‘Yamato’ dissects cultural angst

‘Run the Tide’ an uninspired tearjerker

DBy Maggie Lee

epicting the underbelly of a Japanese town dominated by a US airbase, “Yamato” is like a kick in the butt to the apolitical and inwardlooking attitudes of Japan’s film industry and domestic market. Evoking the economic and psychological burdens of America’s military presence on a rudderless female wannabe-rapper, writerdirector Daisuke Miyazaki asks whether his compatriots are colonized within their own country. Gleefully abrasive and opinionated about Japanese and Americans alike, Miyazaki dissects his generation’s cultural angst as few of his contemporaries have done. So despite a disappointingly ending, the film deserves a release in the US to represent the Japanese civilian view in the ongoing debate of American foreign policy.

Yamato, a town in Kanagawa, near Tokyo, is home to Atsugi Airbase, the largest US naval base in the Pacific Ocean. Although Yamato is the ancient, but still widely used name for Japan, it has an ironic ring considering how the local residents regard their own soil as a “special zone” of California. This being Miyazaki’s hometown, nothing escapes his intense scrutiny, beginning with a long take of a giant junkyard, and closing in on high school dropout Sakura (Hanae Kan) rapping to herself inside. Though she’s a lousy rapper, her lyrics (“living in a radioactive, contaminated country, dodging the brainwashing...”) strip away Japan’s Olympic publicity image.

When she goes home, it’s just another dump: Only a curtain divides her bedroom from her geeky brother Kenzo’s space, while garbage and used appliances pile up in the backyard. These snippets of suburban life may recall Yu Irie’s “8000 Miles” trilogy about rappers stuck in the drab town of Saitama. However, while Irie’s works are harmless, offbeat slacker comedies, there’s more indignation to Yamato’s sense of squalor, as the town’s residents seem enervated by the sense of dependency reinforced by the foreign presence.

Sakura’s single mom, Kiko (Reiko Kataoka), is dating an American G.I. named Abby Goldman, whose daughter, Rei (Nina Endo), is visiting from America. Since Kiko has to work, she asks Sakura and Kenzo to take good care of Rei.

Although Rei hails from San Francisco, she’s cheerful, courteous, and speaks perfect Japanese. Her host family’s insistence on treating her like a foreigner, Kiko’s desperation to please, and Kenzo’s euphoria over rare female

Sources close to the rapper told People he was exhausted from a “spiritual crisis.”

West’s hospitalization followed a series of public rants and the cancellation of the rest of his concert tour. (RTRS) company are both funny and pathetic. At first, Sakura is downright hostile, but it doesn’t take long for her icy pose to dissolve, after discovering Rei knows a thing or two about hip-hop.

Dynamic

A lively, unpredictable dynamic develops as they hang out at a cheap general-goods chain called Don Quixote, a comic cafe, and a local mall — all dives Sakura takes for granted as sad proof of her downscale existence. Nonetheless, they’re novelties to Rei. Still, there are limits to their superficial cultural exchange, so it’s not surprising that their ad hoc friendship could easily turn sour. When Sakura is uneasy about rapping for Rei, the latter, in a drunken fit, accuses her new friends of being copying America, with no original modern culture of their own.

Since Miyazaki spent his childhood in Chicago but later returned to Yamato, Sakura and Rei could be viewed as two sides of his own self-image, which in turn reflects the post-war identity crisis many Japanese experience. Sakura’s description of the elusive Abby, who never appears onscreen, as “like a friend or father” who taught her about hip hop — but who also uses her family, and even dumps his own daughter on them — symbolizes Japan’s ambivalent feelings towards America as a protector and freeloader.

The plot could have packed a more provocative punch when it added a Korean girl gang and a homeless community into the mix, but instead, it ties things up in a neat, heartwarming bow that proves out-of-character and outof-tune with it’s general edginess.

Kan, a 26-year-old Japanese-Korean who made her debut in Seijun Suzuki’s “Pistol Opera,” was once accused of being anti-Japanese because she played an ethnic Korean terrorist in “Pure Asia.” This controversial past combined with her aloof image makes her an ideal choice for the cranky, neurotic misfit. Rising British-Irish-Japanese actressmodel Endo laces her cuteness with just the right dose of spite.

Though they only wrapped up four years ago, the “Twilight” movies already seem ancient history in pop culture terms. Ditto the memory of Taylor Lautner as an Oughties It Boy, that temporary career heat cooled by a series of weak big-screen vehicles even as his co-stars were reinventing themselves with uneven but cumulative success as “serious” adult actors.

“Run the Tide” is unlikely to reverse

LOS ANGELES:

Lil Twist, the rapper best known as the sidekick of Justin Bieber, was sentenced to a year in prison Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to assault.

The 23-year-old rapper acknowledged that he beat up fellow artist and former that trend at point when Lautner has mostly retreated to TV anyway (“Scream Queens,” Brit “Cuckoo”), though the actor gives a creditable enough turn as a young man who has raised his little brother alone — then flees with the kid once their hitherto abusive, drug-addled mother exits prison to resume custody. This competently crafted but uninspired tearjerker, a feature debut for both director Soham Mehta and scenarist Rajiv Shah, is getting a limited theatrical launch Dec 2. Yet it feels like a cable and rental time-filler, with prospects sure to be much improved in those formats.

After suffering the full brunt of single parent Lola (Constance Zimmer), and her violent and irresponsible behavior, Rey (Lautner) is determined not to let much-younger sibling Oliver (Nico Christou) risk the same kind of ruined childhood. So he puts any of his own plans on hold, sticking around to work at the local gas station/grocery store owned by mom’s ex-beau Bo (Kenny Johnson) and raises Oliver himself, even as his former classmates go on to college and bigger things. One of them — one-time g.f. Michelle (Johanna Braddy), whom he hasn’t seen in years — turns up unexpectedly. She’s graduated from Stanford and established an upwardly mobile career in San Francisco. Their dormant romance rekindles in an inebriated late-night tryst, during which she impulsively urges him to join her in San Fran.

It’s an offer he’s inclined to take seriously when he learns that Lola gets out of the state pen in just two days, after a six-year stint. What’s more, she fully intends to take charge of 10-yearold Oliver, who’s too young to recall Lola’s pre-prison destructiveness and has an idealized perception of his mom. Fearing the worst, Rey creates a feeble pretext for a road trip for the brothers from which, unknown to Oliver, he does not intend them to return.

As they drive from the desert to the Bay Area, with Lola and reluctant Bo in eventual pursuit, “Run the Tide” never becomes terribly eventful — nor does it ever rise above watchable-butforgettable status. Road movies have sometimes gotten by on little more than the strongly felt bond between two characters who may spat, yet also always have each other’s back. Unfortunately, a major problem here is that newcomer Christou is no more appealing than what’s on the page — and since, as written, Oliver is an irritatingly precocious, potty-mouthed brat, there’s not enough rooting interest at the film’s core fraternal relationship. (RTRS)

child star Chris Massey two years ago at the Los Angeles apartment of the victim’s brother, Kyle Massey.

Chris Massey had asked Lil Twist to leave a party and he returned half an hour later with four others as Lil Twist subdued him, kicked him and pummeled him with brass knuckles, prosecutors said.

Lil Twist, whose real name is Christopher Moore, pleaded guilty in court to five counts including assault and robbery.

He was given one year in prison, avoiding a longer term if he went to trial, the Los Angeles district attorney’s office said. (AFP)

LOS ANGELES:

On Tuesday night’s starstudded episode of “The Voice”, country music legend Dolly Parton joined Miley Cyrus and band Pentatonix on stage for an a-capella performance of Parton’s 1973 song “Jolene”.

Clad in black and silver, Parton took center stage as she stood next to goddaughter Cyrus on the arced stage. Both have previously performed the song together, most notably at the 25th anniversary of Dollywood in 2010.

Pentatonix released a recording of the song in September, with Parton herself featured on the record. The band also performed the song with singer-songwriter Jennifer Nettles at the 2016 Country Music Awards earlier this month, as a tribute to the famed singer. (RTRS)