Oh man, I hope this is still playing when I get back to L.A.!
http://ny.remezcla.com/2010/latin/la-mission/
And way to have a new, tight version of Be Thankful For What You Got in the preview, right as I was getting into that song again, hehe.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Smiled
Today, I continued my streak of being able to wake up early and got up at 8, two hours before my alarm was to go off! I made breakfast, cleaned up around the apartment, got dressed, and started with the things I had planned on doing since the night before. I went to go pay my water bill at the gas station next door, owned by the landlord of my apartment and recently under renovations which include the addition of a car wash! Then, I went to the bank and withdrew some money, mailed a postcard off, and got to the bus stop 14 minutes ahead of time to wait for the bus that would take me to my next destination...
Himeji! Yes, I was off to the nearby town, the nearest place you might actually call a "big city," to look at books! I had had the craving to surround myself with lots of interesting, cheap books and look through them thoroughly one at a time for the past week and it was about time I got out of my little town, so I was off! I fell asleep about halfway through the ride, then woke up when we were almost at the end. I got off at the second to last stop, because it leaves you off not at the train station but right in front of a huge 100 yen shop that connects to a massive used bookstore! I went straight inside, and headed right to the rows and rows of books and just dove right in.
I spent a pretty good amount of time there and boy was I happy I had come. There was a special deal going on for all the books that were re-priced at 100 yen (which was about half of them) which lowered their price to 50 yen at one and 100 yen for three! I was so excited, I felt like a little child a little bit. I also felt like a huge nerd because I was walking fast all over the whole store seeing if I could find any other 100 yen books. But I also felt like a thrifty nerd, because I thought of how fun it would be to play a game in which I try to get the best three books possible for only 100 yen.
Looking around, I had a chance encounter with my past when I noticed a lot of books by an author named Yamada Amy. Most of the books seemed like they had to do with her relationship with African-Americans. I looked her up in my phone (technology can be useful sometimes) and found out that she's a celebrated Japanese writer who feels really connected to African-American culture and writes a lot about it. Then, I remembered that I had read about her when I was writing my thesis senior year of college. The author of the article I was citing had used her work as evidence of the prevalent, condescending attitude in Japan toward blacks, calling Yamada's books more akin to racist pornography than the bold, taboo-defying work it was said to be. Looking at the titles of some of her books, such as Animal Logic and Make Me Sick, I could see what the author had meant. Nevertheless, if she's such a prominent writer in Japan today, and the books are already used and only 100 yen, I figured I would do well to find out what her work was like for myself. Plus, one of her most celebrated novels, like much of her work, isn't about African-Americans at all, but the youth in modern Japan, so I bought that one, too. Alright, I was set with two books, After-School Music and Bedtime Eyes.
The third book was a little harder to find - once I started actually looking for names, I lost momentum - but I ended up going with the only Oe Kenzaburo book in the store, Until the Savior is Punched: The Burning Tree, Part 1. This one didn't feel as good as the first two, mainly because it looked way harder to read taking into account the length and the complex, abstract, psychological topics Oe usually deals with. But I wanted to get a work of his, so I went with it. Maybe I'll read it one day. On my last search around the store, I found a little book called I Worked as an Office Lady for Ten Years, which looked like really interesting and funny light reading, so I got that, too. Yeah! Four books for 150 yen! That's $1.67 for all you U.S. people out there. Very nice!
I left the bookstore in a good mood, checking the 100 yen shop on the way out to see if they had any take-fumi (little pads you can step on to massage your feet and improve your circulation), but they didn't. So, I headed on down to the station, picking up a delicious and huge chicken sandwich for pretty cheap from a Brazilian food cart on the way. I had recently been inspired by a friend of mine who listens to language tapes whenever he drives and is constantly studying languages. I found, when I went for a ride with him, that I could understand his Chinese and Russian instructional tapes, even though they were based in Japanese, and got excited to try getting some tapes of my own to listen to while I'm doing other things. The bookstore at the station, bigger than the last one and only dealing in new items, had a few for the languages I was interested in (Korean and Filipino), but they were really expensive and not worth the money. While I was there, I also searched for anything else that would be good in my study of Japanese, but didn't find much. I left the store with nothing, but still had a hard time getting out, as I do often with bookstores - there's just so much to see.
After that, I went to a store called Mujirushi Ryouhin (or Muji, for short), which sells clothing and household goods store and was right below. I needed some pants. I found some great black levis, too, which then turned out to be a little over 4,000 yen, which was waayy over my price range, so nothing came of that. I found a cool long-sleeved shirt that was striped green and gray, but the neck was too low. I left and went to the underground shopping mall.
I decided I need a break right then and there!, so I went to a little bakery/cafe place where I got a yomogi-red bean bun and brought it to the register.
"That'll be 140 yen," said the girl at the register.
"Oh, and I'll have an iced milk, too, please," I added. I called the item by the name I've usually heard it called in these kinds of bakery/cafes, "aisu miruku." As I was finishing speaking, the girl, looking down, motioned up to the LCD screen where the price was written in green numbers. I paused for a second.
"An iced milk?" I asked again. She looked up. Her eyes were wide and she looked very confused.
"Um, do you have iced milk?" I tried again. She looked at me blankly. "Gyunyu?" I used the Japanese word for just milk this time. I laughed a little bit and smiled to ease her what seemed like combination of fear and anxiousness.
"Uhh...all the items we have are written here," the girl motioned geometric-softly up to her right, where there was a chalkboard with drinks written on them. She seemed at a total loss for what to do.
I looked up at the chalkboard, hoping I wasn't going to have to explain what an iced milk was, and found it second from the top: aisu miruku, iced milk. I pointed up and asked,
"Iced milk?"
She looked up and back down, looking even more bewildered than before. Her senpai, or older, employee had been standing next to her since the confusion began, and to her the girl said hesitantly,
"Iced milk?"
The older girl looked down and nodded, biting her lips. A smile was coming out of the corners.
"Okay!" the younger girl said. She snapped back into action, ringing up the order, and the older employee went to the back, called out,
"Iced milk!"
and began to prepare the drink. It was all ready before I even found a place to sit down. I relaxed, snacked on my meal, and looked over my new books excitedly, as the girls talked and laughed loudly behind me. They seemed to be the only employees working at the time, and it looked like they got along well. They both instantly seemed a lot younger as soon they were talking at ease amongst themselves.
After that, I went up a flight of stairs and outside to look for another used bookstore I had seen before on my trips to Himeji but never gone in. I hadn't been able to find it earlier today, but this time I went a little bit further and found it in a little alley! This place was amazing! From the entrance to the skinny staircase that led from the sidewalk up and across every single wall in the small little room, everything was lined with books! I got really excited in this place, too. I was moved all over the place, exclaiming to myself at all the neat books they had (the owner had moved downstairs to the next-door cafe he runs once I got up, leaving the place to only me!). I even found such familiar items as Condorito comic books, works on Nihilism (translated) (There was also a full Nietzsche set in German!), and a Rainbow Fish book! This place was beautiful, and I stayed in there just reveling in it for probably an hour at least. In one corner of the room, I found a beautiful big volume of a book on Latin America with lots of photographs and information for only 100 yen (marked down from 300)! I was tempted to buy it, but figured I didn't really need it, it would be cool if a Japanese person came in and found it and had their interest sparked by it (or something like that), and put it back. After a while another guy came in, and I, also thinking of how I'd been missed buses consecutively in order to stay longer in the store, left after a little bit.
Afterward, I went into the cafe next door and accidentally kicked over the owners wooden "We're Open" sign, which called him out of the cafe and prompted a "Sorry!" out of me. I went in and ordered a coffee. It was a little much, but I reasoned I was paying for the environment and that the money was going in a good direction. The cafe was in a similar state as the shop, lined completely on one wall with bookshelves that leaned like they were ready to fall over onto you but you knew (or figured) they wouldn't. I like that, the way some portions of bookshelves in used bookstores like this look like they're ready to tumble over, while others look as securely and immovably stuck in place as possible. I found out about a photography show that was going to be held in a gallery upstairs above the cafe next week, then I left.
I walked down a ways to a restaurant I like to go to when I'm out in the city and can find it. I ordered a salt-grilled sanma (pike or saury, a type of fish) set meal from the machine, but it gave me a ticket for curry rice. I didn't notice until it was too late, but upon thinking about it a bit I figured I would only bring it up if it was more expensive than what I had originally wanted (a flashing feeling to my life in the U.S.). It was about 200 yen cheaper, so I went with it. A blessing (or hint) from the heavens. I missed the bus I had been planning on taking so I could relax and eat, so after finishing dinner I went back to the first bookstore, which is also attached to a movie and music shop, and hung around for a while there. I was looking for "The Good, the Bad, and the Weird," that movie recently made in Korea, but I couldn't find it. I decided I wasn't going to miss another bus to keep looking so I booked it on down the main street, got and out of the bus station and to the bus one minute before it was set to leave. Good timing.
Entering the bus, the only seat open was the long one in the back, where a high school girl was sitting all the way to the right. I sat all the way to the left. On the way back, I hummed to myself, as I often do on these long bus rides back from the city, confident and comforted in knowing that my vocal vibrations would be drowned out to all others by the sounds of the bus's engines. Somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes into the ride, I fell asleep pretty hard, and then woke up 10 minutes before arrival. I felt nice and rested, but still tired and in that good groggy state. It had been a good day.
Himeji! Yes, I was off to the nearby town, the nearest place you might actually call a "big city," to look at books! I had had the craving to surround myself with lots of interesting, cheap books and look through them thoroughly one at a time for the past week and it was about time I got out of my little town, so I was off! I fell asleep about halfway through the ride, then woke up when we were almost at the end. I got off at the second to last stop, because it leaves you off not at the train station but right in front of a huge 100 yen shop that connects to a massive used bookstore! I went straight inside, and headed right to the rows and rows of books and just dove right in.
I spent a pretty good amount of time there and boy was I happy I had come. There was a special deal going on for all the books that were re-priced at 100 yen (which was about half of them) which lowered their price to 50 yen at one and 100 yen for three! I was so excited, I felt like a little child a little bit. I also felt like a huge nerd because I was walking fast all over the whole store seeing if I could find any other 100 yen books. But I also felt like a thrifty nerd, because I thought of how fun it would be to play a game in which I try to get the best three books possible for only 100 yen.
Looking around, I had a chance encounter with my past when I noticed a lot of books by an author named Yamada Amy. Most of the books seemed like they had to do with her relationship with African-Americans. I looked her up in my phone (technology can be useful sometimes) and found out that she's a celebrated Japanese writer who feels really connected to African-American culture and writes a lot about it. Then, I remembered that I had read about her when I was writing my thesis senior year of college. The author of the article I was citing had used her work as evidence of the prevalent, condescending attitude in Japan toward blacks, calling Yamada's books more akin to racist pornography than the bold, taboo-defying work it was said to be. Looking at the titles of some of her books, such as Animal Logic and Make Me Sick, I could see what the author had meant. Nevertheless, if she's such a prominent writer in Japan today, and the books are already used and only 100 yen, I figured I would do well to find out what her work was like for myself. Plus, one of her most celebrated novels, like much of her work, isn't about African-Americans at all, but the youth in modern Japan, so I bought that one, too. Alright, I was set with two books, After-School Music and Bedtime Eyes.
The third book was a little harder to find - once I started actually looking for names, I lost momentum - but I ended up going with the only Oe Kenzaburo book in the store, Until the Savior is Punched: The Burning Tree, Part 1. This one didn't feel as good as the first two, mainly because it looked way harder to read taking into account the length and the complex, abstract, psychological topics Oe usually deals with. But I wanted to get a work of his, so I went with it. Maybe I'll read it one day. On my last search around the store, I found a little book called I Worked as an Office Lady for Ten Years, which looked like really interesting and funny light reading, so I got that, too. Yeah! Four books for 150 yen! That's $1.67 for all you U.S. people out there. Very nice!
I left the bookstore in a good mood, checking the 100 yen shop on the way out to see if they had any take-fumi (little pads you can step on to massage your feet and improve your circulation), but they didn't. So, I headed on down to the station, picking up a delicious and huge chicken sandwich for pretty cheap from a Brazilian food cart on the way. I had recently been inspired by a friend of mine who listens to language tapes whenever he drives and is constantly studying languages. I found, when I went for a ride with him, that I could understand his Chinese and Russian instructional tapes, even though they were based in Japanese, and got excited to try getting some tapes of my own to listen to while I'm doing other things. The bookstore at the station, bigger than the last one and only dealing in new items, had a few for the languages I was interested in (Korean and Filipino), but they were really expensive and not worth the money. While I was there, I also searched for anything else that would be good in my study of Japanese, but didn't find much. I left the store with nothing, but still had a hard time getting out, as I do often with bookstores - there's just so much to see.
After that, I went to a store called Mujirushi Ryouhin (or Muji, for short), which sells clothing and household goods store and was right below. I needed some pants. I found some great black levis, too, which then turned out to be a little over 4,000 yen, which was waayy over my price range, so nothing came of that. I found a cool long-sleeved shirt that was striped green and gray, but the neck was too low. I left and went to the underground shopping mall.
I decided I need a break right then and there!, so I went to a little bakery/cafe place where I got a yomogi-red bean bun and brought it to the register.
"That'll be 140 yen," said the girl at the register.
"Oh, and I'll have an iced milk, too, please," I added. I called the item by the name I've usually heard it called in these kinds of bakery/cafes, "aisu miruku." As I was finishing speaking, the girl, looking down, motioned up to the LCD screen where the price was written in green numbers. I paused for a second.
"An iced milk?" I asked again. She looked up. Her eyes were wide and she looked very confused.
"Um, do you have iced milk?" I tried again. She looked at me blankly. "Gyunyu?" I used the Japanese word for just milk this time. I laughed a little bit and smiled to ease her what seemed like combination of fear and anxiousness.
"Uhh...all the items we have are written here," the girl motioned geometric-softly up to her right, where there was a chalkboard with drinks written on them. She seemed at a total loss for what to do.
I looked up at the chalkboard, hoping I wasn't going to have to explain what an iced milk was, and found it second from the top: aisu miruku, iced milk. I pointed up and asked,
"Iced milk?"
She looked up and back down, looking even more bewildered than before. Her senpai, or older, employee had been standing next to her since the confusion began, and to her the girl said hesitantly,
"Iced milk?"
The older girl looked down and nodded, biting her lips. A smile was coming out of the corners.
"Okay!" the younger girl said. She snapped back into action, ringing up the order, and the older employee went to the back, called out,
"Iced milk!"
and began to prepare the drink. It was all ready before I even found a place to sit down. I relaxed, snacked on my meal, and looked over my new books excitedly, as the girls talked and laughed loudly behind me. They seemed to be the only employees working at the time, and it looked like they got along well. They both instantly seemed a lot younger as soon they were talking at ease amongst themselves.
After that, I went up a flight of stairs and outside to look for another used bookstore I had seen before on my trips to Himeji but never gone in. I hadn't been able to find it earlier today, but this time I went a little bit further and found it in a little alley! This place was amazing! From the entrance to the skinny staircase that led from the sidewalk up and across every single wall in the small little room, everything was lined with books! I got really excited in this place, too. I was moved all over the place, exclaiming to myself at all the neat books they had (the owner had moved downstairs to the next-door cafe he runs once I got up, leaving the place to only me!). I even found such familiar items as Condorito comic books, works on Nihilism (translated) (There was also a full Nietzsche set in German!), and a Rainbow Fish book! This place was beautiful, and I stayed in there just reveling in it for probably an hour at least. In one corner of the room, I found a beautiful big volume of a book on Latin America with lots of photographs and information for only 100 yen (marked down from 300)! I was tempted to buy it, but figured I didn't really need it, it would be cool if a Japanese person came in and found it and had their interest sparked by it (or something like that), and put it back. After a while another guy came in, and I, also thinking of how I'd been missed buses consecutively in order to stay longer in the store, left after a little bit.
Afterward, I went into the cafe next door and accidentally kicked over the owners wooden "We're Open" sign, which called him out of the cafe and prompted a "Sorry!" out of me. I went in and ordered a coffee. It was a little much, but I reasoned I was paying for the environment and that the money was going in a good direction. The cafe was in a similar state as the shop, lined completely on one wall with bookshelves that leaned like they were ready to fall over onto you but you knew (or figured) they wouldn't. I like that, the way some portions of bookshelves in used bookstores like this look like they're ready to tumble over, while others look as securely and immovably stuck in place as possible. I found out about a photography show that was going to be held in a gallery upstairs above the cafe next week, then I left.
I walked down a ways to a restaurant I like to go to when I'm out in the city and can find it. I ordered a salt-grilled sanma (pike or saury, a type of fish) set meal from the machine, but it gave me a ticket for curry rice. I didn't notice until it was too late, but upon thinking about it a bit I figured I would only bring it up if it was more expensive than what I had originally wanted (a flashing feeling to my life in the U.S.). It was about 200 yen cheaper, so I went with it. A blessing (or hint) from the heavens. I missed the bus I had been planning on taking so I could relax and eat, so after finishing dinner I went back to the first bookstore, which is also attached to a movie and music shop, and hung around for a while there. I was looking for "The Good, the Bad, and the Weird," that movie recently made in Korea, but I couldn't find it. I decided I wasn't going to miss another bus to keep looking so I booked it on down the main street, got and out of the bus station and to the bus one minute before it was set to leave. Good timing.
Entering the bus, the only seat open was the long one in the back, where a high school girl was sitting all the way to the right. I sat all the way to the left. On the way back, I hummed to myself, as I often do on these long bus rides back from the city, confident and comforted in knowing that my vocal vibrations would be drowned out to all others by the sounds of the bus's engines. Somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes into the ride, I fell asleep pretty hard, and then woke up 10 minutes before arrival. I felt nice and rested, but still tired and in that good groggy state. It had been a good day.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Wait Until Dark
Whoa, I just saw Wait Until Dark! That was awesome! The chauvinism was a little distracting but still, that movie had me going! Some of the images from that movie are going to stay stuck burned into my mind for a long time, I think. Very cool, I'm very glad I saw that. Good movie.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Westerns
(possible spoilers?)
Man, some of the Italian Westerns are pretty interesting to watch, and have some pretty good music, but damn the monumental racism just takes away from the experience so much. Extreme masculinity and white supremacy are such strong themes throughout some of these movies that it just waters down any cinematic grip the film has on you. I thought The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was bad, but man, For a Few Dollars More is just terrible. Every time I see a white guy in brown-face, which is a lot of times, it just kills the mood of the movie completely, and this time they even featured a "Chinese" guy for a moment. Nothing gets across the horrible, damaging feel of the movie across more clearly than the good old boy dialogue at the very end of the movie, right before Clint Eastwood goes driving off with a truckload of dead Mexicans. Man, I can honestly say I did not enjoy watching that movie, no matter how genius white fanboys claim it must be. Someone really needs to redo this genre. Way of the Gun may be the closest thing to a good Western-style movie that I can actually enjoy. And to think how much of U.S. culture and world views of the U.S. have been shaped by this movie phenomenon (interesting that it originates from outside the U.S. - does that point the way toward other possibilities?). A lot of work needs to be done.
Edit: Now that I think about it, Robert Rodriguez did do some good stuff that reshaped the genre to a degree.
Man, some of the Italian Westerns are pretty interesting to watch, and have some pretty good music, but damn the monumental racism just takes away from the experience so much. Extreme masculinity and white supremacy are such strong themes throughout some of these movies that it just waters down any cinematic grip the film has on you. I thought The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was bad, but man, For a Few Dollars More is just terrible. Every time I see a white guy in brown-face, which is a lot of times, it just kills the mood of the movie completely, and this time they even featured a "Chinese" guy for a moment. Nothing gets across the horrible, damaging feel of the movie across more clearly than the good old boy dialogue at the very end of the movie, right before Clint Eastwood goes driving off with a truckload of dead Mexicans. Man, I can honestly say I did not enjoy watching that movie, no matter how genius white fanboys claim it must be. Someone really needs to redo this genre. Way of the Gun may be the closest thing to a good Western-style movie that I can actually enjoy. And to think how much of U.S. culture and world views of the U.S. have been shaped by this movie phenomenon (interesting that it originates from outside the U.S. - does that point the way toward other possibilities?). A lot of work needs to be done.
Edit: Now that I think about it, Robert Rodriguez did do some good stuff that reshaped the genre to a degree.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Always Sunny in Philadelphia Foils
Oh my gosh, whenever I try to sit down and watch Blue Velvet by David Lynch, I keep getting sidetracked by the thought that I could actually instead watch another episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And this is made easier by the fact that 1) I just downloaded the first four seasons of the show, 2) anyone who's seen a David Lynch film knows what s/he is getting into and the amount of concentration that is required when they sit down to watch one, and 3) I can eat oranges and get up to use the bathroom in the middle without feeling like I'm interrupting the show. So, today I watched like four episodes of Always Sunny. It's so funny, so freaking hilarious, but once you watch too much, you just start to feel bad because the characters are all such horrible, terrible people. Ahh.
Well, at least I got a pretty good amount of reading in John Dower's Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II done today. And I may have developed a pretty good system of taking notes when reading academic works, too. It started with when I was first reading 1Q84, then I used it when I started picking up Spanish studying more seriously again the other day, and now I've tried using it in a context similar to that of school research. Will it be useful again when I get to grad school...?? Methinks yes.
By the way, my fever is gone now (yippee!) and all that's left is a sore-ish throat and some mocos. But tomorrow is looking like a beautiful day (today had an amazingly cloudy, gray, and sublime cover over the world) and I'm looking forward to it.
No more t.v. for me and time to go to sleep. Also, Dead Mellotron, "Dress Rehearsal," awesome. The same goes for "Untitled," and, actually, the entire album Ghost Light Constellation is good, good, good. ;)
Well, at least I got a pretty good amount of reading in John Dower's Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II done today. And I may have developed a pretty good system of taking notes when reading academic works, too. It started with when I was first reading 1Q84, then I used it when I started picking up Spanish studying more seriously again the other day, and now I've tried using it in a context similar to that of school research. Will it be useful again when I get to grad school...?? Methinks yes.
By the way, my fever is gone now (yippee!) and all that's left is a sore-ish throat and some mocos. But tomorrow is looking like a beautiful day (today had an amazingly cloudy, gray, and sublime cover over the world) and I'm looking forward to it.
No more t.v. for me and time to go to sleep. Also, Dead Mellotron, "Dress Rehearsal," awesome. The same goes for "Untitled," and, actually, the entire album Ghost Light Constellation is good, good, good. ;)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Amelie, again
Amelie twice in one week. Haha, whoa. This movie is keeping me going right now. I'm going to take advice from it and just forget about all my "stratagems" and just go for things and do them as they come and as I feel them. Like Amelie, I can think of all the romantic, magical ways to say simple things I want, but as long as they only work in my head and I don't go through with the whole point of them in the first place, it doesn't get anyone anywhere. Perhaps this is how one melds one's way of life, by which the world is an idealized place where things just work out and people who are supposed to connect connect, to reality, where people suffer loneliness when they're alone, are happy when they're together, and cannot bridge the gap between the two by continuing on the way they always have. This could be a big change. They make a reference to Amelie getting a "reality check," and trying to ignore it, at one point in the movie. Perhaps this is mine, and I had better take it fully to heart right now.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Amelie
Oh my gosh, Amelie is so good! I never appreciated it as much as I do now! Seeing it tonight was like watching a completely different movie than the first time I saw it. Could not have watched it at a better time in my life.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Music Stuff
(I really have a bunch of stuff I want to talk and write about, but for now I'll just say:)
Randomly getting back into Cibo Matto makes me also randomly get back in Gorillaz. Then I realized: I love anything that intersects with Miho Hattori or Damon Albarn. Are these bands to which I'm destined to always come back?
Yes, I'm back in Japan. I enjoyed my time/vacation back at home more than I thought I would and almost didn't want to come back, but now I'm back and happy to be so ^o^
I've also been thinking a lot about what to do in the future of me and my education. All I can come up with is: I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING!! Well, I may have a little more direction than that, but not too much.
Also been going back and forth between how much hope there is for humanity to go in a more positive direction rather than just descend into further depravity. It always hits me pretty deeply when I hear about unimaginably horrible things happening, usually done by fellow humans, to innocent human beings. I'm talking about the murder of Annie Le. Ugh, and with all the tons of police cars I saw all over L.A., the instantly apparent and familiar U.S. culture (?) of pushing violence further and further and of doing and taking as much as you can because it's your right, contrasted with recent thoughts about the U.S. as less of a country and more of an anchorless, foundationless experiment taking us all with it as it spins through space and hell...For crying out loud, I listened to some of my own relatives talking about how the bad guy "really tears 'em up" in some new horror movie and describing with excitement all the gruesome ways he dismembers innocent people. I mean...this cannot be natural.
I don't feel completely at ease with the point of view that things are better now than they used to be, just because we've "come a long ways." But I suppose I also don't know much. Maybe it's fruitless to think about whether things are better now than they used to be, but the thought keeps coming to mind that the "culture" that we have in the U.S. is just not healthy for humans.
I also recently had the thought that the worst thing those in control can do is make us think we're at the end of history. But damn, if we're up against "people" who can do that...
For some reason I got into this odd state of mind these past couple of months that says things in terms of colonization are better than they used to be across the world just because (?). I've been coming out of that and thinking about nearly everything in terms of colonialism and neo-colonialism. The difference this time is I feel more collected, a little more positive, and like I have a better comprehension, or grip, on these ideas now. I'd like to try thinking in another paradigm, though.
To do something to help the world, do I go with what's been coming to my head most naturally thus far, or go in a newer, interesting direction? (I ask myself)
To change the topic...I love Korean Air. The last time I rode it was three (?) years ago when I was leaving to study abroad in Japan and Pomona's study abroad fund was paying the bill. Imagine my delight when I found this normally extremely expensive airline to be the 2nd cheapest for my trip back to Japan this week! I spent the 11 or so hours of the flight (before the transfer at Seoul) watching the equivalent of four movies and playing Tetris.
During the flight, I was really surprised to randomly stumble upon Dog Day Afternoon while channel surfing and so I watched that one and a half times. I really, really liked it, but the ending was probably one of the more terrible things I've seen (in cinema), not as in it was made badly but as in it ripped my heart apart and almost made me start to cry. If I had to introduce someone to the U.S. by media I would show them this movie. After that, I watched the first half (or so? i dont' know) of Wolverine (I don't even think that's its name), which was incredibly terrible. Have I ever seen a movie so saturated with awkward, super-masculine male bonding? ...hm, have I?...I don't know. Anyways, I realized soon that I could be watching sweet Korean movies that I never get a chance to watch but are in the airplane's movie libraries so I checked that out and came up with a winner. My Girlfriend's an Agent was really funny and had everything I needed at that moment to make me laugh: hilariously badly staged action sequences, East Asian-style xenophobic stereotypes, and great off-beat jokes. I'm very happy I saw that movie. After that I forced my soon-to-be-bloodshot eyes through another epic drama, I Corrupt All Cops. It's a Hong Kong film, I think, or at least it was about corruption in Hong Kong in the 1960s-70s, and by the looks of the characters, the Chinese title might be something like "Golden Empire"...? Anyways, it was pretty good, although the style seemed discontinuous at times. A little too violent for my tastes at some points, but even then it was done pretty well I think.
Man, I remember when airplanes didn't even have all that stuff. It still blows my mind.
And since when did this blog become a movie review site?
Well, anyways, I'm back in Japan and looking for what's next, I had a great time back at home visiting family and friends, and I'm seeing a lot of good happening in my life.
Oops, I wrote it all.
Randomly getting back into Cibo Matto makes me also randomly get back in Gorillaz. Then I realized: I love anything that intersects with Miho Hattori or Damon Albarn. Are these bands to which I'm destined to always come back?
Yes, I'm back in Japan. I enjoyed my time/vacation back at home more than I thought I would and almost didn't want to come back, but now I'm back and happy to be so ^o^
I've also been thinking a lot about what to do in the future of me and my education. All I can come up with is: I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING!! Well, I may have a little more direction than that, but not too much.
Also been going back and forth between how much hope there is for humanity to go in a more positive direction rather than just descend into further depravity. It always hits me pretty deeply when I hear about unimaginably horrible things happening, usually done by fellow humans, to innocent human beings. I'm talking about the murder of Annie Le. Ugh, and with all the tons of police cars I saw all over L.A., the instantly apparent and familiar U.S. culture (?) of pushing violence further and further and of doing and taking as much as you can because it's your right, contrasted with recent thoughts about the U.S. as less of a country and more of an anchorless, foundationless experiment taking us all with it as it spins through space and hell...For crying out loud, I listened to some of my own relatives talking about how the bad guy "really tears 'em up" in some new horror movie and describing with excitement all the gruesome ways he dismembers innocent people. I mean...this cannot be natural.
I don't feel completely at ease with the point of view that things are better now than they used to be, just because we've "come a long ways." But I suppose I also don't know much. Maybe it's fruitless to think about whether things are better now than they used to be, but the thought keeps coming to mind that the "culture" that we have in the U.S. is just not healthy for humans.
I also recently had the thought that the worst thing those in control can do is make us think we're at the end of history. But damn, if we're up against "people" who can do that...
For some reason I got into this odd state of mind these past couple of months that says things in terms of colonization are better than they used to be across the world just because (?). I've been coming out of that and thinking about nearly everything in terms of colonialism and neo-colonialism. The difference this time is I feel more collected, a little more positive, and like I have a better comprehension, or grip, on these ideas now. I'd like to try thinking in another paradigm, though.
To do something to help the world, do I go with what's been coming to my head most naturally thus far, or go in a newer, interesting direction? (I ask myself)
To change the topic...I love Korean Air. The last time I rode it was three (?) years ago when I was leaving to study abroad in Japan and Pomona's study abroad fund was paying the bill. Imagine my delight when I found this normally extremely expensive airline to be the 2nd cheapest for my trip back to Japan this week! I spent the 11 or so hours of the flight (before the transfer at Seoul) watching the equivalent of four movies and playing Tetris.
During the flight, I was really surprised to randomly stumble upon Dog Day Afternoon while channel surfing and so I watched that one and a half times. I really, really liked it, but the ending was probably one of the more terrible things I've seen (in cinema), not as in it was made badly but as in it ripped my heart apart and almost made me start to cry. If I had to introduce someone to the U.S. by media I would show them this movie. After that, I watched the first half (or so? i dont' know) of Wolverine (I don't even think that's its name), which was incredibly terrible. Have I ever seen a movie so saturated with awkward, super-masculine male bonding? ...hm, have I?...I don't know. Anyways, I realized soon that I could be watching sweet Korean movies that I never get a chance to watch but are in the airplane's movie libraries so I checked that out and came up with a winner. My Girlfriend's an Agent was really funny and had everything I needed at that moment to make me laugh: hilariously badly staged action sequences, East Asian-style xenophobic stereotypes, and great off-beat jokes. I'm very happy I saw that movie. After that I forced my soon-to-be-bloodshot eyes through another epic drama, I Corrupt All Cops. It's a Hong Kong film, I think, or at least it was about corruption in Hong Kong in the 1960s-70s, and by the looks of the characters, the Chinese title might be something like "Golden Empire"...? Anyways, it was pretty good, although the style seemed discontinuous at times. A little too violent for my tastes at some points, but even then it was done pretty well I think.
Man, I remember when airplanes didn't even have all that stuff. It still blows my mind.
And since when did this blog become a movie review site?
Well, anyways, I'm back in Japan and looking for what's next, I had a great time back at home visiting family and friends, and I'm seeing a lot of good happening in my life.
Oops, I wrote it all.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Hm.
Could the Ventures be progenitors to video game music??...Anybody??
Live in Japan '65 certainly sounds like a whole bunch of video game music that started coming out soon after...
Also, I would bet 2 fistfuls of cookie dough that Quentin Tarentino got his inspiration for the announcer in Jack Rabbit Slim's from the guy who spoke in between all the songs during that show...unless announcers just sounded like that in general back then.
Chuck Berry's songs are starting to all sound the same to me so much that it just made me laugh to listen to the beginning of Big Ben. I'd better take a break for now, haha.
Live in Japan '65 certainly sounds like a whole bunch of video game music that started coming out soon after...
Also, I would bet 2 fistfuls of cookie dough that Quentin Tarentino got his inspiration for the announcer in Jack Rabbit Slim's from the guy who spoke in between all the songs during that show...unless announcers just sounded like that in general back then.
Chuck Berry's songs are starting to all sound the same to me so much that it just made me laugh to listen to the beginning of Big Ben. I'd better take a break for now, haha.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Reality Bites?
I just watched Reality Bites for the first time. I always had this image of it in my head from seeing Winona Ryder, Ben Stiller, and Ethan Hawke's faces stretched out in steel teal tint on billboards from the bottom of the backseat car window as a kid, then when I was reminded of it while in Japan I thought, "Hey, this movie actually sounds interesting now and relevant to my life." And it was to a degree, but as often happens with these films that are supposed to be about youthful angst and rebellion I just can't relate that much to the main characters.
I can't sympathize with a main character who struggles to find a job in the professional field of her choice but is incapacitated by pride from working at a fast-food place, makes jokes about "selling fruit on street corners," and in the end turns to stealing from her parents rather than just getting a "normal" job (which is celebrated in the film).
I mean the movie was okay. I got some things out of it. I related to Ben Stiller's character the most and one thing that he said that actually really clicked with me was, "Hey, we're all human beings." Lately, I've been thinking that, as I realize I can be kind of judgmental (as this post may attest, haha), toward myself and others. Really though, everyone is a unique, complex human being, despite how preppy, douche-baggy, or misguided we may seem, and it seems like a waste of time and energy to form judgments against people whom we don't really know on a deep, or true, level. So that was one thing I connected to in this film.
But man, when are we going to get some more coming-of-age, youth-centered films about people with problems working-class people who aren't white can relate to?! I mean, can you imagine Reality Bites with Mexicans?? Okay, well first off all those people would've probably still been living at home instead of renting out an apartment they couldn't afford. The whole jobless part of the movie would've been completely out cuz you know they'd all be working as many jobs as they could to support them AND their families. Man, and if one of them got a BMW for free from their loaded dad (an impossible scenario) they would've sold that thing so fast. I suppose these things would all make the movie less interesting to lots of people, but hey, I'd be able to relate to the characters more.
I suppose this movie was made in 1994 (Man, I'm always astounded when I watch a movie from the mid-90s how much more obvious the racism is - the black guy runs the news station for which Winona Ryder is over-qualified, selling produce in the street is a joke, also I suppose Asians and Latinos don't exist in this fictional world either), and there are definitely more coming-of-age movies that speak to the experiences of young people of color now, but I always feel like there are never enough. If you read this and have any suggestions, can you leave some here to share? Cuz I'd love to check them out.
All in all, Reality Bites was pretty good, but not the "pretty good" where you kind of accent the words and drag out the vowels. I got some things out of it, but I think I like the weird image of the billboard imprinted on my mind more. It is also really possible the movie's not hitting me as directly because my generation's a little off. What would be my generation's post-college-graduation film(s) (if this movie could really even be called representative of the '90s generation)?...That would have come out somewhere around last year, right?...I don't think I've seen one I really relate to, that really captures the way things are and feel.
The cappuccino reference was funny, is that back when that was becoming popular (by the way, was this movie made pre-Starbucks? I feel like it was...)? This is all making me feel really young...
Also the soundtrack was pretty lame. Just think: Pulp Fiction came out that same year.
I can't sympathize with a main character who struggles to find a job in the professional field of her choice but is incapacitated by pride from working at a fast-food place, makes jokes about "selling fruit on street corners," and in the end turns to stealing from her parents rather than just getting a "normal" job (which is celebrated in the film).
I mean the movie was okay. I got some things out of it. I related to Ben Stiller's character the most and one thing that he said that actually really clicked with me was, "Hey, we're all human beings." Lately, I've been thinking that, as I realize I can be kind of judgmental (as this post may attest, haha), toward myself and others. Really though, everyone is a unique, complex human being, despite how preppy, douche-baggy, or misguided we may seem, and it seems like a waste of time and energy to form judgments against people whom we don't really know on a deep, or true, level. So that was one thing I connected to in this film.
But man, when are we going to get some more coming-of-age, youth-centered films about people with problems working-class people who aren't white can relate to?! I mean, can you imagine Reality Bites with Mexicans?? Okay, well first off all those people would've probably still been living at home instead of renting out an apartment they couldn't afford. The whole jobless part of the movie would've been completely out cuz you know they'd all be working as many jobs as they could to support them AND their families. Man, and if one of them got a BMW for free from their loaded dad (an impossible scenario) they would've sold that thing so fast. I suppose these things would all make the movie less interesting to lots of people, but hey, I'd be able to relate to the characters more.
I suppose this movie was made in 1994 (Man, I'm always astounded when I watch a movie from the mid-90s how much more obvious the racism is - the black guy runs the news station for which Winona Ryder is over-qualified, selling produce in the street is a joke, also I suppose Asians and Latinos don't exist in this fictional world either), and there are definitely more coming-of-age movies that speak to the experiences of young people of color now, but I always feel like there are never enough. If you read this and have any suggestions, can you leave some here to share? Cuz I'd love to check them out.
All in all, Reality Bites was pretty good, but not the "pretty good" where you kind of accent the words and drag out the vowels. I got some things out of it, but I think I like the weird image of the billboard imprinted on my mind more. It is also really possible the movie's not hitting me as directly because my generation's a little off. What would be my generation's post-college-graduation film(s) (if this movie could really even be called representative of the '90s generation)?...That would have come out somewhere around last year, right?...I don't think I've seen one I really relate to, that really captures the way things are and feel.
The cappuccino reference was funny, is that back when that was becoming popular (by the way, was this movie made pre-Starbucks? I feel like it was...)? This is all making me feel really young...
Also the soundtrack was pretty lame. Just think: Pulp Fiction came out that same year.
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