Category: Films

  • My 2016 Letterboxd Year in Review

    I was secretly looking forward to my Letterboxd Year in Review newsletter :P Compared to last year, my hours watched dropped in a staggering 32% yo! And it’s not even because I’ve been watching shorter movies LOL The total number of movies watched also dropped around 32% (31.89%). I still haven’t decided whether that’s because I got obsessed over Mamamoo or because I got caught up with work.

    This year I made it a point to brush up on my Chinese cinema, but it doesn’t make sense that Johnnie To is my most-watched director because I can only recall watching 2 movies of his last year — Office in early January and Mad Detective was my last watch — LOL Oh, nevermind, I also watched Three xD which matched the three other movies I saw in 2015. And yeah, Anna May Wong was definitely my Most Watched Actor with 7 titles— The Thief of Bagdad, Impact, The Toll of the Sea, A Study in Scarlet, Daughter of the Dragon, Bombs Over Burma, and Lady from Chungking.

    The movie-watching also got very influenced with the #52FilmsByWomen project [1][2][3].

    My 2017 didn’t start off with a bang, so I’m just hoping to match my 2016 record~

  • Evan Rachel Wood Appreciation~

    I had this picture stored for a couple of weeks already, and forgot to post. Over 13 years ago, I was a really REALLY big fan of Evan Rachel Wood xD It was probably during one of the seasons of Once & Again, I remember I’ve rented a whole bunch of her movies, so when I moved to Vancouver, I was ecstatic to be actually able to watch Thirteen on the big screen. During my time there, I probably watched all her movies at the cinema :P

    evan-rachel-wood-600x800

    It was on and off after leaving Canada, I still managed to watch a whole bunch of her films, but there was a period when I didn’t know anything about her. I didn’t know I missed her until I caught Into the Forest, and I was super psyched to hear that she was gonna be in HBO’s Westworld. Usually, HBO and I are not that compatible, but I caught the first episode [and read that list of actors, phew!], and I liked it quite a bit, so I’ll definitely catch the whole season when it’s done.

  • Yu Aoi for Giuseppe Tornatore’s Geek

    Oh, my gosh~ I just found this out while browsing Yu’s IMDb, and has left me incredibly disappointed with what used to be my English-based sources of Japanese cinema news- Yu’s shooting a movie, Geek, with Italy’s Giuseppe Tornatore, who’s obviously most known for his classic Cinema Paradiso.

    Interlinea Film reports that the first section of shooting in Venice was done back in March, while shooting in Japan would be at a later date. I’ve seen people on Twitter posting about Yu Aoi at some recent shootings [1][2]. I wonder if it’s related to this.

    Interlinea Film also attached this photo~

    yu-aoi-tornatore-venice

  • 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~

  • Look! You’ll Never Miss This I Am Not Madame Bovary Poster

    … from 10 miles from the movie theater xD

    im-not-madame-bovary-chinese-poster-001

    It’s like bright highlighter marker color xD I love it. There’s been a couple of other Chinese posters [the series for Song of the Phoenix (百鸟朝凤), and Big Fish & Begonia (大鱼海棠)].

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  • Beginner’s Guide to Priyanka Chopra

    I’m not the biggest fan, but I still made a list xD

    beginners-guide-priyanka-chopra

    Happy reading!

  • 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 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.