Films – Page 3 – ERIC SAN JUAN

A Month of Kurosawa: Rhapsody in August (1991)

Eric San Juan November 30, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Rhapsody in August (1991) In his final years, Akira Kurosawa was tremendously concerned with the idea of legacy: what we leave behind and what our life meant. These ideas first started appearing in Dersu Uzala and Kagemusha, and then were amplified in Ran and Dreams. These are all movies that present the idea that we must confront our past in some fashion. The topic…
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Films

A Month of Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa, film, films, Japan, Japanese cinema, Japanese film, legacy, movies, Nagasaki

A Month of Kurosawa: Dreams (1990)

Eric San Juan November 29, 2018 1 Comment

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Dreams (1990) It would perhaps be overstating the case to call Dreams the final masterpiece by Akira Kurosawa, as this anthology of short films doesn’t quite rise to the level of his greatest works, but at times it comes pretty damn close. Dreams, sometimes called Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, is a collection of loosely connected short films that have some similarity of theme (most either…
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Films

A Month of Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa, dreams, film, films, Japanese cinema, Japanese film, movies, sleep paralysis, Whispers of the Old Hag

A Month of Kurosawa: Ran (1985)

Eric San Juan November 28, 2018 2 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Ran (1985) Ran is a masterpiece, one of the greatest films of all time, and you should do everything in your power to see it right away. That really could be the sum total of this capsule review, because it’s true, and if I start talking about what makes this film so great I’ll either start to gush or will end up writing a…
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Films

A Month of Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa, classic films, classic movies, classics, film, films, Japan, Japanese cinema, Japanese films, Japanese movies, masterpiece, movies, period piece, samurai, samurai movies

A Month of Kurosawa: Kagemusha (1980)

Eric San Juan November 26, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Kagemusha (1980) The supposed return to form for Akira Kurosawa that Kagemusha represents is a bit unfair to the works that came before it, such as the greatly overlooked Dersu Uzala, but that’s a rant for another time, I suppose. Kagemusha’s story is well known almost as much for what isn’t on the screen as for what is, thanks to funding for the film…
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Films

A Month of Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa, classic films, classic movies, classics, film, films, Japan, Japanese cinema, Japanese films, Japanese movies, movies, period piece, samurai, samurai movies

A Month of Kurosawa: Dersu Uzala (1975)

Eric San Juan November 25, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Dersu Uzala (1975) During a period in his career when Kurosawa had fallen out of favor and was no longer the influential icon he once was, he found himself deep in the Soviet Union making a film about nature, survival, civilization, and friendship. That film was Dersu Uzala, based on the autobiographical book of the same name by Vladimir Arsenyev. It’s also one of his…
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Films

A Month of Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa, classic films, classic movies, film, films, Japan, Japanese cinema, Japanese films, Japanese movies, movies, Russia, Russian lit, Russian literature