Tag: musings

  • Sridevi’s Comeback at the IIFA 2013

    After watching Fanaa a few weeks ago, I thought I might continue the Indian adventure with Tabu. Then, I watched Devdas — still unimpressed with Aishwarya Rai’s acting prowess and totally committed to watching Indian films because I can write hers and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s names without googling now HUZZAH! — and was struck by Madhuri Dixit (no googling!) and her amazing “hooker with a heart of gold.” In fact, my favorite scene in Devdas is probably her dance duo with Aishwarya. And Bhansali’s films are still such a beauty to see. Sighs.

    Then, when I thought I might head the Madhuri Dixit road, I watch English Vinglish and get struck by Sridevi (no google!). My first shock, of course, was realizing that I had knocked off ten years of her age right off the bat. Then while reading her wiki page (this is why it’s important to have a good Wiki page, fans), it hit me like a bucket full of cold water~

    Sridevi was a successful child star, a sex symbol… and is possibly positioning herself as a MILF — my own observation here. Apparently English Vinglish was quite a hit, marking her comeback after 15 years off the screen.

    I don’t think there’s ANYONE in the world of movies (or entertainment) that has been able to achieved this. I can’t think of a single actress (or maybe actor) who started out as a child, grew to be the actress made of dreams, moved on to becoming a sensible adult, apparently a great mother, and make a comeback to take all that’s “cinematically” hers.

    The performance is okay (by Kpop standards, anyway), but Sridevi is totally charming in this show for the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA). I think the IIFA cameras shoot a quick reaction from Madhuri during the number, just as they showed Sridevi on Madhuri’s own performance (which rocked my socks) [1]. I could do with less Deepika reaction shots, though.

    So… I am at a conundrum. Who should I go for first? Sridevi or Madhuri? And since both have sooooo many films, where do I start?

  • Oh, Miki~ I Had No Idea~

    Or maybe it did ping [1][2], or maybe it’s just that rumor.

    But if it really is, I’m really surprised. I found some very old scattered posts talking about it going as far back as 2007. But then again, Miki keeps a relatively private life or fandom just doesn’t care.

  • The Piggy Doll Debacle

    piggy-dolls-lee-ji-yeon

    Korean girl idol group Piggy Dolls was making a comeback — after the quite catchy and makeover-ish The Girl that I Know (아는여자) [MV], which gave a terrific hair style to singer Lee Ji Yeon — only to run into the video for Ordinary Girl (보통여자) [MV] and see that I didn’t freaking RECOGNIZE ANYONE! At first I chugged it to maybe having actors not on the MV, but apparently- yes, they’ve changed all members.

    I don’t even know why bother keeping the name of the group. It’s just lazy management and creates an even bigger image problem. And here I was looking forward to Ji Yeon’s latest makeover. Though I must admit, her hair color and shape was perfect the last time.

  • Going Down the Van Movie-going Memories~

    I was finally doing some room cleaning, and ran into this plastic bag that had a whole bunch of the tickets of movies I caught while living/staying in Van. The results? Of course, I spent over two hours trying to make out some of the fade tickets, arranged them and put them in order of attendance.

    movie-tickets-vancouver

    The first movie that I caught there was Hulk at what used to be Tinseltown Cinemark. The first two columns cover my first year of studies. My maximum number of movies a month was 9 flicks in January 2004 (Cold Mountain, Big Fish, Peter Pan, 21 Grams, Along Came Polly, Monster, Butterfly Effect, The Cooler and Ginger Snaps 2), April 2004 (Hellboy, The Delicate Art of Parking, Kill Bill, Connie and Carla, Home on the Range, The Punisher, Dogville (twice) and Man on Fire), followed by July 2006 (Devil Wears Prada, The Omen,The Lake House, The King, PotC 2, Lady in the Water, Strangers with Candy, and an unidentified movie that’s already faded) with 8 flicks.

    (more…)

    Pages: 1 2

  • I’m Muzzy, Big Muzzy~

    When I was little — maybe between the ages of 4 and 6 — I used to watch a really worn out tape (maybe transferred from a Betamax tape to a VHS one) about a huge furry green alien whose name was Muzzy- Big Muzzy. Many years later, many courses of English after and once the internet became a reliable search tool, I came to learn that the movie… a BBC educational video, was called Muzzy in Gondoland, though I knew it as “The Big Muzzy Story.”

    As a Spanish speaker, I don’t recall ever understanding English growing up. Though I had some games and watched some animated shorts and movies in English, I don’t think the language ever registered as a language. I recall I was dreadful at it in school until I turned 10 or so and began attending classes after school. I’ve been speaking English more than half my life already, and it’s the language I primarily work in. I read, write, listen to… and consume most of my media in English. I don’t think I dream 100% in the language, but I’m known for having dreams I don’t understand — I don’t think I’ve dreamed in Mandarin, but I’ve had chunks of them in Japanese and most notable in Korean, even though my Korean abilities reach the levels of greetings, the random “I miss you,” or “this is my friend,” as well as the very helpful “I’m hungry” or “my tummy hurts.” I can also request things with the very useful three-year-old Korean level phrase of “item- chuseyo” LOL

    The preferable term would be “cookie” though I’m sure Muzzy would prefer clocks or parking meters.

    Anyway, I found two copies of Muzzy in Gondoland. The one that’s split in 8 segments has the original audio I remember as a child. While this version that lasts 2.30hr seems to have different voices for Sylvia, Bob The Gardener and Covax. I’m 50/50 on the voice of the Queen.

    Apparently there are updates in different languages like French, Mandarin and Spanish redone in basic 3D with segments in Flash. Have been watching the French one, and they’ve omitted the fact that the Queen is fat. Obviously because it’s not politically correct to call someone fat nowadays, and the Queen does so in the adjective section. Plus, the King flatly calls her fat with the exclamation “You are fat!” which obviously is kind of ridiculous. LOL

    Also, the AEIOU song doesn’t translate well.

    I also found the original animation in Esperanto.

  • Oh, The Memories of Home

    home-old-sweet-home

    Google Maps has finally activated Street View in my city — mind you, it’s still a work in progress, and I’ve already encountered places I can’t access. But as anything Google Maps goes… I’ve already visited my current home, and of course my school. But the place I was most eager to check out was my old home. I still remember how to get there!

    The market and the park are still there, and livelier than I remember them being. xD

    (more…)

  • Bhangra Bistar – Dil Bole Hadippa

    When women play tomboy girls or girls who have to pretend to be boys on screen is hardly believable, mainly because mainstream actresses are normally TOO pretty and productions wouldn’t bump the masculinity to make them look less like girls — at least that USED to happen in a film like Queen Christina (and Morocco, though I don’t think Marlene Dietrich intends to play tomboy as much as play Dietrich on that) [1].

    Actresses like Bynes in She’s the Man [1] didn’t exactly hit the mark, though it could come close to Ella Chen’s level in Hana Kimi [1]. However, the other adaptations of the same manga series- the Japanese version of Hana Kimi with Horikita Maki [1] or the most recent Korean version To the Beautiful You with f(x)’s Sulli [1] suffer from similar problems. Same could be said for Zhao Wei- maybe I could overlook her role in Red Cliff [1][2], but I definitely CAN’T overlook her prettyfied self in Mulan [1].

    In general, though, Taiwan and China leave me very surprised with the gender-bending… intended or unintended. It’s countless the times that I’ve asked myself whether I was seeing or listening to a boy or a girl. It doesn’t help that most names (without characters) look very gender-neutral.

    ANYWAY, I’ve gone way off topic here. The main thing in this post is supposed to be Rani Mukerji, whom I saw for the very first time in Dil Bole Hadippa. Though it’s a pretty decent film, I’ve come to appreciate it more now for Rani- especially for her mannerisms in the Bhangra Bistar number. Though the number is before she gets to pretend to be a guy, her character works as a performer at a moving acting troop, with the lack of a leading man… she’s made to play the part.

    And she does it perfectly.

    I usually very hard to please on these issues, but Mukerji sells me the role of ‘the dude’ in this one. She pulls it off better than Ella or Bynes, though all of them get to be funny while doing so.

    You can even see a bit of the shooting of this part of the film [1].

    There’s also an official upload, but quality is not as good and they only include the musical numbers without context.

  • Current Flavors and Getting Your Type

    Has people ever ask you what’s your type? In terms of the people that you like, and you really have no idea because you’ve never really talked about.  I wondered if I could see a pattern in the people I like on-screen, so I made a list of women and men — 25 picks each — and placed generally okay photos of them to see if I could see any characteristics they shared.

    A few rules- it has to be people that you follow — not randoms that you just find hot. Sofia Vergara is hot but I haven’t seen her outside Modern Family or Chasing Papi. And it also isn’t about talent… completely. It’s people that you would somehow, if given the chance, do / be with / however you want to call it or do is.

    Also, photos should generally be color and looking to the front-ish. Natural looks favored, but since it’s a type thing, I suppose you can use any photos you find your subject attractive in.

    (more…)

  • JeA, How’s Junior High?

    I look young. My older cousins, who are just a bit older than JeA is, still see me and still tap me on the head. I still get carded. When traveling or meeting new people in general they always ask me about school… and I don’t mean it like asking about university. They ask me about high school or wonder what I’m choosing to study at university.

    I graduated from high school ten years ago (gosh!).

    I usually look at people on movies or tv shows, watch their music videos, [1] and I think people… look like contemporaries of mine. When I google them, however, I’m surprised some of them are five or ten years younger than me. It’s crazy. So because I tend to look at myself and think of my age, my expectation of how young people look is skewed.

    Strangely enough, JeA still surprises me.

    Starting out, I thought she was older than she is. Mid-thirties instead of early. As the years go by, she seems to be getting younger and younger, though. In this promo photo for the Brown Eyed Girls comeback (YAY! Comeback!), JeA looks like she’s 16. It’s nuts. 14 if you consider the giant teddy ages her down. And the pout makes her maybe a year younger than that.

    It’s crazy that with my skewed view on how ‘old’ people should look, JeA manages to look half my age. And what’s funny~ if we ever meet in person, she’ll probably be able to boss me around. Coz that’s her presence. xD

    brown-eyed-girls-jea-black-box-beg-teddy

    Also, I’m psyched about the new album. I’m lukewarm on the Recipe single, though.

  • Which Race Box Do You Choose?

    Thanks to the American way of thinking, for a while now I’ve been thinking a LOT about race. It didn’t use to be a problem, I didn’t care about race because Peru was supposed to be this mix of races of white (mostly Spaniards), Andean people, Black, Asians (mostly Chinese and Japanese).

    For a while now, while completing polls and documents, people have added the race option that usually carries some of these: Caucasian, Native American, African-American, Asian, Polynesian, Latino, Other. Though, recently I’ve seen the added option of Mixed, besides the Other option.

    Perhaps I didn’t notice this before as I was a minor and my parents would be filling documentation, but I remember I’ve always checked the “other” option because I can’t consider myself Asian… and I’ve stopped considering myself fully Latin American because it just doesn’t feel that way any longer. Not when I’m nudge on the street as people either say “oppar Gangnam Style” or relate my slanted eyes to either Jackie Chan or Jet Li. I’ll actually take them over Psy and the horse-dance though.

    So I understand your pain, guys, for either being told they don’t fit within the black or latino communities, or being told to act a certain way.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT7_oQzDYMw

    Also, don’t forget Alexis Bledel speaks perfect Spanish unlike America Ferrera — come on, her Spanish is competent, but not in the level for the roles she usually gets — so not having Bledel speaking Spanish in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was a total missed opportunity since no one freaking expects Alexis Bledel to speak Spanish.

    And yes, Hollywood expects his latinas to look like Sophia Loren.

    I need to be a casting director and throw the whole casting process on its head.