Archives For November 2014

Even when she’s making faces, Juliette Binoche is perfect.

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Y se nos fue, Chespirito. RIP, Chavito.

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I never thought that I would actually, you know, really like a Hatsune Miku song. I had listened to a couple livetune tracks, but left them at bay until I saw Takashi Murakami’s Jellyfish Eyes where he used the song Last Night, Good Night to great effects during the ending credits. It was around 3-4am, so the effects of the song was perfect.

Too bad the only version available on my iTunes is the one done with Pharrell to promote the movie somehow, and nothing prior to 2012 is on.

On the topic of Miku, such a hybrid. I don’t know what to tag this post.

A country bumpkin (with a heavy Shandong accent, I suppose… with my level of Chinese, I can’t tell.) and a cow are the only survivors of a terrible Japanese airstrike during the Sino-Japanese War. I never thought I would ever say this, but that’s the best damn cow performance I’ve ever seen in my life. Alongside Dolly (the dog performance in Korean film Blind), it might be one of my favorite animal performances on film.

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Even though it didn’t slay in any categories in my Best of 2013 post, The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel (厨子‧戏子‧痞子) was one of my favorite movies last year. After Cow (斗牛, Dou Niu), I’ve become a Guan Hu and Huang Bo fan.

I stumbled across this performance that Madhuri Dixit did for the Stree Shakti Award, thinking it’s been the most refreshing performance I’ve seen her do lately — with the added bonus of the Gulaab Gang title song as the cherry on top — when I realize that the whole event is to honor women with exceptional achievements. Ohhhhh, so that’s why the performance was a bit out of the box. I love it.

About a week or two ago, my friend and I got to watch Beta… and though it did change our (enjoyment) perspective of Dhak Dhak Karne Laga (Ouch!), it had my friend saying the following quote for the ages… “I love it when Madhuri holds a sword,” xD

I think I will eventually have to watch Koyla then.

I swear, for a while now South Korea has been trying to clone Aoi Yu. [1] Thank gods, Yu-chan’s switched styles and has been sporting different hair, and has sorta moved on from her Mori Girl vibe.

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I started watching Comedy Nights with Kapil a couple of months ago, despite the language barrier and the lack of subtitles. I gotta admit that the funniest thing has to be Kiku Sharda’s Palak despite (or maybe because of) the language barrier. It doesn’t matter what’s going on, he generally makes me laugh. Okay, Palak and Ghutthi.

I cackle when I see Madhuri teaching Palak dancing. Laughed so much when doing the acting demonstration for Tabu, KK and Shahid, and even made me NOT hate Kareena Kapoor (oh, look! She actually HAS a sense of humor!). Plus! They’re improving my hindi xD Win-win!

The only thing that pisses me off is that Colors isn’t uploading the episodes on YouTube as quickly anymore, the episodes on their website are region-restricted (FML), and some of the episodes have been having the music edited out, which ruins the mood/joke completely.

 

… or dusting off my lacking Chinese skills xP, so I ask anyone reading this to 1. Take these with a big grain of salt… and 2. If you’ve got a better translation/tips/corrections/etc. let me know. But… in the age of the internet, where fandoms translate songs en masse, I felt a little “left hanging” with Faye Wong lyrics.

So here are my tries. My mother tried to help, but she gave up. LOL

After much deliberation, I think I like Cong Cong Na Nian (匆匆那年) a bit more, though I didn’t like Ai Bu Ke Ji (爱不可及) on the first go, it’s really grown on me as a song.

Common courtesy for credits and/or link-ups, please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcVZ4jVile8
Continue Reading…

Yu Aoi has a brand new book release simply titled 8740 DIARY 2011-2014, which is (from whatI was able to get) a collection of text and photos gathered between those years from different directors, screenwriters and co-stars. I am pretty sure there were texts from Shunji Iwai, Yuki Tanada and photographer Yoko Takahashi among many others.

The book is fairly priced… and the yen is down, so I think I might get it. We’ll see. In the meantime, Yu’s been promoting it with this cute little video for MORE Magazine, as well as the customary press event.

You can get the book on HMV Japan, which is my usual choice for Japanese items, even though YesAsia also delivers (but I find it extra pricey for them).

Wait, what? Are you telling me Faye Wong smiles in pictures? [1]

Faye Wong graced the October cover (in three versions) of Elle China for the 26th Anniversary, with a photoshoot by Chen Man. She’s always glorious when shot by Chen Man.

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You can check more of the photos and a brief (Chinese) interview with Faye at the Polysh. I tried the Elle website, but it’s not happening for me.

She also has two new songs out this year [1][2].

Only ONE of them can make it to my list. I need translations of the songs for that. At the moment, Fleet of Time is winning… mainly because I liked translating the title with such nostalgia feelings. lol

— EDIT Nov 7 —

Better quality photos at Fashnberry.