Dear readers:

Content at Ferguson On Films has been absolutely lacking since, oh, approximately May. Since then I've not stopped watching movies but have rather stopped writing - a circumstance I would prefer you attribute to being busy instead of being lazy, although I suspect a negligible amount of laziness is to blame. Honestly, though, it was during the month of May that I received perhaps the best news of the year. In July - roughly three months away to the day - I would be leaving Canada for a period of one year to work in Japan as an English teacher through the JET Programme (Japan Exchange & Teaching). I'd flown to Ottawa in February to interview for a position and there is a fairly competitive application process involved with this particular ESL (English as a Second Language) programme, so the discovery of my being hired was a total and utter jolt in all the best ways imaginable. I'd long wanted to travel in Japan and, as a university-educated and trained teacher, the prospect of going there to teach was doubly exciting. Thus, my focus and concentration was split and I became less and less inclined to sit in front of my computer and write about movies when I could be shopping for materials, studying about Japan and my future home, trying to learn the language, etc. It's like I'd gotten a new girlfriend and unfairly neglected my longstanding circle of friends.

I've been in the very lovely Shimane prefecture (think: province) of Japan since July 29 and now that the first whirlwind weeks are over and I'm settled, orientated, and fully functional, I am at a place where I'm ready to dig in to my movie-related writing.

Opportunities for watching movies in my area of Japan are not quite the same as they are back home. The closest city to my home (a small village of 8,000 - smaller than my former home of Riverview) is the third-largest in the prefecture yet there is no movie theatre. The capital city, two hours north, has one, and I've just discovered another about 20km south of my home, so there are limited options, but that said I must point out that the selection offered is not terribly accommodating to English-speaking people. (Now I can appreciate the utter frustration that many of Metro Moncton's Francophone population must feel when most of the latest movies screened in Moncton are in English without French subtitles.) Sometimes an English-language movie will arrive with Japanese subtitles, meaning someone such as myself can attend, but usually such movies are many months old or, not of any interest to me, or both. Since having arrived, the English-language movies I've noticed featured here have been Transformers, Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix, Ocean's 13 (a terrible, hackneyed movie, by the way), Ratatouille (my personal pick as best film of the year so far, renamed Remy for Japanese audiences since the original title is too difficult to pronounce... trust me, I've observed this to a tee), Arthur & The Invisibles, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Perfect Stranger. I'm sure glad I saw The Simpsons Movie the night before I left Canada because there's no sign of it opening anytime soon.

DVD rentals are even strangely tucked away. You have to really travel if you are intent on watching one, though when you do find a shop renting them out you are in luck because many current Hollywood titles make it to the stores here pretty soon after they hit shelves back home, and they come in their original language. (The first one I rented? The Break-Up - a pathetic wannabe Ingmar Bergman/Eric Rohmer relationship treatise. Yuck...) Japanese movies also have the added bonus of typically coming with English subtitles, allowing me to enjoy some indiginous cinema while I'm here (something I was admittedly very much looking forward to from the outset). As for older movies, there is a wonderful series of classic, Oscar-winning or nominated titles available to purchase from some shops for 500 yen, or approx. $5.00. I saw Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby this way and had a riotously great time laughing for nearly two hours with a group of friends here. What fun!

Given my limited selection and options here, I'm going to be offering a curious mixture of current, classic, and Japanese titles for review on this blog over the coming year. I'm often amazed by the eclectic and offbeat movies I happen upon during my travels here, be they at the cinema, in shops, or at friends' places, so in truth be prepared to expect the unexpected. In most cases I will try to cover movies I am confident you will be able to pin down in Moncton, whether in current release or on DVD at that trusty treasure trove of movies known as Spin It Video at 15 Lewis St. (The big white house across from the RCMP station and the Blue Cross Building!!! Right around the corner from Gifts Galore, the store with the bright pink doors!)

My goal is, as it always has been, to steer you toward movies I hope you will value and away from movies I fear may waste your precious time.

Thank you all!

Greg Ferguson
Misumi-cho, Hamada-shi, Shimane-ken, JAPAN