Sridevi’s lovely crowd-pleasing English Vinglish is going to Japan [Trailer, if you don’t believe me], and for a moment there I thought they might actually super-dub it [1] but no~ Japan is getting it subbed after 3 Idiots got a nod for Best Foreign Film in the last edition of the Japanese Academy Awards. For promotions of the film, they want to use this image of her 1993 film Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja:
OH~ GODDDDDDDD
And it’s serious too- like, they totally mean to promote EV with Sridevi in yellow-face without a hint of irony. I wonder what Japanese people would think other than “oh, these silly foreigners,” I don’t know who the audience for the film is in Japan, somehow I don’t picture Japanese housewives going to watch a non-Japanese non-Hollywood (ft. Depp or DiCaprio or Pitt or Cruise) flick with subtitles, but maybe I’m underestimating them.
For casual watchers of “this is Chinese/Japanese/Korean” arguments online or real life, Sridevi’s attire though wanting to be Japanese is obviously more Chinese-inspired, like Disney’s Mulan’s match-making attire wanting to be Chinese but obviously Japanese-inspired.
I was being a diligent updater and news reporter when I ran into my first Indian boyband.
Admittedly, I clicked on the link because I was curious with the name Meiyang Chang [1] in the Sony Music India channel… which is how I saw this version of Azul Azul’s La Bomba [MV] LOL
My first reaction to it was, of course, to wonder whether that would be sustainable and durable. Cars (and trucks!) driving by solar panels every single time? That’s apparently the first thing in people’s minds, so they’ve assured us “Solar Roadways is a modular paving system of solar panels that can withstand the heaviest of trucks (250,000 pounds).”
And things get even more exciting~
They have many other features as well, including: heating elements to stay snow/ice free, LEDs to make road lines and signage, and attached Cable Corridor to store and treat stormwater and provide a “home” for power and data cables. EVs will be able to charge with energy from the sun (instead of fossil fuels) from parking lots and driveways and after a roadway system is in place, mutual induction technology will allow for charging while driving.
It’s basically a giant led screen -that charges itself- on the floor for signage (no more painting and paving!) and heating for snow and ice! I wonder how it does with floods and scorching heat, though. Imagine the system going down after a massive rain or overflowing of a nearby river… tropical storm or tsunami. Or the overheating of the floor, ending up in flames or melted shoes (or tires).
Did I ever tell you about the time that my sneakers melted when I was doing sandboard?
Well, this is a completely unexpected collaboration. I’m not completely feeling the English lyrics added to the EPIK HIGH cover, I think it would’ve made more sense if they had added Mandarin instead. However, I bet I would be complaining about how pedestrian the lyrics in Chinese are. LOL So I’ll settle.
Instead~ look at how awkward the vibe of the Making Of is at the beginning, and how they all sort of become dorks by the end of it. xD It’s even more funny if you’ve EVER been the only person in a room that doesn’t speak a language –in this case Korean– and then sort of blurt out a nodding affirmation in said language.
On Friday (May 16th), my Yu Aoi fandom turned six. Nobody congratulated me because I didn’t post anything special… but here’s a picture of Yu-chan with whiskers! If I’m not mistaken, it should be a shot featured on the Jul’2010 issue of H Magazine.
Despite the slowdown, it looks like 2014 might be a bit more active than it has been :) at least, maybe since 2010. The biggest activities will, of course, be surrounding the release of Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends, which will open in August and September respectively.
A film cut of Zipang Punk hit theaters in March [1], and Haru wo Seotte [1] will be opening next month.
On the TV front, Yu will also be appearing in FujiTV’s remake of Wakamono-tachi (若者たち) that will begin airing in July with a really impressive cast that includes Satoshi Tsumabuki (back on TV since NHK’s Taiga), Eita, Hikari Mitsushima, and Ai Hashimoto.
Plus, she’s an addition to the (second) season of Mozu — though it seems to be following the WOW/TBS formula done for Double Face — titled Mozu Season 2 – Maboroshi no Tsubasa (MOZU Season 2 ～幻の翼) that will last five episodes that follows three detectives (Hidetoshi Nishijima, Teruyuki Kagawa, and Yoko Maki) on their quest to get a contract killer known as Mozu. The show will begin airing on June 22nd.
I’ve been binging on Madhuri Dixit clips once again because it’s her birthday! I’ve been watching her clips from Devdas multiple times just tonight- I think this is the first time I decided to search for the clips in the best resolution possible. This is the first time I catch the EROSNOW 1080 clips, so I just noticed how cleaned up the image is- like, this is the first time I’m seeing the Devdas print without the orange tint. LOL
So… if EROS has the cleaned up print in high resolution~~~ why the heck aren’t they’re releasing it on Bluray already? I’ve only seen the film once, but it looks odd without the weird coloring… like they cleaned it up and color corrected it wrong. xD Anyway, I’ve settled for a lot of Hindi DVDs already — the YRF DVDs are particularly decent — but I won’t settle for less from Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Being able to just stream the movie is not enough either!
Because look at her! She owns it, and you sorta wish SRK wasn’t overacting so much in it because he’s ruining my mood in here. And I’ve learned to love SRK, but come on!
So… I thought I was wrong [1], but now I’m not so sure.
One of my pet-peeves with Indian cinema (and Chinese… and Russian) is when some sort of dubbing is involved. The Russians, of course, are the worst offenders of that when they just slap some Russian over-dubbed without even caring if it’s a man talking over a female character. It’s not even like it’s properly dubbed, it’s just lazily slapped onto the original track without even lowering the audio.
Then the Chinese mess around with you because you got Hong Kong actors that don’t necessarily speak proper Mandarin working with Mainland actors who wouldn’t necessarily speak proper Cantonese (or at all). The result? You don’t exactly know which one is the original audio track. The way I go about it is to choose always Cantonese when film is set in Hong Kong, and go for Mandarin in most epics. Anything historical epic HK production pre-97 also gets the Cantonese favoritism. xD
India has suchhhhhh an array of languages that I’m not entirely familiar with that it would mean little to choose one language over the other, unless you’re bothered with lips syncing. Though Hindi now sounds familiar, I must admit. What bothers me is that I get accustomed to people’s voices. It seems people in India find certain voices more appealing than others, and could -in a whim- dubbed you over. One of the reasons I can’t stand Ghulam is because it bothers me that Rani’s dubbed voice doesn’t match my idea of Rani.
Tabu has done a bit of non-Hindi films, and though her acting can be epic- Telugu dubbing, man. I know and I like Tabu’s voice, and it freaks me out a little how different the dubbing voice can be. As a general dubbing rule, companies tend to go for voices that are similar to the original audio… or they go for someone with a similar flare. Not generally in Indian cinema.
All this talk is because I found a clip of Vidya Balan from Urumi, for which I complained that they probably dubbed their voices. However, in the clip, it sounds… almost like Vidya. For a very long moment I thought it was her, until I read the comments… now, I’m not sure. LOL
If it’s dubbed, it’s the best dubbed I’ve seen. It’s a Japanese super-dub!
If it’s Vidya’s voice, she apparently speaks perfect Malayalam for the movie.
… or what I think it’s an upcoming issue of Filmfare, anyway.
I just ran into this lovely photo from the Filmfare editor’s Twitter account [1][2], and if you zoom into the images, you sorta can read those first two pages. Otherwise, I did a search and found nothing yet. According to the main quote, the most note-worthy thing Tabu said was “Apart from a child, a man can give me diamonds,” which is not, considering that she says she wanted to learn ballet. Now THAT is interesting!
In general, prima ballerinas are thought to be small… though that is apparently changing now that people are taller. Imagine a danseur that is 5’11 or 6 feet tall with a prima ballerina that is only 5’2. If Tabu had problems with her height in an industry that could pull off camera tricks, I can’t imagine if she had follow through with ballet.
Other notable comments from the images were the ones she made about her moving from Hyderabad to Mumbai. It’s interesting because it goes so in contrast to her early interviews. And she hasn’t read Shakespeare. I hated reading unfiltered-yet-translated Shakespeare in school. LOL Anyway, having said all of that, Haider is really one of my anticipated films this year :)
Oh-oh, and she wants to do an action film where she does her stunts. While watching Jai Ho, I wanted her to go all Mama Bear before she had to call Salman- like, THAT would have made the movie actually a lot better. It wouldn’t have made sense with anything in her current backstory, but they could’ve made it work. Tabu just hitting bad guys.
If FIFA’s World Cup is making me choose between Pitbull and Ricky Martin. Okay, I’ll take this~
NHK got Shiina Ringo to make a song for their coverage of the event, and that’s all we need to know. I’m not sure what’s the coverage is gonna be like down here (cable or networks), but I’m sure we’re stuck with Pitbull.
I just knew songs were gonna suck when they started announcing the social media contests to “create the song” for the World Cup. Cheap music will always be cheap.
I ran into this deleted clip of the Rapid Fire Madhuri and Juhi did for Karan. I wonder how it’s decided what questions or answers make it onto the show. Madhuri kept being her usual diplomatic self, especially that answer about who’s the best dancer- it does make me wonder~ I do know that she could totally pull off most dance numbers in most movies most of the times…
Post-Madhuri, I haven’t seen any actress being able to pull off what Madhuri was able to give to the screen… though Aishwarya came close for a while back there. However, there are… on rare occasions… when a choreography is so full of energy from a particular actress that it seems only that actress can pull that number alone. I’m not HUGE on Deepika, but post-Cocktail she improved quite dramatically and she sorta impressed me with Nagada Sang Dhol [clip] – a part of me wants to see whether Madhuri could pull that number right now. It’s the stamina involved.
And though I’m pretty sure the track has been sped up, Discowale Disco [clip] and Dil Bole Hadippa [clip] could also prove a bit of a challenge. But… could Madhuri pull off the funny swag that Rani put into Bhangra Bistar [1]? Ha! I’d LOVE to see that~
Anyway, going back to the clip~ I do think Juhi’s questions were a lot more difficult and expose her a bit more, especially the one asking her about who she considers a current sexy actor, what would happen if a younger co-star would hit on her, and the impact that marriage (and kids) can have in people’s (specifically women) careers. People have also been milking the “rivalry” that should have, so there’s been a lot of focus on Juhi’s character. It shows… err- the shades of her as a person. She’s not the super human that exudes confidence and always has an opinion on anything- she seems like a human being that has had insecurities throughout her life in an industry that heightens everything, and she’s had to lived under that microscope.
In theory, it should bother me… but I find her oddly endearing. Juhi makes me feel like I want to give her a hug, and ALWAYS hope for the best for her. The other day when I found out she voted “for the first time,” my reaction was… “Juhi, you’re in your forties, I can’t believe this is the first time you vote.” LOL Though voting is mandatory down here [two 2-round presidential votes, one for city mayor and one to kick out the major LOL], I do have a really strong sense of politics. I’m the snotty late-twenty-something talking to the thirty-somethings and forties about South and North American politics (I’m a little fuzzy in Central American dealings), East Asian, English, and West European politics.
And I do have too many older friends.
I wonder what it’s like to be Juhi Chawla’s friend. Sipping a cup of coffee or tea and chat.
