Archives For Screencaps

So Long, My Xiami

January 6, 2021 — Leave a comment

Greetings, my fellow lurkers, if you are lurking still. Knowing that I haven’t updated anywhere and I’m hardly active on social media, I just wanted to say that I haven’t died and haven’t been swallowed by the Earth. I hope 2020 didn’t wreck you, and that 2021 finds you in a more… calm path.

As I sit here making plans of wanting to do a lot of things, and then getting nowhere, I reminisce the days of internet freedom when roaming through websites was like the wild west. And that’s when I discovered Xiami— according to WP word search find, the earliest mention of the music site on the blog dates back to 2010… with an even older mention of forgotten HaoTing. lol Since then, over a decade ago and many an indie Chinese music discovery, Xiami had been part of my daily life for thousands and thousands of days.

I took a screencap for posterity! My Xiami account was supposed to last until the end of the year, and then an extra 4 months.

So it is with great sadness, but hardly any surprise, that I report that Xiami will be no more… on February 5th this year, to mark my 35ths birthday, nonetheless. End of an era for my music streaming, end of the era… of my youth, I suppose. With my only consolation prize that a lot of Chinese music is already available on not only iTunes and Spotify, but also on YouTube. I just need to re-find them and subscribe to whatever their channels are. It will be, of course, a lot more difficult to discover brand new Chinese music.

Oscar Ballot 2020

January 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

I’m probably two weeks ahead, compared to my Ballot posting last year, which means my Independent Spirit Awards ballot is still halfway done, but my Academy voting ballot is pretty complete.

I might end up watching The Two Popes, but all I’m really waiting for to open in theaters is Bombshell (which opens this Thursday), Little Women and 1917. Harriet is never going to open down here, but I really got a soft spot for this type of movies.

I’m really REALLY surprised Girl in the Hallway didn’t make the cut. You can watch the short on Vimeo.

Happy late holidays and New Year, everyone!

My most awaited Letterboxd e-mail came yesterday with my 2019 movie-data. Though my writing input has definitely not improved, cutting down on Mamamoo stuff has increased my movie watching habits, for sure.

Compared to 2018, I logged 480 films (though over 50 or even many more could be short films), which represents a 23% increase. In terms of hours, there was an increment of over 100hrs or 16%. This increase still doesn’t match my 2015 levels, when I reached 530 logged films (9.5% short) or clocked 959hrs (14% short)… but it’s getting there. I am still at 2017 New-To-Me level of movies, though.

My most-watched actor was Glenn Close because I went on a marathon of her movies because I really thought that she could win the Oscar, not that I wasn’t pleasantly surprised to see Olivia Colman win for The Favourite. And Francois Ozon was my most-watched director because MUBI programmed many of his films, including Les Amants Criminels, Water Drops on Burning Rocks, Young & Beautiful, and L’Amant Double.

And as my writing output has been so poor, I haven’t written any End of the Year (or Decade) posts. Gomen.

I’m shook. For some reason SBS Catch has just uploaded the September 2017 episode of Law of the Jungle (정글의 법칙) featuring GFriend’s Yerin. I wasn’t expecting to sit through the whole episode, but I was really impressed with Yerin’s survival skills.

I was even more surprised to see how she handled the Monitor lizard, killing it, skinning it, and preparing it. I can’t relate. LOL She reminded me of Savage Yejin on Family Outing.

Ah, good times.

Mad respect. Yerin, fighting! Yeoja Chingu, fighting! YeoMaChinMoo, fighting!

I’m ready to vote! I received the most digital screeners this year so far, so it’s been easier (and it’s made it lazy-proof) to sit through dozens of screeners. Plus, Netflix has a lot of the nominated movies readily available too. This year is possibly my best award season ballot in my history of keeping up with ballots. lol

It’s not only my Spirit Awards ballot~

I also have a pretty complete Oscar ballot. lol

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After years [1][2][3] of data; Yes, it’s Mamamoo’s fault. The positives, though, I have registered 31 more hours than I did last year with an extra 18 movies. My movie-watching in general got better because I managed to watch 132 brand new 2018 movies (compared to the 103 in 2017).

This year, I didn’t make any particular movie goal. Though, some of my favorite movies this year were Indian, as reflected by my latest highest ratings. No one has been able to surpass my love for Rene Liu’s Us and Them so far, though. It’s been an incredible year for… not movies made by Netflix, but they have expanded their distribution library enough to make it interesting.

My goal for this year is to increase the titles I watch; seeing that from this interview at Film Independent, the guy from IMDb states that “You should feel disappointed if you haven’t seen 700 movies in a particular year [laughs].” O.o I don’t feel half bad about registering half the amount of movies the guy from IMDb watches. Just saying.

Damn, I missed ya, Gaji~ I still miss Seju and all her drama, but Pet Aesthetics (애완의 미학) is as close as it’s gonna get for a while (at least), and I did see what you did there *wink wink nudge nudge* Also, I missed those *badump badump* The art, the aesthetic. Damn it.

I do wonder… are you gonna make me cry? lol

You know I’m a big fan of NHK’s Okaasan to Issho, right? Like, I’ve been watching it for years, I don’t have children, and my Japanese isn’t improving anymore… but I still watch it. LOL I’m still super shocked that Yoshihisa Kobayashi (小林よしひさ) – the guy that does the gymnastics – is still around since my original post a decade ago. He’s survived like two or three puppet changes, and this is like his third round of hosts— Takumi Mitani left a few years ago, and Daisuke Yokoyama officially left last year, giving way to Atsuko Ono subbing for Takumi, and Yuichiro Hanada taking over Daisuke.

I still miss Itou Mayu, tho xD

Anyway, I digress~ during the many changes in themes and puppets, they started showing the Galapico Poo (ガラピコぷ〜 , GARAPIKOPu) segment that begins with an animated intro that I’ve always been a fan of. It’s been years on air, and there’s no official clips (only poor TV-to-CAM captures, because LOL NHK), but I finally found Kuno Yoko (久野遥子) [Tumblr][Twitter] was in charge of the animation. FINALLY.

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You know, for a year when I didn’t watch that many movies, I’m doing pretty good. LOL Confession! I haven’t been following award season, it does feel like it’s my second or third year already. I do know that people have been freaking out because all critic guilds and industry guilds have been awarding all different movies.  As the saying goes~ todos parecen más perdidos que cuy en tómbola!

Here’s my Spirit Award one.

Light blue highlights mean watched, hot pink are pending, and green on the queue already.

My favorite competing film this year (so far) is Lady Bird coz it got me in the feels. I wouldn’t mind The Shape of Water winning, though. Considering BAFTA nominations (Producers’ Guild win and Directors’ Guild nom), The Shape of Water does seem to have a love more momentum than actors-backed Three Billboards, and this one also has a strong BAFTA showing.

Fun fact, yo! Darkest Hour, Phantom Thread and Victoria & Abdul are [most likely] the first Chinese-backed films that make it to Oscar. All backed by Perfect World Pictures (北京完美影视传媒) [1].

Interesting! I figured I watched less movies this 2017 than I did in 2016, but turns out I got a couple more films/hours logged. And there were a couple more titles that I didn’t log because they’re not on Letterboxd. They just happened to be not current movies, I suppose.

I’m still, currently, very much obsessed with Mamamoo, though. LOL That’s 30% of my movie-watching time doing Mamamoo-related stuff.

2018 doesn’t look to be an improvement to 2015 levels xD

I’m also not sure whether Ryo Kase is my Most Watched Actor this year, considering I went on a non-logged marathon of Shweta Menon movies— like 4 or 5. But, once again, latest highest-rated movies reflect some of my movie-watching; a little American indie, a little Indian and a little Chinese.

I did find enough for my usual Top30 Favorite Film Discovery post :)

And a super lengthy post on my favorite films this year, which has already changed xDDDDDD