BTW, elsewhere in NYC is the Japan Society, and their yearly showcase of cinema is online this year for obvious reasons. It’s worth checking out!
https://japancuts.japansociety.org/
BTW, some recommendations:
If you’re a fan of Nobuhiko Obayashi (best known for Hausu) then this doc about his life and times (and with his wife’s) is an absolute must see. FYI: his final film, Labyrinth of Cinema, is also part of the line-up (which I haven’t seen yet, due to its long runtime, but will finally get the chance later this week; it’s apparently quite amazing)…
The next film by the director of One Cut of the Dead has gotten a lot of flack from film critics, and I think they’re all being super unfair; it doesn’t reinvent any genre conventions, but if you’re obsessed with cults like I am, then am pretty sure you’ll dig…
My personal fave is “very” Japanese, and is an entire hour & a half of various static shots of the woods, in which a robot and a tanuki either just walk into frame or found to be sitting already, who talk the entire time about random nonsense. It might actually be the best new film I’ve seen all year…
BTW, the one movie you should avoid at all costs is Shell and Joint, which contains every single terrible trope and cliché of Japanese cinema imaginable (which arty farty white film critics eat up like cotton candy)…
