Archives For June 2009

Oscar Best Picture Noms to Expand!

June 24, 2009 — 1 Comment

This just in via InsidetheGold and TheEnvelope

The next Oscars derby will be more heated – and crowded. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences just announced that the best picture race will now include 10 contenders instead of the usual five.

I don’t know what to feel. On one side, I feel sort of happy that there will be more films to be included as Best Picture – on the other hand, I think it’s a very bad idea. On a voting-side, having 10 nominees means that each film has a 10% chance… the film that get’s over 10% has the better chance of winning. Let’s say the Academy has 5000 members (just saying…) that means only 500 votes.

I also don’t like the number 10 for nominations. Seems to chunky a list. LOL

I would be very happy with the decision of making it 10 Best Picture nominees, if the rules for foreign films were to change, and all countries are allowed to send more than one film. Moreover, independent films should be included or at least get a chance against big studios who spend tons of dollars to promote it just for Award Season. Otherwise, we’ll just end up with a 10 big studio film list. What’s up with that?

In English, Films, Rants, Sharing
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Inglourious Basterds Trailer

Looks pretty good, I must admit.

Posted on June 24, 2009 In English, Films, Sharing, Trailers ,
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Experiment Awards’ Warm-up

June 23, 2009 — Leave a comment

We’re almost about to finish up with June – still haven’t reached 20 films listed on 2009 @ IMDb… and I’m still way short on my quota to be legible on my own awards.

I thought it’d be interesting to see how this works, so I grabbed the IMDb Power Search Tool and looked for all films listed on IMDb following this criteria:

  • All films must have over 50 votes on the site (you know, just to make the list shorter)
  • I must have voted it over 6.

So I made my list of the regular categories – All acting categories, best animated feature, best director and best picture – without caring about the language they’re in. Just a reminder~~~ this year’s awards should include all categories except for Documentaries and shorts~~~

Here are the ones of the would’ve beens of films released on 2000 – Oscar 2001 –

Continue Reading…

In Chinese, English, Films, Fun, Japanese, Sharing, Spanish , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Which Student Are You?

June 23, 2009 — Leave a comment

Funniest post here.

From there, I’ve concluded I’m…
A dirty anime 1.0 student with strong geek and brown noser (?) tendencies. LOL
I also had one or two from the hip hop, metal, goth/emo, gamer, loner.

DIRTY STUDENT
– glasses or sunglasses depending upon what they smoked, drank or ate last night
– paint, food, and god know what else splattered all over ripped up jeans
– tragically hip retro t-shirt
– messenger bag: markers, old bag of potato chips, cds, crayon, broken watch
– designs but usually wrinkled, bent, spit on, folded

ANIME STUDENT
– Glasses, wai-wai!
– buttons with witty sayings about nothing in particular, gasp!
– chews on weird flavored asian gum simply coz it’s asian.
– backpack filled with art supplies, and with asian candies, yum!
– sketchbook with story ideas, whee!

STUDENT 1.0
– Up until 5am on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and various forums.
– External harddrive (full of illegaly downloaded movies)
– Always plugged into the internet.
– shoes have lasted 4 years

COMIC BOOK/GEEK STUDENT
– Knows everything about every movie.
– professional blue pencil is the only way to draw – anything else is foolishness
– full of supplies, various inking pens

BROWN NOSER STUDENT
– always has a smile and a hellow for everyone.
– always on time
– wears overalls

HIP HOP STUDENT
– Huge enormous headphones to block out teacher’s instruction.
– No watch to tell what time to come to class

METAL STUDENT
– Band T-shirt (black)
– Oversized droopy pants

I’m off to do this Meme – will post my doodle when I’m done.

In English, Fun
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Ponyo Gets a US Trailer

First, see it for yourself~~~

https://youtu.be/TCg1RYahEG4

Now, I wasn’t to OMGWTFGOD when I saw the film. I liked it… I thought it was okay. The thing that I loved was singing that Ponyo song with the little girl – Ponyo, Ponyo sakana no ko!!! – Plus, Juri sings it too and that made me laugh so hard. I just had to mentioned that… just so you could see that part of the charm of the film is THAT song. This is why I think this trailer fails, makes it look all epic and sh!t… it is kinda, but it’s mostly cute.

People will feel mislead. I can feel it in the air… and critics will bash it as childish.

Posted on June 23, 2009 In English, Films, Sharing, Trailers , , , , , , , , , ,
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Lucky Thirteen – Watch Over Me

Fan-made video! And new video posting testing!! LOL

First, a little about the video.

I began this… when this episode (Lucky Thirteen) aired back in Oct. 2008 – so it’s been sitting on my computer forever. I worked on it one weekend, and sort of left it there – until this weekend. I’ve begun working on another music video (on a less fan-made side) and thought I should at least finish this one.

I found Thirteen (I refuse to call her Dr. Hadley or Remy LOL) interesting from the beginning. It was a certain spark, and well… Olivia Wilde is pretty hot – which my friend Mob would be glad to agree on. And I also have to say that I’ve always found Foreman boring, so Foreteen makes me roll my eyes.

That aside… the song is by Hanson from The Walk, and it immediately brought images of Thirteen and her out-of-control behavior, so I just had to do it.

On a rant side… YouTube has removed already 2 of my fan-made videos, and I’m expecting them to remove the ones that are left, so I’m now forced to not use it. So please help out by linking back to this site =D

Posted on June 23, 2009 In English, Fun, Jobs, Music, Music Videos, Rants, Sharing, Television , , , , , ,
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First Look at Burton’s Alice

June 22, 2009 — Leave a comment

*passes out*
this just in (okay, maybe a few hrs. ago) via InsidetheGold

To just break off a little of all the Japanese films on the front page~~ xD

Tim Burton - Alice in Wonderland - Red Queen

First, I must tell you. These are fantastic, and now I’m just dying to see it. Even more so than when I wrote my brief article on horrorific films~~~ Bonham Carter looks abso-bloody-lutely crazy  good on that with the big head… the eyebrows or lack thereof, the lips, the hair… and that look, man!

Tim Burton - Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton - Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton - Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton - Alice in Wonderland - Mad Hatter

Tim Burton - Alice in Wonderland - White Queen

is it just me, or is Johnny looking very Elijah Wood right there??? LOL

In English, Films, Fun, Sharing, Stills , , , ,
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CinemaOnline Ike-chan Interview

June 21, 2009 — 2 Comments

With the release of Ike-chan to Boku this weekend, there should be articles and reviews on it – if anyone would care to hunt for them and briefly translate them. It would rock.

In the meantime, I found this 5-question interview on CinemaOnline – a proper translation would be appreciated~ – it also comes with a couple of photos…

Yu Aoi - Ike-chan Interview

This is my quick I-don’t-speak-or-understand translation

Continue Reading…

In Celebrity, English, Films, Japanese, Sharing , , ,
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Japanese Cinema Blogathon 2009 – Day5

June 20, 2009 — 1 Comment

This is my last post for this blogathon, unless I can come up with something on time for tomorrow~

I was reading this post on Japanese Films and Women in Cinema– now, female in cinema is a big BIG subject. I’m not in the position to point out feminists or non-feminists films across the decades or countries. However, I have to admit that looking back at the films I’ve seen the past year, it feels like many (if not most of them) have a female protagonist. In general, I don’t know the reason – if there are more films about women, or if I’m watching them because I’m looking for them. What I do know is that I watched many Japanese films with female leads because I had been on the hunt for Juri Ueno and Yu Aoi projects – so that’s got to be at least 10 films led by a female, right?

So here it is… some~

Japanese Chick-centric Films or with Female Leads~

  • Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro)
  • Kiki’s Delivery Service
  • Hula Girls
  • Swing Girls
  • Hana to Alice (Hana & Alice)
  • Gaichu (Harmful Insect)
  • Kame wa Igai to Hayaku Oyogu (Turtles Swim Faster than Expected)
  • Kiraware Matsuko no Issho (Memories of Matsuko)
  • Quiet Room ni Youkoso (Welcome to the Quiet Room)
  • Linda Linda Linda
  • Kamikaze Girls
  • Shinku (The Deep Red)
  • Love Letter
  • Sakuran
  • Sasameyuki (The Makioka Sisters)
  • Rinne (Reincarnation)
  • Tenshi no Tamago (Angel’s Egg)
  • Wool 100%
  • Hyakuman-en to Nigamushi Onna (One Million Yen Girl)
  • GuGu Datte Neko de Aru (Gu Gu the Cat)
  • Kaze no Tani no Naushika (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind)
  • Nishi no Majo ga Shinda (The Witch of the West is Dead)
  • Blood the Last Vampire
  • Pikunikku (Picnic)

Of course, there’s many animated films asides from the ones I’ve mentioned above like Paprika, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, The Milennium Actress or Perfect Blue. And yes, there are films in my list that are not quite remarkable… and we can also point out that there aren’t many female leads of over 30 or 40 (in some way, Matsuko which chronicles her life, The Makioka Sisters, GuGu, and The Witch of the West – who knew Shirley McLaine’s daughter spoke Japanese?), but then again… that’s a problem that seems to be common in Hollywood too. Does it happen much in Europe? Countries like France or Germany? Are there many films with female leads, or are they as hard to find??

In the end,  it was good to see Meryl Streep (Doubt),  Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Julie Christie (Away from Her), Laura Linney (The Savages), and to some degree Kate Winslet (The Reader) and Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) getting recognition these past two years.

— EDIT June 21 —

I thought this was a great post on the subject. =D

In English, Films, French, Japanese, Rants, Sharing , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Monkey Majik!

Just saw them on J-Melo! My first thought… what are these two white guys doing on NHK? I was pretty impressed, actually. They are fun to listen to… almost like having fun while listening to the Barenaked Ladies, only better. So I did a quick search, and found a list…

Monkey Majik is a group of two Canadians and two Japanese dudes singing in Japan-glish xD
give it a listen~~~ check out the song Fly, and their song Aishiteru (I Love You)
actually… both those videos are pretty good. I liked Aishiteru quite a bit~

Posted on June 20, 2009 In English, Japanese, MixTapes, Music, Music Videos, Sharing, Television , , ,
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