Today we look at the stories portrayed in the 1964 Japanese ghost story anthology film, Kwaidan. The Black Hair “The Black Hair” (黒髪, Kurokami) is adapted from “The Reconciliation” and “The Corpse Rider”, which appeared in Hearn’s collection Shadowings (1900). An impoverished swordsman in Kyoto divorces his wife, a weaver, and leaves her for a […]
Category: Movies
Lafcadio Hearn’s short story, Mujina, from Kwaidan – Stories and Studies of Strange Things, depicts a creepy Japanese supernatural creature called a noppera-bō, or mujina. No-Face / Spirited Away No-Face is a fascinating character in the Japanese animated film Spirited Away. Insightful article on Comic Book Resources: The CBR is a pretty cool web site. […]
Lafcadio Hearn, author of the book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, moved to Japan in 1890. He initially arrived to work as an English teacher in Matsue, a city in the Shimane Prefecture. Hearn became deeply fascinated with Japanese culture, folklore, and traditions, eventually settling in Japan permanently. He married a Japanese woman […]
Through an interesting stream of consciousness, we came across one of the most interesting people on our World Tour: Lafcadio Hearn. Stream of Unconsciousness So, due to a combination of quantum effects, uncertainty principles, and tidal forces, the HBO algorithm suggested Kwaidan. The poster was creepy enough to draw me in. Kwaidan (Japanese: 怪談, Hepburn: […]
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A Sea Shanty Rabbit Hole
Say, may I recommend two “Sea Shanty” movies? We really liked both of them. Blow the Man Down Blow the Man Down is a 2019 American black comedy thriller film, written and directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy. It stars Morgan Saylor, Sophie Lowe, Annette O’Toole, Marceline Hugot, Gayle Rankin, Will Brittain, Skipp […]
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The Humble “Before”
Yesterday’s BLOTT (Everybody Loves Me, What About You?) leads naturally to a reflection on humility. Is it possible to combine humor and humility? (Our first humbleness failure may be assuming WLBOTT is funny.) But for the sake of argument, let’s make this assumption and move forward. There’s an interesting article titled “The Limits of Humility: […]
Moral Musings and Iguanas The Moral Dilemma It’s so easy to look down from our throne of bounty, our luxury WLBOTT world, and ask these questions. The WLBOTT world, where we have unlimited ramen noodles and health care in the form of Vick’s Vap-o-rub and generic Tylenol. It’s hard to imagine anyone in America as […]
References Jennifer Clement (author of Prayers for the Stolen) Guerrero, Mexico Chilpancingo The movie and part I of the book are set on the outskirts of Chilpancingo, a city about an hour northeast of Acapulco. Chilpancingo de los Bravo (commonly shortened to Chilpancingo) is the capital and second-largest city of the Mexican state of Guerrero. […]
Book .vs. Movie Similar vignettes propel the story in both the movie and the book – hiding in makeshift foxholes, the classroom antics, the operation to transform Maria’s cleft pallet…. The book is divided into three parts. The movie roughly corresponds to the first part. In the second part of the book, a teen-aged Ladydi […]
The Movie Prayers for the Stolen follows a group of young girls, their families, and their community, as they struggle against poverty and oppressive evil. The movie takes place almost exclusively in a rural village in the mountainous jungles an hour’s drive from Acapulco. The movie focuses on a poor rural Mexican Indian girl, Ana […]