Pepsi is prepping for the upcoming year of the Monkey in the Lunar calendar and Chinese horoscope with a commercial on the legendary Monkey King full of nostalgia and tradition. The recount of the generational Monkey King is a bit choppy, but it gets to its point.
Archives For Moving Media
I already published my list of 2015 Best Films, now I’m just segregating all the content from each other. I even have my Top10 Films Directed by Women.
The journey, you guys, the journey is two-and-a-half years old [1][2][3][4][5] already and counting. I’m no longer tracking what I’m watching because it got way too complicated. And though the number of Indian films I get to watch is minuscule to the actual output; at 38 films this year (of 203), it’s the most I’ve seen in a year. It’s almost one movie a week (!!) and it almost reaches my mark of 46 (of 274) of last year. And it totally surpasses my 33 mark in 2013 when I started it all.
*Note: Though 113 films (over 55% of the list) is English-based, not all of them are Hollywood movies. The number also considers UK, Canadian, Irish and Australian productions and some other mix-and-match co-productions.
Of course, I’m way more comfortable navigating mainstream Hindi cinema than I am Tamil or other industries. But Anupama Chopra has just released her video of the Best and Worst of Hindi Cinema in 2015, so I got inspired to have my own segregated list. xD
The Best of Indian Cinema 2015
- Dil Dhadakne Do (dir. Zoya Akhtar)
- Talvar (dir. Meghna Gulzar)
- Piku (dir. Shoojit Sircar)
- Masaan (dir. Neeraj Ghaywan)
- Dum Laga Ke Haisha (dir. Sharat Katariya)
- NH10 (dir. Navdeep Singh)
- Margarita, with a Straw (dir. Shonali Bose)
- Bajrangi Bhaijaan (dir. Kabir Khan)
- Baahubali: The Beginning (dir. S.S. Rajamouli)
- Angry Indian Goddesses (dir. Pan Nalin)
The Worst of Indian Cinema 2015
- Dirty Politics (dir. K.C. Bokadia)
- Badlapur (dir. Sriram Raghavan)
- Phantom (dir. Kabir Khan)
- Katti Batti (dir. Nikhil Advani)
- Hawaizaada (dir. Vibhu Puri)
Haha, Kabir Khan in both lists xD
Still Pending~
- Aligarh
- Ayal Njanalla
- Bajirao Mastani
- Charlie (dir. Martin Prakkat)
- Dilwale
- Dhanak
- Kothanodi
- Main Aur Charles
- Orange Mittai
- Premam
- Shaandaar
- Tamasha
- Thani Oruvan
- Thoongaa Vanam
- Umrika
- Zubaan
I ran into this clip of what seems a rehearsal of Yevgeny Mironov and Chulpan Khamatova dancing for the sequences of The Puppet Syndrome. If you do get a chance, do check it out.
And all of a sudden~ Elena Khazanova’s The Puppet Syndrome (Синдром Петрушки) was released. A couple of months ago when the trailer was released, I didn’t even have a solid release date, but alas~
They’ve also just released the trailer for Aleksandr Proshkin’s Garden of Eden (Райские Кущи), but while they’re promoting The Puppet Syndrome, Khamatova gave an interview for Gazeta.ru about the film, women on Russian film, as well as being a film actress… and talked briefly about playing a teenage boy in Aleksei German Jr.’s Under Electric Clouds.
Apparently, they really did build a Chulpan Khamatova real-life-sized doll, full-body plaster cast, straws in her nostrils and the whole thing.
I can’t wait to watch that~~~
On Pixar’s Inside Out Russian movie pitch~ “Let’s make this big beautiful expensive animated film… about emotions in the mind of a little girl!- This is ridiculous.” Even in the European/Hollywood environment, it seems like a crazy idea.
Interesting bits about that line alone~ the Russian title of Inside Out, Головоломки (Holovolomky) — means “game puzzle.” and an animated film is called a мультфильм (mul’tfil’m).
And if she had been given the chance to play Furiosa (or Milla Jovovich’s role in Resident Evil), she bluntly said no. LOL
You can read the whole interview on the Gazeta.ru website.
Yup~ no typo there.
They do have indeedy a song called Warm Hole (웜홀, womhol), which everyone’s trying to pretend it’s Wormhole. Considering the song, I wonder how that was gonna fly on a ‘live’ performance, but they did.
The only minus? Lipsync. I’m sure they can come up with a way that JeA doesn’t have to do a choreography and just focus on the vocals, no? Music Core performance of Hot Shot, anyone? She was even great with the Sixth Sense bit. Nothing tops that Music Core performance. Legendary.
I’m enjoying all these liquor short films [1] that are coming up. I don’t even drink. This time around Indian actresses Konkona Sen Sharma and Tillotama Shome are two neighbor friends despite their seemingly different personalities for a short sponsored by Seagram’s Royal Stag.
Directed by Jaydeep Sarkar, the short seems to come as… sort of a clash with the image of a whisky brand. But I’ll take it.
The struggle of concealing one’s self.
Really hard-hitting ending.
7 years — SEVEN FREAKING YEARS! — after starring on Yuki Tanada’s One Million Yen Girl, Yu Aoi is finally going to star in a new movie as a lead. The lucky production? An live-action adaptation of Yamauchi Mariko’s (山内 マリコ) book AZUMI HARUKO wa Yukuefumei (アズミ・ハルコは行方不明), which translates to Azumi Haruko Is Missing, which will be directed (and most likely adapted) by Daigo Matsui (松居大悟).
My Japanese is going to the gutter. lol
BUT! The internet (meaning me) is all excited about it! Actually, I see a lot of tweets on it, but I’m too lazy to read or google-translate them, so I will just pretend we’re all excited about this.
YesAsia has an “English title,” and lists it as Lonely Girl Has Gone.
I don’t know what the book is about, if you do- tell me. Other essential info? Apparently it started shooting in mid-September, and it’s set for a 2016 release.
Sources: Natalie, Yahoo JP. Big version of this photo on Eiga.
Yeh Dil Vole! xD
Anyone who’ve seen both Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 1996 directorial debut Khamoshi: The Musical (Silence: The Musical) and last year’s Belgian-French La Famille Bélier -by Eric Lartigau- can spot the similarities between the two (as well as the 1996 German film Beyond Silence (Jenseits der Stille) by Caroline Link). You can even spot the similar plot points by either reading the outline or watching the trailer.
In the pivotal emotional punch of the movie, the daughter (played by Manisha Koirala and Louane Emera respectively) auditions to the coveted singing position, when her (deaf) parents -who had been against the idea- show up to see their daughter perform both vocally and in sign language. Koirala (voiced by playback singer Kavita Krishnamurthy) doing Yeh Dil Sun Raha Hain (This Heart Is Listening), and Emera singing Je Vole (I Fly).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM5SDobPdi0
Though Lartigau’s more modern take is much more musically accessible (let’s be honest, the film starts out with 2008 staple That’s Not My Name [1]), it’s also lighter. Bhansali’s story focuses a big chunk of his running time to tell the story of Manisha’s parents, also incredibly played by Nana Patekar and Seema Biswas, their struggle to raise a (hearing) child in near poverty levels, to the point that Patekar goes door to door with his daughter to make a living selling things.
Of course, both also have a love interest, and both Salman and Ilian Bergala are the weakest link.
I declare- DRAW!
I’m on a high after watching Shunji Iwai’s The Case of Hana & Alice, which is honestly just wonderful. The film opened back in February with both Yu Aoi and Anne Suzuki back in their roles and promoting the film. I ran into a short interview they did for Filt for their Feb-Mar’15 edition, which feature this beautiful picture of the both.
… and their 3D pencil doodle.
All photos by Fumihito Katamura.
Tell me the truth- did you miss this enthusiastic me? All these up to date project announcements take me back years into fandom when we all used to talk about all things Yu! Anyway, the latest in one of the few project announcements in Yu Aoi’s repertoire [1][2] is that she’s set for Nobuhiro Yamashita’s latest film titled Over Fence (オーバー・フェンス), which is an adaptation of a story in the anthology Kogane no Fuku (黄金の服) by Sato Yasushi.
The film also stars Odagiri Joe and Shota Matsuda.
Over Fence completes a trilogy based on Sato’s stories, beginning with Sketches of Kaitan City (海炭市叙景) and The Light Shines Only There (そこのみにて光輝く).
Sources: Eiga.com, Film Business Asia
