Excuse as I say that I thought Grammy awards couldn’t get any lower than last years. This is me saying that I enjoyed Eminem, and Lady Gaga fine.
But it’s really effing sad that Katy Perry’s got a Grammy nod for Album of the Year.
Not really static about any of the main categories. However, one category did really jump out for me — Julieta Venegas got a nod for Latin Pop Album. She plays so many instruments… and she has her own sound. When you listen to Julieta Venegas, you know it’s Julieta Venegas.
Her album wasn’t even nominated for a Latin Grammy — instead, Nelly Furtado’s which I actually liked fine won. The saddest part was that when watching that I told my mother “You know what would be sad, if Nelly Furtado wins Best Female Pop at the Latin Grammys.” Let’s not pretend Nelly is not singing in Spanish for commercial purposes. If she were trying to connect with her roots, she’d be singing more in Portuguese.
Plus, they also nominated They Might Be Giants for their Children Album [Meet the Elements, I am a Paleontologist]. I think that’s pretty much it.
Here are the general categories nominees~
I always got confused about American and Canadian thanksgiving~
I know a lot of people who visit are from the US, so Happy Thanksgiving guys! Hope you eat a lot — that’s me wishing you the best in Asian-talk — and that the crazy cold or hot (depending on where you are) doesn’t get to you.
Don’t have any Thanksgiving-y photo~
I won’t be posting daily because I found that posting so much online makes it impossible for me to work on the YAM Magazine website. I will still be tweeting for the YAM Mag Twitter account, the YAM Mag Facebook Group, or you know… you can follow my movie-watching on MUBI.
I could be wrong, but streaming in different sites is not that good for hits, right? Why not just show it in MUBI? After all, don’t you want people to sign up? Anyway, it’s nice that MUBI YouTube lets you embed a whole movie! xD
I haven’t seen it yet.
Watch out for it, it’s almost 2hrs~~~
In honor of Top 10 Films’ 1st anniversary~~~
1. First Film: Enter the Dragon
I figured it must be one of my dad’s favorites, since he’s the one who got the tapes and did the recordings on the Betamax from tv broadcasts…
I literally know the dialog to Enter the Dragon ;P
2. First visit to the Cinema: Jurassic Park
I’m not entirely sure when my parents first decided to take me to the cinema, because my parents worked a lot so most my outings were with my aunts and cousins. And my parents think little kids who don’t behave themselves shouldn’t be taken on too many activities, so it is likely we didn’t properly go to the movies until I was 5 or more… so Jurassic Park it is.
I saw it with my aunt and little cousin, who’s now… 20 xD
3. First film purchase:
VHS: None
DVD: She’s All That and Loser
When I grew up, it was a troubling time for the economy. We didn’t buy tapes – my dad, however, used to bring a lot of rentals from a place who used to watermark its videos with “videorama” – of course my dad taped all those Disney shorts and old movies.
Sometimes when my uncle would visit Miami, he would bring a tape or two of Disney’s Sing Along Songs. I also remember my auntie gave me an X-Men tape (the one were the color palette is earth colors – Cyclops head is all covered and Wolverine is all brown), and my uncle gave me the tape of Winnie the Pooh’s Wishing Star story.
My first two DVDs, I bought when I turned 15, so you can’t hold me accountable of the purchase. It was on my bday trip to California, and bought those discs thinking they were VCDs for some weird reason, and having to wait a couple of months before my family actually bought a DVD player.
4. First Crush:
Carly Pope and Christopher Gorham
Weird, huh? They’re not really Film crushes, though both have done films.
I mean it is rather silly to be a 11-year-old girl watching Titanic and swooning over Leonardo DiCaprio. First, I wasn’t THAT interested in film back then – TV was everything to me… and pop music, so it’s only fitting that my first “crushes” weren’t Film crushes.
Once I get a crush, I am rather faithful. My interest may wain, but it will never truly disappear unless said object of imaginary affection does something truly bad.
And god, Carly Pope’s striking face — and those eyebrows! Hmm.. I might have an eyebrow fetish (Crawford and Garbo, anyone?) — and Christopher Gorham’s sexy nerdiness. It’s killer to me. And they both supposedly speak more than one language? It’s a killer combo for me.
It is common knowledge that I’m not really partial to un-scripted television. I grew up with things like MTV’s The Real World in the background of my mind, sometimes watching it quietly when I was a teen. But then it just exploded, and it’s not like I’m bothered by the actual programs… what bothers me is that contestants later become “celebrities”. It’s like being a celebrity means nothing. You can eat crap (literally) for money, win and become a “celebrity”. That’s sad.
Having said that, I have a few shows that I do watch. It doesn’t have to do with who’s in it, or who’s going to be in it… who says it’s what, or if it’s hot or not to watch it.
It’s simply 3 things I would like to be able to do.
First, dancing.
Musica Criolla is a funny business — it’s not really hip. You don’t go to high school and said “you guys, I just bought the awesomest musica criolla album ever.” There’s no musica criolla playing on MTV. Maybe latin pop with hinted musica criolla on latin music channels — like Gianmarco, but NEVER on MTV. And we know that in school, MTV is hip – NOT MTV is not hip.
Then there’s this quality to musica criolla… musica criolla is many types of Peruvian music. There’s festivities music (festejo), then there’s Marinera — which is more the dance, than the actual music. I don’t recall ever hearing the term “Marinera album” but musica criolla has a very distinct quality — it’s better served live. Musica criolla, at least for me, it’s about the performance, the sentiment, the passion~~~
It’s like Tango, we don’t want to listen to an album with music for Tango, we want to see the passion and the performance of tango. It’s the same for me with musica criolla.
There are types of music that sound the best on albums, you can have great albums that are rubbish live because that feeling of the album is lost — that’s why concerts should be handled different to making an album, right? Then there are okayish albums that just go the extra-mile when they’re live.
That’s musica criolla. The albums, the productions — beside lacking in presentation and printing qualities and what-product-stuff-not — they lack that performance quality. They sound good, but they fall flat. But then you see these people perform, and just give their all on that one song and just… blown away.
(more…)
Pumpkin Pie Army! xD
We don’t really celebrate Halloween… or shouldn’t really here — being a “catholic” country that’s supposed to be laic and all, but dressing up as anything is/should be more fun than celebrating Cancion Criolla day for some. At least for the kiddos, you know?
But I never really did. Maybe once, with the cousins… my youngest cousins do every year, though. xD Every year since I can remember them being able to walk. LOL
Continuing with our talks on Peruvian posters of 2010, we’ll continue with the smaller productions of 2, 3, Kasa Okupada, El Niño del Cusco, El Ultimo Piso and Vivir. If you’ve missed the first part of our discussion, head over here.
Obviously, because we are talking about more independent flare, instead of suggesting fonts for buying, we’ll be suggesting -if we’re suggesting any- free download fonts. Now, because these are completely independent, I have no idea where to watch them or have no idea what these films are about.
Also in Espanol at Cinencuentro~
Welcome to our second edition of Peruvian posters, if you’ve missed the first post on 2009 posters, you can check it out here — sorry, only in Spanish. There’s been an increase on Peruvian releases in the local film market that includes properly-Peruvian independent productions, as well as international co-productions.
Thanks to this, there has also been an increase in interest for marketing campaigns that include websites, social networking sites, and yes – posters, to make your film stand out from the bunch. The film poster culture in Peru hasn’t really exploded — in quantity or quality — , as marketing people and CEOs are still too scared of too much blank spaces or much too abstract concepts that may or may not confuse its audience.
We are still far from the less-is-more concept seen many-a-time in European or Japanese posters, and we are even farther from the mass-production of poster design that exists in the United States, but we’re taking baby steps as young people show more interest in design, and new designers get into the market.
Due to the number of posters this year, I’ve decided to split them into two groups – the first one with the “bigger” productions, and the second one with the independent productions. All will be listed in alphabetical order.