New Movies

Recently I've been buying a lot of Korean Movies lately and have let some really good asian movies from other countires pass me by. In an attempt to make up for this I've recently ordered three Movies from Japan. None of which I've seen yet only heard of from various places. They are

CUSTOM MADE 10.30 - カスタムメイド 10.30

Rainbow Song - 虹の女神

Frog River - フロッグリバー

Funny Story

One of my Favorite films from Japan is Joze, The Tiger And The Fish (ジョセと虎と魚たち). If you don't like dramas then I don't recommend it. The funny thing at the credits they play a song called HIGHWAY (ハイウェイ) from the group Quruli (くるり). When I heard this song I thougt about buying the soundtrack to get this song. This was before I found out who sang it and what the video looked like; but anyway I was thinking of filming a short film for my production 2 class. What I wanted to shoot was a guy either by himslef or with friends on a drive. With shots of them just sitting in a car, stoping at a place to eat, or sleeping in the car, stuff like that. I was going to use the song as my motavation, and my soundtrack. Then I decided to look for the song on youtube when I finally saw it. My idea for a short film had already been done by the band. So I guess my idea wouldn't be that orginal, here's the video (note: there are two versions of this video, one by the actually band and one used as the music video for the film. this is the one band). I guess I can still shoot it, and just call my film the American remake of it, since that's what Hollywood does anyway.

Jeon Do-yeon wins Best Actress Award at Cannes

Jeon Do-yeon (전도연) has officially just won the Best Actress Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival for her role in Secret Sunshine (밀양), the latest from director Lee Chang-dong (Oasis, Peppermint Candy). The film follows a recently widowed mother (Jeon) as she begins to start a new life without her husband. Song Kang-ho plays an auto mechanic who befriends her and attempts to bring meaning back to their lives again. 34-year-old Jeon Do-yeon won the best actress award at the 60th Cannes film festival. She became the second Korean actress in 20 years to win a best actress award at one of the three major international competitions, Cannes, Berline and Venice. Now, film critics around the world has been citing Jeon as one of the strongest candidates for the award at this year's Cannes. In "Secret Sunshine" or Milyang in Korean, Jeon plays a newly widowed Shinae, who seeks to start a new life with her little son in her late husband's hometown. In a cruel twist in the story, the little boy is abducted and killed, and Shin-ae turns to evangelical Christianity to deal with the overwhelming despair. "Secret Sunshine"'s main theme evolves around how people overcome tragedies and continue on with their lives. This is the first picture by director Lee Chang-dong since returning to the film industry after serving as the country's culture minister. "Secret Sunshine" was one of the two South Korean films competing for the Palme d'Or, otherwise known as Golden Palm, the highest prize given to a competing film. The other film was Kim Ki-duk's "Breath". But the highest honor went to the Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days about the harrowing journey of two women as they seek an illegal abortion in Communist Romania. Russia's Konstantin Lavronenko won best actor for The Banishment.

Long weekend 25, of May 2007 - 28, of May 2007 pt3

Along with watching movie all weekend I also saw The 2007 Miss Universe Beauty Pageant, and pleased to say Riyo Mori (森理世) Miss Japan won the pageant. I think it's the First time that Japan ever won the Pageant, actually second (1959, Akiko Kojima).


Honestly I believe Miss Japan 2006 Kurara Chibana( 知花 くらら) should have won Miss Universe last year but they gave it to someone else. Now it's Japan's turn to rightly wear the crown.


Actually I believe that Honey Lee (Miss Korea) would have one the pageant this year if it wasn't for her answer. If she could have any superpower what would it be? The last thing her translator said was "to have a wallet that never dries up" even though she said she would use the money for missionary work it still made her look bad to the judges. I'm trying to ask my friends in Korea if they saw the pageant and ask if the translator did a good job or maybe it was Honey Lee's fault for answering that way

Long weekend 25, of May 2007 - 28, of May 2007 pt2

Along with watching movies I also did a bit of shopping one of the things I bought was a new Boston "RED SOX" hat. The main reason I did was because I noticed how a lot of people who use to be my friends like the "Yankees" and now that I'm not friends with those people what would keep them from saying hi to me if they saw me in the streets? Well, if they're really as big fans of the Yankees as they say they are then they should know about the rivalry between the two teams. I guess you can say this is my way of saying "hey we're not friends anymore so don't even say Hi to me", I wonder if they'll get that?

Back to movies another that I saw was SMOKIN' ACES, which I thought was awesome!!!! I remember seeing the trailers for it and that I really wanted to see it. Then when some of the actors started to promote the film on TV shows I heard that it was a comedy then I lost interest and never saw it. It wasn't until recently I saw the Japanese movie trailer for it and it sparked my interest in it again. Well, I saw it and like I just said I thought it was awesome; there's a few things that I would have done differently. For one I would have left out the scenes where the one cop survives the encounter with the "Tremor Brothers" and crawls to the house for help. The scenes with the Kid in a Karate Uniform, talking back to the cop with missing fingers. Also I would have killed off more characters like the ones played by Alicia Keys and Common. I think it would have been better if they died in the film. Other than that I thought it was a good film, lots of action. I love action, plenty of gunfights but I would have like one or two more. I totally recommend this film.


Another I saw this weekend was SPIDERMAN 3, which I heard was getting a lot of mixed reviews. Most people either liked it or hated it. For the most part I liked it but there were parts that I truley hated. Fist of all I can understand that movie writers have to rewrite some of the material for the film. It's just I hate the way they do it; for example if you've read the comic books or know anything about Spiderman History you know that "Gwen Stacy" used to be Peter Parker's girlfriend and that she was killed by the "Green Goblin" which later led to his down fall. Also that "Venom" depending on comic book or second animated series had something to do with either the "Secrect Wars" or attached itself into a space ship that later crashed into earth and.... Anyway, like I said if you read the comic books you know the history. Okay so the things I hated the most was when Peter Parker started dancing in the Jazz club to make MaryJane upset. It reminded me too much of Jim Carrey's The Mask (which is another bad film). Also most of the Film was done in CGI, do they even need actors for that film? I think it would have been done better if they done the whole film in CGI. Take FINAL FANTASY: ADVENT CHILDREN, a great film done in all CGI, way better than any Disney Pixar film made to date. Also most of the acting was pretty bad; James Franco (who I think wants to be compared to James Dean), is usually a good actor (SONNY) did a terriable performance in this film. Also Tobey McGwire acting I think was totaly unbeleiveable. The only acting that I actuallyed liked from him was when he was talking to his "aunt" and how he didn't propose to MJ. Other than those rew minor (or major) details I thought it was an okay film. I really wouldn't recommend it but if you have nothing else to do go ahead.

Long weekend 25, of May 2007 - 28, of May 2007

Well, Usually I have a lot to say and Last weekend being a holiday and a four-day weekend gave me a lot to say, and a lot more reading to do. Since I left my flash drive at home I had to google all the pics I'm about to post in this blog showed me a lot of sties I want to read. First off it game a lot of time to catch up on some movie watching.

The first movie I think I should mention is "28 Weeks Later", which I thought was a good film except for some of the filming in the beginning, which used a lot of hand held shots. At first I thought I was going to get a head ach form all the movement, but after they played the flash back scene it was pretty much over. They didn't come back to the hand held stuff till near the end of the movie with all in the tunnel. The only thing I really didn't believe about the movie was the access pass the farther had. Would the military really give a pass like that to a civilian? I think not. Other than that the rest of the film didn't bother me. Not even the scene when they were in a little sport car and they were speeding faster than an army attack helicopter.


The Only thing that really disappointed me was that I thought there would be more scenes with soldier’s. There wasn't enough for my liking, I actually thought the move would have more of a soldier’s perspective. Ya know, like soldiers saying "cover me, I'm gong in". Stuff like that, but there wasn't. Then most of the characters died off too soon, just when you were getting to know one and like another they ended up getting killed. As another person told me "I wasn't interested in these new survivors", really I wasn't either. I think the film would have been better if they showed the soldiers being bad Asses and shooting infected.

That's one thing I don't like about action movies with soldiers; one thing that I will have to change. You can't show soldiers being cowards. With all the training they go through and the weapons they have, you don't want to see a solider afraid. One example I can give is in ALIENS, with Bill Paxton's character. He's a marine, marines are known to be bad assess and he had a big ass machine gun. If that was me with a gun like that I wouldn’t have been afraid of an alien. I would have man(ed) up and went out shooting. Like the one lady in the group of grunts in ALIENS, who ended up blowing up. If you've seen the movie you know what I’m talking about. She was a real man, no offence intended.

The Next Film I saw was the new "Pirates" movie, which I thought was better than the second. You actually needed some back story to this one to know what was going on as to in the second one you didn't need to know. The only thing that I didn't like was that there was more than one "Jack Sparrow", in some of the shots. This was done I think because most of the audience from the first two didn't like seeing Jack talk to him self. Which was because he was crazy, in the third you saw either smaller versions of him self or full size that no one else saw but Jack. I think that took away from some of Johnny Depp's acting, I mean those who were smart enough already knew he was crazy and that he was talking to himself. I just don't think that was needed for the film and it insulted intelligent audience members.

Wei

Wei, this guy was cool for an FBC (French Born Chinese), which is kinda funny cause he hated most ABC, especially girls. This guy loves Korean women; we met this one girl at school who's name was "Tia" Choi Ga-Yuoung, and he thought she was really pretty, but he didn't like that she was 18 (he thought she was too young). So when he found out that she had an older sister he wanted to meet her. The funny thing is he never met her but I did later at Columbia College. They both look alike except Tia is a little cuter. Anyway me and Wei use to hang, most of the time by watching Asian Movies. After that we would walk around downtown and get something to eat. It's been about one semester now that he's back in France and by looking at his pics on myspace looks like he's having fun.

Noriko

This Beautiful Woman here is my friend Noriko. I met her at Harold Washington College, we had an art class or two together. She's a really good artist, I can't display any of her work because I don't think she would like me to. Anyway I've been talking to her a lot recently on Myspace. She's excited about going back home to Japan but not so much about leaving all her new friends and her boyfriend. I sure am glad I got to know her too bad we didn't hang out.

More Japanese Movies

Here are a few moives whos trailers I couldn't download, But the Posters caught my aggention