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Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind in Books
Jan 21, 2018
Sweet read but not for everyone
A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind is literally a cleaning manual for those who follow spirituality as part of their general course. Shoukei Matsumoto, a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, has created a simple guide for those who want to be mindful about their daily chores and why monks themselves do each task with such vigour and importance.
While the book itself is sweet, with lovely picture representations, I did feel that some of it may not apply to a secular western household as they speak of how to repair an altar. And when you live by yourself, sharing chores is not really an option. With that in mind, the book is geared for a certain audience, many of which may have to read this as just a pleasant handbook.
While the book itself is sweet, with lovely picture representations, I did feel that some of it may not apply to a secular western household as they speak of how to repair an altar. And when you live by yourself, sharing chores is not really an option. With that in mind, the book is geared for a certain audience, many of which may have to read this as just a pleasant handbook.
David McK (3402 KP) rated Sword of Honour in Books
Jan 30, 2019
Back in 2013 (or thereabouts) I picked up a book in my local Tesco's; a book of which (at the time) I knew nothing about but which IO ended up quite enjoying. That books (Child of Vengeance) was the immediate precursor to this, and turned out to be one that I quite enjoyed.
Fast forward roughly 5 years, and I picked up the sequel, hoping to receive the same enjoyment from it.
Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed: I found this (which is, effectively, a Japanese revenge tale) to be plodding, pedestrian, heavy going and really just not that engaging, populated with unlikeable characters with murky motivations and with a verbose style of writing that just did not flow, even in the action sequences. As such, I actually found this a struggle to make it to the end!
Sorry Mr Kirk!
Fast forward roughly 5 years, and I picked up the sequel, hoping to receive the same enjoyment from it.
Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed: I found this (which is, effectively, a Japanese revenge tale) to be plodding, pedestrian, heavy going and really just not that engaging, populated with unlikeable characters with murky motivations and with a verbose style of writing that just did not flow, even in the action sequences. As such, I actually found this a struggle to make it to the end!
Sorry Mr Kirk!
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated The Ring Two (2005) in Movies
Oct 18, 2019
The Ring's Grudge
Unlike the first one, this one is bad. It is really different from the first one and thats really effects this movie from the first one. The first one was really horrorfying and terrorfying. This one was not the scary. I mean their were some scary sences, but overall it was not that scary. So whats the plot....
Sequel to the cult horror about a videotape that brings death to anyone who watches it. The journalist from the original film destroys the tape but is pursued by the demon that cursed it and who now wants to possess her son. The Japanese director of the original directs this sequel.
It is confusing, it really doesnt make any sense, really throws everything out that the first one had and just comes out with a awful movie.
Sequel to the cult horror about a videotape that brings death to anyone who watches it. The journalist from the original film destroys the tape but is pursued by the demon that cursed it and who now wants to possess her son. The Japanese director of the original directs this sequel.
It is confusing, it really doesnt make any sense, really throws everything out that the first one had and just comes out with a awful movie.
William Friedkin recommended Vengeance Is Mine (Blood for Blood) (1974) in Movies (curated)
ClareR (5711 KP) rated Fingers Crossed: How music saved me from success in Books
Nov 24, 2022
I read this on The Pigeonhole, and that was the one thing preventing me from inhaling it in one sitting.
Miki Berenyi was the lead singer of the 90’s band Lush, and boy does she have a story to tell. From a troubled upbringing with her Hungarian refugee father and Japanese actress mother, to her success and hard work (and it sounds really hard!) in Lush, Miki tells it all exactly as she remembers it. There are no holds barred - and it reads just like she’s speaking directly to you. I loved her writing style: easy to read and unputdownable, basically.
This is one of those books that may well have passed me by, if not for The Pigeonhole (it’s a reading app that serialises books - you should check it out!), and I’m so glad I got the chance to read it.
Miki Berenyi was the lead singer of the 90’s band Lush, and boy does she have a story to tell. From a troubled upbringing with her Hungarian refugee father and Japanese actress mother, to her success and hard work (and it sounds really hard!) in Lush, Miki tells it all exactly as she remembers it. There are no holds barred - and it reads just like she’s speaking directly to you. I loved her writing style: easy to read and unputdownable, basically.
This is one of those books that may well have passed me by, if not for The Pigeonhole (it’s a reading app that serialises books - you should check it out!), and I’m so glad I got the chance to read it.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan (2021) in Movies
Aug 20, 2021
Good jokes, most of which land (1 more)
Enough David Brent/Partridge moments to make you cringe
As a PJDN virgin, I still laughed a lot!
It’s brave then that such a relatively niche UK TV show should have a go at ‘jumping the shark’ onto the big screen. Would fans like it? And, just as importantly, would newcomers to the characters, like me, be able to enjoy the film as a standalone entity? The answer to the last question is a qualified “yes”.
Positives:
- It well-surpasses the “6 laugh test” for a comedy. There are some scenes that I found extremely funny, with others that rated highly for me on the David Brent / Alan Partridge scale of cringiness.
- I’ve seen comment that the story is "silly" and “unbelievable”. But having experienced the crazy clash between English and Japanese culture first hand, it strikes me as very true to form! The way in which the Japanese music execs try to stylise the ground as a ‘boy band’ (“Bang Boys”!), which Grindah greedily goes along with, is a nice satire on the music industry asserting its brand over musician’s art.
- A subplot of a love story beween the inept Steves and the cute Japanese translator Ishika (Ayumi Itô) is nicely done and strangely touching.
- The good news is that you don’t need any previous experience of the characters to get fun out of the movie: you can jump right in. That being said though, I’m sure fans of the series will get more out of this than I did.
Negatives:
- While the ending was uplifting, I was itching to know what fallout (or success?) there was from the event we witnessed. Perhaps if its a box office success (unlikely I think!) then there will be a sequel.
Summary Thoughts on “People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan”: IMDB is littered with disastrous reviews of British TV shows that have tried and failed to make the leap from the small screen to the big screen. “On the Buses”; “Are You Being Served?”; “Steptoe and Son”; “Please Sir”; “Love Thy Neighbour” – the list is endless. They are mostly all horribly unfunny. Even the great “Morecambe and Wise”, although showing occasional moments of brilliance, struggled to fully land any of their three big-screen outings.
The ‘go-to’ of many of these efforts was to “go abroad”: take the well-loved characters and put them into a ‘bigger’ and stranger pool. So “People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan” was following a well-trodden path here. It’s a tribute to the team and their TV-series director Jack Clough, in his feature debut, that they pretty much pull it off.
I’d like to agree with Kevin Maher of “The Times” that the movie is full of “Japanese stereotypes… drunken businessmen, passive giggling women etc”. But having travelled extensively on business in Japan, it seems pretty close to the mark with its observations to me! More importantly, the film never seems to be particularly derogatory or disrespectful of the culture. For example, they take their shoes off too much!
Key to its box office success will be whether or not it can attract an audience outside of its niche TV fan-bases. As a member of that sub-group, I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one, but I actually did. It was good fun, and if you want a good laugh at the cinema – a pretty rare thing – then I’d recommend this one, even if – like me – you haven’t seen the original TV show.
(For the full graphical review, please check out onemannsmovies on the web, Facebook and Tiktok. Thanks!)
Positives:
- It well-surpasses the “6 laugh test” for a comedy. There are some scenes that I found extremely funny, with others that rated highly for me on the David Brent / Alan Partridge scale of cringiness.
- I’ve seen comment that the story is "silly" and “unbelievable”. But having experienced the crazy clash between English and Japanese culture first hand, it strikes me as very true to form! The way in which the Japanese music execs try to stylise the ground as a ‘boy band’ (“Bang Boys”!), which Grindah greedily goes along with, is a nice satire on the music industry asserting its brand over musician’s art.
- A subplot of a love story beween the inept Steves and the cute Japanese translator Ishika (Ayumi Itô) is nicely done and strangely touching.
- The good news is that you don’t need any previous experience of the characters to get fun out of the movie: you can jump right in. That being said though, I’m sure fans of the series will get more out of this than I did.
Negatives:
- While the ending was uplifting, I was itching to know what fallout (or success?) there was from the event we witnessed. Perhaps if its a box office success (unlikely I think!) then there will be a sequel.
Summary Thoughts on “People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan”: IMDB is littered with disastrous reviews of British TV shows that have tried and failed to make the leap from the small screen to the big screen. “On the Buses”; “Are You Being Served?”; “Steptoe and Son”; “Please Sir”; “Love Thy Neighbour” – the list is endless. They are mostly all horribly unfunny. Even the great “Morecambe and Wise”, although showing occasional moments of brilliance, struggled to fully land any of their three big-screen outings.
The ‘go-to’ of many of these efforts was to “go abroad”: take the well-loved characters and put them into a ‘bigger’ and stranger pool. So “People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan” was following a well-trodden path here. It’s a tribute to the team and their TV-series director Jack Clough, in his feature debut, that they pretty much pull it off.
I’d like to agree with Kevin Maher of “The Times” that the movie is full of “Japanese stereotypes… drunken businessmen, passive giggling women etc”. But having travelled extensively on business in Japan, it seems pretty close to the mark with its observations to me! More importantly, the film never seems to be particularly derogatory or disrespectful of the culture. For example, they take their shoes off too much!
Key to its box office success will be whether or not it can attract an audience outside of its niche TV fan-bases. As a member of that sub-group, I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one, but I actually did. It was good fun, and if you want a good laugh at the cinema – a pretty rare thing – then I’d recommend this one, even if – like me – you haven’t seen the original TV show.
(For the full graphical review, please check out onemannsmovies on the web, Facebook and Tiktok. Thanks!)
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Red Turtle (2016) in Movies
Jun 16, 2019 (Updated Jun 16, 2019)
Animated Belgo-Japanese allegorical fantasy is nice to look at and relaxing to watch. A man is washed up on a desert island after a storm, finds his attempts to leave are frustrated by a large crimson chelonian; after an attempt to kill the creature, he resolves to make friends, successfully bringing the turtle out of her shell (thanks, I'm here all week) - the two of them fall in love and have a family together.
As you can see, not short on the traditional 'WTF?!?!?' element of Studio Ghibli films, but it also possesses the typical virtues of being a really, really beautiful and well-told story. Maybe a touch under-powered story-wise, and it doesn't feel rushed even at only about 80 minutes long, but a finely-crafted and very pleasant film. The romance that HP Lovecraft never got around to writing.
As you can see, not short on the traditional 'WTF?!?!?' element of Studio Ghibli films, but it also possesses the typical virtues of being a really, really beautiful and well-told story. Maybe a touch under-powered story-wise, and it doesn't feel rushed even at only about 80 minutes long, but a finely-crafted and very pleasant film. The romance that HP Lovecraft never got around to writing.
Ross (3284 KP) rated The Change 6: Tokyo: Noriko's Story in Books
Nov 6, 2020
A decent self-contained post-apocalyptic novella
The (seemingly) final instalment in the Change series takes another turn and moves setting to the Japanese capital Tokyo. Where we have seen western cities pretty much out of control and descended into either Walking Dead style chaos or Mad Max style tribalism, we now have Tokyo. Everything is controlled by an AI called HA/HA. Noriko's story is told by a narrator, whose identity isn't revealed until late on and is a nice twist. She is on the run from the Electric Samurai, sentinel-like robots that police the city, just trying to get home. As with the rest of the series, she meets strange people along the way and sees unusual events.
Unlike with the previous books, this one has a satisfying ending. Sadly, it didn't close off the loose ends from the other books as I had hoped.
Unlike with the previous books, this one has a satisfying ending. Sadly, it didn't close off the loose ends from the other books as I had hoped.
