A Month of Kurosawa: Rhapsody in August (1991)

A Month of Kurosawa: Rhapsody in August (1991)

Posted inFilms
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…
A Month of Kurosawa: Ran (1985)

A Month of Kurosawa: Ran (1985)

Posted inFilms
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…
A Month of Kurosawa: Kagemusha (1980)

A Month of Kurosawa: Kagemusha (1980)

Posted inFilms
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…
A Month of Kurosawa: Dersu Uzala (1975)

A Month of Kurosawa: Dersu Uzala (1975)

Posted inFilms
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,…
A Month of Kurosawa: Dodes’ka-Den (1970)

A Month of Kurosawa: Dodes’ka-Den (1970)

Posted inFilms
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! Dodes’ka-Den (1970) By the late 1960s, Akira Kurosawa's career had somewhat skidded off the rails. The situation is too complex with these quickie capsule reviews, but the bottom line is that Toshiro Mifune was out of the picture, Kurosawa…