I stumbled across a vinyl version of Meenaxi – A Tale of Three Cities, and I’m almost disappointed it’s just a generic pressing of one of A.R. Rahman’s most underrated soundtracks and, of course, one of Tabu’s most underrated gems.
For a while now, I’ve been lamenting the death of physical media in India. The movie collection is really really suffering from it.
The world is also suffering from lack of high definition promo materials and HD transfers for M.F. Hussain’s Meenaxi. The world deserves multiple color vinyl editions to play on the Yeh Rishta [MV]/Rang Hai [MV] color palette themes of the movie. Blue, yellow, orange, purple, besides the red one.
After much mysterious drama, Marit and Marion have decided to come back together to make M2M a thing once again. You have no idea about the adrenaline rush I got when I saw Marit’s post, after missing the original posting on- “September 22nd, Sunday, twenty-five after nine.“
I love them. I hope they saw A*Teens performing together for their reunion at Melodifestivalen back in February this year and were washed by a feeling of nostalgia that they couldn’t resist. In fact, M2M has already announced The Better Endings Tour (to change the ending of The Day You Went Away, dorks), visiting a number of places in South East Asia were much of their fandom was concentrated, especially in Manila where they are already selling tickets.
My hope is that maybe, if they would like to increase touring chances in Latin America, they could get together with A*Teens and make it a Scandinavian thing. [Jokes on you! Who’s the dork now?] Thought I wouldn’t mind at all getting the chance to see Marit and Marion up close in more intimate venues, which are my preferred form of performances to witness live, anyway.
In the meantime, M2M have set up a website where you can join their mailing list, and follow them on their main socials Facebook and Instagram, Tik Tok, and a kinda left over YouTube channel.
I never really bothered with Halsey before (I’m old, this blog is old. This is a self-hosted blog.), but her sampling of Britney’s Lucky was really well done, and the music video directed by Gia Coppola took it home. It pains me to read whether Britney gave her consent for the sample, but then felt the music video somehow violated some unspoken deal, but then took it all back and called it fake news. The whole project made me nostalgic and blue.
I often think (a lot lately) about how audiences (and now fervent fandoms) literally live off and suck the life out of our supposed favorite stars. Tear them to pieces while they’re up on the spotlight and kick them when they’re down, only to regret having forgotten them in time when they’re gone. Whichever the way— tragic death or slow and lonely. “I wonder what happened to them?“
It’s sad that she seems to regret making a comeback due to mean comments from her own fans, because her whole vibe has really taken me back to the late 90s early 2000s, especially in this “stripped” version of the song where she wears baggie jeans and hot pink glasses. The colored glasses really really took me back in time.
Thank you for this beautiful, yet sad, homage to pop stars.
It’s been about a month or so since the first reports of Nicole Kidman’s AFI Lifetime Achievement Award started trickling. I had already read that she was thanking the audience that had stuck by her doing some of her weird little films, but it was still different watching the video and hearing her say it.
the audiences that have stuck by me through everything — I just want to say thank you because there’s so many little weird films I’ve done and I know there’s people out there that go and find them and watch them. You’ve stood by me and stuck up for my weird, weird choices and I’m so grateful for that.”
I was obviously to young to watch To Die For or Portrait of a Lady in the mid-90s, but it is no wonder I’m thought of as one of those odd ones when I had dragged friends from school to watch things like Birthday Girl or Steven Shainberg’s Fur, which I have rewatched this past weekend. Reese’s speech about Kidman’s passion for cinema just reaffirms my love for Nicole and her body of work throughout these past two decades, in which she has been resurrected by the press more than once with so-called “comebacks.”
Here’s to two more decades of amazing films (and series). *Cheers*
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.
Having debuted back in 2022 under the name Song Soowoo (송수우) with the edgy-sounding song Love Me or Hate Me [MV], Song is back under the name NINA (니나) [almost impossible to look up without running into other Ninas] with the music video for Love Like This, directed by Jonah George.
Which, if you’ve seen the Bugs thumbnail on YouTube, looks Yu Aoi-inspired. I say Yu Aoi-inspired, because it’s mostly Yuki Tanada’s One Million Yen Girl and heavily references Shunji Iwai’s Hana & Alice for obvious shots. However, it also heavily references Iwai’s 1995 Asian hit Love Letter which has inspired a whole generation of filmmakers [1][2] and idols.
Isabella Leong has been on and off since she made her official film comeback back in 2015 with Murmur of the Hearts, which is an amazing film. Se also had small roles or almost cameos on 12 Golden Ducks that same year, and got back together with Pang Ho-Cheung for a small role in Missbehavior in 2019.
From her recent interview on A Date with Luyu (鲁豫有约), you can tell that she enjoyed or had fond memories of her debut film Isabella, which Pang directed almost 20 years ago— which also amazes Leong when she realizes how fast/much time has passed. I was also amazed at how she remembered the tracking of the shot, all the more amusing when both clips were put together for contrast.
In 2020, she appeared on Ann Hui’s Love After Love, which was available to watch on MUBI in some territories, and might be available on places like Netflix or Prime, depending on your territory. Now, she’s part of the most recent Dante Lam HK film starring William Chan and Nick Cheung, titled Bursting Point (爆裂點) [Trailer], which I’ve mostly heard positive things about.
Since her teenaged (!!!) sons already give her enough time to move about life, she’s been a lot more active at events and, if you follow her on Instagram, photoshoots. Which finally gets me the reason I was writing this post- she’s the first cover of 2024 for the Condé Nast Traveler China edition, which is a luxury travel magazine based in New York.
I checked their website to see who was the photographer of the shoot, but it looks like they haven’t updated that since their May 2023 issue was published (relatable). Editorial director Shawn Ong only mentions their collaboration with Eastern & Oriental Express Southeast Asia in prep for the launch of their luxury train in two different seasonal routes. The train interiors look (and photograph) amazing. They’re elegant, colorful and textured without looking overwhelming [1][2][3].
However, this is not a travel blog. I took these bad screencaps of some of my favorite shots.
The original latino dub of my Operación Dragón de Bruce Lee memories. After years searching, several copies acquired (The first thing I did when I bought my Special Edition DVD was check the dub). I even had to go through several copies of Spain’s Spanish, only to find out that the Latino version had a do-over, and that the original Latino dub of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon was probably lost media.
I even wrote to OG Hector Lee, who was the original Bruce Lee voice in the film.
It has not been lost. These are my memories. I will cherish them.
