RANT: Only two Japanese films on Newsweek’s 100 best list?

Newsweek’s Japanese edition rounded up their movie critics to assemble a list of 100 best films for their special Golden Week edition. Broken down by decade the list features such Hollywood heavy hitters as David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” and Alan J. Pakula’s “All The President’s Men” which are phenomenal films, but what really surprised me were the number of Japanese films on the list. Only two were selected: Juzo Itami’s “Tampopo” and Satoshi Kon’s “Paprika”… okay they also listed Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima” so let’s nudge that up to 2.5 films… but seriously!

Out of curiosity I checked some of the other prominent top 100 lists to confirm what I already thought, that Newsweek is all out of whack. The prestigious Sight and Sound top ten list that is published every ten years has consistently featured classic Japanese titles like “Tokyo Story”, “Seven Samurai” and “Ugetsu” while Newsweek’s competition Time Magazine lists four Japanese titles on its list: “Ikiru”, “Yojimbo”, Ugetsu” and “Tokyo Story”. Hell, even the highly suspect IMDB top 250 best films list features six Japanese titles including works by Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki.

So, Newsweek (and Newsweek Japan for that matter!) while I praise that you chose two lesser known, but very worthy films to put on your list I have to ask why not more? What gives?

Thanks to Anime News Network for the story: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-05-06/newsweek-japan-lists-kon-paprika-among-100-best-films