Category: Screencaps

  • V Live + Showcases and Fandom Interaction

    I’m not a social media fan, though I do spend a lot of time posting links on the YAM Magazine Twitter account. Less active on Facebook, though I regularly use my own profile. No Instagram or any other site. I’m mostly active on movie websites— still active on IMDb, because they make searching for stuff easier [year, country, language, etc. filters], still active on MUBI (and helping with profiles and database submissions), and Letterboxd coz they help keeping an orderly diary of movie-watching.

    No longer have music sites, and Living Social FB apps have long gone.

    I’ve always been reluctant in creating new profiles, new accounts, new emails and different passwords. However, my level of obsession with Mamamoo has reached such point that I finally logged in V Live with my real-life identity, and though I’ve only left like 3 or 4 comments (so far), I’m a Level 5. Each artist you follow starts with a Level 1, adding points by watching videos, leaving comments and who knows what else, but I digress~~~ I wanted to comment on V Live as a platform. I’m amazed by it. I don’t exactly know why. I’ve seen countless of web stream concerts [1][2], I’ve seen a couple of Facebook Live sessions, but somehow V Live sessions make me feel closer to artists.

    Of course, they can start a random session just like in Facebook, though FB is always a 1:1 ratio, no? There’s comments, and the artist can actually reply to your comments, which is something V Live doesn’t have since comments are live, they scroll as they keep coming just like in a YouTube stream. But YouTube streams always seem so impersonal, more like online TV broadcasts, which is actually GREAT for TV broadcasts [KBS World 24][KBS World]. Add to V Live multi-camera broadcast, HD quality, multilingual subtitles and there’s just this added something to it.

    I recently saw Brown Eyed Girls’ JeA’s Orgel Live with JOKER, a 50-min multi-camera phone shot in portrait. I didn’t watch it live, because the show began at 6AM, but the replay was available quite fast — in probably just a few couple of hours — with subtitles in English, Chinese, Viet and Korean; and available auto-translate for others like Spanish. They started reading some of the comments, I lamented not being able to say hi to JeA [this is what I’m talking about], and proceeded to perform a couple of songs, while also going through the live comments.

    Fans are also allowed to give ‘hearts.’ Though, I haven’t actually figured out how to give hearts (it’s not by clicking the heart icon, lol), I supposed it’s just pasting hearts in the comments, and that’s why users can give multi-hearts all around. Since a video can have 200k views and one million hearts. :P

    And apparently, if you have the V Live App, you can chat with your faves. I don’t have mobile, so……………….

    jea-joker-live-v-live

    If you could do this for movies, it’ll be amazing. About 8 years ago, I wrote a proposal for screening movies like this xD but I didn’t know how to go through with it. Imagine you have a screening event, fans gather online 30min. before the movie begins, they chat among them. The movie streams, and afterwards there’s an online Q&A with the cast/crew. Because videos from the Q&A and the movie to be screened are different video sources, you can only have the Q&A available for replay instead of the movie.

    See? Someone make it happen.

  • 1000 Days of Xiami

    I’m about to clock 1000 days on Xiami logins xD

    xiami-1000-days

    Sad for this excitement, I know. LOL But I get obsessive-compulsive over these things easily. I took a screen grab because I don’t know whether the count will reset to zero or continue. Back in March when I went to Japan, I told my friend to login for me, so I don’t lose my clocked days, and there was a weird bug that made the counter go back to zero, so we thought for a while that it was done. A couple of days later, it went back to normal :P

    I’ve been using Xiami for a lot longer, of course. And gone are the days when you could find everything on the site for stream and download :P Though you can still find stuff and download, it’s often the case when albums are empty. Recently, Xiami has taken to just be able to stream music (which is better than having blank albums), without download capabilities— Faye Wong’s most recent track is only available for stream, so you gotta find it elsewhere if you want it. The site is still a great source for Chinese music, especially from the independent scene. However, now Xiami-approved artists are allowed to mark their music as only-Mi tracks, meaning that you have to have Xiami credit on your account and not download music from your VIP free-tracks perk or use your red envelopes (points).

    Having said that~~~ I have like +500 points (you get points for single days and months counted, albums added and music shared, etc.) and haven’t used them in so long. What the heck~ What are the perks of the VIP account if you still gotta pay for the Chinese music that you download; at least make it so that you use twice or thrice the # of downloads for those.

    I still haven’t figured out what the note reputation is (eg. Re*), but I’m just a few hundred away from reaching the other level. Increasing my stars is a little trickier because English reviews don’t get as many likes or comments. lol

    Also~ OMO! 1000 days on the 10 of 10. xD

  • Because I’m Alive, I found Lily: 15 Years of All About Lily Chou Chou

    Bless my heart~ I’m the only one celebrating 15 years of Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou Chou xD but if you are too, drop me a line! Tell me how much the film has affected your life~ As a celebration, I sat down for a re-watch and a brand new ‘more professional’ review.

    yu-aoi-all-about-lily-chou-chou-glider

    I also sat down for my first watch of Shunji Iwai’s latest— A Bride for Rip Van Winkle. It was glorious. At the moment, it’s battling it out with Kubo for my #1 spot~

     

  • Grave of the Fireflies: Don’t Go!

    How dare you, Studio Ghibli, do that this weekend?

    It’s my dad’s third year anniversary, and I’m Setsuko in this GIF.

    grave-of-the-fireflies-hotaru-no-haka-setsuko

    Grave of the Fireflies is remains my favorite animated film, and the only animated film in my overall Top10 favorites.

  • The Pop Cultural Relevance of Shunji Iwai’s Love Letter

    Shunji Iwai’s neo-classical romance, Love Letter, about the woman who wrote letters to her deceased lover and got responses back, is over 20 years old now since its release. However, its mark as a pop culture reference across Asia is undeniable. In its time, the film made actress Miho Nakayama a household name, and it launched Shunji Iwai’s filmmaking career (and hence has given us: Ayumi Ito and Yu Aoi).

    The film’s style and cinematography, courtesy of Noboru Shinoda (RIP) has inspired countless of filmmakers across East Asia who have headed to Otaru (小樽市) or other similar snowy places to capture the essence of the film [cue: 张一白 Zhang Yibai’s segment in Run for Love (奔爱), which featured Eddie Peng and Zhang Ziyi], and the classic (though simple) quote of “o-genki desuka?” (お元気ですか？) [1] has been referenced in various places…

    Just look at the members of -relatively new- Kpop group G-FRIEND, who played a round of movie quotes to decide who would be the host of that specific One Fine Day episode’s segment (10 months after their debut). The group is formed by 6 young women, all who were born post-95. In fact, eldest member (and leader of the group), Sowon, was born almost 8 months after the release of Love Letter. But it is member Yuju (’97) who first references the movie with the knowledge of all the group.

    one-fine-day-ep3-gfriend-yerin-sinb-yuju-shunji-iwai-ogenki-desuka-love-letter

    So if you put your hands close together to shout out the words “o-genki desuka?” and the person in front answers back the same way with a “atashi genki desu.” That’s a Shunji Iwai shout-out to ya~

  • September Fandom Crossover Musings~

    Mina-san! Genki? Ha!

    Forgive the complete absent from the blog recently (two entries last month, and this is the first one this month!), I’ve been generally “more busy” updating the MUBI (the site formerly known as The Auteurs lol) database than even actually keeping up with news (trailers/music) on YAM Magazine or watching movies and shows. I’ve also been occupied watching Korean shows, which tend to make everyone procrastinate. And it’s not like it was priority-watching, either~ I’ve been watching Solar and Eric Nam’s We Got Married episodes, but my favorite watch and re-watches was Mamamoo x GFRIEND’s Showtime.

    I don’t actually stan GFRIEND, and I already have biases. Bless.

    moonbyul-sinb-new-girl-crush

    Bless, SinB. Bless SinB with Moonbyul, Bless New Crush Star. LOL

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  • The Polite Fight for the Bill~

    I just finally finished catching up to Fresh Off the Boat, and though it seems like there were a lot of filler episodes, there were actually a lot of more meaningful moments too. Of course, Chinese New Year celebrations was a major thing, but I also enjoyed the episode of Lao Ban Santa, which focused on Evan’s loss of innocence… alongside the development of his OBVIOUS gambling problem. First the bunny he lost to grandma in poker, now his Pogs. And his totally Machiavellian plans in the Jessica Place Melrose Place spoof.

    And Emery gets his own development too! Loved that he was so devastated to find out his parents’ definition of romance, how we got to see him dealing with his anger and frustration, and his best moment having to deal with puberty.

    I think I may have to write a review. xD

    Anyway~ this post is because my life is literally the “polite fight” every single time we go out for lunch or dinner with my aunties.

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  • The Bing Bong Feelings Are Real~

    inside-out-bing-bong

    So I finally re-watched Inside Out in Original English audio track, and the feelings for Bing Bong were more real than ever. When I originally went to the theater to catch it in one of the late at night shows, it was still presented in Spanish dub and parents with children were still there. One of them parents ruined the movie for me when, at the moment of said tears, his daughter (seating behind us) began to tear up. He did what parents shouldn’t do—- he shamed his kid saying “why are you crying? Is this a scary movie?”

    Eff you, dad. Let your kid cry, it’s a freaking emotional scene in the movie. And who the eff cries in scary movies? Se dice “ya pasó, ya pasó” so you can calm your kid down.

    Really makes me think of never ever going to big movies because people can ruin your experience.

  • Update Khamatova Filmography Supercut

    Chulpan Khamatova’s FB updated a couple of days ago with a link sharing this supercut of her most updated filmography; meaning it includes Under Electric Clouds, as well as The Puppet Syndrome. There’s just a couple of clips I’m not so sure of, they could be from her series Bashnya (Башня) [Wikipedia], which was a little bit difficult to watch for lack of subs xD

    Recognized clips (without repeats) are as follow~

    • Sobytie [1]
    • The Puppet Syndrome
    • Paper Soldier
    • Midsummer Madness (in that red whatever that is uniform xD)
    • Katya (short film)
    • Sleeping Songs
    • Dostoevsky (series)
    • The Rainbowmaker
    • Under the Electric Clouds
    • America
    • There’s a desaturated kissing clip between two Puppet Syndrome clips, that I think looks like America. But I’m not 100% on that.
    • The clip of Chulpan with a beard is from the Ivan the Terrible series.
    • The clip of Chulpan revealing her mangled face is from Bashnya
    • Unrecognized red screencap 001
    • Unrecognized sitting screencap 002
    • The House of the Sun

    The unrecognized scenes could very well be from Sleeping Songs, I honestly don’t remember a thing about that movie. lol I’ll leave you with the screencaps, in case anyone wonders and/or knows. The second cap could be, judging from the hairstyle and the eyebrows, but I’m drawing a blank with 001. xD

    Some image confirmation source at kino-teatr.ru + ruskino.ru

  • Happy 8-years-watching Yu Aoi Movies, Y’all!

    It’s tomorrow, but still~ worth a mention!

    I also updated my Yu Aoi Films Ranked post with an Umineko watch, which was better than I was expecting from its IMDb rating. It’s totally worth the 6.5-7 rating on Douban, though… even if Yu-chan is barely in it. The subtitles available are poor, though, but they make do~

    I can’t believe it’s been 8 years since. Last month I remembered Last Friends and Juri Ueno, and all my Asian entertainment fever years, which is coming back, I can feel it. Going to Japan, having Kirin Tea, Calbee potato chips, getting JiNS Air Frame glasses, eating tokoroten~ the whole fan experience. lol

    So~ to celebrate this fan-niversary, here’s an image of Yu-chan in her Oha-garu days~

    yu-aoi-oha-garu