Archives For documentary/making-of

Oscar Ballot 2020

January 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

I’m probably two weeks ahead, compared to my Ballot posting last year, which means my Independent Spirit Awards ballot is still halfway done, but my Academy voting ballot is pretty complete.

I might end up watching The Two Popes, but all I’m really waiting for to open in theaters is Bombshell (which opens this Thursday), Little Women and 1917. Harriet is never going to open down here, but I really got a soft spot for this type of movies.

I’m really REALLY surprised Girl in the Hallway didn’t make the cut. You can watch the short on Vimeo.

I’m ready to vote! I received the most digital screeners this year so far, so it’s been easier (and it’s made it lazy-proof) to sit through dozens of screeners. Plus, Netflix has a lot of the nominated movies readily available too. This year is possibly my best award season ballot in my history of keeping up with ballots. lol

It’s not only my Spirit Awards ballot~

I also have a pretty complete Oscar ballot. lol

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You know, for a year when I didn’t watch that many movies, I’m doing pretty good. LOL Confession! I haven’t been following award season, it does feel like it’s my second or third year already. I do know that people have been freaking out because all critic guilds and industry guilds have been awarding all different movies.  As the saying goes~ todos parecen más perdidos que cuy en tómbola!

Here’s my Spirit Award one.

Light blue highlights mean watched, hot pink are pending, and green on the queue already.

My favorite competing film this year (so far) is Lady Bird coz it got me in the feels. I wouldn’t mind The Shape of Water winning, though. Considering BAFTA nominations (Producers’ Guild win and Directors’ Guild nom), The Shape of Water does seem to have a love more momentum than actors-backed Three Billboards, and this one also has a strong BAFTA showing.

Fun fact, yo! Darkest Hour, Phantom Thread and Victoria & Abdul are [most likely] the first Chinese-backed films that make it to Oscar. All backed by Perfect World Pictures (北京完美影视传媒) [1].

Wow~ it’s been AGES since I’ve done one of these [1][2][3]. Most likely since The Academy decided to change their one-page printable ballot into a two-page one. But~~~ I feel this is my best watching year in a long time xD

Correction: I did one xD

Mina-san! Genki? Ha!

Forgive the complete absent from the blog recently (two entries last month, and this is the first one this month!), I’ve been generally “more busy” updating the MUBI (the site formerly known as The Auteurs lol) database than even actually keeping up with news (trailers/music) on YAM Magazine or watching movies and shows. I’ve also been occupied watching Korean shows, which tend to make everyone procrastinate. And it’s not like it was priority-watching, either~ I’ve been watching Solar and Eric Nam’s We Got Married episodes, but my favorite watch and re-watches was Mamamoo x GFRIEND’s Showtime.

I don’t actually stan GFRIEND, and I already have biases. Bless.

moonbyul-sinb-new-girl-crush

Bless, SinB. Bless SinB with Moonbyul, Bless New Crush Star. LOL

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I know it’s horrible to say this, but I’ve been wasting a lot of time watching (and re-watching) Mamamoo clips on YouTube — thank you, Mamamoo Trans, Mamamoo Comedy and Rara Dish. You’ve reduced my productivity hours. You guys are awesome and hilarious.

I’ve just re-watched this re-upload of MMMTV from 2014 near Xmas. It’s glorious, I could watch Mamamoo rehearse all those two hours without editing.

My dream is that Marca Peru, who has -for a number of failed years- tried to lure Asian tourist into the marvelous sights of our country, will get in touch with Mamamoo, pay them their sponsor fees on top of 3 months to tour the WHOLE country. Eat (weird things, among others)… because turns out Mamamoo girls love choncholi~ though they say they love “intestine soup” (it sounds to me like ‘desang tang’ but I couldn’t find the actual name of the dish) and we eat intestines more like their Gopchang Gui (곱창구이) counterpart.

Imagine three months of Mamamoo travel adventures sailing the Amazon river, sand-boarding, visiting the sea lions of Paracas, visiting Machu Picchu; eating anticuchos, choncholi, picarones, all our varieties of ceviche (conchas negras ‘black conch,’ paiche), Arequipa soups, Juanes, Tacacho with cecina, high on sugar of perfect manjar blanco, suspiro a la limeña, and enchant them with a their daily dose of Queso Helado (‘frozen cheese’ that is not literally frozen cheese, but just milk and cinnamon ice cream). Just feed Mamamoo and let them be hyperactive, record it and present it as a 15-episode variety program of cross-cultural integration between Marca Peru and the Visit Korea program.

End the thing with a small unplugged concert. Ta-da! Broadcast tourism program~

Or we can just get Donnie Yen.

*dies*

It really kills me that this movie is opening a few days after my birthday, and I can’t watch it. WHY DO YOU GUYS DO THIS TO ME?

Sidenote: The Fitoor promotions have brought some interesting interview bits with Tabu- like she wants to be part of Golmaal 4 (I haven’t seen Golmaal, but that’s a Rohit Shetty movie, so… xD), she’s fishing for a comedy, she likes David Dhawan’s type of comedies (which are so 90s comedy style type of not my thing), and wants to do a movie with Govinda… who, if I recall correctly, actually doesn’t like many of the 90s comedy movies he did xD

Comedy is such a particular genre, so difficult to please people.

My type of comedy, I’ve found out, is in the realm of Roxana Avalos, Rosalind Russell, and Sandra Ng. I laugh quite a bit with Hong Kong/Chinese comedies.

I think certain someones -who work for Shiseido- could be out of a job xD

There’s a great (though rather longish) commercial titled The Secret of High School Girls (メーク女子高生のヒミツ) that pretty much shows how good Shiseido makeup can be- or, in this case, I think you have to give props to the makeup artists, no?

Great concept.

Apparently the CM shoot took 7hrs., and it’s a one-shot take, so big props to the makeup and hair team [Tadashi Harada (原田忠), Yoshiko Jinguji (神宮司芳子), Yumiko Kamada (鎌田由美子), Hirofumi Kera (計良宏文), Etsu Nishijima (西島悦), Miyako Okamoto (岡元美也子), Noriko Okubo (大久保紀子), Setsuko Suzuki (鈴木節子)], who had to work on still-shooting mode.

Directed by Show Yanagisawa (柳沢翔) [Portfolio] for WATTS OF TOKYO (ワッツオブトーキョー).

Here’s a short Making Of.

source: MyNavi, Shiseido

Well~ that was a LONG process. Buth ere it is, after nearly four months of movie-watching and voting… the YAM Magazine team’s favorite movies of this decade so far~ Hope you find one you like, discover one… and that we included some of your favorites!

yammag-best-decade-so-far

Do your thing~

Oh, Happy Chinese New Year! Let’s start my (supposedly) bad-luck Goat Year with the now-mandatory Letterboxd list of my film collection~

amys-film-collection-letterboxd

I have a really weird history with films– born in the late 80s, you’d think I would’ve grown watching loads of 90s kids stuff, but I actually grew up with a lot of Silly Symphonies (which were released in the 30s) and loads of Disney 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s stuff, plus a lot of more grown up 80s movies. Poltergeist, The Thing, The Fly and The Stuff were particularly scary stuff (and I’m pretty sure I was scared of yogurt or white stuff at some point).

I don’t ever remember buying any original VHS tape, except for the rare birthday gift of a Disney’s Sing-Along Songs chapter or that X-Men tape I have. My first DVDs buys were Coyote Ugly, She’s All That and Loser — you can’t blame me. I was a 15-year-old girl. The collection grew bigger, and possibly exploded during my years abroad. I’m nearing my 500th movie.