Review: Films Set In Japan – The Bad News Bears Go To Japan (1978)

Posted on September 16, 2012 by tokyofox

We all know that when the writers of a TV show or film franchise (and I use that term in the loosest sense regarding this movie!) run out of ideas they take the project overseas. Now, I’m not too sure how relevant that idea is to ‘Bad News Bears…‘ as I haven’t seen the two prequels to this film but it would seem that there were never any ideas in the first place!

Having spectacularly failed to see a baseball game last month whilst in New York I thought I’d slip this DVD into the player to see if I could enjoy another baseball film as much as I liked ‘Mr Baseball‘ starring Tom Selleck. Yes, I do own this ‘Bad News Bears…‘ DVD as indeed do I for almost all of the films set in Japan reviewed on this site. Sad indeed given the average Tokyo Fox rating of them!

“Caught in a clash of cultures and ready to wreak more havoc on Japan than Godzilla” is the blurb on the back of the DVD which is an overly-used tagline but given that this film is from 1978 it seems like they were years ahead of their time!

In terms of kids films it makes the ‘3 Ninja’s Kick Back‘ movie seem like an Academy Award winner! There’s no doubt that this film is terrible but every film has some good in it and this one is no exception. Its only 92 minutes in length which we should be thankful about! It features some very nice Japanese scenery at times where filmed at various temples and shrines as we see the older kid Kelly dating a child Japanese geisha girl. She doesn’t speak any English yet she seems to understand everything he says. Such a love story is laughable yet is the kind of the story I have heard about happening here! My favourite scene is the fictional advert for a baseball bat which sees one of the young boys use the equipment to take out Godzilla on a miniature Japanese-scenery set.

 

The storyline? It’s bear-ly worth the effort but basically it centres around some vague plot to do with Martin Lazar (Tony Curtis) thinking he can earn big bucks by sending the Bears to Japan for a highly publicized exhibition game against some little league baseball team who were upset that no U.S. team had visited recently. That’s about it really. There’s some very dull baseball scenes at the end of the film as well as some practice in the first part but overall its fairly lacking in baseball action and is instead padded out with some completely irrelevant scenes of karate, sumo and variety show action.

 

Tokyo Fox Rating 3/10

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Dining Out: L’Azure (Tunisian)

Posted on September 13, 2012 by tokyofox

It often gets forgotten that when I went to Tunisia in August 2009 the holiday wasn’t only about things to do with Star Wars. Whilst that did take up the majority of my attention I did see and do a fair few other things too such as eating local food including camel steaks. Hungry to sample some more Tunisian food I headed to Shin Okubo last Friday. Now, this area may be more synonymous with Korean food but there are many other international restaurants there including two serving Tunisian cuisine. As ‘Sahara’ also included Moroccan fare I chose to go to ‘L’Azure’ which can be found at 1-24-8 Hyakunincho in Shinjuku-ku. The fact that this one also served a lunch menu (between 11.00am and 2.30pm) and the other one didn’t, made my decision easier.

 

When my girlfriend and I arrived just after midday the place was full to capacity which perhaps isn’t too hard given that the place is tiny and only seats about 20 people. The place is decorated in a blue colour with lots of typical Tunisian objects and there is a choice of two lunch courses for 800-900 yen which is extremely good value for such a place.

I went for the lasagne, rice and salad which wasn’t good. It was great! Not sure how much of a truly Tunisian dish it is though! Also included was a fruit dessert and a special type of coffee but I declined that thinking it would be the end of it. However, the owner Mourad later asked me if I’d prefer a mint tea which I agreed to without hesitation. Once everyone else had paid-up and gone we got speaking to the multi-lingual owner about the restaurant and inevitably I bored him with where I had been in the north African country a few years previous.

 

You can read my other ‘Dining Out’ articles here

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New York Filming Locations: I Am Legend (2007)

Posted on September 10, 2012 by tokyofox

Will Smith plays Robert Neville; a scientist unable to stop a deadly man-made virus spreading which he is immune to and the only human survivor in New York City and perhaps the world. His townhouse is at 11 Washington Square Park North and if my memory serves me correctly is where he sends out daily radio messages in the desperate hope of finding any other survivors who might be out there.

 

Just across the road from his apartment is Washington Square which he views from his window. This place would normally be a great place to chill out and relax but sadly when I was there it was absolutely bucketing it down with rain and the arch could offer only a slight respite from the downpour. I have since seen this area featured in a fair few other movies and TV programmes.

 

The flatiron building at 175 5th Avenue is later seen as he drives around the empty streets of New York. This is a cool looking construction which was completed in 1902 and the Flatiron district around it got its name from the building.

 

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New York Filming Locations: Sex And The City (1998-2004)

Posted on September 7, 2012 by tokyofox

When I first came to Japan all those years ago there weren’t (and indeed still aren’t) too many English language programmes on so I ended up watching episodes of all kinds of sh*te and that included a few episodes of ‘Sex and the City‘

Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) apartment is given as East 73rd Street in the TV series but is actually 66 Perry Street at West 4th Street in Greenwich Village. As expected the steps were chained off to stop fans from sitting on the steps or whatever. A black box asking for charity donations in return for the photos you take is a small price to pay for a photo op at one of TV”s most famous apartments.

 

I never saw the actual episode in which The Magnolia Bakery featured but research tells me it was season 3 episode 5 and was titled “No Ifs, Ands, Or Butts.” The reason I knew about this place was thanks to a CNN news feature story about the place and the cup cake craze which started following its appearance in the series. The shop can be found at 401 Bleeker Street and is actually just round the corner from Carrie’s apartment. There may be no bench or seats outside but other than that it looks pretty much identical now.

 

Whilst on the subject of SATC I may as well use this opportunity to say that I did see some of the first film on a plane a few years ago. I say some as I fell asleep for most of it! The sequel ‘SATC 2’ gave me great pleasure too and thats without even seeing any of it! Mark Kermode’s rant about this film on the excellent ‘Kermode & Mayo’s Film Review’ show on BBC Radio 5 Live was fantastic radio. Watch it here.

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Dining Out: I Ate Sheep Brain Curry & Ewe Better Believe It!!

Posted on September 4, 2012 by tokyofox

I was having a quick peruse of the excellent RocketNews24 website last week when I saw an article about a Pakistani restaurant in Ikebukuro which serves sheep brain curry and thought I’d go along and see and experience it myself. Maruhaba is a five minute walk from the west exit of JR Ikebukuro station although it took my girlfriend and I about an hour to find it as I had the wrong address and couldn’t find it on google maps. After a quick call to the place it was known that the actual address was 2-63-6 Ikebukuro. With a mannekin pis statue outside as well as the usual elephant statues we entered expecting a place full of Pakistani men but the place was completely deserted with only one other couple coming in a bit later.

 

According to the aforementioned website the majority of Pakistani people are Muslim and so don’t eat pork but when it comes to sheep they eat all of it including the heart, brain and even the genitals! Maybe that will be next as I’ve seen Bear Grylls sample such delicacies in ‘Man Vs Wild‘ (‘Born Survivor‘ in Britain) many times over the years and its done him no harm!

 

Although the usual curry dishes were on the menu I decided to splash out on the brain masala as that was the reason for locating this restaurant and you can never have enough brain can you?!! Maruhaba claims to be the only restaurant in Japan to serve the dish though I can’t be sure of the authenticity of that statement.

I pushed the boat out a bit and also had some keema (minced beef) nan with the obligatory lassi drink which was possibly the best one I’ve ever had. The curry taste was way better than I expected as I usually play it fairly safe in these places. It had a soft spongy taste with tofu-like texture and as expected I didn’t even feel like I was eating brain. Its certainly not a spicy dish and is actually quite mild which suits me fine. I’m sure only bits of the dish are actually the sheeps brain but who knows?!

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New York Filming Locations: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Posted on September 1, 2012 by tokyofox

This is a first for me in that I have actually scouted out a very current film; one that I only saw at its World Premiere in Tokyo in June. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) lives with his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) in Brooklyn at 36 Fuller Place (below) which is just a couple of minutes walk away from 15 St – Prospect Park (F, G lines) metro station.

 

Sadly the screenshot below doesn’t reveal too much of this house as it was a nighttime shot.

The entrance and lobby of Dr Curt Connors’ (Rhys Ifans) high-tech lab at ‘Oscorp’ (below) is the Hearst Building on 300 West 57th Street at 8th Avenue.

Captain George Stacy’s (Denis Leary) workplace is the National Museum of the American Indian (below) on 1 Bowling Green at Broadway which has a rich film history already having appeared in ‘Ghostbusters II‘ and ‘Batman Forever‘.

As for his apartment, that is at at 15 West 81st Street (below) and is pretty nice looking with some great views which can be seen in the film when Peter Parker and Stacy’s daughter Gwen (Emma Stone) kiss on the balcony after he reveals his true identity. That followed a tense conversation between Parker and Captain Stacey over Spider-Man’s motives.

Click here to read ‘New York Filming Locations: Spider-Man (2002) & Spider-Man 2 (2004)’

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New York Filming Locations: The Bourne Supremacy (2004) & The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Posted on August 29, 2012 by tokyofox

“Get some rest Pam, you look tired” are the final words uttered over the phone by Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) on 100 minutes to Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) before Moby’s theme tune kicks in and he is seen walking away from the building where he had been spying on her from

 

Although the majority of ‘The Bourne Supremacy‘ was shot in Berlin which I covered in this entry the second film in the saga ends in New York City.

 

This building is located on 202 East 48th Street at 3rd Avenue and it was raining quite badly when I went there on my final day in the city.

 

The next Bourne movie ‘Ultimatum‘ also finishes in New York (after stints mainly in London and Tangiers) but concludes the whole story in far more extravagant style than its predecessor. Bourne takes a cab from the airport over Queensboro Bridge (below) on 74 mins and arranges to meet Landy at Tudor City although its just a tactic to distract Vosen and co and break into his safe to get the incriminating Blackbriar information

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Before you know it Bourne is a few blocks west at Port Authority Parking Lot (above) where he steals a car from the rooftop which I think is this one.

 

He is then seen racing down the ramp between West 40th and West 41st Streets at 9th Avenue but without an aerial camera or high vantage point it was pretty difficult to do the screenshot below justice.

 

The fast-paced chase ends up on South Street which is at the foot of the Manhattan side of Brooklyn Bridge and then its on to one of my favourite Bourne locations.

The training facility of SRD is at 415 East 71st Street which Landy gives to Bourne via coded message. However, this address will not lead you to the place seen in the movie on 68 mins as it was actually filmed outside 60 Lafayette Street with the now-defunct Family Court Building used as the secret Treadstone training place.

  

Naturally fake street signs were used and this location really is a pivotal place in the scheme of things. To quote the main man “This is where it started for me. This is where it ends.”

 

It doesn’t quite end there though as Landy faxes the incriminating evidence on Vosen whilst Bourne encounters Dr Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney) on an upper level and is informed that he volunteered for the programme. Pursued by Vosen and his CIA team, he flees to the rooftop which is actually much further uptown at the Hospital for Special Surgery on 535 East 70th Street. Bourne is first confronted on the roof by Paz and after an emotional exchange of words he runs to jump off the roof and as he does so Vosen appears and shoots at him as he plunges into the East River below.

A spectacular end brings the Bourne story full circle in terms of him starting in the water in ‘Identity‘ and finishing in it in ‘Ultimatum‘…….until ‘The Bourne Legacy‘ decided to continue the story!! I have never failed to get a shiver down my spine as I see Nicky (Julia Stiles) watching the TV news report about the exposure of Operation Blackbriar in the films closing moments.

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New York Filming Locations: Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)

Posted on August 26, 2012 by tokyofox

The image of Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) in her black evening gown and sunglasses with a pearl necklace around her neck and a coffee and croissant in her hand is an iconic one. In the early moments of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s‘ we see her get out of a yellow cab as the morning light breaks and gaze up at the Tiffany & Co. sign of the famous jewellery store. Its address is 727 5th Avenue at 57th Street and I tried my best to replicate the screenshot.

 

A couple of days later I went to see Golightly’s apartment building at 169 East 71st Street which may be missing the green and white striped awning but is still recognisable enough. This apartment was the place where we saw Mickey Rooney portray the Japanese landlord Mr Yunioshi in an era when you could get away with such a thing. This is also the apartment where Golightly meets new tenant Paul Varjak played by George Peppard who may have made his name in this role but of course is known to people of my age as the cigar chomping leader Col. John “Hannibal” Smith of ‘The A-Team‘.

 

When Holly and Paul spend a day together daring each other to experiment with new things he takes her to the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue at 42nd Street which is 15 blocks away from the famed jeweller Tiffany’s. America’s second largest public library has also featured in many other films and will certainly appear again in some of my other ‘New York Filming Locations’ articles.

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USA 2012 Pt II: ‘Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark’ Musical

Posted on August 23, 2012 by tokyofox

Can’t say I have ever had any desire to see a musical but as I was in New York I thought that attending one was something I should do and for me there was only one choice; Spider-Man the musical. This wasn’t just down to my recently heightened interest in the franchise due to the new film (and my re-watching of the three films from the 2000’s in advance of that) but also because the score was done by Bono and The Edge from one of my favourite bands U2.

 

Rina came along with me to this (the photos above were actually taken a couple of days after we saw it when this area was swarming with people waiting eagerly to get into the theatre) and we had to queue up in the scorching sun on Times Square from 11am for tickets for the afternoon matinee performance. It took about 40 minutes to line-up which wasn’t too bad given the length of people waiting for all number of shows. We were so relieved to get tickets once we got to the window that we didn’t really notice that we had just coughed up $101 each for our tickets which were discounted  but still way more than we had expected to pay.

 

After a huge Vietnamese lunch at ‘Saigon Grill’ which was one of Rina’s old haunts (she lived and studied in NYC for 5 years a few years back) we returned to 42nd Street where I had a brief encounter with acting legend Morgan Freeman. Foxwoods Theatre is where you can see eight performances a week of the show which is in two parts of about 75 minutes each. A bit too long for me yes but I guess it all meant value for money!

The show has been through it all really suffering bad publicity and scathingly negative reviews but its popularity with the public hasn’t been in too much doubt as its now in its second smash year and the place was packed full.

 

Maybe I’m like a kid as I loved all the swinging about over the crowd including the finale battle with The Goblin. I have to say that I was impressed with the overall way in which they brought the superhero to stage particularly the use of spiderwebs (basically, something similar to one of those popper things you may use at a wedding party!) and took an interest in the smooth way in which the set changes took place. However, ‘Turn Off The Dark’ certainly hasn’t turned me on to become a more regular theatre-goer if even to go ever again. I haven’t seen such a similar spectacle since I was a child, and though I don’t mind live acting on-stage, I’m certainly no fan of the stars suddenly breaking into song. I’m glad I went but I think I’ll stick to the big screen instead.

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USA 2012 Pt I: New York City

Posted on August 21, 2012 by tokyofox

New York is the true home of cinema with hundreds and hundreds of movies being filmed  there each and every year so I thought it was about time I try and cover a selected handful of shooting locations from the Big Apple. They will be covered elsewhere on this site over time but this article will concentrate on the sights and sounds of the city of which there are also many.

This trip started off badly as the room was basically just a bed with no windows, no proper ceiling (think Thai-style hostel rooms where there is a gap at the top of the wall), no space and no en-suite bathroom. As it was 3am when I arrived there was little choice but to spend the first night there and cancel the remainder of the stay. So having moved to a much nicer hotel in Chinatown later that same morning I met up with Kimi (who I met in Jordan last Summer) and his mate Kohei. I only found out Kimi was in New York two days earlier. We had a massive, cheap chinese lunch and then took a short walk down to Wall Street before they had to depart for Canada.

      

After that a boat was taken to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty on what was a scorching hot day. Sadly the statue is closed to entry these days but it was still nice to walk around the small island and enjoy the views as well as catching some much needed shut-eye on the grass.

 

Times Square on 42nd Street was a sight to behold at night time though nothing too new to me as I’m very much used to the neon lights here in Tokyo.

 

After meeting Rina one day and dragging her to one of my geeky filming locations we then walked over Brooklyn Bridge towards Manhattan which was cool. Rina was actually living in New York when the terrorist attack happened on the 11th of September 2001. We went to Ground Zero where the Twin Towers once stood but didn’t really hang around as I didn’t think it appropriate to be snapping away in an area of such tragedy. Besides, as harsh as it may sound, it is just a building site now albeit one of great importance.

        

The next day we went to Madison Square Garden which, despite its fame and fortune, is nothing much to see but it would be great to see a heavyweight boxing bout there I have no doubt. The Empire State Building soon followed after that which was fantastic and we didn’t have to wait in line at all. I wish I had actually gone there on day one to get an idea of the real scale of the city but I thought it would just be another tower with views of which I have been up many. This one though offered the most impressive views I have witnessed when seeing the skyline of a city.

     

I only met colleague Mike very briefly at the start of the month and on finding out we were both going to New York at the same time I said I’d come and see his band ‘The Mootekkis‘ play one of their live dates on their NYC tour. I had planned to see them on the 13th but jet lag  took its toll on me and my pre-gig sleep became far longer than intended! Luckily they were also playing nearby again on the following night which I enjoyed, perhaps far more than I thought I would. It was also my only night of drinking on the whole trip.

     

On the final day I finally went to Central Park but my sleep on the grass was cut short by the downpour which suddenly occurred and never really stopped all day. The trip finished as it started – badly! I had been having problems trying to book baseball tickets online that morning so got the receptionist to book tickets for that nights New York Yankees vs Texas Rangers game and all was going well until I got to the stadium uptown in the pouring rain and on checking the tickets realised that she had booked them for the following days game. In my rush to get to the game I hadn’t bothered to check the minor details and though I didn’t lose out financially (she got the payment rescinded) I did lose out on seeing a live game in the States which a bit annoying but I’ll get over it.

 

Anyway, I was still satisfied with all that I had done on the trip. New York city was really quite overwhelming at times and though I didn’t love it I did like it a lot and wish that I had a bit longer in the city.

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