Archives For Moving Media

First things first~~

I found another Yu Aoi article that talks about her role on Ikechan and voice-acting. It seems to quote a bit on this previous interview, but there also seems to be a bit of extra info, can’t be sure since I just skimmed-Google-translate it. We are in need of proper translations for this and the previous articles (trust me, you don’t want to rely on my Japanese LOL).

I also ran into this piece of info. I know it’s late, LOL’

Gakuya - Dressing Room - Poster

It’s a stage drama/play/theater piece… whatever your choice of noun is, called Gakuya – or as it translates Dressing Room – alongside Kyoko Koizumi, Nozomi Muraoka, and Eri Watanabe. It ran from May 10th to June 14th (again, sorry for the tardiness xD) – any Japanese fans seen it?? It would be awesome to get comments on that… or even a synopsis xD

Gakuya - Dressing Room - Cast

— July 1st EDIT —

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I was looking back on music videos this past weekend (which, by the way marked amy-wong.com’s 4th anniversary) because I was watching Michael Jackson music videos and thinking “wow, how come I don’t like watching music videos now” – at least I don’t watch videos of most music I listen to in English, though I’m generally impressed with Asian Pop Music Videos.

When I was little, well… a pre-teen and teenage girl fuzzing about the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears with my friends at school, I began to notice director’s names. MTV (which I pretty much used to watch almost 24/7) used to show the Name of the Song + Name of the Artist + Name of Album + Name of Director. They did this until the beginning of 2002 or 2003 when the Director’s name suddenly disappeared from the credits. I dunno if it’s back, and I dunno if it was because I just went to Canada. LOL

One of the first names I noticed was, of course, Nigel Dick.

If I could describe Nigel Dick’s style of music-video-making when I was a kid, I would say “simply brilliant” – not because I was naive and didn’t really know much about the business, but because his videos were simple, but yet so full of life. Perhaps, the easiest way to show it is with a simple video such as Oasis’ Wonderwall.

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While there’s on-going filming in Europe, there’s more news about Juri’s brand new WOWOW drama titled Ueno Juri and the Five Bags – though I wonder if there will be a title change or addition~~

Juri Ueno and the Five Bags

WOWOW is quickly positioning on my to-watch list (now, if only they decided to release their subbed dramas and films) – and on the vein of series like Camouflage, which I still haven’t watched subbed – comes this mini-series (since it’s only 5-episodes long) telling the story of 5 different characters and directed by 5 different directors, including Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda Linda Linda, Camouflage), Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet) and Takuma Takasaki (Honokaa Boy).

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Dr. Koto's Clinic

I began watching Dr. Koto’s Clinic – well, kind of for obvious reasons – Anyhoo~ I decided to begin watching from the very beginning. To tell you the truth, I was about to give up watching the whole show (first season) once or twice… but the little kids and the whole blood donating episode kept me going. Takehiro-kun was sooooo cute. LOL’ (and he was also on Yoshitsune xD)

I was teary, once or twice… I’m a sap, people should know by now. I love crying, but it’s got to be a good cry~~~ my favorite episode was the one with Aki-ojii – even though the episode titles were… well, a little blunt. It was a great episode dealing with death in a pretty realistic way. I was tired of so many successful operations to be frank.

Acting was pretty good, though there were times I couldn’t stand some characters (including Dr. Koto/Goto (Hidetaka Yoshioka) himself, lol), but that’s hardly an acting problem, and more of a character thing – I loved Ayaka (Kou Shibasaki), though. Especially when she begins realizing she’s falling for the doctor. She’s pretty hilarious, and at the same time she can break your heart. Like when Rika (Ayumi Ito) comes back, and Ayaka tells Dr. Koto how the both of them used to make boys cry. LOL’

All characters had their moment though, so I’m looking forward to the Specials… as well as Season 2.

Anyway, why Harmony, you would wonder? It’s because I can’t seem to get away from my first official ship. No matter what the series is, what the movie is… it always gets a Harmony comparison.
I love it and hate it.

Ayaka is a balancing force to Dr. Koto, while Saki knows who Goto is as a doctor, he has to prove himself with Ayaka to show her the real him, and she gets to see this of him. She’s not fuzzing over the Dr. who’s come to the island, but she’s flustered for the caring and kind man he is. Ayaka is always by Goto’s side, even when everyone believed the news article, Ayaka stood by him (alongside Wada-san) – can’t get more Trio than that. LOL

She takes a hit when Saki comes to visit, and all the guys fuzz about this doctor with short hair that looks like a model or an air-hostess… and even a bigger blow when people start saying Dr. Koto might marry Saki because they have a kid together. LOL’ Oh the rumors! xD Poor Ayaka, people think she stands no chance against Saki, she is after all just a plain island nurse, but she hangs in there. And that one scene almost by the end, when Ayaka realizes Goto is in the boat, and then he sees her – UGH, it’s exactly like that walking down the stairs and all I see is you thing. *sighs* but Koto’s totally daft, and she’s just content he’s back.

Did you know? Because I didn’t…

I caught the repeat of Part 1 yesterday night – actually, I almost lost it (so you can imagine how my friend Julz felt when she actually saw Yossy live by chance) – ANYHOO~

Back on topic~

NHK (World Premium) is airing Part 2 this coming week:
Wed. July 1st @ 9am-9.29am (Japan Standard Time. -14hrs)
Fri. Jul 3rd @ 9.30pm-9.59pm (JST -14hrs)

Not feeling it though… O.o
Are you?

[iframe width=”560″ height=”349″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/ioZCEpRLpxo?rel=0″]

This just in via InsidetheGold and TheEnvelope

The next Oscars derby will be more heated – and crowded. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences just announced that the best picture race will now include 10 contenders instead of the usual five.

I don’t know what to feel. On one side, I feel sort of happy that there will be more films to be included as Best Picture – on the other hand, I think it’s a very bad idea. On a voting-side, having 10 nominees means that each film has a 10% chance… the film that get’s over 10% has the better chance of winning. Let’s say the Academy has 5000 members (just saying…) that means only 500 votes.

I also don’t like the number 10 for nominations. Seems to chunky a list. LOL

I would be very happy with the decision of making it 10 Best Picture nominees, if the rules for foreign films were to change, and all countries are allowed to send more than one film. Moreover, independent films should be included or at least get a chance against big studios who spend tons of dollars to promote it just for Award Season. Otherwise, we’ll just end up with a 10 big studio film list. What’s up with that?

Looks pretty good, I must admit.

We’re almost about to finish up with June – still haven’t reached 20 films listed on 2009 @ IMDb… and I’m still way short on my quota to be legible on my own awards.

I thought it’d be interesting to see how this works, so I grabbed the IMDb Power Search Tool and looked for all films listed on IMDb following this criteria:

  • All films must have over 50 votes on the site (you know, just to make the list shorter)
  • I must have voted it over 6.

So I made my list of the regular categories – All acting categories, best animated feature, best director and best picture – without caring about the language they’re in. Just a reminder~~~ this year’s awards should include all categories except for Documentaries and shorts~~~

Here are the ones of the would’ve beens of films released on 2000 – Oscar 2001 –

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First, see it for yourself~~~

https://youtu.be/TCg1RYahEG4

Now, I wasn’t to OMGWTFGOD when I saw the film. I liked it… I thought it was okay. The thing that I loved was singing that Ponyo song with the little girlPonyo, Ponyo sakana no ko!!! – Plus, Juri sings it too and that made me laugh so hard. I just had to mentioned that… just so you could see that part of the charm of the film is THAT song. This is why I think this trailer fails, makes it look all epic and sh!t… it is kinda, but it’s mostly cute.

People will feel mislead. I can feel it in the air… and critics will bash it as childish.