Shudan Sasen 1994

Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2018

The entertainment world lost many notable talents in 2018, including movie icon Burt Reynolds, "Queen of Soul" Aretha Franklin, celebrity chef and food critic Anthony Bourdain, bestselling novelist Anita Shreve and influential Chicago blues artist Otis Rush. Obituaries of actors, filmmakers, musicians, producers, dancers, composers, writers, animals and others associated with the performing arts who died in 2018 are included. Date, place and cause of death are provided for each, along with a career recap and a photograph. Filmographies are given for film and television performers.

Contemporary Japanese Film

This comprehensive look at Japanese cinema in the 1990s includes nearly four hundred reviews of individual films and a dozen interviews and profiles of leading directors and producers. Interpretive essays provide an overview of some of the key issues and themes of the decade, and provide background and context for the treatment of individual films and artists. In Mark Schilling's view, Japanese film is presently in a period of creative ferment, with a lively independent sector challenging the conventions of the industry mainstream. Younger filmmakers are rejecting the stale formulas that have long characterized major studio releases, reaching out to new influences from other media—television, comics, music videos, and even computer games—and from both the West and other Asian cultures. In the process they are creating fresh and exciting films that range from the meditative to the manic, offering hope that Japanese film will not only survive but thrive as it enters the new millennium.

Kino