Category: Moving Media

  • Mandatory Oscar Watchlist

    Except for the mandatory appreciation for Boyhood (the Patricia Arquette show) and Whiplash, which had me contorting from all the conflictive feelings, I’m feeling rather lukewarm with this year’s award season as you can see from my 2014 Films Ranked compared to my Academy Award Watchlist.

    oscars-2014-2015-nominations-watchlist

    Hot pink is watched, light blue on to-watched queue, highlighted in green haven’t been found yet. My excuse for lack of documentaries and shorts is because of access. I find them extra difficult to get. Also, any respectable award show needs the presence of Haider. LOL And I could do a LOT LESS from Clint Eastwood. I’m not even one of those complaining for lack of women behind/in front of the camera, the nominees are just so damn BLAH! except for the few couple of surprises- some spice with Marion Cotillard (even though I don’t feel strongly about the movie), Ida and Mr. Turner in cinematography… and The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

  • Welcome Back, Nic~

    I think it’s been a long time since people saw Nicole Kidman being so damn cute, funny and… I suppose, relaxed. In some strange parallel universe, there is a Nicole Kidman that has been giggling for the past ten years with her alternate universe relationship to Jimmy Fallon.

    If you didn’t like her, Fallon made you like Kidman. If you don’t like him, she made you like him.

  • Han Hong, You Are THE Singer~

    Happy 2015!

    Let’s begin the new year with the latest season of China’s version of I Am Singer, where THE VOICE Han Hong is participating… kicking ass and taking names in the evening, ugly crying [1] and all. She knows the stage.

  • Adelina Sotnikova Still Deserved Gold~

    ESPN has been re-broadcasting the best bits of the Sochi Olympics, and in true Winter Olympics nature, la creme de la creme of winter sports is usually women’s skating. It’s hard to pin-point what the most popular event at the Summer Olympics is (is it football? volleyball?), but the women who skate are the queens of the gala.

    This year, there was a rather nasty controversy between eventual Gold-medalist Adelina Sotnikova (back then only 17) and eventual Silver-medalist and retiring Kim Yuna. The name-calling online got ugly and tiring, proving once again that -as a general rule- fans can suck so much. I can imagine what a cesspool YouTube commenting would be like if it didn’t require Gmail account linkups.

    As far as the skating goes, I was dazzled when Kim Yuna won Gold at the Vancouver Olympics, where she skate for her life with such delicacy and grace. In Sochi, though, as much as she could have been pitch perfect in technique (we all do admit skating looks effortlessly when she does it), I was a bit bored. Then again, I’m just a fan who’s never picked up a pair of ice-skates in her life. I’ve never seen a frozen lake or ever stepped on an ice rink before. I’m just mostly disappointed of her fans.

    Sotnikova’s choreography, however, surprised me the first time I saw it, and still manages to thrill me to no end. During my second time watching, I thought I might have been influenced by the ESPN Latino commentator who was pretty darn excited with her program, so I decided to look it up-

    Still gives me the chills.

  • Mavis is Immediately Back~

    Mavis Fan’s fans (no pun intended) rejoice! She’s got three songs out this year, making a comeback since 2009 with Immediately (當下, Dang Xia). Obviously, the East doesn’t give a flying fish about End of the Year lists or the Holiday season, that’s why they keep releasing stuff- business like usual. xD

    mavis-fan-dang-xia
    Sorry, US-based users. I was only able to find the songs on Xiami. I know, geoblocks suck. But, as far as I know, the songs aren’t available anywhere else -even on iTunes TW- because it seems like a Xiami exclusive release.

    –EDIT JAN 20–

    I wasn’t aware that Mavis had added this free download link on her website.

  • Happy New Year Goes VOD or DTF!

    Farah Khan’s and Shahrukh Khan’s latest Happy New Year [Español] just hit the market officially with VOD… or as they’re calling it DTF (Direct to Fans), which is less technical and much more personal. It’s also way cheaper than regular VOD too, which usually charges $5USD per one-time stream or 4-5-day rental. You basically get to download the movie for that price. I’m just supposing it’s subtitled (being aimed at all markets except India and China), but I could be supposing erroneously [1].

    happy-new-year-vod-dtf

    No cons, just pros really. It would have been much cooler and much more trailblazing if this had happened on opening week (or the week later), but it’s something. I’m just hoping UTV (EROSNOW had its one moment with the pretty horrible Lekar Hum Deewana Dil) gets their shit together with the distribution of films like Haider and PK, really because those two are my bias at the moment. Imagine if more European and other big Asian movies did the same. Isn’t THAT what they want? Piece of the Hollywood pie? You need to indoctrinate people first, get them on the habit of watching you. Hollywood’s been doing this to us for the past 70 years.

    Here’s the link.

  • Girls Who (Punk) Rock: Vi Är Bäst!

    A double feature with Lukas Moodysson’s Vi Är Bäst! (We Are the Best!) and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Linda Linda Linda. Because~ Why not? RIGHT?

    vi-ar-bast-we-are-the-best

  • Mahiro Maeda’s Nishi-Ogikubo Animation Short

    Honey, I Shrunk the Kids meets Metamorphosis meets Eega.

    Untitled-1

    It’s pretty awesome. You can watch it on AnimatorExpo.com

  • It’s End of the Year Voting Season!

    Oh, who am I kidding. What I love about the end of the year is all the Best Of lists, rankings and voting. Expect my annual Top50 Songs of 2014, My fave movies of the year, and My fave local 2014 releases. I might even have enough material for a 2014 Music Highlights.

    We started voting early on the YAM Magazine lounge because we are all lobbying for our favorite films, and prepping our personal End of the Year lists. I’m the most serious of all because lists can only matter when you grab the biggest possible sample. Not watching Indian movies meant that I wasn’t watching roughly 30-35% of the worldwide output.

    So this is my first year online voting for Indian movies! I actually kinda like how MANY categories there are for actors to get a nod. LOL They don’t always make sense (Superstar of Tomorrow, hahahahaha and the Male Thriller/Action is quite rubbish), but I’m generally happy when I get to vote for Tabu, Madhuri and Rani without much conflict. So~ YEAH!

    stardust-votes

    You can vote here.

  • Let’s Talk About Sex with Ranveer

    For the International HIV/AIDS day, Ranveer Singh (ever the sexy) got together with MTV India and Durex to try to demystify sex in the country, where the topic is usually completely hush-hush or chup-chup. He’s straight-forward, candid, sexy, funny… and gets to awkward moments when he conjures the images of everyone’s parents creating us. Though, he does have a point.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SFTkE-Zzuo

    It’s been a while already – over six months, to be exact – my quiverations for Ranveer are still pretty consistent. Like, he seems completely changed, focus and serious funny in the latest Anupama Chopra interview he had where he even makes her laugh. Polka dotted suit and all. His last test will be sitting on a couch with Arjun Kapoor and NOT BE THIS EVER AGAIN.

    I do enjoy where his personality brand is going.