“Amrita” by Banana Yoshimoto: Tokyo pop culture and Magical realism

Amrita is the latest book I’ve finished. What a trip! It’s sort of difficult to pin this one down. All of Yoshimoto’s books read like the dairy of a Japanese high school girl or college student. What keeps her work from becoming another piece of YA (young adult) kid’s stuff is her fascination with death and the

“The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975” is the yearbook of the revolution

The Black Power Mixtape 1965-1975 is one of the most spectacularly moving documentaries of radical American history released in 2011, and is sure to be like nothing you’ve seen before. The documentary is composed of film shot by a Swedish news crew following the Black Power movement through the socially explosive era of the 60’s and 70’s. The

“cabin in the woods” takes the horror genre for a spin

When I first saw the poster for Cabin in the Woods, I immediately expected another cookie-cutter horror movie. There’s been a trend in Hollywood of passing off supposed “horror movies.” Flicks that center on a group of Abercrombie & Fitch-type beautiful people. If you’re a true horror fan, then you know exactly the kind of

“Hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world” Japanese cyberpunk with a noir twist

Murakami Haruki’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is imagination dynamite. The story opens up with a sci-fi, noir attitude told from a Japanese perspective. My immediate impression was, “This is gonna cool,” and it was. Haruki throws a bit of everything into the pot: surrealism, mystery, metaphysics, magical realism, to name

Hobo with a Shotgun Blasts Cowardly Hollywood

“I’m tired of these muthafuckin’ hobos with these muthafuckin’ shotguns!” My lips will never speak these words. I stumbled upon Hobo with a Shotgun while randomly surfing the net for movies. When it came up, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Did somebody really have the balls to make a movie that combined two of my favorite things,