They don’t even need to be crowd shots, even. It would be perfectly fine to use concert art. I remember blogging about the concert art and vcrs done for one of Faye Wong’s concerts of the last 15 years. I can’t remember if they were either done by Hi-Organic or Grass Jelly (it was Grass Jelly!), but imagine being surrounded by clouds and mountains while Faye does her electropop sutras.
Bjork’s Cornucopia felt >small< and constrained in comparison. I always enjoy Bjork’s vocals, however. Technically always there, emotionally present. I will always remember that Hunter moment.
However, most shocking and most improved was the unexpected collaboration between Chinese vocalist Zhou Shen (周深), Peruvian opera singer Juan Diego Flores and Peruvian multi-instrumentalist Lucho Quequezana for a remix of Lan Hua Hua (兰花花) and the lyric version of El Condor Pasa for The Condor and the Orchid Flower (山鹰和兰花花).
After much mysterious drama, Marit and Marion have decided to come back together to make M2M a thing once again. You have no idea about the adrenaline rush I got when I saw Marit’s post, after missing the original posting on- “September 22nd, Sunday, twenty-five after nine.“
I love them. I hope they saw A*Teens performing together for their reunion at Melodifestivalen back in February this year and were washed by a feeling of nostalgia that they couldn’t resist. In fact, M2M has already announced The Better Endings Tour (to change the ending of The Day You Went Away, dorks), visiting a number of places in South East Asia were much of their fandom was concentrated, especially in Manila where they are already selling tickets.
My hope is that maybe, if they would like to increase touring chances in Latin America, they could get together with A*Teens and make it a Scandinavian thing. [Jokes on you! Who’s the dork now?] Thought I wouldn’t mind at all getting the chance to see Marit and Marion up close in more intimate venues, which are my preferred form of performances to witness live, anyway.
In the meantime, M2M have set up a website where you can join their mailing list, and follow them on their main socials Facebook and Instagram, Tik Tok, and a kinda left over YouTube channel.
I never really bothered with Halsey before (I’m old, this blog is old. This is a self-hosted blog.), but her sampling of Britney’s Lucky was really well done, and the music video directed by Gia Coppola took it home. It pains me to read whether Britney gave her consent for the sample, but then felt the music video somehow violated some unspoken deal, but then took it all back and called it fake news. The whole project made me nostalgic and blue.
I often think (a lot lately) about how audiences (and now fervent fandoms) literally live off and suck the life out of our supposed favorite stars. Tear them to pieces while they’re up on the spotlight and kick them when they’re down, only to regret having forgotten them in time when they’re gone. Whichever the way— tragic death or slow and lonely. “I wonder what happened to them?“
It’s sad that she seems to regret making a comeback due to mean comments from her own fans, because her whole vibe has really taken me back to the late 90s early 2000s, especially in this “stripped” version of the song where she wears baggie jeans and hot pink glasses. The colored glasses really really took me back in time.
Thank you for this beautiful, yet sad, homage to pop stars.
It’s been about a month or so since the first reports of Nicole Kidman’s AFI Lifetime Achievement Award started trickling. I had already read that she was thanking the audience that had stuck by her doing some of her weird little films, but it was still different watching the video and hearing her say it.
the audiences that have stuck by me through everything — I just want to say thank you because there’s so many little weird films I’ve done and I know there’s people out there that go and find them and watch them. You’ve stood by me and stuck up for my weird, weird choices and I’m so grateful for that.”
I was obviously to young to watch To Die For or Portrait of a Lady in the mid-90s, but it is no wonder I’m thought of as one of those odd ones when I had dragged friends from school to watch things like Birthday Girl or Steven Shainberg’s Fur, which I have rewatched this past weekend. Reese’s speech about Kidman’s passion for cinema just reaffirms my love for Nicole and her body of work throughout these past two decades, in which she has been resurrected by the press more than once with so-called “comebacks.”
Here’s to two more decades of amazing films (and series). *Cheers*
And the YT algo just popped this on the feed, talking about a number of Warner Bros titles that are apparently being affected.
Somebody on forums (!!! They still exist!) posted a list of probable affected titles, and to my dismay, the Greta Garbo and (both) Joan Crawford collections are affected. I just popped Mata Hari and Possessed on the player and seem to be playing fine.
Another one of the fears with (new) media and products that developed in types of plastic is that they’re decaying faster than people expected. I’ve had older (retired) players that were kept on storage that have a general sticky texture after a while. However, this doesn’t seem to happen to players that are in general exposure, not directly with sunlight, but in a generally airy room that’s in use, unlike a display room. I also happen to live in the mildest of climates, though high in humidity, temperatures never go above 30C (above 90F) or lower than 14C (lower than 55F). So maybe these conditions are affecting the storage of physical media.
I did the vast majority of my library collection before 2007, though. I did buy a number of things in between the mid-2000s to late-2000s, so if disc rot is affecting a general batch produced in between 2007-2009, it is a concern. I’m generally more worried with collections I keep in drawers instead of a regular shelf display.
Not gonna lie and say I haven’t been obsessing over the trailer for Crew since it dropped, and looking at the clips for Ghagra [1] and kinda giddy at the cover remix of Choli Ke Peeche [1].
I even finally re-watched Idhi Sangathi (with synced subs!) because of it.
Tabu finding riches in highly unusual places!
My only grip with the film, currently, is that my suspense of disbelief is dropped when I see them carrying kilos of gold. Autistic.
Other than that, I’m a super fan of potty-mouthed Tabu (I hope the announcement that theatrical was edited only means we get the potty-mouthed version on Netflix), and I want someone to ask them how much of the funny bits were ad-lib and improv, because that scene where they tell Kriti to sell her assets and the reaction to it was hilarious.
Having debuted back in 2022 under the name Song Soowoo (송수우) with the edgy-sounding song Love Me or Hate Me [MV], Song is back under the name NINA (니나) [almost impossible to look up without running into other Ninas] with the music video for Love Like This, directed by Jonah George.
Which, if you’ve seen the Bugs thumbnail on YouTube, looks Yu Aoi-inspired. I say Yu Aoi-inspired, because it’s mostly Yuki Tanada’s One Million Yen Girl and heavily references Shunji Iwai’s Hana & Alice for obvious shots. However, it also heavily references Iwai’s 1995 Asian hit Love Letter which has inspired a whole generation of filmmakers [1][2] and idols.
