Tokyo Story

It was about time we covered a Yasujiro Ozu film. The Japanese director is considered a legend and his Tokyo Story has consistently ranked in the Top 5 of the Sight & Sound polls for decades. He gives us a family reunion of a very unhappy family and slowly reveals why we should care about them. That takes quite a while. Ozu's trademark static camera shots are low to the ground. His characters are polite and withholding. And, yet, his style and substance wasn't a home run with both Ellises. Tokyo Story devastated one of us while leaving the other one moved, but much less so. Anyway, stroke that play button while you sit cross-legged on the floor staring off into space with a polite smile on your face. After all, life is disappointing, but we don't think our 510th podcast is. Residents of Japan can't get Sparkplug Coffee delivered to their front door, but Canadians and Americans certainly can. Punch in "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and get a one-time 20% discount. We are people who scroll through Twitter (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis) and you can also email us ([email protected]). Each of our 2023 episodes are available on YouTube. Lately, it's just been the full show with a still-frame graphic, but we have in the past---and intend to again at some point---appear on camera for 8 or 10 minutes before the show begins. Ryan also posts sports movie podcasts every other Thursday on "Scoring At The Movies"...at least until June 7th.