A Month of Kurosawa: Throne of Blood (1957)

A Month of Kurosawa: Throne of Blood (1957)

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! Throne of Blood (1957) In the 1940s and 1950s, director Alfred Hitchcock went on one of the greatest creative tears in cinema history. Between 1940's Rebecca to 1960's Psycho, he directed anywhere from 10 to a dozen bona fide…
A Month of Kurosawa: Ikiru (1952)

A Month of Kurosawa: Ikiru (1952)

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! Ikiru (1952) If there is a film that made me want to write Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer's Guide, it might be Ikiru. When I first saw the movie about 15 years ago, it was damn near a life-changing experience.…
A Month of Kurosawa: The Idiot (1951)

A Month of Kurosawa: The Idiot (1951)

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! The Idiot (1951) Following Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa tackled something quite different: a faithful adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot. Much like the book, it's a sprawling, sometimes glacial affair focused on a complex web of interpersonal relationships. His initial cut…
A Month of Kurosawa: Rashomon (1950)

A Month of Kurosawa: Rashomon (1950)

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! Rashomon (1950) Reams upon reams have been written about Rashomon. It's likely to be among the two or three Kurosawa films even casual film viewers have seen, or at least heard of, so for this capsule review series I…
A Month of Kurosawa: Scandal (1950)

A Month of Kurosawa: Scandal (1950)

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! Scandal (1950) In the years immediately following the end of World War II, Akira Kurosawa found himself increasingly frustrated with the sometimes salacious turn Japan's newly free media had taken, with too many tabloids dishing out celebrity gossip and…