Graphics | personal.amy-wong.com - A Blog by Amy Wong.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai Re-Imagined by Shunji Iwai

September 3, 2013 — 2 Comments

I finally re-watched my BR copy of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai — Kajol’s eye makeup close-up in THAT scene on a big screen is stunning — my third time overall since I began watching Bollywood films and the best 9 hours of my life.

While watching KKHH last night, right after catching the trailer for Japan’s remake of Love Actually, it made me think what the world of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai would be like through the eyes of Shunji Iwai. Of course that would mean several cultural changes and cuts for length. I’m uncertain on whether I would place the main characters as college students or last years of high school… or even whether the school years should be taking place in the late 90s.

ayumi-ito-shugo-oshinari

What I was more focused on is the characteristics of the actors and their characters. For Kajol’s Anjali, I knew I needed someone who could be one of the boys but at the same time should be physically interesting, and I immediately thought of Ayumi Ito. Her boyish aura is best shown by her character in SOLANIN — her squishing the beer can is burnt in my mind — while having a sort of rough exterior. I know a lot of people who don’t mind Ayumi Ito, but I also know of some of these people who… given the time… were taken by her. So I don’t have any doubt in her talent.

Next up — I know SRK’s role is pivotal because Rahul is the epitome of the Bollywood heartthrob dufus, but I’m taking it down a notch. I’m not very knowledgeable about Japan’s heartthrobs, but I don’t want someone who would be too pretty to make guys nervous nor a guy that’s more of a guys’ guy. I thought Shugo Oshinari would be a nice middle point.
Continue Reading…

In DVD/BR, English, Films, Graphics, Japanese, Misc., Sharing ayumi ito, dream collaboration, fandom, india, japan, rani mukerji, shugo oshinari, shunji iwai

Top Flicks About Chicks

August 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

I really can’t remember exactly when I started out the Top Flicks About Chicks list on MUBI, but it must have been around the same time I wrote how Chick Flicks was a doomed genre in regards of critics. So it might be almost 4 years… and I’ve finally reached 300 titles in the list!!!

A Chick Flick should center on little girls, girls, young women and women… as students, as neighbors, as friends, as daughters, as granddaughters, as sisters, as mothers, as lovers. They are simply women. With that alone, we can tell all sort of other stories that have little to do with romantic comedies.

The purpose of the list, of course, was to encompass an array of female character — not only in the binary sense, since the list also includes men/boys who identify as women/girls… and viceversa — of various cultural, ethnic, social backgrounds. Not favoring one genre over the other, not valuing dramas over comedies… just simple stories about different women.

Though I’m sure the list could be longer, that’s 300 feature length films out of the 2896 (counting shorts) currently rated on the site- that’s roughly 10% so I suppose the list could expand to up to 500 or maybe 1000 once I reach 5000 or 10000 rated films on the site.

1. Treeless Mountain 2. Welcome to the Dollhouse 3. Juliana 4. Labyrinth 5. Fuckin’ Amal 6. Mirrormask 7. Gun Hill Road 8. Pariah 9. Bend it like Beckham 10. Swing Girls 11. The Land of the Deaf 12. Sunny 13. Whip It 14. Stoker 15. Maria Full of Grace 16. Breaking the Waves 17. My Marlon and Brando 18. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 19. Dil Bole Hadippa! 20. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 21. Kotoko 22. Violeta Went to Heaven 23. Skin 24. Raise the Red Lantern 25. Incendies

I picked 25 of the 300 films to illustrate some of the variety (I hope it’s AS varied as I intend the list to be), though I ran out of picks and couldn’t include any of the ‘older’ female characters. If I could pick 5 more, they’d be: Lemon Tree, Frozen River, Late Bloomers, Mother, For 80 Days.

In Celebrity, Chinese, DVD/BR, English, Films, French, Fun, Graphics, Japanese, Jobs, Korean, Misc., Russian, Sharing, Spanish, Swedish actress, alfonso cuaron, amy adams, animation, anne hathaway, aoi miyazaki, audrey tautou, ayumi ito, bae doona, best of, bjork, canada, china, chris lee (li yuchun), chulpan khamatova, contemporary classics, disney, elle fanning, ellen page, emily blunt, eva green, evan rachel wood, france, gaichu (harmful insect), gong li, greta garbo, guillermo del toro, hayao miyazaki, his dark materials, huzzah, independent, india, japan, joan crawford, julianne moore, juliette binoche, kate winslet, korea, kwai lun-mei, lars von trier, latin america, laura linney, marion cotillard, meryl streep, mia wasikowska, miki nakatani, movie classics, naomi watts, natalie portman, nicole kidman, nobuhiro yamashita, noomi rapace, olivia williams, pan's labyrinth, penelope cruz, peru, philip pullman, quiet room ni youkoso, rachel mcadams, rani mukerji, rankings, russia, saoirse ronan, sarah polley, shinobu yaguchi, shunji iwai, spain, studio ghibli, sweden, swing girls, taiwan, tetsuya nakashima, theauteurs.com, ueno juri, whale rider, yu aoi, zhang yimou, zhou xun

Current Flavors and Getting Your Type

August 4, 2013 — 5 Comments

Has people ever ask you what’s your type? In terms of the people that you like, and you really have no idea because you’ve never really talked about. I wondered if I could see a pattern in the people I like on-screen, so I made a list of women and men — 25 picks each — and placed generally okay photos of them to see if I could see any characteristics they shared.

A few rules- it has to be people that you follow — not randoms that you just find hot. Sofia Vergara is hot but I haven’t seen her outside Modern Family or Chasing Papi. And it also isn’t about talent… completely. It’s people that you would somehow, if given the chance, do / be with / however you want to call it or do is.

Also, photos should generally be color and looking to the front-ish. Natural looks favored, but since it’s a type thing, I suppose you can use any photos you find your subject attractive in.

To Crazy People and the Losers Who Love Them

June 9, 2013 — Leave a comment

When Hannibal started airing, I gave the show a watch (the first two episodes seemed like a lot) but since it seemed to stressed me a lot, I decided to stop watching and not be waiting for the latest episode, like I used to do for some of my now-not-so-current television watching. And though I had decided to not watch the show, I found myself catching the episodes on the weekend showings on AXN Latin America.

Two episodes a sitting- it doesn’t even matter if you skip a week, since you can catch up the next week! And it’s perfectly timed with my dinner on Sundays, so I don’t get eerily hungry whenever they show Hannibal cooking.

hannibal-feel-unstable

During the commercial for tonight’s episode, Dr. Alana Bloom talks to Will about her decision to not pursue him as a love interest… because he’s unstable. And obviously, as a Wonderfalls fan [1], I immediately though of Jaye as a crazy person. It’s like a perfect conversation!

wonderfalls-clinically-insane

In Celebrity, English, Graphics, Screencaps, Sharing, Television bryan fuller, fandom, funny captions, latin america, nbc, quotes, show recs, tv drama / tv series / miniseries, wonderfalls

How Do You Say…?

June 2, 2013 — Leave a comment

My nephew (my niece is past that, I think) is at that awkward Third Culture Kid stage in which he’s learning Spanish after speaking Swedish. When he just got here (about) 7 months ago, he didn’t speak much. My niece at that time was awkwardly explaining things as “this and that” while pointing. Being slightly younger, my nephew has already picked up the language a lot faster — he even uses words such as “grandazo,” (kinda like saying “super big”) “oye,” (hey) and “ya pues” (come on!) — as if he’s grown up here. He even calls on the ice-cream man [1] with a nonchalant “amigo, amigo” (friend, friend).

The downside to that is that he’s forgetting Swedish a lot faster too.

At school, he’s not only learning English, but also Italian- this is why, when we’re at the dinner or lunch table (sitting by my side), he keeps asking me if I know how to say “x word” in “x language” — as a language buff, I know how to get around this stuff. Especially at the age of 5. LOL So while I dazzled him with my “Vad heter du?” to which he responded “Mommy, mommy! Amy knows Swedish!” to then ask me if I knew how to say “apple” in Swedish. I did. But apparently, he didn’t. He asked his mom the same question to make sure I was telling the truth, and she told him “it starts with ‘Ä’…” (which sounds similar to “eh”), so all giddy he responded “ÄLEPHANT!”

Untitled-1

In English, Fun, Graphics, Spanish, Swedish educational, funny, linguistic, peru, sweden

Ninja Turtle Nostalgia~

This just doesn’t seem quite right :/

tmnt-then-and-now-ninja-turtles

Posted on May 22, 2013 In English, Films, Graphics, Sharing special effects, why the 90's ruled

Even if I say so myself~

I’ve got some pretty nice recommendations to share.

yammag-amy-recommendations

Posted on May 19, 2013 In Chinese, DVD/BR, English, Films, French, Fun, Graphics, Japanese, Jobs, Korean, Misc., Music, Russian, Sharing, Spanish, Swedish, Television 2d classical animation, 3d animation, aftershocks (tangshan dadizheng), alfonso cuaron, amy adams, amy wong, andrea echeverri, animation, anna kendrick, anne hathaway, aoi miyazaki, ayumi ito, bae doona, battlestar galactica, baz lurhman, bbc, ben affleck, best of, bibi chow (zhou bichang), big bang, brad pitt, brown eyed girls, buffy the vampire slayer, canada, carey mulligan, cate blanchett, chang shilei, charlize theron, chiaki kuriyama, china, christopher nolan, chulpan khamatova, clea duvall, coupling, daniel radcliffe, darren aronofsky, dexter, diablo cody, disney, documentary/making-of, eita, ellen page, emma watson, eric bana, evan rachel wood, ewan mcgregor, family outing, food, france, glee, greta garbo, harry potter, haruki murakami, hayao miyazaki, hebe tien, helena bonham carter, hotaru no haka (graves of the fireflies), india, jake gyllenhaal, japan, joan crawford, jodie foster, joe odagiri, jonsi, joseph gordon-levitt, joss whedon, julianne moore, juliette binoche, kate winslet, kore-eda, korea, kwai lun-mei, lars von trier, latin america, lee hom wang, lee hyori, lgbt, li bingbing, louis garrel, maggie cheung, marion cotillard, mark ruffalo, masaki okada, mia wasikowska, michael jackson, mikako ichikawa, miki nakatani, mizukawa asami, modern family, movie classics, natalie portman, nicole kidman, noomi rapace, olivia williams, pixar, quentin tarantino, rachel mcadams, reality tv/variety, rebecca hall, rie miyazawa, roman polanski, russia, ryan gosling, ryan murphy, ryo kase, sa dingding, saoirse ronan, sarah michelle gellar, satoshi tsumabuki, shokuzai, short film, shu qi, shunji iwai, silent films, spain, stefanie sun, steve carell, sweden, t.o.p (big bang), taiwan, tetsuya nakashima, the nightmare before christmas, tilda swinton, tim burton, toni collette, tony leung, tv drama / tv series / miniseries, ueno juri, video game, wagner moura, white stripes, wong kar-wai, wowow, yam, yu aoi, yuguo, zhao wei (vicky zhao), zhou xun

Assorted YAM Magazine Interviews

April 6, 2013

yammag-interview-laure-shang-plympton-crowd-lu-guangzhong-esteman

From left to right.- Laure Shang Wenjie, animator Bill Plympton, Crowd Lu, and Esteman.

For the past couple of months I’ve been able to interview some of these awesome people. But that you knew if you were following all my ramblings on YAM Magazine.

For some other of my interviews, click here.

Shane Koyczan’s To This Day by Giant Ant

Vancouver-based motion graphic studio, Giant Ant, took part in the making of an animation collaborative effort centered on the poem titled To This Day by Shane Koyczan, who was in charge of the We Are More poem used for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics [1]. To This Day focuses on the lasting impact of bullying on its victims, and though it feels heavy-handed with a +6min of running time with a narrative of negative lows in contrast to Koyczan’s climbing monologue, it’s still a project worth checking out because of…

it’s animation.

Giant Ant (which includes work by Jorge Canedo Estrada [1]) asked animators and motion designers to come up with 20-sec sequences to go along to Koyczan’s spoken poem, developing a wonderful mismatch of styles within its narrative.

You can check out more of the To This Day project on:

Vimeo (where you can check the 20-sec pieces)
Tumblr

Posted on February 20, 2013 In English, Graphics, Illustrations, Motion, Sharing animation, canada, motion graphics

The Ultimate Guide to Boy Bands of the 90s

yammag-ultimate-guide-boy-band-90s

What started like a simple post, ended up taking a lot of hours of research and boy band video-watching. I may or not regret it.

Voila! The Ultimate Guide to Boy Bands of the 90s ~

There were boy bands I hadn’t even heard of… and some that I had to dust off my VHS tapes to get their names. Ha!

Posted on February 13, 2013 In English, French, Graphics, Japanese, Jobs, Korean, Music, Sharing, Spanish, Swedish backstreet boys, blog, blogathon, by amy wong, justin timberlake, nsync, seo taiji, westlife, why the 90's ruled, yam

Archives For Graphics

How Do You Say…?

Blogroll

YAM Magazine

Archives

Categories

Yu Aoi Events

YAM Magazine