While getting acquainted with Chulpan Khamatova’s work, I ran into this video clip of the Arbenina’s song Come to Me (ИДИ КО МНЕ) — and I’ve been polishing my non-existent Russian trying to learn how to pronounce that… Idi Ko Mne. If I apply my Spanish, it sounds like Idi Ko Mie.
The thing is… that Making Of was released back in January, and I wasn’t able to find the actual music video, which makes me think it hasn’t been released yet. I’m not used to that. Korea and Taiwan have spoiled me completely.
About a week ago Nat Geo was showing a new episode of Tabu Latinamerica, which happened to focus on food. One of my favorite subjects. Thinking about food makes me hungry. But this is Tabu, so obviously we weren’t going to be talking about regular food. While the episode focused on Mexico and Venezuela, with their talks on eating rata campestre (countryside rat??? not from the sewers of course) soup, and… some kind of tarantula/spider?
Anyway, part of the episode also focused in Peru, where they showed a town called La Quebrada, in Cañete, they prepare cat. I haven’t eaten cat — at least, not knowingly… though once while we were eating rabbit chicharron, we suspected we had been given cat because the “rabbit” was bigger and had more fat in it — but I’ve eaten a lot of other things. Of course, guinea pig is kind of a regular “bizarre” food, and I guess rabbit is bizarre to some people. Suri (the worm) is also tasty when fried (it’s almost like crispy pork skin), as well as an assortment of fishes~ Including the palometa (which I’ve heard it’s a piranha’s cousin LOL) and paiche. Shark’s fin soup and swallow’s nest soup apply.
It’s kind of always been common knowledge that people ate cats in Peru- my family (and I’m sure many other people) often joked about it, it’s like joking about everything being chicken, or eating the insides of animals — horror movies and 4D jokes are perfect. Let me tell you, thank you Afro-Peruvians for developing Anticuchos. As a Peruvian who has finally learned to eat without asking (much), and not judge cultures by my own point of view, it saddens me to see people’s comments. Especially considering that we’re all Latin Americans.
Does it feel good to call other people ignorant, or small-minded? Is it wrong to eat something just because you think it’s your pet? Is it not wrong that we eat cow so easily when Indians see them as gods? We’re eating their gods, sending them to slaughter houses, and people judge these people because they eat their pets in a non-industrialized way. This is kind of the same issue I had with The Cove [1].
I’m not much into fashion, but I ran into this documentary called About Face: The Supermodel, Then and Now, which featured (besides Isabella Rossellini and Christy Turlington) Carmen Dell’Orefice. I was immediately struck by the shape of her face, the lines that form when she’s posing.
Remember the days back back in the day when MTV was about music videos, and they had a show called Making Of the video before premiering a music video? Remember when they used to announce music videos and it was important? I miss those days…
And even though these music video directors talk about the big budgets given to only top artists, it feels like it’s been ages since I’ve liked a western mainstream music video. The Rihannas and Britney Spears don’t impress me — though, I gotta admit, I didn’t mind that Katy Perry music video for Wide Awake.
I don’t mind Lady Gaga, but her last couple of MVs have been lost to me.
There are some other music videos that are not so mainstream that have indeed peaked my interest… but I’m taking my eye candy — all of it — from crack Kpop music videos. Because… you know When Kpop Went Beyond American Pop.
The 2NE1s, Big Bangs, and other idol groups with their glossy and marvelous candy music videos infect my eyes and earworm into my brain. It’s hard for Korea to actually put some emphasis into their creatives and they should, so we must work with them on that. Otherwise… how will people know about directors Hwang Soo Ah and Cha Eun Taek?
Your music videos matter, Korea. Pull yourself together!
You know, Japan is YouTubizing itself. I didn’t know Asmik Ace had a YouTube channel.
ANYWAY, browsing their uploaded videos I found the trailer for Fukushima Hula Girls (がんばっぺ フラガール!), which has narration by Yu-chan… because, you know, she was a Hula Girl. xD
Is that Yu-chan’s voice in the trailer? Coz… she sounds, so different. If I didn’t know she was doing the narration, I wouldn’t know it’s her voice. This is a new voice… different from the one she uses in CMs, her screaming (Shiro, Raiou) voice, and different from her talking voice. Yu-chan is developing her narration voice.
If there’s a DVD with English subtitles, I will get it to support Hula Girls and Fukushima… coz, was this done to support them? Are we donating money with this? I just realized I have no idea. O_O
Cocaine Unwrapped in a documentary by Rachel Seifert on how cocaine consumption affects South America’s production of drugs.
Agency: Leo Burnett London
Production house: Stink
Postproduction studio: Platige Image
Director: Tomek Bagiński
CG Supervisor: Grzegorz Kukuś
Producer: Agata Socha
Art director/Concept Art: Piotr Jabłoński
Compositing: Alan Uran
Rendering: Mateusz Bargiel, Grzegorz Kukuś
Animatic: Damian Nenow
Modellers: Mateusz Gajewski, Artur Owśnicki
Textures: Bartłomiej Walendziak
Additional Technical Director: Mateusz Popławski
Offline: Adam Kałuski
Conforming: Piotr Popielawski
DOP:: Kamil Pohl
Camera assistant: Maciej Żak
Make-up artist: Monika Bagińska
Cast: Karolina Mann
Here’s the Vimeo link. There’s also a YouTube version available.
Oh, I guess I gotta watch NHK all day to get fed all their upcoming series — at least for January. We all knew that Kenichi Matsuyama would be doing this year’s Taiga (Time really does fly!), but who knew Hikari Mitsushima (Love Exposure [1], Sawako Decides, Villain) is ending up on NHK?
The Pioneers, which is wayyyy easier to type than Kaitakushatachi (開拓者たち), showed a small clip while I was watching and seemed pretty good. According to Tokyograph:
A special “documentary drama” mini-series to commemorate the launch of its BS Premium channel and the 40th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between Japan and China. […]
The story is set in the region formerly known as Manchuria and is based on the groups trying to resettle there in the years after the Manchurian Incident. The central characters are a family of four siblings who live there, but who are forced to flee due to the Soviet invasion of the region and Japan’s defeat in World War II. As a result, they return to Japan and attempt to forge a new life on a farm in the Tochigi prefecture.
The clip looked really good. We all know Hikari Mitsushima is a pretty good actress and this seems to be one of those projects. But as anything Japanese, no clips online to embed so I stole these: Continue Reading…
Yu has updated her blog — I think she does it twice a year, ha! Apparently, she’s shooting the live-action Rurouni Kenshin project [1], which no one has shown interest in. Fans of Rurouni Kenshin who aren’t thrilled for a live-action project, and fans of some of the people that are working in the project like Yu-chan, Yosuke Eguchi and Teruyuki Kagawa aren’t happy because it’s Rurouni Kenshin xD
