Archives For Screencaps

One day like today five years ago…

I bought my own server and domain, and opened by first ‘proper’ blog. sighs~

And damn it! I lost that domain because the stupid company I was using, didn’t automatically renewed my account, and they never sent me an email notification. Dumbasses!!!

So I spent 1 month without knowing why my domain wasn’t working, and when they finally confirmed my thoughts it was too late~~~ someone had taken my domain and was trying to sell it to me at a higher price. Assholes!

April 18th is siutou-amy.com remembrance day~~~ LOL

siutou-amy.com website - April 18th 2004

Emo-est website ever? True. But that site had pretty nifty content like faux-interviews~~~ I should do those again! LOL’ Had some phunny lists like “You know you’re Peruvian when…” or “I hate it when…” – there was music, a lot of fanart icons and wallpapers, and my favorite of all~~ there was a movie faux-database. It was actually all .html and nothing fancy, but I did take the time back then to write as many reviews as films I got to watch each week. Sometimes once or twice a week, sometimes I wrote more than four reviews~~

Now I watch and listen to too much stuff to write individually… sighs.

too the long-gone siutou-amy.com!!! *raises glass* Cheers!

Posted on April 18, 2009 In English, Rants, Screencaps, Sharing, Spanish , , , ,
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Design and Politics – The Obama Era

April 18, 2009 — Leave a comment

Despite whatever views I may have on Obama’s policy, decisions… or the lack of a firm position (and how much his ideas reminded me of the traditional Latin American candidates during their campaigns) – I do agree with many designers who point out how good his campaign is. The most throughly article I ever read (mind you, I read this a long time ago~~~ perhaps almost a year ago) was Expertinent: Why the Obama “Brand” Is Working – not only the thoughts and critic people involved in graphic design did, but also the comments on the article. Yes, there are a few bad-mouthing the article pointing out how they are not voting for Obama for his marketing, but there are a few others that are quite insightful too. Doing a quick search, you end up with articles such as The Hardest Working Presidential Candidate Logo, which show the pretty awesome use of the Obama-branding… crazy I tell you. As well as NOTCOT’s Obama design post, Ten marketing lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign, and How Better Marketing Elected Barack Obama.

So we all agree. Now, moving on…

So I’ve been Mood: Political for the past week, and I’ve been watching a lot of political shows (which I’m tired off, because I always end up grumpy and cursing interviewers to hell and back), but I’m S&M like that sometimes~

Anyway!!! I got curious, went online and looked up websites of the main political parties here in Peru. APRA, Unidad Nacional, Partido Nacionalista Peruano and… is Peru Possible still relevant? Anyway, I did search for them. I’ll just let you look at my captures instead…

Very 90’s… compared to Obama’s right? Lack of sophistication, graphical quality… but let’s even forget about apperances and focus on the content and its organization. These political Peruvian websites lack ANY information architecture, perhaps interface design needs… a lot of work?, and a total lack of interactive design. But my main problem with all of them is the amount of information, which obviously hasn’t been edited. So in short~~~ They lack structure, and they lack strong content. And don’t even mention the Unidad Nacional website which is just a placeholder saying it’s the website, it has a few links linking to .htm pages with NOTHING on them!

SHAMEFUL.

So now that we are in the Obama Era… the times of globalization, will the political parties take notice of this, and begin minding their design and content? Will good marketing finally matter here?

I may have to agree with something I remember Simon Cowell said~~ that politics in America were great because they were very engaging. Something to that extent… I remember, but can’t find the quote. LOL’  But I remember! That was the reason I watch a lot of CNN, and the voting results with their graphics. There was so much design to be seen there! And I had wished that Peruvian politics took their job that serious and stepped it up with their marketing. *sighs* If only!

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Yu Aoi Film Discussion – Hachimitsu to Clover – Honey & Clover

April 17, 2009 — 6 Comments

Live Action version of the famous manga series Hachimitsu to KURO~BA, it follows the lives of five art school students, who are trying to find their way through life and love. Takemoto is not a very good art student… preferring to talk about Japanese castles and models. Morita (Yusuke Iseya – Kiraware Matsuko no Issho, Blindness) is an amazing artist, but fears the real world and prefers to stay behind in the safety of college life. Mayama (Ryo Kase – Tokyo!, PAKO to Mahou no Ehon, GUGU Datte Neko de Aru) is in love with (and stalking) his boss, while Yamada is head over heels for him. And Hagumi (Yu Aoi) is a child prodigy…

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In Celebrity, DVD/BR, English, Films, Fun, Japanese, Posters/Artwork, Reviews, Screencaps, Sharing , , ,
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Disney Animation Collection – Vol. 1, 2, 3 & 4

April 11, 2009 — Leave a comment

First, let me tell you – I don’t physically own these collections. I am basing my opinion on the content of the dvds, their price and their overall value compared to other collections that contain some of the same shorts.

Disney Animation Collection 1: Mickey & Beanstalk [Amazon.com] which is another release related to this Fun and Fancy Free~~~ They both have Michey & Beanstalk short, what this new release has is the 1938’s Brave Little Tailor in which Mickey kills 7 flies in one blow and the townspeople mistake it for 7 giants, putting Mickey at the front to get rid of the town’s own giant. There’s also 1934’s Gulliver Mickey in which Mickey… eh, gets to a miniature people island. Also 1936’s Thru the Mirror and 1940’s Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip.

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Happy 3rd Anniversary, As If!

April 11, 2009 — 3 Comments

BALLS. I suck at working anything new or worthy with this fanlisting, but I do try to keep up with members. But it’s 3 years since I opened it!! Only 150 members barely though…

As If Fanlisting - 3rd Year

Many or most As If websites are either inactive, or totally gone… HOWEVER! You can still find some activity in Facebook! First, the As If Appreciation Society (who by the way are using the banner I made for my fanlisting, without crediting… balls much?) And there is also… and this is VERY important~ There’s the As If/Et Alors/Asi Somos/Som Aixi on DVD FB group. Yes, you read right… it on DVD.

If you are still interested on the ‘original’ set, you can still sign the petition (which I made) and has over 700 signatures – whoa~~ and where are these people and why aren’t they on the fanlisting? LOL’

Things against the petition, and the whole As If on DVD idea~ copyright music on the show. The show had an uber cool soundtrack, and because of this it probably gets killed by copyright fees of use for the music on dvd format. Just to tell you an example… I wanted to use a Sony Music song in a project in film school once, and this is the info I got.

STUDENT FILM MAKERS
$200 administration fee payable to Sony Music
Proof of school enrollment as well as proof of class credit
A VHS copy of your film

Depending on the particular recording and the scope of your project, we will determine your total cost.

And that was only for a song use for a weekly assignment TOTALLY non-profit … LOL’ – Of course I didn’t use the track ;) – so imagine how much a profitable project would have to pay. They already pay for the use of music on broadcast, but they will also have to pay fees to have the right to include their already made episodes on dvd… and a +10 dvd copies has a different price range ;) at least in some websites like ‘freeplaymusic‘ which is not so FREE.

So the As If DVD idea is kind of expensive to do, unless you want to swap the soundtrack on the whole series for other cheaper music (like The WB’s Popular did on their DVDs), but you don’t really want that with As If.

Well, this turned into sort of a rant… anniversary rant, but I felt it was time to put these on a post, instead of just complaining on IMDb, and getting people who keep asking the same question. “Why isn’t this show on DVD already?” Because of copyright music… *sighs*

In the meantime, do support the fans As If DVD project. To the lack of actual content, fans do what fans gotta do~~~ we must mess with the status quo, because the status is NOT quo. xD LOL’

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Yu Aoi Film Discussion – Otoko-tachi no Yamato

April 3, 2009 — 5 Comments

Otoko-tachi no Yamato is a 2005 Japanese war film telling the story of Kamio, a teenage boy who ended up fighting in World War II on board of the biggest Japanese battleship, and its crew who ultimately met its death in battle.

Genre: War, Drama
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyoka Suzuki, Sosuke Ikematsu, Kenichi Matsuyama, Shido Nakamura,Yu Aoi
Appearances by: Kimiko Yo, Kayoko Shiraishi, Takahata Atsuko
Duration: +2hrs

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In Celebrity, English, Films, Fun, Japanese, Posters/Artwork, Reviews, Screencaps, Sharing , ,
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Variety + NP.com = NP, the Bio and April Fools

April 1, 2009 — Leave a comment

NP.com went all overboard with this year’s April Fools joke. Funniest thing ever. You can head over here to experience it… or in case it’s gone~~ here’s a capture.

You almost got me there, guys~~~

NP.com - April Fools' joke - Variety

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Paco and the Magical Book, Tetsuya Nakashima + Dramatic Comedy Meets Disney on LSD

March 21, 2009 — 1 Comment

Tetsuya Nakashima’s latest film, PAKO to Maho no Ehon is one horrorific Japanese film – and you should see it for it. Nakashima has become quickly in one of my favorite Japanese directors (alongside Shunji Iwai, who is, by the way, a total different approach to filmmaking) and Memories of Matsuko is my favorite Japanese film to date.

Nakashima is quickly turning into my Japanese sort of Tim-Burtonesque filmmaker stylist, in the way he uses rich visual enhancements to his storytelling – thanks to his background in CMs, and just found out and remembered watching this – He combines amazing color treatment, art direction, cinematography and mashes it all up with anything he can… be it a bit of violence, grandeur musical numbers, and animation.

PAKO to Maho no Ehon - Paco and the Magical Picture Book

In the end, it isn’t much of a surprise when you begin watching Paco and the Magical Book and find yourself in a very Disney-nesque world (the film starts with a Lion-King-esque chant, literally) – after all, this is supposed to be aimed at a younger audience. However, don’t ever fool yourself thinking that this will dumb down anything that Tetsuya wants to show… which includes a punk-goth-tatooed-blond nurse (Anna Tsuchiya), a psychologically-insane-ex-child-star-bum (Satoshi Tsumabuki), a raging-drag-queen whom a lot of people are referring to as ‘gay’ (Jun Kunimura), and a blood-sucking-neck-biting-vampiresque nurse (Eiko Koike). And don’t forget the grumpy old man who doesn’t back down when hitting the kid (Koji Yakusho)… well, I actually laughed at that bit. Does that make me an asshole??

Yes, the film is nuts, but it’s worth watching. For international audience, it might not be recommended to watch with their kids, unless they are willing to read subtitles… because films like this should be enjoy in its original language. I still think is not as brilliant as Matsuko, but I will have to see it once more with proper subtitles to form a strong opinion. And man! Those CGI animated sequences… and the whole thing, like I said~~ dramatic comedy meets Disney on LSD. I think that’s the perfect description for Nakashima’s style.

I’ll leave you with some links,

In DVD/BR, English, Films, Fun, Japanese, Screencaps, Sharing, Torrents & Digital Streams , ,
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Yu Aoi Film Discussion – Nijuuyon no Hitomi – 24 Eyes

March 20, 2009 — 4 Comments

Schoolteacher Hisako Oishi struggles to imbue her students with a positive view of the world and their place in it, despite the fact that she knows full well that most of them will die in the war.

Genre: Drama
Starring: Hitomi Kuroki, Kaoru Yachigusa
Appearances by: Akira Emoto, Yu Aoi, Shun Oguri
Duration: +2hr

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Natalie Portman is an Elephant! And other Sesame Street Presentations

TotalFilm.com has ranked Natalie as one of their best Sesame Street appearances xD Yes, the one with the elephant… cute as a button. I always thought Sesame Street (aka. Plaza Sesamo) was a pretty good kid’s show… and I always thought Elmo was cute, plus! he doesn’t speak like a stupid Teletubbie. “nuff said.

[iframe width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/4y-b9cjaxVs?rel=0″]

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Posted on March 19, 2009 In Celebrity, Clips, English, Music, Screencaps, Sharing, Spanish, Television , , , , , , , ,
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