Yu’s officially three-decades-old… but still is as cute as ever, even though she’s trying to be all grown-up and stuff. Just sit her in front of a nice matcha shaved-ice with red beans (or a velvety choco-purin), and you’ll get her all giddy.
That’s exactly what happened when promoting Dr. Rintaro on the Japanese variety Pon! with co-star on-screen mom Atsuko Takahata, who -I must say- is hilarious, too. These are obviously via the Yu Aoi Chinese fans. Watch the video. It’s 10min. long and it takes a while to load (for me).
She also did the Lilo & Stitchvoice-over event [1], and apparently got back together with someone from her Oha-girl days, so they did an Oha greeting! lol
Oh, man. I remember how much I used to love Yu-chan. xD I think I’m going to watch Climbing to Spring without subs, and hope to watch The Case of Hana & Alice now that it’s out on DVD.
So I finally gave myself time to listen to both Buddha Jump (佛跳牆) albums. Their 2014 one, Let You See (給你看), is pretty good. Fell in love with this tune at first listen~ also, surprised to learn it’s a project by Penny Tai.
The clip below is from a small show they did in China.
I’m maybe one of two (or three) people that actually liked Ghaath. Actually, scratch that- IMDb is showing me that, at least, 20 people have voted this movie over 6. So there you go, we’re about 20 people. But maybe I have a strong bias, the film has a political moralistic theme of the late-90s early 00s era but avoids the masala shenanigans for the most part, it also has Anu Malik music — with two great songs that I enjoy — and the chemistry between Tabu and Manoj Bajpayee, who are also getting back together this year (after Salman in Jai Ho, Ajay in the upcoming Drishyam).
When a titillating item song comes on screen, I’m usually the one rolling my eyes at some of the embarrassment… and the Telugu film industry has usually taken the cake when it comes to silly sexism. Not even Tabu can escape it (her number in Pandurangadu gets the crown with that orange juice moment). However, I do remember the first time that I ever gasped seeing a Bollywood movie because *gasp* They kissed! It was the Chup Chup Ke [clip] number in Bunty Aur Babli. It was before I realized I did enjoyed seeing Abhishek and Rani together [1], but they were always married on film!
In the number for Teri Aashiqui Meri Zindagi, Tabu’s character is never married to Manoj’s, they fairly recently met at their family/friend’s wedding and had their moment in Hum Bhi Samajh Rahe Hain [clip] — there sure is a lot of rain and white-wearing caressing and singing, but it’s just playful boy-meets-girl girl-meets-boy, a lot of face-touching… but never EVER an engagement or wedding, yet… yet… there’s this 20-second love-making behind a torn down hellenistic column that results in a baby. LOL
There’s all sort of face and neck action foreplay (I’m like “Omo, omomomomomo I swear she’s licking that neck“) before the hellenistic column action, as well as the obvious after scene.
Of course there was a baby. There’s never a sex scene in these movies that doesn’t end with these consequences… it happens here in Ghaath, as it happens in Raiou.
I like these one-on-one interviews, especially when you have performance-oriented people. Too bad Nawazuddin Siddiqui doesn’t feel comfortable speaking English- 1. Maybe these Meeting Ground interviews are always in English. 2. If they’re not necessarily in English, I wouldn’t understand a thing he says in Hindi. xD
This time Kangana Ranaut and Irrfan Khan are one-on-one after the commercial success of Tanu Weds Manu Returns and Piku, respectively. In the brief 20min interview, they talk about acting nuances with a super brief Acting 101, as well as people’s obsession with Box Office numbers (in this case, making the 100 crore club), the -now- discerning audience (and the massy one), not longer being a working actor who needs to constantly do movies to make a living, being an outsider, PLUS! the strength and vitriol that is social media.
Happy watching!
On the Box Office obsession and audience talks, it’s a general worldwide problem, you guys. Last year headlines declared How to Train your Dragon 2 a box office flop when it made “just” $50M USD. Joining the $1B USD club is big on studio heads, and having the most profitable franchise is a plus for actors.
The audience everywhere is half and half- good movie don’t make money, bad movies that make loads. The audience and press vitriol on review and social media. They’re not solely Bollywood problems ;)
I think… in contrast to last year, I might be liking Dum Laga Ke Haisha much better than movies like 2 States or Queen. It’s modern like those two dealing with issues, it’s got as strong acting (though Queen had the disadvantage of foreign acting, which always tends to be the weakest link anywhere in the world), but it’s much fresher in style with its honest 90s Bollywood throwback. And thank you gods that there was no bumping electro-dance disco song.
It’ll need to simmer, but it looks good for YRF at the moment.
I ran into this oldie clip of Chulpan Khamatova reciting an extract of an Andrei Voznesensky (Андрея Вознесенского) poem, shot by Peter Shepotinnik (Петра Шепотинника) titled Lirika (Лирика)- though, I don’t know whether that’s an extract of the Voznesensky’s works of the same title. I couldn’t find a literal extract of the poem online that wasn’t taken from the video.
Ты мне прозвонилась сквозь страшную полночь:
“А ты меня помнишь?”
ну, как позабыть тебя, ангел-звереныш?
“А ты меня помнишь?”
твой голос настаивал, стонущ и тонущ –
“А ты меня помнишь?” “А ты меня помнишь?”
и ухало эхо во тьме телефонищ –
рыдало по-русски, in English, in Polish-
you promise? Astonish…
а ты меня помнишь?
А ты меня помнишь, дорога до Бронниц?
И нос твой, напудренный утренним пончиком?
В ночном самолете отстегнуты помочи –
Вы, кресла, нас помните?
Понять, обмануться, окликнуть по имени:
А ты меня…
Помнишь? Как скорая помощь,
В беспамятном веке запомни одно лишь –
“А ты меня помнишь?”
This is probably the most gender-bending I’ll ever see from Korea xD Though I do feel Amber’s rapping isn’t as fluid as Jay Park’s here, I can’t help it seeing biases working together.
Han Hong brought out the big guns with the most perfect rendition of Heavenly Road (天路) [1] I’ve seen her do. You know she means business when she pulls that song out, so she -of course- was crowned the winner of this season of I Am a Singer. Well, it was about time! LOL
I still wish she and Meav could collaborate in a song together.
It’s been 15 years, nothing has knocked Dancer in the Dark out of my #1 favorite movie. I hardly remember the Oscars ceremony (of any year), but Bjork’s Swan dress is a classic in the public consciousness. Her performance of I’ve Seen it All, though shorten for the ceremony, is still better than the would be mash-up with other songs from previous years. And if I’m not mistaken, this year’s performances were even more rushed… yet, the broadcast never seems to run on time.
When I visited China — already nearly a decade ago — I got myself a seal with my name on. It’s made of jade, square, and it’s pretty big, to be honest. I’m also not fond of the font used, so I scanned the print to illustrate it and did a digital seal of my own that I use to sign photographs and whatnot. But ever since, I’ve wanted to get a new proper seal. I’ve only got my grandfather’s old seal.
Though most websites dealing with Japanese seals (hanko) look sketchy, I finally ran into Hankoya.com — I didn’t know they made titanium seals! Woah~ The website is, of course, so chunky and hard to browse if you can’t read Japanese. I doubt they’d do international shipping.
But~ my gosh~~~ they even do silver and gold seals! There’s also wood ones (like maple or sandalwood), but how sketchy is it with ivory and horns? Is it legal to even sell anything remotely done with ivory?