Two Yu Aoi posts one after the other? We truly are living in the new Yu Aoi Era. xD
On the 1000th (!!!!?) issue of Brutus, Yu talks about a skirt I only seem to recognized. MYSTERY SOLVED! Travel Sand is such a vibe, remains one of my favorite Yu Aoi’s photobooks because I loved Yoko Takahashi’s look for it.
Now, if only someone would get her to talk about this beanie, which I’ve been looking for the last twenty years.
I was in between sleepy awake hours with the TV on NHK to what I was 100% sure was a recent episode of NHK’s Delicious Japan! (うまいッ！) that featured horse meat (baniku 馬肉), but because I wasn’t truly paying attention, I thought that I could catch the episode on a rerun later the same day, like it usually happens. So let me tell you that it was a surprise to see something else on the rerun of the day (instead showing the Mebaru めばる episode [1]) , skipping the baniku special altogether.
So maybe NHK is shuffling its reruns on NHK BS Premium, as current programming shows a new episode on Friday (Thursday?) 9-ish pm (Peru time) with a rerun on Friday at 2.30-ish pm. While NHK One is showing the Baniku episode as show on July 11th, while the Mebaru episode was supposedly broadcast on June 18th, with a rerun scheduled on July 25th.
In the meantime, I found out NHK On Demand only seems available in Japan (surprise! lol), offering the episode for one-single item purchase for 110 yen, but seems to have a purchase viewing period (rental?) of 72 hours and only available until July 31st. Wild Japanese digital things.
Episode is described as a visit to a farm that raises 500 horses with the latest processing plant equipment to eat specialties such as Basashi (馬刺し). However, from what I remember in my fever dream, they were also going to showcase other dishes such as grilled and even featured in ramen.
Horse meat is one of those things you can flex when people talk about eating weird things— surprisingly mild in flavor, but also the byproduct of horses in balms, creams and hair products is quite great?
I hope I catch it again.
A childhood memory unlocked.
Let’s just say I was looking some information about Encarta Encyclopedia, fell into a wormhole of Encarta languages [1][2][3], and ended up stirring this memory of Microsoft 3D Movie Maker, and my insane love of movies suddenly made sense.
The quick ran through is decent to trigger your memories, but the retrospective by CloudConnection gives quite a good view of the whole thing. Apparently, Windows (gasp!) published the original source code back in 2022.
The fan community has even made a Nickelodeon addon available.
I ended up in a deeper rabbit hole, and ended up remembering Invention Studio, which also seems to be available at MyAbandonware.
I stumbled upon this re-imagined look for Demon Slayer in the ornate style of 1980’s and 1990’s anime, and it’s a dream. I enjoy Demon Slayer fine, but younger generations really have no idea what beauty they missed from old anime. Producers should really really look into making OVAs in this style.
[for some reason, I’m unable to embed?]
According to GlitchVerse comment, the song used in the video was done with AI and it’s titled Endless Struggle; featured on their channel. It is not mentioned what tools they used for generating the graphics.
Yo, guys! I just finished a watching of Raj Rachakonda’s 8 A.M. Metro, which stars Saiyami Kher and Gulshan Devaiah, and featured poems by Gulzar, as the film centers on the friendship of two lonesome souls who have a chance ephemeral encounter… and who happened to love reading books and poetry.
Seems like I have been in a movie positive mood lately, so it floored me.
For the last few months, though, I’ve been thinking about how Sai Pallavi and Saiyami Kher, since I saw the trailer for this film, both strongly reminded me of my Tabu-movie journey.
I had seen Sai Pallavi’s films since 2015’s Premam and 2017’s Fidaa, but she really just floored me with Shyam Singha Roy, which I wouldn’t have really loved without her part of the story. Then came Gargi, last year’s Amaran and then the promos for Thandel began. Besides the fact that she’s a wonderful dancer, Pallavi’s got one of the most wonderful expressive eyes.
In between, of course, Saiyami Kher made her Hindi debut with Mirzya in 2016, which I enjoyed a lot. It seems like I’m one of the very few people that actually kinda liked that movie. Since then that OST has been a constant on my music-playing habits. Then came Anurag Kashyap’s Choked and ran into her on Wild Dog. In between films, Kher had focused at lot of her output on long-form shows, so I was so thrilled to see her doing 8 A.M. Metro, and doing well with Agni and Ghoomer, which put her together in a project with Shabana Azmi, who is a sorta x-degree aunt of sorts. lol
Wild things happened at this year’s Spring Gala. Faye Wong awoke from her hibernation for a performance of What the World Gifted Me (世界赠予我的), which CCTV only has in this pre-recorded video presentation. [Edit: CCTV did eventually post the clip.]
Ni Ni showed up in this segment on Wuxi Scenery and National Feelings (无锡景 家国情), showcasing Jiangsu as a province. Ni Ni, and I suppose everyone involved in the segment, were born in Nanjing or other Jiangsu province cities.
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).
Many would remember Zhou Shen breaking through pop culture in the 2014 season of The Voice of China (中國好聲音), which led to different hits and numerous inclusions in soundtracks like his first ever Big Fish (大鱼) for the Big Fish & Begonia (大鱼海棠) animated film, which is one of my favorite Chinese animation projects.
I forgot to post this a while back, but this is a total feeling when you’re listening to music and the song comes up.
If twenty years ago you had told me that Crayon Shin-chan was gonna have a smoother transition from 2D to 3D than Studio Ghibli, I would’ve asked you what you were smoking. Yet here we are. lol
The plot for Shin Jigen! Crayon Shin-chan the Movie wasn’t even all that bad, and gets quite meaningful by the end! What a wild world we live in.
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.
Buying physical media has been a chore lately, you gotta keep an eye out so you make sure you don’t miss your delivery because, for some reason, people cannot just leave your package any longer.
Plus, distributors are doing physical media less and less. The whole of the Indian Cinema industry has decided to phase out physical media in favor of going all in on OTT and VOD. Even enormous hits like RRR are left with no physical release, even in the West. Even Disney is letting Sony handle its physical media, which seems like the end of an era. Then there’s the whole thing about editing and disappearing media from libraries.
So these are some of the most recent -and not so recent- films that have been added to the physical library. I wish I had more disposable income because there are a bunch of titles (and upgrades) that had been added to the wishlist.
These on top of some Bluray upgrades like Sion Sono’s Love Exposure, Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying, brand new Criterion’s for Los Otros and Laberinto del Fauno. Some random BR UK release for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Also, this post makes it so that this year is the most I’ve blogged since 2020. I’m coming for you 2019. Four posts in Feb’24 is the most continuous blogging since Aug’18.