Archives For Films

So more piracy talk~~~

September 15, 2009 — 4 Comments

So now French users can be (can be, under the current law) banned from using the internet for up to a year, if they are caught downloading illegal music, and a fine of 300k Euros. [AFP] Oh, my! And apparently, Sweden is also monitoring user download activity? Any word on that, Julz~?

There was also this article talking about a DRM server the Japanese RIAA wants to use to check on the music their users are playing on their phones… considering we (iTunes users) have already moved away from DRM tracks, I think it’s a very bad idea…

And then comes this very interesting post/article by dear Lily Allen for The Times, in which she expresses some of her thoughts  about the issue, and the opinion of some of her more “legendary” colleagues…

Music piracy is having a dangerous effect on British music, but some rich and successful artists such as Nick Mason, of Pink Floyd, and Ed O’Brien, of Radiohead, don’t think so. Last week, they told The Times that file sharing is fine. It probably is for them. They do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world. For new talent, though, file sharing is a disaster — it makes it harder and harder for new acts to emerge.

That’s partly true. But so it’s this…

By moving to a microtransaction model (charging <£1 for an album) for recorded music and increasing the emphasis on live concerts musicians can increase their revenue stream and attempt to reduce the abuse of their IP.

I understand what Lily Allen is saying, but the music industry spends too much money on advertising and pushing poor catchy music.

If your product is so good, then it does not need advertising or pushing.

Itunes and other sites are still overpriced in terms of album costs.

Books survived the photocopier, music will survive the internet. Real musicians have realised concerts are more of a money spinner and are have brought live music back to the front of entertainment.

As I’ve mentioned before, I watch as many films, and listen to even more music than I ever did. I still buy CDs, but only the really good ones. The ones that are worth my $14 for album/DVD package. Right now, they just happen to be Asian albums… which actually are worth my +$30. So I am paying $30 or $40 for a CD from Japan because it’s good. Wanna wonder why I haven’t bought much from anything else?

And yes, digital content is way overpriced.

It’s 35 films this year! Woohoo! Well, not much to celebrate since some of those were really REALLY bad, but they count for the movie countdown~~~
In the meantime, I’ve decided to put my list of Best 2001 films.

It was really difficult to choose some, as I seem to not have seen many 2001 films, so many of my nominees are the same as the Oscar, I feel. Remembering the films made me remember about the first time I actively waited for the Oscar. I mean, the event in itself was something I did, but that year was the year I said I’m gonna watch the Oscar to see who will win. American Beauty won that year, as did Kevin Spacey and The Matrix. 1999 Films, wow~~~ I was 13 going on 14.

Anyway~ without further ado~~~

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Let’s Pimp some Shugo~

September 11, 2009 — 1 Comment

Shugo Oshinari is freaking 28 years old! WTF, man!
He’s almost 30, looks in his early 20s still and totally lacks fangirls.
And I mean like “good” fangirls the ones who work hard
to get whatever scans, whatever movie, and work on whatever needs subbing. LOL
You can’t really find many good scans, screencaps…
etc, etc… everything fandoms love to fuzz about.

Shugo Oshinari

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More Japan at the Oscar?

September 10, 2009 — Leave a comment

Kawaii Joyuu is reporting that Japan has just chosen Dare mo Mamotte Kurenai (Nobody to Watch Over Me) to represent them in the next race for the Academy Awards. If they are successful, Japan would win Best Foreign Film for the 2nd time in a row, which would be awesome. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’m skeptical…

They are also reporting a possible Oscar nod for Mirai Shida… which I’m a little even more skeptical.

First of all, it’s way too early to predict anything considering studios have decided to start late this year, meaning that “most” Academy contenders will be released in November and December. Except for films like Precious (aka. Push) or An Education which premiered at Sundance, it will all be about keeping momentum during new Academy releases season.

Then, as we all know the Academy lurvs English speaking. It is very rare for a non-English lead role to win… It’s happened twice in the Lead Actress category (and once? in Lead Actor with Benigni) with Sophia Loren for Two Women (which I recently saw, *swoon*) and my dear Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose~~~

I’m getting excited with this future Oscar race~~~

This week I was thinking about making a compilation of 20 actors (women and men) between the ages of 20-25 to keep track until they’re 30. I tried writing the post today, but it turns out I don’t have many names. Ha! First, some of the people I was considering adding to the list are 26, or not even 20… or are already in their 30s, which is great for them since I thought they were in their 20s… not so good for my list.

At the moment though, I have 8 actresses already picked out. However, I’m missing 2 more actresses. And I’m missing all of the guys (10). HAHAHAHA. So I need help. Leave a comment with some names of young actors/actresses.

Just some things to keep in mind…

  • must be between 20-25, can also be turning 20 this year.
  • must have more than one or two films on her/his CV.
  • too much TV and only 1 film doesn’t count.
  • award recognition is nice, but not mandatory.

As I add the people in single posts, I’ll be adding their names here and linking. :)

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Well, long time no see, eh?

It’s been nearly 4 or 5 months since our last discussion, and I really thought there’d be more people discussing Tekkonkinkreet, but alas~ No one has commented on it. If you have just discovered Yu Aoi (either through Osen, or a random watch of either Hana & Alice, One Million Yen Girl or Lily Chou Chou) and have been hit in the face with like a meteor, I invite you to watch Tekkon as well. Any animation fan won’t really regret it.

Anyway, we’re here to discuss Don’t Laugh at my Romance, or Sex is no Laughing Matter or Hito no SEKKUSU~~~ whatever your pick on names is.

First a little about the film~
Don’t Laugh at my Romance is a 2008 film adaptation of the the novel by Naocola Yamazaki, directed and sort of adapted by Nami Iguchi. It is about a 19-year-old student (Matsuyama) who falls in love/lust with his lithography teacher (Hiromi Nagasaku) at university, though he isn’t aware that his friend and classmate (Yu Aoi) is quite fond of him.

Genre: Dramedy with Romance
Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Hiromi Nagasaku, Yu Aoi, Shugo Oshinari, Yoichi Nukumizu
Duration: a little over +2hrs

Beware! Possible film spoilers~~~

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idsgn has a post on how Film Titles have evolved since its early days.

Of course if you read many of the posts here, you know about Forget the Film, Watch the Titles, as well as The Art of the Title Sequence. I don’t really need to explain them, right? Their names are pretty specific~~~

But how about The Movie Title Stills Collection?

And just so this post gets more hits haha,
let’s add some Yu Aoi pimping! She’s been tweeted!
And people are buzzing “Yu Aoi dressed up dude-like in the new issue of so-en”
– which I sorta blogged here.

Here are more photos of the photos of it!

Jurassic Park Poster

Oh,yes~

Jurassic Park made a huge impact on me. Mainly because I saw it as a kid, and was amazed after the theaters that 1. I had a nightmare with a T-Rex… or more specifically, the eye of the T-Rex. LOL and 2. I wanted to be a paleontologist for at least 3 years of my life. Because of Jurassic Park and those scary Velociraptors I went to see Jurassic Park II three times at the theater – hahahaha.

But come on, you can’t hold that against me. After all, I also watched Jumanji twice at the theaters.

I think those were some of the factors that made me want to get into 3D and Special Effects – You know, since I was also blown away by Michael Jackson music videos xD. I think it was that first scene in which you see the Brachiosaurus coming out of the lake with the amazing John Williams piece. It’s just magical, almost like you were actually in the film because they saw something that didn’t exist right there, and we saw something on screen that was never before~~~

Of course, now I know very little about dinosaurs because I’ve forgotten everything that I studied. I only faintly remember about Sauropods because I did my presentation on them when I was like 10 years old. So it all is just a faint reminder that I once was a Dino-kid xD

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An animated short about a cat who goes on a journey to save her lady-cat friend who’s been kidnapped to form part of The Piano Cat. Pretty awesome, especially the last part of the short. And it kinda gave me the feel of Moulin Rouge xD with the typewriter and all. Give it a look~

Directed by Eddie White & Ari Gibson

July + August Films~

September 3, 2009 — Leave a comment

Let’s see how the movie count goes~
shall we?

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