June 01, 2007
Paprika
Posted by Charlie at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2007
Eternal Summer
I have a crush. His name is Joseph Chang, he plays a college student with ADD in this movie Eternal Summer, and he's very delectable.
Posted by Charlie at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2007
Stop. Play. Stop. Play.
Now I'm a huge sucker for watching a good horror flick, especially if you're with someone with whom you can grab onto if during those intense, scary moments. It's a great way to get that adrenaline rush without jumping out of an airplane. Tonight, however, the rush might have been too much for me. I watched The Descent, which is, I must say, the scariest film that I have seen in recent memory. The 90-minute gore fest took me over three days to finish, with me needing to take several hours of rest after every 10-minute viewing. I'm going to bed with both eyes open tonight.
Posted by Charlie at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2006
Two Films I'm Excited About This Winter
Children of Men by Alfonso Cuarón
Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro
Posted by Charlie at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2006
Chasing Daybreak
Mid-week distractions and wine courtesy of Justin had me finally breaking into my DVD copy of Chasing Daybreak, the documentary based on the Generation Mix Tour that I embarked sometime last year, once upon a time. There we were, three little multiethnic kids hopped up on booze huddling over the tiny glow of my laptop screen with glee and retrospection. It was quite thrilling, actually, seeing two months of your life edited down to a 70-minute recap. I liked how Geetha and I were vying for the most screentime. This movie is being screened at colleges all over the country; many a person will have seen it, but there are only going to be a small handful of people who will appreciate it for completely different reasons. Seeing it is one thing, experiencing it is quite another.
Posted by Charlie at 09:14 PM | Comments (3)
September 08, 2006
Shortbus
Go see John Cameron Mitchell's latest movie when it comes out, and watch as cinematic history unfolds before your very eyes.
Posted by Charlie at 03:39 PM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2006
Little Miss Sunshine
Posted by Charlie at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2006
ゲド戦記
Ursula K. Le Guin's treasured Earthsea novels are coming to animated life this summer with the release of ゲド戦記 (literally translated as The War Tales of Ged). Le Guin is one of my favorite writers, with stories heavily based upon gender, sexual and cultural politics, and with Studio Ghibli helming the visual realization of her works (with Hayao Miyazaki's son directing to boot), this is going to be a double-whammy of artistic delights.
Posted by Charlie at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2006
Drawing Restraint 9
Posted by Charlie at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2006
Today Was a Great Day
I received an anonymous package in the mail today. I was opened it to find out that someone had sent me a gay porno DVD from Falcon. Score! It was totally unwarranted and unexpected, but I wasn't going to turn down a free gift. Thanks, whoever you are! I'm totally gonna have a porno dinner party to celebrate this momentous occasion.
Posted by Charlie at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2006
The Revolution is My Boyfriend!!!
I'm re-watching Raspberry Reich tonight. The film, I feel, genuinely tries to bring forth social and political messages by way of explicit pornography, but there is a fine line between fine art and smut it seems. There has to be a way of achieving both with equal success. *Puts on thinking cap*
Posted by Charlie at 11:17 PM
October 16, 2005
Formula 17
Taiwanese sappiness came in the form of Formula 17, a 2004 film that was featured in the Seattle Gay & Lesbian Film Festival today. Chock full of visually captivating characters, the movie was very bubblegum and played out kinda like a music video. Very cute, although definitely meant for an audience younger (or older) than myself. I initially thought the title was strange, but when I read the Chinese title, My Seventeen-Year Old Prince, it kinda makes sense. I don't think American audiences would be happy if they knew that they were watching a romance blossom between a 17 and a 30-year-old.
Posted by Charlie at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005
Final Fantasy VII Advent Children
Wow. Go see this movie, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, and be prepared to be visually stimulated.
Posted by Charlie at 11:05 PM | Comments (1)
September 15, 2005
Reprocessing & Rehashing
I've been going into the Mavin offices periodically this past few weeks to do a little re-shooting for the documentary. Justin wanted me to answer a few more interview questions, as well as shoot some cutaway shots of my character. It was a little hard to get back into that sort of mindset that I had when I was back on the tour, back when it was so easy for me to remember a particular time and instance of an event. "Yeah, meeting with Senator Obama was... great. Yeah. He was... um... taller than I imagined."
Posted by Charlie at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2005
Chasing Daybreak
I feel somewhat guilty. During the Generation Mix Tour the crew members and I had an additional responsibility that went along with our individual roles, which was to videotape our journal across the country for the tour documentary, 'Chasing Daybreak'. While in the end we achieved getting over sixty hours of footage, I felt that it wasn't enough, after screening the rough cut of the film earlier this afternoon. That was the first time I saw any of the footage that was taken during the trip, and because I have a personal attachment to the characters in the film, I kinda wanted to see more. It felt nostalgic watching myself and the other four go through our individual character developments and the journey that we took together. The images of our time in New Orleans were especially haunting, (not) knowing that some of the people that we interacted with there may or may not be okay. I'm really excited/nervous/apprehensive/scared/happy to see how the final cut turns out.
Posted by Charlie at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2005
Memoirs of a Geisha Poster
I cannot wait to see this movie, even if a Chinese girl is portraying a Japanese one. All Asian girls look the same anyway, right?
Posted by Charlie at 09:48 PM | Comments (3)
June 16, 2005
Escapism
I went and saw the movie 'My Summer of Love' with Brian last night. It was a sweet and poignant story, a tale of two teenage girls and despite their vastly different upbringings befriend each other over one summer. Their friendship quickly escalates into something more intimate, ultimately climaxing in a powerful scene at a river.
In one scene one of the girls reveals to the other that she considered herself a fantasist. She admits to creating worlds and characters and stories in order to spice up her dull and meaningless existence, and in some ways I can identify with her. My life, it feels has always been about acting a part for a certain audience for the sole purpose of impressing them. My personality shifts whenever I'm around these people - I would act coy, cocky, forlorn, egoless, flirtatious, quick-witted - and I would scare myself as another version of me would take over. I'm thinking back on times where I would catch myself posing. Even my sister has commented on how I act in front of certain people. My friends can attest to the fact that I love to adopt different dialectical accents, but that characteristic is usually attributed from alcohol. I'm still figuring out why this is so... is it because I'm using acting as some sort of an escapist defense mechanism? I don't know.
Anyway, I thought the movie was wonderful. The performances by Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt are just amazing. I particularly like Ms. Press because she reminds me of a young Tilda Swinton, my favorite actress. The camerawork in this film is also very interesting: the director was very fond of capturing very tight frames, all too often filling the entire shot with the faces of the girls. Normally I would be annoyed at this kind of moviemaking, but as the two actresses are extremely emotive and photogenic, and given the context of the film I didn't mind it one bit.
Go see this movie.
Posted by Charlie at 04:23 AM
January 19, 2005
Paris, Je T'aime
Imagine this: Sally Potter (Orlando), Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Jean-Luc Godard (Alphaville, A Woman Is a Woman), Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas), Mamoru Oshii (Ghost In the Shell, Tenshi no Tamago), Stanley Kwan (Lan Yu), Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 Grams), Joel & Ethan Coen (Fargo, Barton Fink, O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Vincenzo Natali (Cube), Natalie Portman (Closer, Léon), Steve Buscemi (Big Fish, Pulp Fiction), Gena Rowlands (Gloria), and other fabulously talented directors and actors. All collaborating on one single film. This is going to be, to me, the single greatest cinematic event of 2005.
Posted by Charlie at 02:18 AM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2004
A Movie Binge
Five movies in five days and counting. One definite advantage in living in a city with such cold climate like Seattle is a greater appreciation for the indoors. You can admire the stillness of the cold scenery from the confines of your toasty bed or curl yourself into a nice blanket with a book. I am rather looking forward to winter this year. And more time indoors equals more time in front of the laptop screen watching a good flick.
I finally watched Wong Kar-Wai's '2046' the other day. While not as strong as its predecessor 'In The Mood For Love,' '2046' shined on its own through nonlinear narrative and elements of science fiction. I was particularly fond of the friendship between Tony Leung and Faye Wong's characters; it was a semi-bittersweet platonic tango of a friendship. I was a little disappointed in Maggie Cheung's screentime, however. I was expecting to see more of her in the movie, since the story is pretty much about Tony Leung reeling over the lost of his love.
I've watched other movies that aren't really worth mentioning, but it's nice either way to spend several hours out of a cold night distracted by a good story.
Posted by Charlie at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2004
Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence
We caught a showing of Mamoru Oshii's Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence last night. It was a beautifully animated movie that tried ardently to instill philosophical and religious debate among its intended audience, but more likely ended with more questions than answers. In a world where most of humankind has uploaded "virtual" copies of their memories and personalities into a vast network governed by bytes, the line defining what is organic and what is synthetic has become infinitely blurred. People have become "dolls," their bodies nothing more than plastic cavities bound by wire. Gynoids, robots whose primary function is that of sexual pleasure, have begun killing off their owners and thus sparking a possible politcal scandal that the two detective protagonists must look into. Batou, the more austere of the pair, begins to question the definition of his humanity. His body is entirely synthetic; the only organic traces left in his body are bits of his original brain.
While I do appreciate Oshii's attempt at tackling such intriguing subject manner, I felt that his vision was muddled somewhat by the pretentious chitter-chatter of the two protagonists. They are constantly throwing at each other quotes from Plato, Confucius, Milton, and the Old Testament, among others, setting up so much pseudo-intellectual dialogue that detracted from the main storyline and idea.
Cultural paradigms may have also been lost upon importation into the States. Americans, for one, are not as culturally obsessed with dolls as the Japanese are. There are national holidays like Hina Matsuriwhere dolls are laid out to bring good luck to girls. AIBO and Tamagotchi are household names in Japan, little robotic pets that receive that same amount of love and affection as their natural counterparts. Some children, despaired over the loss of a pet Tamagotchi, have reportedly commited suicide. Clearly dolls and electronic toys have a higher state of consciousness in Japanese pop culture than in the States.
Well, I'm not a pop psychologist nor a philosopher, so I think I'll stop before I have both feet in my mouth.
One aspect that everyone will agree on for sure is the absolute amount of effort it took to make this movie breathtakingly beautiful. From the reflections of the marble floor in the syndicate's house to industrial aftermath ruins of Shenzhen, every frame in Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence is pure visual bliss. There are some very obvious references to Bladerunner and not so obvious references to Sherlock Holmes and Van Gogh. The basset hound clearly stole the show, however. It is the most realistically realized animation of a dog that I've ever seen on screen. Japanese anime has come a long way since the days of Astro Boy, and I'm glad to see that they're still not abandoning the traditional hand drawn technique anytime soon.
I love this movie, and it was an experience worth remembering. But not for the obvious reasons.
Posted by Charlie at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2004
Memoirs of a Geisha
The highly anticipated film adaptation to Arthur Golden's seminal novel finally has its Sayuri, and she's not Japanese. The Chinese actress who made flying through bamboo groves all the rage back in 2001, Zhang Ziyi is not considered - to me at least - as the best choice to play the role of a girl known for her gray eyes. First of all, Ziyi's not Japanese! She probably doesn't even know any Japanese words except for konnichiwa, sayounara, and katsukaree. And she probably says them in the same manner as all those Japanese Americans who pretend to know proper Japanese pronunciation but end up saying like a Texan ordering at a restaurant. Ugh. I can't stand anymore Taiko shows.
Anyway. And they casted Michelle Yeoh to play the role of Mameha! Michelle Yeoh's not Japanese, she's Malaysian! And doesn't Mameha have a face like a snow peach, or something? Why couldn't they actually cast someone who was - *gasp* - Japanese! Someone like Yuuki Kudo, Kanako Higuchi, or Yusuke Iseya dressed up in drag or something?
We need to represent.
Posted by Charlie at 02:47 PM | Comments (3)