Happy Hour International

‘Choe U-Ram: Anima Machina’
SCAI the Bathhouse Closes June 28

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Review – Tanyu Kurumaya: Shiodome
Cochin – the free-range chicken that’s the pride of Nagoya – is the bird of choice at this friendly yakitori shop, but there’s plenty more here to attract the discerning diner. Explore the menu and you’ll be rewarded with great little regional dishes from around the country. Oysters from Miyajima, kiritampo stew (made with mushrooms and grilled rice) from Akita, Berkshire pork from Kyushu, and some excellent oden, one of Tokyo’s own specialties. There are nice udon noodles, kamameshi rice, and premium filet of beef grilled right at the table. Plus beautifully fresh and flavorful sashimi to start things off, and some well-chosen regional sake to wash it all down….

‘Contagion’ / ‘Moneyball’
Cinema imagines the apocalypse on a regular basis, touching on everything from Mayan calendar-related polar shifts to the ever-popular walking dead. Few films, however, dare to deal with scenarios that could actually happen; that’s what makes Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion,” which looks at a deadly global flu pandemic and its consequences, both unique and quite terrifying.
The world has seen a few false alarms over viral outbreaks in the past decade — Ebola, SARS, bird flu — but most scientists agree that it’s only a matter of time until a killer strain emerges, and with our globalized planet, tied together by air travel and trade, the spread of the virus is likely to be measured in days, not months.

“Emerging Master 1: Makoto Aida “Be it Art or not Art”
Tokyo Wonder Site begins its “Emerging Master” series with Makoto Aida — the artist who famously goaded Disney lawyers with crazed and sexualized depictions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and who has garnered controversy as much as acclaim. But with his anti-establishment career and a number of challenges to art culture since the 1980s, he certainly fits into the “Master” set.
This series of exhibitions will also showcase artists with more nascent careers, and in fact this first show focuses on Aida’s earlier works. These include pieces centered on ideas of sex, death and politics, which are juxtaposed neatly with those of artists such as Fuyuhiko Takata and Chiho Hayashi who, coming from “within Aida’s intimate circle,” also challenge viewers to ask if their work is “art or not”; till Nov. 25.

‘Days of Heaven’ / ‘Nashville’
It’s somewhat depressing to think that the two best films on offer this summer, by far, were made over three decades ago. Robert Altman’s epic “Nashville” came out in the torrid summer of 1975, while Terrence Malick’s sophomore film, “Days of Heaven,” was released in ’78 after two years in the editing room. On the other hand, it’s rather heartening to see the cream of American cinema’s ’70s renaissance getting some big-screen revivals.
“Days of Heaven,” without a doubt, should be seen on the big screen or not at all. The cinematography of Nestor Almendros (who was going blind during the shoot) and Haskell Wexler is legendary, breathtaking in its naturally lit beauty and for Malick’s perfectionist obsession with capturing the Texas Panhandle during “magic hour,” brief 20-minute periods at dawn and dusk where the sky and light were just so. You’ll sink into this film and never want to come out.

“Nihonga in Kyoto: Past, Present, and Future”
The Kyoto Japanese-Style Painters’ Association was established in 1941, during World War II, by Seiho Takeuchi, Keigetsu Kikuchi, Kansetsu Hashimoto and a number of other well-known nihonga (Japanese-style painting) artists. The association has since grown to include around 500 artist members.
To celebrate the Kyoto Japanese-Style Painters’ 70th anniversary, this exhibition showcases 23 paintings by past executive board members of the association, as well as some 430 new works by other members.

Chikugo festival features firework waterfall
While nearly every city in Japan boasts an annual summer fireworks display, Fukuoka gives its citizens a little bit extra pizazz.
Since 2003, the Chikugo River fireworks display has held the world record for the longest firework — more than 3 km in length — nicknamed “Niagara Falls.”

‘Hesher’
What would happen if Megadeath decided to record an emo album? The answer may be something like “Hesher,” which features an almost Cro-Magnon sort of misanthropic metalhead hero who likes nothing but shredding, shagging, smoking dope and smashing things, but who, it turns out, will teach his straighter friends some life-affirming lessons.
“Hesher” is the debut of director Spencer Susser, and he’s got some pretty good star power for a first film: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“Inception,” “Mysterious Skin”) plays the aforementioned headbanger, looking like a younger Rob Zombie with his lank greasy hair and tasteless tattoos, while Natalie Portman appears as — get this — a frumpy superstore checkout girl, which is a bit of a stretch.

Director Ishii brings style to family drama
Japanese directors with any kind of ambition usually end up making a family drama, which is to Japanese cinema what the Western used to be to Hollywood: the core national genre.
Of course, plenty of bad-to-mediocre directors here have made family dramas, just as plenty of bad-to-mediocre Hollywood directors once made Westerns. But in the same way the Western was defined by its giants, John Ford and Howard Hawks among them, so the Japanese family drama is exemplified by its masters, including Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse.

‘Hyakunin’ translations capture commission prize
In the same way that few British people have read all of Shakespeare’s sonnets but many can quote at least a few lines of the lyric tradition, any adult who has gone through the Japanese school system is familiar with the Ogura “Hyakunin Isshu.” This collection of 100 waka — a classic poetic form written in lines of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables — has been translated into English before. The first who dared was a British naval officer stationed in Yokohama in the Meiji Period who studied Japanese purely “out of personal desire.”

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Review – Spice Cafe: Sumida-ku
Oshiage, in the northeast corner of Tokyo, isn’t exactly a food-lover’s destination, but we think it deserves a spot on the gourmet map simply because it’s the closest station to Spice Cafe. The chef here is a veteran of a hotel restaurant in Kerala, India, and he prepares authentic, first-class curries in this cozy little hideaway. Word is out, though, and most tables are reserved for both lunch and dinner every day….

New – 82 Ale House: Akihabara
Very close to Akihabara station, this bustling bar from the ubiquitous Hub chain is a convenient place for a casual drink and snack after a day of electronics shopping or manga browsing….

‘Japan Fashion Now’ at FIT in NYC
NEW YORK — A t first it was a familiar scene, par for the course in the Tokyo shopping hubs of Harajuku and Omotesando: There was iconic Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, flanked by a smattering of Gothic Lolitas and punks.
But this wasn’t Tokyo; it was New York City. And it was a snapshot of the looks on display and the revelers on hand at the opening reception of the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s “Japan Fashion Now” exhibit in late September.

Tipping a hat to Japan creations
I was feeling an itch to don a bonnet.
After all, it seemed that if the majority of Tokyo designers had their way, women would be welcoming spring in frilly dresses, macrame twinsets, oversized layers of patchwork and dusty colors.

Hearing China’s take on Senkakus
The most recent territorial dispute over the Senkaku (Japanese name)/Diaoyutai (Chinese name) Islands, located southwest of Okinawa (or north of Taiwan if you prefer), was triggered on Sept. 7 when a Chinese trawler attempted to ram two Japanese Coast Guard vessels. The blurry details of the collision were finally made public last week in a video released to the Diet.
Downplaying the incident, Spa! (Oct. 19) ran an article reporting that most Chinese people were comparatively subdued over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai issue, and noting that Japanese restaurant franchises in Chinese cities were doing “business as usual.”

‘Japan’s single finest film critic’
Tadao Sato laughed an embarrassed laugh as he recalled that three years ago, in London, he had been referred to as a “legend.” Though adding to his discomfort, I had to admit that in my university days I had thought of him in the same way. And I still do.
For students of Japanese film, Sato’s name is almost on a par with those of the great 20th-century directors Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi, and also renowned actors such as Toshiro Mifune. And yet Sato has only ever been indirectly involved with the production of film.

Feature – Finding great ramen in Tokyo
Searching Tokyo for an excellent ramen shop can be quite a task. With a shop on practically every corner, one is left with some questions. What is that wonderful (or horrible) smell? Is it worth the ninety-minute wait? Should a shop without a lady in sight detour me from bringing a date?

‘Japan’s single finest film critic’
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And so you started watching a lot of films?

‘Kiseki (I Wish)’
Hirokazu Koreeda has risen to heights of international critical esteem that few of his generation can equal. An American film journal recently devoted nearly an entire issue to his films (with this reviewer contributing). But what foreign critics and fans often think they are getting — a director carrying on the humanistic traditions of Japanese cinema’s 1950s and 1960s Golden Age — is not quite what Koreeda is delivering.
Trained as a documentary filmmaker and long a staffer of the TV Man Union production house, he is outside the mainstream of the Japanese film business in which the Golden Age greats and their successors worked. Also, his style of naturalistic filmmaking, with its avoidance of melodrama and sentimentalism, owes as much to such foreign influences as Hou Hsiao Hsien and Theodoros Angelopoulos as to Mikio Naruse, Koreeda’s personal Golden Age hero.

It’s a park life
Even though Kanto is still in the middle of its rainy season, which officially began here May 27, residents are already sweating the approaching summer.
After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government is asking people and businesses served by the reactor to cut down on their energy use. Translation: Turn off the air conditioning. Summer temperatures will inevitably dictate what measures will (or hopefully won’t) be needed, but with 2010 being Japan’s hottest summer on record it seems no amount of cool-biz — or its newfangled “super” variety — will be able to provide relief.

‘Masaki Ogihara’
Gallery Hashimoto Closes Sept. 27

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Brews News #88
Reviews of Cafe Flower (Yokohama), Kobe-area bars part 2 in the September/October issue of our Japan beer newsletter.

‘Mr. Shiseido’ blends beauty and business
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I originally wanted to be a biologist and to study DNA; to become a geneticist. My father liked gardening, so I had looked at all sorts of plants with him.

Review – Nagamine: Ginza
Vegetable kaiseki is the unusual specialty at Nagamine, a relatively new restaurant in Ginza that’s run by a long-established vegetable wholesaler based in nearby Tsukiji. With no meat or seafood to distract one’s attention, the vegetables really stand on their own merits, and Nagamine showcases the most beautiful and most flavorful produce of the season. At Y5250, the vegetable menu offers a chance to experience a different take on kaiseki at a very reasonable price….