best 80's and 90's Japanese movies ? Please post more

[tim.iles at utoronto.ca]

I have to agree with the sentiments which Joseph Murphy has posted, that
university libraries are heavily weighted towards the period from about
1945-75. Having just finished teaching a year's worth of Japanese cinema,
and looking back over the films I've shown, I find that the most recent
(aside from _Tonari no totoro_) is Itami's _Tampopo_--and that in a
bootleg video copy, too, since it's already deleted from the distributor's
catalogue. I _know_ there's a market for more recent Japanese films in
North America: I'm almost willing, single-handed, to purchase enough
videos to keep any distributor happy ("almost" since my salary's pretty
meager--something _else_ universities could work on, at least here in
Canada ;) )

Now, politics of film ditribution being changeable things, perhaps some
sort of orchestrated letter-writing campaign from list members could help
convince the powers that be to make more films available? I have nothing
against the films that _are_ available-- _Ikiru_ is a great film and
always will be-- but they certainly do limit the exposure students and
lovers of cinema alike can receive.

And as far as "ten best" lists are concerned, I'd really like to see a
"ten worst" list from KineJapan members...


Timothy Iles
University of Toronto