Archives For January 2010

Grammy 2010 Afterthoughts

January 31, 2010 — 2 Comments

Well, color me surprised twice this weekend.

Taylor Swift just won Record of the Year, which doesn’t really upset me… but really? I enjoyed it, but that’s it. But to be fair with the Grammy, the album was the biggest selling hit last year… and to an industry that’s struggling with physical album sales, that’s possibly a LOT.

I wasn’t really supporting any particular artist this year, as I kept my year listening to Asian music. However, I really respect Lady Gaga’s live performance, despite my not really enjoying her albums.

As for Swift’s performance, she picked a bad day to sound bad. However, she wasn’t the only one with a weak performance. Right after a very strong beginning by theatrical queen Lady Gaga with some piano by queen Elton John, and pretty good performance by Beyonce — I mean, that Alanis cover did give her some extra points — the show pretty much went on the average road.

I was really disappointed with Pink’s performance, not because it was bad. It was technically fine, and not many would sing in-tune while spinning a la Cirque du Soleil. The performance, however, lacked any energy to pump the audience there or at home…

Moreover, the Grammy Awards have proved that there’s no Michael Jackson tribute without Janet. I must admit that Celine, Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood and Usher sounded vocally great, but the performance was nothing but lacking as a performance. Add to that pimping the performance as a 3D act, which wasn’t really 3D for viewers, but for people there — which prompted a 3d-glasses-wearing Beyonce, and others included Rhianna — but I doubt all the people there had 3D glasses at hand.

I wasn’t a big fan of Green Day’s 21st Century album, but the performance was okay-ish, since I do like musicals. However, I doubt old school GD fans appreciated it.

And there was too much Bon Jovi.

MTV owned Grammy’s MJ tribute, but MJ’s kids were kinda cute.

Music in the west was weak overall.

Check back next time…

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The Past Decade According to Kids

I just ran into an interesting piece where Allison Loui-Garcia asked a bunch of kids about some stuff that may have defined their ten years of life. Some of those questions involve pop culture, news events, baby one more time, napster, dial-up, 9/11 and their fears.

We usually hate most children on this website, but the answers are interesting and somewhat adorable.

Also, what kind of mom buys her kid an ipod when he’s 2 years old? Lady, you’re supposed to get noisy headaches when you have children. You’re supposed to play tag and hide & seek with them and all those kids games.

Posted on January 31, 2010 In Clips, English, Sharing
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Directors Choose Hurt Locker~

January 31, 2010 — Leave a comment

This race is turning into an interesting one, as the Director’s Guild names Kathryn Bigelow the Best Director of the year for her film The Hurt Locker. Why this is pretty awesome? She’s the first female director to ever get it… which means she might be writing Oscar history if she wins that night. *crosses fingers*

Other winners are the directors of the documentary The Cove (omg, I really wanna be wrong on this one), Mad Men… and Modern Family.

Check out all the winners here.

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Experiment Awards 2009 Winners

January 31, 2010 — Leave a comment

uh huh!

Voting results are in! Which is exciting… and a bit surprising, I think xD

Anyway, thank you everyone who nominated their films on the first round, and thank you to everyone else who took time to vote… hopefully you all had taken time to watch all (or at least most) of the nominated films~ and discovered gems!

Among the love, there’s The Hurt Locker, Basterds, District 9, you know… the usual suspects, plus some love for Moon, Antichrist… and surprisingly enough, Watchmen. ;P

Here are the winners…

Continue Reading…

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Color Me Surprise: Chinese Music on iTunes Canada?

January 30, 2010 — Leave a comment

Aiya They Didn’t reporting that Chinese fusion singer Sa Dingding and Chris Lee were topping World music downloads on iTunes UK, Switzerland and Belgium prompted me to look them up on iTunes Canada.

And color me surprise, they’ve got the first 3 albums (sans EP) by Bibi! I was also able to find Chris Lee, Han Hong, SHE, Eason Chan, Leehom Wang, among others~~~

Continue Reading…

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Music Video Director: Wayne Isham

There’s no gain without Wayne, or there’s no pain without Wayne. I know it’s something like that. It’s been years since I first heard Wayne Isham saying that on one of those episodes of MTV’s Making the Video, back when making a video was very important for MTV.

Wayne Isham was another name that really popped up when I spent all day watching MTV. If I could describe Isham’s music video style with one word, it would be “woosh!” even though that’s not a word. His videos captured a very energetic vibe with fast cuts and, what I call fade-in wooshes — it’s when Isham would be focusing his camera on the singer/group and there would be a fade-in from one shot to the next one that made it seem like pushing in or away from the subject in a very funky way.

Of course, the best way to understand that woosh concept is to see it in action. For instance, those fast cuts are very prominents on Metallica’s video of I Disappear (from the Mission Impossible II OST) xD Continue Reading…

Posted on January 29, 2010 In English, Music, Music Videos, Sharing, Spanish, Television , , , , , , , , ,
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Two days ago I received my last batch of Spirit Awards screeners… which I’m almost done watching because my internet connection has been failing, so I took that time to watch some of those films, and catch up on my reading~

Anyway, I’m used to receiving screeners on white paper disc cases. They’re economic, and just easier to get and use… they don’t take extra space, and they’re easy to mail.

Obviously, a big company like Lionsgate can take it to the next level, and send their own (simple, but kinda pretty) screener for Precious. It’s all white, with the company’s name, film’s name and a “Consider This” title glossy embossed finish. Plus, they list all the categories they would like to be considered for.

The only problem I found with the Precious screener is that it doesn’t play on my bedroom’s DVD player. It does play in my computer, and in my older DVD player. I have no idea why. Over the nearly 300 DVDs I own, only 4 or 5 don’t play on my player.

The other 5 DVD screeners are for Amreeka, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, The Messenger, The Vicious Kind, and Easier with Practice — all which came on paper cases. The latter two are the only ones that list their Spirit Awards nominations, so we can actually keep an eye for them when we watch them.

In the end, how important are screeners packaging for a film? After all, isn’t it supposed to be all about the film? Yes, it should be about the film, its characters, and its story. However, it would be nice to know what we should be looking out for… be it with some small text on the DVD, or an extra paper insert, or an extra DVD screen menu with the info. It doesn’t have to be as fancy as the Lionsgate.

Indie Spirit Screeners Short Takes

Posted on January 29, 2010 In DVD/BR, English, Films, Jobs, Reviews , , , , ,
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RIP Miramax

January 29, 2010 — 3 Comments

Well, not a death particularly.

But it’s a sad day as Disney (who bought them for only $70M) has decided to shut down Miramax.

Yes, that same Disney that keeps feeding us with ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, cancels Pushing Daisies… and gave us Miley Cyrus to rot the minds of our younger generation.

Miramax gave us The Piano, Reservoir Dogs, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Clerks, Doubt, There Will Be Blood, Gone Baby Gone, Happy-Go-Lucky, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon, No Country for Old Men, Kinky Boots, Finding Neverland… just to name a few.

Good taste is dead. *sighs*

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Pushing Daisies Gets the Finger-touch and Comes Back in Comics

January 28, 2010 — Leave a comment

Just in time! I just finished re-watching both seasons of Pushing Daisies xD

Sci-Fi Wire sat down with Chi McBride (Emerson Cod) to talk about his new show, and they talked about how Bryan Fuller has shown him a couple ideas for the comics.

The story of the graphic novel makes liberal use of the show’s re-animation concept. “Well, it’s a whole thing about a whole bunch of corpses coming to life,” McBride revealed. “That’s all I know so far, but Bryan was kind enough to share the first few pages. It really looks good.”

…

“It seems a little darker, which is a lot of things that Bryan couldn’t do,” McBride said. “There’s one particular story that I hope he does called ‘The Head.’ I wished he could’ve done it during the series. It was awesome.”

So obviously, I’ll be reading. And are you reading Buffy Season 8?

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More Chinese Music Internationally

January 28, 2010 — 1 Comment

By Chinese, I mean as a language…

I’ll let Aiya They Didn’t explain…

Taiwan is considering setting up a theme pavilion at MIDEM, the world’s largest music industry trade fair that is held annually in Cannes, France, an official said Tuesday.

…

Three groups from Taiwan — the Panai-led aboriginal band Message, a band led by award-winning singer and composer Crowd Lu, and 100% rock band led by Mavis Fan– performed at the event Monday night, which was designated as “Taiwan Night.” Describing the groups as marvelous, Lu said that when they performed at the fair for the first time on Jan. 22, the venue was packed to capacity with an audience of about 300. He said the Taiwan Government Information Office (GIO) , which organized the show, may have to find a bigger venue next year.

Of course, I wholeheartedly agree.

In fact, more Asian music should be spread…

In fact, you can start pimping your Asian music with Ellen. Obviously, I had sent my suggestion last week… that turned out to be Crowd Lu’s Oh Yeah! xD I want Ellen to dance to Crowd Lu’s happy music.

And I know Julz want Ellen to be as gay as ever with her fave k-girls… LOL

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