REVIEW: Eternal Family (1997)

by Dustin Kramer

The opening text crawl of Koji Morimoto’s Eternal Family tells us about six strangers who have been gathered together, had their memories erased, and convinced they are a family. The reason? Science, natch. But in order to pay for the experiment’s operating costs, the scientists sell the surreptitiously recorded footage of the fake fam to a television broadcasting company. The ensuing reality series is a huge hit, and these six deeply disturbed people become stars ignorant of their own celebrity.

REVIEW: Genius Party (2007)

by Dustin Kramer

When it comes to analyzing anthology films, there is always the question of how to approach them. Should each entry be examined based on its own merits, or should the collection be discussed as a singular entity? In short film anthologies where multiple filmmakers are gathered to create pieces under a unifying theme or idea, one should expect that each work will vary greatly in narrative, tone, style, and even the artists’ personal interpretations of that coalescing concept. This encourages the analyst to consider the entries independently. But then what is the point of gathering them under a common banner? Is it simply for convenient consumption? In this piece I will take a look at Studio 4°C’s presumptuously titled Genius Party, a collection of seven animated shorts by Japanese filmmakers, and ponder whether its entries need to be seen as an undivided unit or if they are better cherry-picked from the lot and enjoyed as standalone projects.

REVIEW: The Wind Rises (2013)

by Dustin Kramer

Art is personal. Creative self-expression is, by its very nature, a process of externalizing the internal. Many of your favorite movies, music records, and books were labors of love. But is there a point at which one’s art can become too personal? Can dedication and focus breed myopia? In examining Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, I may have found the answer.