. As it happens, the play is a celebration of the life of Neil Baldwin, a physically disabled man with a speech impediment who became known as a professional clown and mascot for a local sports team (at times in a chicken suit). His unflagging can-do attitude was evidently an inspiration to the public, especially in those less-evolved times, and he has been recognized by the Queen and portrayed in a film biography.

That’s good for those who know about him, but rather trying for those of us who don’t. Continue reading →