So, The Hurt Locker keeps on winning people. Best Picture and Best Director seem to be in the bag. Are we looking at the first female director to EVER win an Academy Award? That’s kinda nice… but actually kind of shocking it’s taken this long for a woman to be seriously considered.
And a few surprises too!
Yu Aoi is featured on CMs for U-Can (ユーキャン) a company dealing with distance learning courses and communication, among other stuff. One of the promotional materials is an almost-12-minute short film titled Sute Neko OL, or Stray Cat Office Lady, in which Yu plays Mayumi Yamamoto (?) an office lady who finds a stray cat…
some captures after the break~
Pitchfork has a really interesting article on how Pop music has changed these past 10 years, with a surprising take on the what was BackStreet Boys, Britney Spears, TLC, Christina Aguilera and Hanson. You know, since most people try to deny they listen to them at some point in their lives.
Here’s one measure of how well they succeeded. Breaking through behind the Backstreet Boys on 1999’s pop roster were a crew of former Mouseketeers: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and ‘N Sync’s Justin Timberlake. Even the commentators who loved their records didn’t give them a hope of longer-term success. But 10 years on, Spears is midway through the year’s highest-grossing tour, Aguilera is lining up M.I.A. and Santigold to work with, and Timberlake can pick his hip-hop collaborators as he wishes. (Not to mention snaring a Pitchfork Single of the Year.) It’s fair to say the class of ’99 exceeded every expectation.
My only issue is the focus on the American market. Sure, BackStreet Boys, Britney, Aguilera and everyone were popular worldwide, across cultures. Since the market’s shift to online music, it hasn’t been really the case… so the 2nd half of the article feels dull, just like the ‘worldwide pop music’ market. How about an exciting comment about Pop music in Asia? I keep saying Asia is actually saving “pop acts” alone by taking it to different levels.
You can read the article here.
Also~ Pitchfork has its Decade lists…
From its 200 albums, we only concur on five choices. They also repeat artists… 2, maybe 3 albums per artists, while I chose 100 albums by 100 artists including soundtracks. Oh yeah, I also have albums in Chinese and Japanese and Korean, and French. They don’t.
I’m kinda mad at their lack of variety.
It’s as if music in English is the only one that matters…
Check all their Decade lists here.
–
If you wanna check mine.
Best Albums of 2000-2009
Best Songs of 2000-2009
– part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
Actually, this is the happiest I felt with nominations…
let’s wait to see who wins~~~
However, still important omissions for Moon, as well as Mary and Max. But loads of love for Hurt Locker (7), Basterds (8), and Up in the Air (5), and both Up and District 9 with 4 nods.
It’s been a good year for Sci-Fi.
xD
It was seriously good, and pretty.
it was so effing tasty… the green one had a Guanabana (Soursop) filling, which was my fave. Then there was the chocolate one, and the Lucuma one~~~ The rest, I think, had a sweetened bean paste… which is the most common. We also had a lot of Japanese food, which was popular because we don’t normally get makis, sushi and sashimi on New Year. There was also pancetta with crispy skin (like REALLY crispy, really so effing good). We had sticky rice, spicy jellyfish, sweet potato noodle salad, and egg tarts xD
Food is so good, why would anyone not eat?
Well, it’s last post of the year!!
I’m off to the family’s big Asian dinner as always.
Sadly, no fireworks T.T [watch last year’s here]
We are nearly at the end of our list of 100 Songs of the Decade~~~
Some really great songs on this one, with loads of variety
with music of many genres and different languages.
Two months worth of films to close the year,
let’s hope 2010 brings loads of good ones…
Kinda?
*giggles* sorry, that cover makes me laugh.
It looks like Francophone-DVD distributor Imavision has released the first season. It seems like it’s 10 discs, but I can find no details… I mean, it looks like the first season, but it says the first part, which could be more than the first season… explaining the 10 discs and the expensive price tag.
Also, no info on subtitles or captioning.
This can be purchase through the CBC Shop Online for $59.99 CND (I suppose), at Imavision.com for $69.95 CND, and over at Archambault.ca for $69.99 CND — they do free shipping (international, I dunno) with orders over $39.
They’re a bit pricey. I wonder if I should get someone to get them for me. I expect all DVD material to at least be captioned in its original language… no info here. If anyone does, share!
We are still going backwards with this listing of songs…
I think 2006 and 2007 marked my shift of Asian focus in music. It’s weird, I don’t think it’s about lyrics as I most often than not don’t search for lyric translations. I have just found Asian music to be more “musically” interesting than their Western counterparts.
I once had a throughout conversation with a friend online who lives in Morocco, and is a huge fan of Asian entertainment, and has lost all notion of Western entertainment. I asked him why his interests shifted, and he told me it was because there was a point in his life where everything looked and sounded the same to him.
Others have commented on the topic with regards of idols’ image and the degradation of the business.
With the turn of the new decade, we will see how big the Asian entertainment industry gets. Many will be watching… I will keep an eye on this.
