Lucky Star Editorial Grid – 02/15/2025 – 02/28/2025

I am writing this from the Latin American Film Festival of Dallas offices. The festival lineup has been announced. Now there are a lot of emails, threads regarding social media strategy, files to be delivered, payments to be coordinated – very far away from the act of watching films!

The films I’ve been watching lately are all loosely linked to Lucky Star related things – Vittorio Cottafavi’s The Flame that Never Dies will be featured in some upcoming translations; Natsuki Seta’s Worlds Apart might be a part of our latest podcast; even the short La distraction stems from my interest in keeping tabs on a new batch of French filmmakers who have yet to make features (I heard of this film, now available on Youtube, because of the recommendation of another young French filmmaker and critic, who dubbed Hugo Lemaire et Valentine Guégan the best shorts filmmaker in France).

During the last couple of weeks, more than anything else, I’ve been immersed in the world of Beach Boys, a Japanese TV drama from 1997, now streaming on Netflix (what is going on over there?!). There is even a small nightly ritual associated with it. I struggle with rewrites on two or three upcoming Lucky Star pieces, watch an episode in the comfort of my office, and finally retire to bed to sleep less than 5 hours. This is the story of two young guys who find themselves at an inn right by the beach – Takashi Sorimachi (just before he was immortalized as Onizuka in the 1998 drama) and Yutaka Takenouchi (fresh off his supporting role in Long Vacation) – and decide to work there, shrugging off their prior lives to live for the moment. Perhaps this is not a great show, but it is a reminder of the pleasures of location photography – there are so many great shots of the characters framed against the sea, at dawn, at dusk, at night, shimmering in the distance. And it’s a true slice-of-life proposition. The episodes are made up of the daily routines of the characters, dedicated to resolving some inner struggle, and usually influenced by the guests of the inn (in one episode, one of the guests makes everyone clean up the beach). The characters bicker, have fun, sweat profusely, and end the day with a nice beer in the quiet of the evening. Perhaps there’s an emotional montage set to this beautiful song. In other words, it’s a very nice escapist vision – how nice it would be to leave your corporate job and hang out at the beach!