pr.shaolin

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the One

2009-01-20T08:38:00.000-08:00

Mwahahaahahahaa. Cheney arriving at the Inauguration.

Don't forget to cash in on Obama ice cream... what is it called?

Waxing Politic

2009-01-16T02:39:00.000-08:00

Hee hee hee...

Even Bush's farewell speech was one-upped by US Airway Flight 1549's emergency landing-on-water story. It's a good thing for Canada that Bush is on his way out since he would surely have bombed them for attacking us with their fancy WMD terrorist geese.

The O-Team

2009-01-15T07:04:00.000-08:00

Great link to Obama's who's who at the NYT. Only other major news of the week is the death of Ricardo Montalban. Farewell Fantasy Island!

Dog Day Afternoon

2008-12-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, so people got into a fight about cutting in line and stampeded a poor man to death. Just goes to show that Wal-mart is evil and people who shop there are nuts. Meanwhile, this is the saddest video I've seen in ages, at least this dog had enough decency to help his fellow dog:

That Idea Was So Last Election...

2008-11-30T02:34:00.000-08:00

I know that Apu was once voted the most famous Indian in the USA, but things are going to change for everyone's favourite Kwik-E-Mart manager. As is now often the case in politics, stereotypes are ripe for utter and shameless exploitation. Hey, Hillaristas - you want a woman? We have women, meet Caribou Barbie...

Well, world, get ready for the Republican Party's newest move of desperation. Do we have any black/white Hawaiians? Nope? Hey, who's that in Louisiana? Is he foreign or is he just tan? (Send Berlusconi to check on that for us please). Oh he's an Indian? Sioux? Oh, from India, oh Indian but from Baton Rouge. He likes guns, he likes Christians, he hates abortion and doesn't support gay marriage. America, welcome the new non-whitey GOP Obama clone, 'Obama v. 2.0', Bobby Jindal! The Republican Party is like a SNL skit without the irony. Maybe irony is dead. How sad.

Back to Black

2008-11-23T06:05:00.000-08:00

OK, so this week Al Qaeda numero 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, called Obama a 'house Negro' like Colin Powell and Condi Rice, which makes it official, nobody thinks Obama is half white anymore.

On to stranger things in the world of identity... I know that you can convert to another religion, but I didn't realize that in that same ceremony you could choose to convert into a woman? Artist formerly known as Michael Jackson (seen here in Dubai) in full Muslim female dress post-conversion. WTF? I see they let him keep his white socks and black moon walking shoes. Not so sure what is going on with his poor child.

Triumph

2008-11-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

When all is said and done, this remains the best election coverage of all...

...for me to poop on.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

Now that the euphoria has died down over the man who was not black enough to be 'black' to the man who suddenly became the blackest African American in the US, La Palin offers us a little insight into what the good folks of Alaska are up to. Is this woman completely illiterate? She can't seem to make any sense. It's really hard to believe there's someone out there who makes Bush sound literate. It's also deeply sad to think that this is as good as it gets up there in Alaska. No wonder all the young people who haven't gotten knocked up by 17 want to leave. Gobble gobble, be thankful this year you're not an Alaskan turkey (and I don't just mean the bird).

On this godly week to come... although I'm not a big fan of Bill Maher, who is kinda the new Michael Moore, I nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed his explanation of religion (scroll to about 3:00 minutes):

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Bill Maher Pt. 1

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

That One is the One!!!

2008-11-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

4:01 am GMT - it's official! Hooray, thank god I can go to sleep. Good luck and good night!

The One and That One

2008-11-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

0:13 GMT. Here in London, my today is already your tomorrow. In 48 hours the good people of the US will be doing one of the following:

1) welcoming a new era of unfettered sunshine and rainbows that end in buckets of love and happiness
2) examining the fine print in regulations for immigration to Canada
3) wallowing in the grips of 24/7 reporting about voter fraud

In the meantime, The One is free. I hope this is an auspicious sign of things to come tomorrow... Maikaʻi Pomaika‘i!

SNL Presidential Bash...

Business Syphilis and the She-Bush

2008-10-07T06:11:00.000-07:00

Best new nickname for Palin: She-Bush. Heheheh...

Best explanation of the financial crisis:

Just in Case...

2008-10-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that most people do not know too many Supreme Court cases other than Roe v Wade and even in that case most people have no clue what Roe (pro-choice) and Wade (pro-life) stood for. Fortunately, most people are not running for public office, unfortunately Sarah Palin is. So here is a good Wiki link for everyone to the most important Supreme Court decisions (she might want to look into the following Alaska Supreme Court case just in case she can't see the US Supreme Court cases from her house...). Joe Six Pack Americans should have enough pride in their own history to know more than Palin does about the country (forget world) she lives in.

Just to name a basic few: Brown v Board of Education (desegregation of schools); Miranda v. Arizona (anyone who has ever watched Law and Order should know about Miranda rights); Romer v Evans (gay rights); Hustler Magazine v Falwell (i.e., the People vs Larry Flynt); US v Nixon (President is not above law, ok, maybe Republicans forget this one a lot). If nothing else she should have been able to invoke Edwards v Aguillard (which voted against the teaching of Creationism), Gonzalez v Carhart (on partial-birth abortion), and the recent DC v Heller (which reinforced Second Amendment rights... ermm, that's the one about guns Palin).

By the way, for all those people still blathering on about how Palin's complete lack of experience (much less basic knowledge) should be read as a virtue, they should be reminded that it's not necessarily the best idea to let people with no training undertake a job that they do not understand. There's a reason WHY Joe Six Pack isn't President. Case in point: remember what happened to Homer Simpson's millionaire brother when he lets Homer (the ultimate Joe Six Pack) design "The Homer" at a credit-crunch price tag of $82,000? That's change we can't afford!

Don't Follow the White Rabbit

2008-10-02T05:45:00.001-07:00

I never would have thought there was any 'milk' in those candies in the first place so it is all the more shocking that they some were made with melamine tainted milk. Americans will get on their moral high horses again and rant about those sneaky slanty eyed Chinese all the while failing to remember who it is clamouring for super-cheap consumable goods. I remember back when White Rabbit candies were a novelty and honkys would try to peel off the rice paper. Heheheh. Speaking of whiteys...

Elsewhere in today's lack of serious news reporting: Marc Quinn proves that cliches are hugely profitable. His uber-crapola Siren (solid gold statue of Kate Moss in yoga pose... poor man's version of Hirst's equally crapola diamond encrusted skull) can now be added to the list of lame-o sculptures of unworthy celebs and should be paired with Daniels whathisname's Britney Spears Monument to Pro-Life sculpture. Neither can top Jeff Koons' truly inspirational Jacko and Bubbles (above). Quinn's and Edwards' one-liners are sad, shoddy gimmicks. OK, who cares, everyone is all geared up for the great debate on America's Got No Talent.

Hard Times News

2008-10-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

The so-called credit crunch seems to be hitting really big time now that even Somali pirates are slashing their ransom rates!

Elsewhere, the Palin ticket really is turning into Miss Congeniality as McCain's election team goes into over-drive to prep Caribou Barbie for the VP debate - no that's a still from the movie, not a photo op of Biden and Palin...

Maybe they can have a talent contest instead, it's Beauty Queen vs Dancing Queen:

I Think She's Turning Japanese, She's Turning Japanese...

2008-09-18T01:17:00.001-07:00

Maybe it's her hi-tech Japanese ninja glasses that enable her to see Russia from her house. Kazuo Kawaski thinks so.

But what will the residents of Obama, Japan say?

8 more houses or 8 more years?

2008-09-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

Did I not say that McCain was way too Manchurian Candidate to be president?

I know it's totally biased, but hey, McCain's having a bad time. He's being out polled by his own VP candidate Miss Congeniality... (yes, he does seem like he's trying to take off his wedding ring while giving SP the ol' elevator eyes treatment in that vid with Ms Con).

Eight of the world's most unlikely people to have anything in common with each other joined together in their dislike of SP:

1. Alec Baldwin
2. Pam Andersen
3. Matt Damon
4. Lindsay Lohan
5. Chevy Chase
6. P'Diddy (the legion of angry anti-P'Diddyists are pretty funny too)
7. Crowd of Alaskans
8. Pigs and pitbulls (because they are much smarter than hockey moms with or without lipstick)

p.s. Can someone explain the dinosaur/creationism thing? Were they really around 4000 years ago when the Chinese and Egyptian empires were running smoothly or was there an episode of Land of the Lost that I missed? And did John McCain invent the Blackberry? I thought he said he didn't know how to use computers...

911

2008-09-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

Seven years since W was too busy reading a book about goats to figure out what was happening in the world. Seven years since this stupid War of Terror was declared and nothing came of it except for a lot of dead people and a bunch of computer games inspired by the War on Terror. Seven years that have been worse than watching Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet. On such a sad occasion, we can only turn to the power of chimps to make us still laugh because the one in power is just too sad and it seems like the US is falling for the Wrinkly White Dude and America's Next Top Model:

The Mamma Mia Ticket

2008-09-06T11:01:00.001-07:00

Does this need any comment?

Everyone keeps telling me it's photoshopped but it only matters marginally.

What about this one of 'George Bush in Lipstick'.

Read the article at the Huffington Post...

Bill for President

2008-08-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

This is the missing chapter from Obama's account of his life in Dreams from My Father - Fat Philadelphia Years (alias 'Bill' seen here standing in the middle on the right). He was always the good kid in the Junkyard Gang wasn't he?

And from Paris, we have the following (Wrinkly Old White Hair Dude):

The Koala is not かわいい* (but Keanu is)

2008-08-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

*kawaii = cute

From the producers of Calamari Wrestler comes this postmodern journey into the psychic life of... Executive Koala. Cute on the outside, but does he have a split personality? Is he a brutal killer, an innocent victim, an overworked salary man trying to get by, or just a man in a suit? Watch it now at crunchyroll.com.

OK, this film is totally whack, I mean beyond Machine Girl whack. But it's actually kinda spellbinding. Whereas Machine Girl was just buckets of fake blood and a pretty limp storyline, this might just be one of the lost masterpieces of indie cinema left to be discovered. The best part has got to be when the courtroom dream sequence is reduced to a musical. I think this undoes all the pain that was caused in my brain from having to witness Richard Gere in Chicago. The bit about inserting nice memories was also a nice nod to Strange Days, Ghost in the Shell, and Paprika. Part Donnie Darko, but also thoroughly existential. The kungfu scene at the end kicks Keanu Reeves' butt - is it OK if a girl gets completely slammed against a wall by a koala bear? The completely absurd ending would have left Brecht in utter awe. Nice one... definitely to be watched completely wired on Coke and gummi bears.

Edison's Invention

2008-08-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

Beyond John Edwards' and Georgia's respective meltdowns, it's been a slow month for shocking news, but here's an alarming comparison of anatomies: Hawaii Five-O Part II vs. Small Guy Trying To Look Big

Nice V-neck tan line Obama...

Also, all the hype about Dark Knight was mostly hype. Great effects, but it wasn't dark enough and what was up with the Darth Vadar/Batman voice over? But everyone in that film has been cursed: Edison Chen had all of his porn stolen from his pink Macbook and uploaded onto the internet by mysterious "Kira", Heath Ledger OD'ed (who, by the way and with respect to the dead, does not deserve an Oscar - crazy is easy to play, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon was much more impressive), and then Morgan Freeman got into a car accident. But what gives - Edison Chen is so completely STILL in Dark Knight. When Morgan Freeman gets to Hong Kong (what a fantastic waste of money for a great shot of Batman standing above Central) he is greeted as he enters the skyscraper by... yes, Edison, speaking perfect English (obviously) while everyone else is speaking Cantonese and "Lau" inexplicably speaks Mandarin (inexplicable because Lau is a Cantonese surname; Liu is the Mandarin equivalent - maybe it is a nod to Andrew Lau or Andy Lau?). Anyway, so I checked up online and some reports say he was supposed to be a cop, others insist that Chin Han replaced him as Lau, which would make him the bad guy instead of a cop. Anyway, all's well that ends well. I knew he'd be able to pull a Hugh Grant on this one. Gillian too. Fools, people in sex scandals sometimes even become president. I wonder what John Edwards will be doing next year...

p.s. Zhang Yimou does not disappoint, he is still the biggest director of eye candy for obese Western audiences (check out Kajui's shakedown on the opening ceremony and further comments on EastSouthWestNorth).

Happy 08-08-08!!!

2008-08-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hope every one had an auspicious one. OK, no time to blog at the moment but highlights include Dark Knight and Man on Wire as far as movies about men in black hanging out on the top of buildings (more on Batman later). In the middle of Olympic-mania, Obama's Hawaiian vacation, McCain's bitch slap from Paris Hilton, and Russia and Georgia on the brink of war (no wonder Putin looked so unhappy at the Olympic opening ceremonies), the best absurdist news story of the week has got to be this one reported on BBC about an over-enthusiastic man in a Welsh town called Pontypridd who had his stereo and music seized and destroyed after he refused to stop blasting Cher and U2. Here's a little vintage Cher to redefine Patriot Act:

Almost 08/08/08!!!

2008-07-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

OK, go away for a couple of weeks and the biggest wedding since Charles and Diana happens under your radar - Tony Leung and Carina Lau (wedding announced some time a couple of weeks ago) finally wed after dating for almost 20 years. Not big for most people but FREAKING big for HK, China, and Taiwan and that's over a billion people + so important for 1/4 people in the world. Wong Kar-wai and William Cheung 'curated' the wedding (whatever that means). ON the topic of The Talent Mr Leung, began watching pirated RED CLIFF DVD in Toronto, but it was, as the Pacific Mall salesgirl told me, only 'camcorder quality' so not even '90% DVD quality'. I like old school hand held pirated DVDs because it preserves the sense of the cinema as a public space - e.g., you can hear everyone laughing their heads off when the actors say something ridiculous that will just appear very 'Oriental' in the official DVD (e.g., any glossy but lame-o Zhang Yimou martial arts film). It's good to have a clued-in public present to judge how silly things are (I think I've been reading too much G ramsci this week, but on this see also Laikwan Pang). Back to John Woo's The Battle of Red Cliff: in one scene, Tony Leung's and Takeshi Kaneshiro's characters challenge each other to sing but then have a gu-zheng-off instead (contest on flat stringed instrument... last seen in Kung Fu Hustle) and everyone in the audience got the giggles. Sadly never made it to the end so can't report on film but watched it with my teenaged cousin who kept substituting everyone with Lord of the Rings characters (hee hee). But hey, it's John Woo so we can count on trustworthy themes - brotherhood, blood, and diagonal shooting (hmm, that will be more difficult with axes and cross bows but I'm sure he'll manage).

ps. here's a follow up to previous blog courtesy of Vanity Fair featuring John and Cindy McCain (can you take someone named Cindy seriously?):

Barack Osama

2008-07-15T04:25:00.000-07:00

Don't know why but all I seem to be blogging about these days is the Golden Child (on second thought, Coming to America is a more apposite Eddie Murphy reference here). I definitely want Obama to become president because he wins on fun factor (remember when Jesse Jackson was prompted to say "I want to cut his nuts off"? -- that's funny politics). McCain is a little too Manchurian Candidate to be a laugh. Thing is, you couldn't find a joke funny enough to make about him like the one The New Yorker made about Obama and his wife. OK, so two funny/terrifying things: people who can't take a joke and Michelle on the View. What is up with that show? It should be re-named Desperate Housewives in the Sexless City. Ick. Glad I was never in a sorority. Gross.
I guess none of those "loyal" bleeding hearts who love The New Yorker remembered the March 2008 cover from not too long ago or indeed the Radar cover from back in November 2007 when people thought that Giuliani (The Man Who Forgot To Run For President-Giuliani or was it The Man Who Got Too Lazy To Fundraise-Giuliani?) would be the man to challenge Hillary. Yeesch, lighten up people! Have these devoted readers of The New Yorker ever met New Yorkers? Ya gotta love any identity group who would carpet bomb Madonna's car with pebbles and ot her Central Park debris because she has disgraced their beloved Yankee so appropriatly named A-Rod (OK, this story is admittedly reported from the same Radar of the dubious magazine cover--i.e., can you really trust people who thought Giuliani was The One?).

OK, people who can laugh at what is funny about racial stereotypes should check out Russell Peters' comedy act Outsourced (funny guy living in L.A., he would be Canadian wouldn't he...):

Springtime for Hitler

2008-07-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

Haven't had time to post anything, but here is another one from the BBC for the wax lovers: 'Waxworks Hitler Beheaded in Berlin'. Not quite as odd as the woman who pinched the Oceans Thirteen wax figures or nearly as heroic as Paul Kelleher who beheaded a statue of Thatcher back in 2003, but pretty weird all the same.

Big Brotha

2008-06-06T00:49:00.000-07:00

Is it finally over? My god, I am SO sick of hearing about Billary vs the Junior Senator from Illinois. She should divorce Bubba and get Obama to nominate her as his next Supreme Court Justice and then she will have lifelong power, which is what she seems to crave more than anything else. And just when this painfully long, tedious "election" of popularity has finally come to a possible end, it has been announced that the 9th season of the crapola-thon Big Brother has begun in the UK. That has always been the beginning of summer in London in my mind, which is becoming mush from all this democracy. Wonder how things are going in Zimbabwe...

Karma karma karma chameleon

2008-05-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

This just in - Sharon Stone blames China quake on bad Tibet karma. Mwahahahaha. So, I guess in 2001 when her husband, Phil Bronstein, got bit by a komodo dragon in the LA zoo was it payback for her entire filmic career? Hey, she just doesn't want anyone 'to be unkind to anyone else'. 'They're not being nice to the Dalai Lama who is a friend of mine'...

Well, do us a favour, stop making movies. That would be very kind to us all. BTW - My cousin provided me with the all-time best review of Basic Instinct 2: 'it was a good architectural tour of London'.

Jesus Christ Superstar

2008-05-19T10:54:00.001-07:00

What the??? Drudge Report has called it 'Obama Mass'. I wonder if they are serving fish and loaves. That's quite a bill for the Rent-a-Crowd company he's going to have to pay...

This reminds me of the Gospel of Debbie, which anyone raised Catholic has to read for a good laugh.

The Air I Breathe

2008-05-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

Better than the Hollies song. IMDB reports that the director - Jieho Lee - had to go to Harvard Business School so that his Asian parents would let him become a director. Good thing he persisted. One of the best US films I've seen in a long time. The Wiki entry said that most US critics gave it negative reviews which just goes to prove the continued idiocy of film critics in that country. It is a four part story in which every character is interlinked with the others (think Babel, but much better and without the grotesque bourgeois pomposity of trying to address 'world events' and tick off every global market in the most superficial way). I guess the cinematography is far too beautiful (Brendan Fraser sequence captures the magic of Leon Lai in Fallen Angels and rolls like Clive Owen in WKW's BMW ad, which also features Forest Whitaker) and the plot requires too much thought for an American audience with ADS. Crying shame. Bad reviews make for lily-livered investors and Jieho Lee is a good thing - managed to get one of Sarah Michelle Gellar's best performances since Buffy and Forest Whitaker is heartbreaking as a chump. The Good Doctor - Mark Kermode - was supposed to review it yesterday but ran out of time, pity (however, watch Mark's review of Rambo on Youtube, while you're at it watch his hilarious rant about Tarantino).

You speaka my Englisha?

2008-05-16T09:48:00.001-07:00

No time now for comments but here are two highlights from Munich and Rome.

I wonder if it's a German dollar store? I bet you it's full of CCMs. And, no, it's not just the Chinese who have trouble with language. Check out the Italienglish below (very nice cafe though). If you are really that intrigued you can also read this BBC report on US misspeaking and inarticulacy and see this guy's site for laffs.

May Day! May Day!

2008-05-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

Lots since the beginning of May: so first Red Ken gets booted out of office by Conservative goofball Boris Yeltsin Becker Johnson (yes, he does look like the love child of that grotesque orgy), then a rather pathetic may Day parade goes down the streets of London - I counted very few people, lots of young white shirted men stopped in front of Starbucks (unknowingly I think) and gave the good ol' left handed salute. The photo to the left is the guy in yellow who follows at the end of the parade and rolls up the police tape. He is the personification of Post-Socialism. The answer to the question 'What comes after Socialism?' is: the police state. Then a few days later Hillary decides that she's going to go the way of Milosovic and pander to bombing someone for political popularity. The verdict is in, get ready for President McCain (hey, he will be less reactionary than Hillary). Thank god for this item from Kaiju to cheer us all up - Wong Kar-wai has had Yoyo Ma re-score Ashes of Time!!! Oh, yes, and Rain beat Colbert for Time Mag's 100 most influential people, which leads me to ask what the heck has happened to the USofA?!

The Political Absurd

2008-04-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

Sad day folks, especially if you are Italian. Is it the hair implants? The canzone or the general fact that the man is a crook?

The Filmic Sublime

2008-03-26T05:42:00.001-07:00

This clip from Jia Zhangke's Still Life makes up for all the bad movies I've seen this month. Just to set it up: a woman has been searching across China to find her husband to ask for a divorce. She finally finds him and they are talking to each other in this dilapidated tenement block and sharing a piece of candy. What happens next is as close to the sublime as I've seen in film in a very long time.

'Yo veo dead people' or Beetlejuice en espagñol

2008-03-26T04:16:00.000-07:00

Had loads of caffeine last night to get hyped up to see the 'super scary' The Orphanage. Super scary as in: What has happened to people's taste?!?! I checked the reviews again this morning to make sure I hadn't imagined them. Still a 4.3/5 star rating and still lots of reviewers going on about how scary and moving it is. Not super and not scary. OK, freaky social worker with bottle lens glasses and Geraldine Chaplin (offspring of legendary Charlie) as a psychic were creepy enough but that had nothing to do with horror, social workers and children of very famous people are just creepy by definition. So I am still left wondering what is the hype all about?! You can't be both a horror film (which is how this film has been pitched by Warner Bros, whose corporate finger prints can be seen all over this movie) AND be a moving fairy tale, that's a very tough combo. And for those of you who didn't see every next scene coming a mile away: you need to spend more time in the cinema!!! This isn't even Guillermo del Toro, but a GdT production (i.e., here's a bunch of consolation money for not winning the Oscar for the truly deserving Pan's Labyrinth, which IS a very moving fairy tale without being a horror film). El Orfanato is essentially a fluffed up Mexican version of Beetlejuice (which I do rate highly) featuring a mini-Donnie Darko without bunny ears or a reworking of the unbearably pretentious The Others by Alejandro Amenábar (which is the original Spanish Beetlejuice). As far as 'we are dead people trapped in an old creaky house with doorknobs that turn in the dark by themselves' scary the ropey old black and white Deborah Kerr vehicle The Innocents (1961) still haunts:

What was scary was getting off the night bus and seeing my neighbor standing there sending off a friend. That's uncanny considering there are millions of people in the city of London. Also ran into friend's parents at the bus stop the other day and they were visiting from New York. Bus stops as portals: next horror film scenario after the mutant pandas and giant penguins stories...

Happy Bank Holiday!

2008-03-24T04:34:00.000-07:00

OK, so Easter is a big scam like all other holidays, except we get an unusual number of days off so hooray. The big JC dies so let's eat huge amounts of chocolate bunnies, eggs, marshmallow chicks, etc. and stuff ourselves silly because Christmas was a while ago now: 'whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name, there will be obscene gorging involved'. Hey pass that body and blood of Christ... Protestants said that Catholics were essentially cannibals because they were so hung up on the whole transubstantiation business. Vampires too in that case.

Anyway, Easter in London this year was full of freak snow storms that melt on contact. It's like fake snow or something. One minute it's a blizzard, next minute it's just another cold, dank, gray English winter day. I think I'm trapped in someone's snowdome... This Easter I went to a baptism which was followed by biblical amounts of drinking and a very nice lamb (of God?). Then read this story about a praying dog bumping up numbers at a Buddhist temple, so now the verdict is in: organised religion is full of freaks from fundamentalists to UFO worshippers (yes, this reminds me that the last time I was in the USofA I saw a 'documentary' on TV about UFOS in the Bible, no you couldn't make that kind of crap up...). We can thank the 'History' Channel for this enlightening programme (official brainwashing machine of the American Right and producers of the equally dubious History of Britain with Simon Schama)...

Oh, on the topic of documentaries and in keeping with all that seasonal redemption yada yada, went to see Rene Vautier's most excellent Afrique 50 (1950) at the Tate Modern Paradise Now film series. The Tate clips were uneven ranging from the poetic sublime (Moholy-Nagy's film The Old Port at Marseilles) and the political sublime (a piece on the S.C.U.M Manifesto) to the outright stupid (both contemporary video artists should be tied up in an auditorium and forced to watch their own self-indulgent crap for 24 continuous hours). But Vautier's terrifyingly prophetic film is still amazing and well worth the watch if you can handle the clip without subtitles, puts Fritz Lang's Metropolis to shame (and that is one of my all time favourite films, I even liked Giorgio Moroder's remake too). OK, not to end Easter on a downer, here's a clip of baby pandas to cheer everyone up (even if I think they are being cloned en masse in Chinese labs, fantastic horror film scenario in the making here and yes, the first two victims of the mad GM panda will be those two giggling girls in the clip)...

Super Simpsonize Me

2008-03-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a very long couple of weeks and there are many things to report on and nowhere obvious to start so I combined two highlights: Slavoj Zizek's pay-per-view lecture series Ideology Embedded at Birkbeck in London and the Simpsonizer. Well, at least that's what I wanted to do, but for a man who is everywhere all the time, it is strangely hard to find any hi-res photos of him, so you will have to do with this one of me.

Zizek's lectures were nuts as usual, but two memorable quotes include:
1. 'When I'm ready to take questions, I will distribute them'.
2. 'Without 1968, there would have been no Bill Gates'.
Highlights included:
Analysis of the 'ideology glasses' scene in John Carpenter's They Live; identity vs. representation as demonstrated in the 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me' scene in Cabaret; comparison of Joan Baez singing 'Joe Hill' and Terminator 2 and the theme of martyrs and posthumous collective organisation in the line 'what they can never kill went on to organize'; explanation of the dialectic through the birdcage trick in the Prestige; naming La Vita è Bella and Schindler's List as two of the world's all-time worse films (too ignoble to merit links); analysis of Lenin as a good matchmaker in Reds. I'm sure the book will be out soon, the guy writes them like most people eat candies.

Chicago Baywatch

2008-02-19T03:28:00.001-08:00

Obama being very Hawaii Five-O here. I dunno, I find this disturbing. Not the lack of clothing, but the strangeness of this guy's body. Does that man have magic clothes that slim him? Some weird Harry Potter coat for making you look 5 sizes smaller? If so he should market it to Hillary's so-called middle-aged, middle-class women voter base. Maybe he wears a girdle? Like I said, it's kinda disturbing. Not as disturbing, mind you, as how much weight John McCain suddenly gained while I wasn't looking (or maybe I just had a false memory of him being a skinny guy, and I was never looking all that closely anyway)...

Spare Some Change Bro?

2008-02-17T10:16:00.001-08:00

will.i.am is a campaign deus ex machina for Obama. Is Babs still campaigning for Hillary (oy vey)?

This is not an Obama endorsement, but he'd be more fun as president than John McCain (don't forget John Edwards was supported by the MWLLKR site). Obama's a lucky guy to have found good (and free) PR. There are lots of spoofs out there already including 'john.he.is' for John McCain which I was sent by my bro. There is also the well-circulated Obama's Top 10 List on Letterman as well as a seriously OTT MadTV clip of Hillary with 'jungle fever' wanting to serve under Obama - definitely NOT suitable for the easily shocked and offended (don't say I didn't warn you)...

Addendum: Here's a bunch of other new songs about Obama...

'Better Britney than Whitney'

2008-02-16T14:01:00.000-08:00

I remember you used to say this to differentiate between crazy celebs like Whitney Houston who end up coked off their faces and marrying boy band has-beens and perky up and coming pop tarts like Britney Spears. Poor Britney, what went wrong? Can't help but feel sympathy for her because she is so freaking nuts. I remember back when she was savvy and sane enough to have made the video for Lucky (life imitating art...)
But over all it's a bad week to be a celeb, especially if you are Edison Chen (who, like Britney, has been reported to be suicidal this week, although much of these details are likely to just be salacious HK tabloid fever). Although porn-from-your-laptop is never something you want to leak out to the world, Edison has plenty of other things to be ashamed of like his bad R&B rapping in Cantonese. Oh yeah, and he owned a PINK MacBook. Edison was slated to be in the next Batman, but it looks like that film is cursed with bad luck.

p.s. Hey, doesn't any of this remind anyone of the internet photo-plot of Beyond Our Ken starring the very same afflicted Gillian Chung (and Daniel Wu)? IMDB plot outline reads: 'A month after Wai Ming broke up with Ken, she finds nude pictures of her on his website. To get back at him, she teams up with his new girlfriend'. You'd think she would have learned... more life imitating art.

p.s. no time now to plug most excellent HK director Pang Ho Cheung, maybe another time (see Isabella if you get a chance, saw it two years ago at HKFF and PHC was there with Chapman To)...

Hard Rain

2008-02-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

The movie is on its way: Speed Racer with Rain from the Wachowski Brothers of Matrix fame.

Myeh...

2008-02-01T03:05:00.000-08:00

I'll be in Rome of all places at the beginning of Chinese New Year so here's a final farewell from the pigs. Safe travels to everyone on the move (especially all those people stranded in frozen train stations without heat in China).

Loser

2008-01-30T06:01:00.000-08:00

OK, so Hillary Clinton really is a sad, sad cow. Nobody was supposed to be schmoozing for delegate points in Florida, everybody agreed (because Florida is full of senile people incapable of remembering when to hold their primaries), but Hillary changed her mind at the last minute because she realized she might lose... She makes Rumsfeld seem like a Boy Scout. I'm not saying that Obama is the Saviour (Keanu Reeves is THE ONE), but Hillary has really outdone herself in desperate, mega-loser'ish moves - as if getting her castrated husband Bill to bad mouth Obama wasn't enough, now she reminds me more than ever of Reese Witherspoon in Election.
I think Florida should not be allowed to vote anymore. Red card for stupidity. Dade County should be carpet bombed off the Union map (they have provided us with three memorable US history moments: the Chad incident; OJ Simpson's first post-Nicole arrest; and the demise of Paul Reubens' career: Pee Wee Herman caught masturbating in porn theatre, thanks a lot DADE COUNTY). In fact, let's just saw off Florida and send it off to Castro, maybe he can improve literacy rates there.

I see white people

2008-01-27T10:18:00.000-08:00

Mwahahahahaha... see full scoop here and for info on the real Jeff Ma and Mike Aponte. Not sure who Kate Bosworth gets to play (and yeah, you can ignore Aaron Yoo in the corner on the left, it would have been impossible not to have at least one authentically Asian guy in any random selection of five MIT students). Trailer also suggests that Kevin Spacey's agent still thinks he's an actor and not just the director of dubious stage productions at the Old Vic in London.

p.s. For those of you who are not familiar with Ma & Aponte, they were the MIT nerds who scammed the casinos in Vegas and got caught but now all have stellar professional, non-nerd careers (whoohoohooo, capitalism keeps the world spinning and spinning!).

I see dead people... but they're not very scary

2008-01-26T04:10:00.000-08:00

This is the 'horror' show down between Fan Bing Bing and Li Bing Bing:

Ha ha ha, just saw this ridiculous US distribution poster for Teng Hua-tao's most fantastic would-be Wong Kar-wai'ish, would be 'horror' film The Matrimony (Chinese title literally says: 'there are ghost inside my heart' and yes first two US posters on top make the movie look way scarier than it actually is). In spite of all the 'would be's it's a really good film - excellent ending (although you have to be sharp or you'll miss the whole point), Rene Liu is great, and well, I don't know why Leon Lai keeps getting screen time... He makes the ghosts look more alive than the humans. Best Leon Lai casting: Fallen Angels where Wong Kar-wai has him play a totally expressionless hitman. Genius. perfect use of his wooden face. We'll see what the ambitious new Chen Kai-ge film will bring where LL plays an opera master (me, I'm thinking, LL's face covered in what will essentially be expressive stage makeup, kind of reminds me of Tom Cruise 'acting' with a mask on in Vanilla Why, I mean Sky).

It's not really a 'horror' film but part of that distinct Chinese genre of ghost films like Stanley Kwan's Rouge, which would have hugely disappointed any horror fanboy expecting gore. Ditto for the Bing-Bing-a-thon here. On this note also check out Johnnie To's Linger (Chinese title: 'fly away butterfly'). You can watch the un-subtitled original version on Youtube but don't read the synopsis if you don't like spoilers [correction: you could have watched it if you had been fast, it's been removed: here's the trailer link instead]. I can't vouch for Vic Zhou's acting (this is his first feature film after a successful run of Taiwanese soap operas), but he is good eye candy for the run of the movie.

Did I mention this is Johnnie To? I guess you wouldn't expect him to do a simple love story, one of the people would have to be dead right? And there are also motorcycle chases involved. The posters makes Li Bing Bing look dead, but young Vic Zhou actually plays the corpse. It's not bad, a little like a passive aggressive version of Ghost, which is one of my father's favourite film. Hmm, that was possibly THE worse promo for a film anyone has ever made. Ugh, in fact, I think I've convinced myself out of liking the movie with that unforgivable remark... (apologies to Johnnie To).

And I have to say, I think Li Bing Bing wins hands down on this one.

Six degrees: Li Bing Bing and Rene Liu were in World Without Thieves with Andy Lau.

Oh and for all those F4 fans weeping from their temporary hiatus, they have a new album out, I think it's called 'Waiting for You' or waiting for you to make us some more money...

Insomnia and PEE

2008-01-26T00:12:00.000-08:00

It used to be that if you couldn't sleep you would just lie there in the dark until some acceptable hour (e.g., 7am) when you could forgive yourself for getting up so early on a Saturday. Today is one of those days >:[ However, with the internet you can find out all sorts of interesting and entertaining things like North Korea's Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble (PEE for short - thank you Kaiju Shakedown). If this doesn't wake you up fully I don't know what will, it's like drinking 20 espressos at once with crack and then swimming naked through icy waters.

Do you think these guys are winning the war for communism in the world?

Beach Blanket Bingo

2008-01-25T13:50:00.001-08:00

Yikes. I never really liked the beach until I lived in LA. OK, big cliche but what do you expect. The air pollution there makes for the coolest multicoloured, stain glass like sunsets that would make a Nexus 6 cry. But these photos from China that my uncle sent to me confirm why I dislike beaches in general.

Best movie beaches: Seconds and (of course) From Here to Eternity. OK, this post is full of cliches. Sue me.

Happy Feet in Myanmar

2008-01-25T13:23:00.000-08:00

OK, penguin news update. Today I can see right into the office and all the posters behind the giant penguin read HAPPY FEET so ermm, the answer to 'is there a sequel?' is 'duh, yes, animated penguins don't go on strike and animation can be outsourced'. Guess the Hollywood writers strike is hitting the studios hard. Well, Lionsgate and Marvel have just made a settlement with the WGA so it looks like we can all rest assured that the RAMBO sequel won't get shelved. Doesn't that just make you feel safer in the world? Apparently Stallone disagrees since he received death threats while making this movie in Myanmar (hmm, like 'stop polluting our eyes with your old, saggy face!'). He was surprised at how bad the standard of living in a conflict area could be: 'I witnessed survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land-mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off. We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia but the results of this conflict are more horrific. This is a hellhole beyond your wildest dreams'. Errr, duh... did he think Aung San Suu Kyi was the name of a karaoke bar?

Tree of knowledge

2008-01-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

After waiting some time, the new Apple micro-notebook MacBook AIR is finally out! Well, it's not really a micro-notebook, but it is damn thin (FYI - the guy in the Apple demo video has unreasonably large hands, which make the computer look smaller than it actually is). It's been a long year where I had to trawl through some pretty damn scary Apple rumor sites and blogs occupied mostly by mega-nerds and Mac extremists - e.g., check out the uber-geek at MacWorld who pretty much minuted Steve Jobs' presentation as if he were one of the Four Evangelists. Sad. Hey, I had an Apple II back in the day and played Decathlon on the old standalone Mac (when Microsoft was still making gaming software for Apple) but those Mac spiritualists you see congregating at Apple Stores across the world are just SAD. Now, if only I can manage to find $1799 in my pockets...

p.s. Laptop tip of the day: best laptop bag = bubble wrap envelop (also good deterrent for thieves).

Speaking of apples and other fruits, here is something even more addicting than Sushi Go Round (don't say I didn't warn you):

Fruit Smash

Smash up the fruit, using all the bonuses you can.

Play this free game now!!

March, march, march

2008-01-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

FYI - For any March of the Penguin fanatics, the sequel must be near because there is a BIG ASS penguin in the marketing brainstorming office at Warner Bros across the street from me... creepy. Maybe Morgan Freeman will discover a secret corporate office where some psychopathic serial killer is holding the mother of all penguins... Along Came a Penguin, Danny the Penguin, Kiss the Penguins, SePENGUINen...

Uh oh, this just in: since reporting the above, the blinds have gone down. Be scared! They know we know about the big penguin. This is how every Morgan Freeman thriller begins isn't it? I'll let you know when we get to the running in the rain at night through creepy back alley and abandoned factory buildings chase scene... (hmm, this is also the building with the lame-ass paper recycling bin mentioned in the previous blog - coincidence?).

Plastics

2008-01-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

One of the best and most memorable lines in The Graduate is when Mr. McGuire tells Ben (Dustin Hoffman's character) 'there's a great future in plastics'. The film's still fantastic because of: 1) the young Dustin Hoffmam; 2) Katharine Ross; 3) Benjamin's car; 4) Mrs. Robinson's coat.

Hooray for China for banning plastic bags. Booooo for China for human rights abuse, but nobody these days can claim a clean record (even Canadians are getting unjustifiably tasered in airports...). In Italy they charge you 5 cents for every plastic bag you get from the grocery stores; at the Whole Foods in LA they used to give you something like 3 cents back for every bag you brought with you; in America n Beauty the most beautiful thing the kid next door ever films is a plastic bag in the wind (loser); in the UK there is no mandatory recycling of any kind and you often can't even get proper recycling bins (uber-lame). Note to self: take photo of ridiculous paper recycling bins near home... Anyway, good for China for cutting down on plastic bags, now let's see if they can manage to do something about the poisonous air.

Happy Fat New Year!

2008-01-01T21:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Fat New Year! 2008 is a very lucky number so it should be a good one. For everyone in Europe make sure to schedule a 01 June 08 party, those in N. America can do Jan 06 08 party for luck and everyone can have a blast this 08 Aug 08 - 168/888, either way it sure beats 04 April 04 when we were in the early stupidity of the War in Iraq.

Here are some highlights from the end of the year and some random vids, etc. that I remembered seeing this year:

Cute in 2007:

Otters holding hands (MILLIONS of people seem to have watched this clip and one of the otters was apparently saved from the Exxon oil spill ages ago)

The evil eye baby

I know it's like America's Funniest Home Videos stupid, but it still makes me laugh everytime I see it. Reminds me of the 'Whatchoo talkin' about Willis' look. Hooray for Gary Coleman: child star turned security guard turned politician. To think this man coulda been the Governator if the votes had been skewed in California 2003 (he did come in 8th just after Larry Flynt). It renews my faith in American democracy when an Austrian body builder, a disabled porn publisher, a child star, a porn star turned cook named Mary Carey, a game show winner, a Sumo wrestler, and a Socialist all run for public office in order to run an incompetent, lame duck politician out of office. Hooray for California! Making democracy safe for the world.

Standing cat (this is an old one, but who doesn't love a standing cat?!)

Very cool in 2007:

The power of collectivity

Matrix ping-pong

Also quite old, but I was reminded of this when I saw it shamelessly ripped off in a London play earlier this year (Tom Morris and Emma Rice's rather boring A Matter of Life and Death; see, however, Katie Mitchell's excellent Women of Troy if you get a chance):

Very very in 2007:

So today I looked up CHINGLISH after having been sent various images from the site over the year by my brothers and to my shock some over 1,700 photos have been uploaded by 500+ members since I last looked at the site. The one here is my favourite of the... well, first couple of pages (I couldn't make it through page 5). There are many more classics, but this is a pretty ironic one. Thanks to brappy for the upload (see similar at Crappy DVD Covers). Compare with the actual movie poster (for those of you who haven't seen the movie, Bill Murray and not Dustin Hoffman is in the film; it's set in modern day Tokyo and not well, some green park in the past; there are no dogs in the movie, but there is a karaoke bar).

Just in case you are wondering what this movie is about, I will quote the blurb from the DVD cover above:

'the Bill is a television for over spirit star, he much uper the spout year, just connected to clap luckly recently a whisky television advertise, for taking this advertisement, he arrived at Tokyo. Summer with( card benefit with – John) is a photographer( tile – thunder ratio west ) who young wife who husband, busy with the work to always neglect her, so she arrive at the relax by taking stroll of Tokyo.'

No those are not typos, yes it is all lost in translation. When the movie came out people said it was slow, boring, self-indulgent, and racist about the Japanese. I think, however, it perfectly catches that sense of dislocated tourist ennui that overwhelms you when you have overstayed your welcome in a foreign land. As for the 'racist' interpretation - has anyone ever actually seen Asian variety shows?! I think the one in the movie is pretty tame (Sofia nailed that one on the head). It's one of my favourites (good soundtrack, good colour and lighting, great ending) although you really should be a damn good director if your dad made American Graffiti, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, and the Godfather trilogy.

Very Happy New Year:

The awesome Taipei 101 New Year 2008 fireworks display (you may ignore the excited ooh'ing and ahh'ing of the crowd in the video, but the image is still pretty fantastic):

Wax on, wax off grasshopper

2007-12-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

OK, things have been pretty busy. It takes twice as long just to walk down the street these days with all the Xmas shopping nuts out all at once. Yeesch. Internet shopping people. Anyway, lots going on but I save the jewel for this posting: Will Smith, seen here emerging out of his own crotch at a press conference for I Am Legend (what the Tom Cruise fairy movie or is this a remake of The Legend of Bagger Vance?)... Speaking of remakes - here's the news, WS wants to remake The Karate Kid with Stephen Chow and set it in China? Uh, aside from the obvious problem of migrating Mr Miyagi from LA to China (from Japanese to Chinese - oh, maybe Zhang Ziyi can play Mr Miyagi if Stephen Chow doesn't want to?), well, WS was never known for his brains - this is the guy, afterall, who chose to do Wild Wild West instead of the Matrix.
Read it and weep. Wow, The Karate Kid has its own long ass Wiki entry and I thought I had nothing better to do with my time...

Happy holidays!

Lust, Caution II

2007-12-14T01:38:00.000-08:00

色。戒

There's also a gajillion Brokeback Mountain spoofs out there, here's just one:

p.s. Have since seen BLOOD BROTHERS and as much as I love the cast (Daniel Wu, Chen Zhang, Liu Ye, Shu Qi), the original John Woo film is still light years better. This version is aesthetically perfect, but it has lost all of the politics and poignancy that made Bullet in the Head one of THE best all time movies about Vietnam without it being just another stupid war movie. If you haven't seen Woo's film, all the other Vietnam films are just macho fluff. This is kick you in the head (bullet in the head) raw. NOBODY can top Tony Leung's acting, although Jacky Cheung playing wacko is a pretty good second here. And by the by, that scene in Bourne Ultimatum where Jason Bourne has to shoot the guy in the FBI room, way better done in Bullet in the Head guys...

Also of exceptional note is Ning Hao's Crazy Stone (the now already old and much celebrated surprise blockbuster)... sorry trailer is in Chinese only, but it's a jewel heist gone very wrong, which was produced by Andy Lau's most worthy First Cuts production company...

'Former President of Peru' losing it...

2007-12-09T02:35:00.000-08:00

On the BBC:'Venezuela creates its own unique time zone on Sunday, putting the clock back half-an-hour on a permanent basis. President Hugo Chavez says that an earlier dawn means the performance of the country will improve, as more people will wake up in daylight. "I don't care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead," he said. But critics say the move is unnecessary and the president simply wants to be in a different time zone from his arch-rival, the United States.'

Yes, having your own time zone has done wonders for Economic Giants such as... errm... Newfoundland? Chavez is just not as cool as Fidel Castro whose 2004 switch from the US dollar to the Euro was a far better way to piss off Uncle Sam. But developing countries beware, one of the most important prior attempts to convert to the Euro standard - IRAQ 2000 - coupled by the unfortunate incident of 9-11 and the existence of evil doers paved the way for whole scale war. Not cool. And what's with the tiny books Hugo?

Asian Hair Simulator Software?!

2007-12-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

This is better than hair implants, which make you look like a ragged Barbie doll. This is too funny and if only you didn't have to give credit card details I would encourage everyone to do it. I'm sure someone can find a free one, but I don't have time today to scour the internet for something so silly.

I can't believe it's not... salt

2007-11-30T07:19:00.000-08:00

A coke bust? No, it's fake salt (industrial salt passing for table salt). I LOVE this story. My uncle already told me about these kinds of scams going on it China, but here it is again. It's almost as entertaining as the recurrent Taiwanese parliamentary full-on rumbles.

I remember drinking KLIM as a child, which was a cheapo Taiwanese rip off for powered milk (KLIM for the slow-witted is milk spelled backwards).

This "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" rip off is pretty funny too (the Chinese by the way makes the proud claim that it is "Made in Taiwan").

The truth is out there

2007-11-29T16:27:00.001-08:00

OK, so I stayed up until 4am the other night watching the entire season of Californication (yes, I have obsessive compulsive behavioral patterns). I love David Duchovny, he is a genius (oh, I used the word again). Very nearly Doctor Duchovny - Yale English, but dropped his PhD thesis on 'Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose' to be an extra in Working Girl. How's that for stupid trivia.

For TV online see SURF; for Asian soaps, movies, MVs, etc. there's crunchyroll. TVs are so last millenium.

Just because...

2007-11-26T15:53:00.000-08:00

Wong Kar-wai and Clive Owen. These were the good days before Blueberry Nights and the big Hollywood sellout (WKW signed on with Fox after all...). The other night someone complained to me that British men either look like Ricky Gervais in The Office or are prone to premature balding. Yes, but then there is Clive Owen who redeems everyone concerned. This was a BMW ad he made with Forest Whitaker and post-plastic surgery Mickey Rourke, the music is the fantastic song Unicorno sung by Charly Garcia Y Mercedes Sosa.

Protective Cover

2007-11-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

Again, HOW does one not want to keep this kind of stuff for a rainy day?!

Yatta, yatta, yatta...

2007-11-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

HOW can I NOT post this up in my memory palace? Al Gore may have won the Nobel, but this takes the cake! While the world was busy in 2001 with other less important things, Yatta was getting the word out on saving the enviornment. (How different the world might have been if the US Supreme Court had done a better job arbitrating the 2000 Presidential Elections).

Muffin tops

2007-11-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

I seem to recall that Daniel Wu had a rant about big sunglasses on his blog, well my fashion gripe is low riders on bodies without proper waistlines, which result in the so-called (and so-appropriately-called) 'muffin top' look. Wear clothes (and sunglasses) that fit you! Well, good news from BBC, low riders and crack dealers are finally out.

Riddle me this Batman!

2007-11-14T14:43:00.000-08:00

Reported today on the BBC:

'Virtual theft' leads to arrest Habbo Hotel users create a character and can buy furniture A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website. The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money. Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners. The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms.'

Surely they can just put this kid in a Habbo Prison for his offence? And who the heck thought of the name Habbo Hotel? It sounds like Hobo Hotel meets Asbo Hotel...

The Governator

2007-11-08T09:53:00.000-08:00

Love him, hate him, he's the Governator. Today it's mostly hoorays for the former Mr Olympia, Conan, and Terminator. He's leading the State of California in a law suit against Bush's government:

'California sued the federal government on Thursday to force a decision about whether the state can impose the first greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and light trucks in the United States. More than a dozen other states are poised to follow California's lead if it is granted the waiver from federal law, presenting a challenge to automakers who would have to adapt to a patchwork of regulations. "Our position is that it's time for EPA to either act or get out of the way," said Lee Moore, a spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram.'
(International Herald Tribune)

He's become one of the most 'post-partisan' politician in current US politics. Plus he does great commercials in Japan for all sorts of crap (especially energy drinks):

London Film Festival

2007-11-06T00:41:00.000-08:00

Films seen:
The Great World of Sound
Great film about con men and the music industry.
Mister Lonely
Good and bad; good includes image on right.
I'm Not There
Speechless, will find words later.
El Otro
Argentinian new wave, fantastic.
Back to Normandy
The French director was a self-indulgent, pretentious git.
The Champagne Spy
The Israeli director was a self-indulgent, pretentious git.
Stars/Copacabana
Documentary made from a script. Julio Arrieta is great as the voice of the shantytowns.

Moral of this festival: Don't let the director speak in a Q&A if he's a self-indulgent, pretentious git, it's a disappointment and ruins the film.

Films missed (largely due to the fact that I do have to show up for work):
Does Your Soul Have a Cold? (heard it was way better than Michael Moore's SICKO)
Glory to the Filmmaker! (which I already missed once before in Venice... sniff)
Flight of the Red Balloon (I loved the original French film as a child)
Things We Lost in the Fire (Benicio del Toro is going to play CHE in Guerilla out in 2008):

The Decline of the American Empire

2007-11-05T14:39:00.002-08:00

Not that it's not fun to watch the US dollar being reduced to Monopoly money in the world markets, but when Brazilian supermodels start spewing crap about economics, you know the end is near. Gisele Bundchen should be thanking her President for his reforms... uh, Vice-President Cheney, isn't that Hugo Chavez?

Read me at BBC...

Sugary C-Pop eye candy may cause blindness

2007-11-04T14:22:00.001-08:00

Indulging in my love for kitsch, here's some news from the C-Pop front: Vic Zhou of now extinct boy band F4 fame has a new single 'I'm Not F4', which is SO bad I think F4 is glad he's not F4 (BTW - I cannot believe Jay Chou wrote this song and what's with C-Pop, big sweaters, and fingerless leather driving gloves?!). I once watched ALL of Meteor Garden 1 and 2 in rapid succession as background distraction while trying to make a deadline for work. 2am, 3am, and even 4am marathons later, all the work was done, my eyes were little squares, and my brain turned to Nutrasweet. The Japanese version Hana Yori Dango is much better.

Worth discovering are two Beijing bands: punk gone elctro NEW PANTS and CONVENIENCE STORE.

New Pants, Goodbye Disco (Inexplicably in English, fantastically low-budget chic).
Convenience Store, Silent Day (which sounded like 'Saturday' the first 10 times I heard it).

Also:
SUPER VC (I could only find this fan vid on Youtube)
And the now defunct band The Dada and Peng Tan's solo album Teen Spirit.

Thanks to my Super Sleuth Mom for the link: you can download these at Baidu - PC users beware of viruses and get a freaking Mac).

Wax Model Goes for Plastic Surgery

2007-11-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

"Madame Tussauds was forced to withdraw the models just a day after the Ocean's Thirteen attraction opened on Thursday. Clooney's cheeks had to be retouched when fans left a trail of lipstick marks and Pitt's squeezable bottom was fixed after enduring too many pinches".

(read full article on BBC)

At least he didn't shoot him in the face

2007-11-04T04:14:00.000-08:00

"While criticising Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Mr Cheney said 'the people of Peru deserve better'. Speaking in Dallas, Texas, he said he did not believe Mr Chavez represented the future of Latin America. Mr Chavez and his socialist ideology have long concerned US President George W Bush's administration. Mr Cheney said of the Venezuelan leader: 'He spends a great deal of his time worrying about us and criticising the United States'. He added: 'The people of Peru, I think, deserve better in their leadership. But that's obviously a matter they've got to resolve for themselves'. He made the faux pas on Friday while addressing a lunch meeting of the Dallas-based World Affairs Council, which describes itself as an organisation set up to educate citizens on international affairs." (see video on BBC)

LOL... wait until Cheney finds out Alberto Fujimori is of Japanese ethnicity, he might just shoot someone in the face again.

La Biennale di Venezia - Cinema

2007-11-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

This is a belated post rounding up things I saw at the Venice Film Festival (the oldest of its kind), more later on the less exhilirating art Biennale...

SE, JEI (LUST, CAUTION) by Ang Lee (USA/China/Taiwan, China, 156’, language: Mandarin, subt. Italian/English) cast: Tony Leung, Joan Chen, Tang Wei double billed with SLEUTH by Kenneth Branagh (UK/USA, 86’, language: English, subt. Italian) cast: Michael Caine, Jude Law

CAUTION, this film is full of LUST. I glimpsed Ang Lee and his actors on the red carpet going in for the Gala Screening and thought how boring it must be to have to watch yourself in a film a gajillion times at every festival across the world. It'd be like reading your own book a million times. But Venice is one of the biggies so I guess they can't scive off like they usually do once the lights have gone down in the cinema (or maybe they did, there is a nice bar in the theatre).

It must be so weird to be Tony Leung and walk down the red carpet in a beautifully pressed tux only to sit in a room with a bunch of strangers watching you watch yourself butt naked on screen. Gorgeous film full of qipaos, mahjong rings, pretty faces, nice view of nipples, testicles, and other usually uncinematic body parts (thankfully no Hollywood-styled pointed toe climax scenes). Joan Chen acted everyone out of the house.

The best review I heard for it was from this old Italian dude sitting in front of me at the screening who said to his two friends: 'I heard there's loads of sex in this movie' to which the other guy said 'yes, but not for the first hour and a half.' The second best review was from a friend in Prague who saw it later and wrote to we 'We have seen Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" lately and that reminded me of my long-standing wish to learn mahjong, I hope I will get one for Christmas and we can play next time.' Yes, the film was WAY too long and you have to really love the visuals to not start thinking about random things like 'should I buy a mahjong set for Xmas?' - watch the trailer, which is beautifully edited.

It won the Lion (second for AL after Brokeback Mountain). It's no surprise, Shanghai in the 30s is the most lucrative cinematic cliche going at the moment, not to mention the jury was led by Zhang Yimou and also had lust-aficionados Paul Verhoeven (whose own 'erotic spy thriller' Black Book bombed earlier in the year at the cinemas) and Catherine Breillat (whose would-be feminist 'I am a hole' film Romance is all about sex - get a load of her promo photos... embarrassingly lacking in any avant-gardist legitimacy). Oh, not to mention festival guru Marco Mueller has a thing for Asians evidenced by his kow-tow before Zhang Ziyi at the 2006 festival.

Incidentally, v good to see Wang Leehom doing good after those early MVs:

Leehom really looks the part! OK, OK, different flag, different ideology - this is a Communist 'must liberate Taiwan' poster on the right, but it's the same visual rhetoric as the Nationalist stuff.

LUST, CAUTION was double billed with SLEUTH (2007), which is a remake of SLEUTH (1972) starring Michael Caine as the victim of Laurence Olivier's older geezer. Here Caine plays the older geezer and the younger geezer is now played by Jude Law (formerly played by Caine). Wink wink, nod nod - Jude Law also plays Caine's character in the god awful 2004 remake of ALFIE (1966).

I'M NOT THERE by Todd Haynes (USA, 135’, language: English, subt. Italian) cast: Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Julianne Moore, Christian Bale, Charlotte Gainsbourg double billed with IL DOLCE E L'AMARO by Andrea Porporati (Italy, 98’ language: Italian, subt. English) cast: Luigi Lo Cascio, Donatella Finocchiaro, Fabrizio Gifuni, Tony Gambino

This was THE highlight of the festival and I have to say of cinema so far in the 21st century. WTF has everybody else been doing for the past 7 years?! Too much to say so will save for London Film Festival post where I saw it again. Todd Haynes is a genius and I never use that bogus, cliched word. More entertaining and less challenging to write about right now is the dreadful IL DOLCE E L'AMARO whose writers and directors should be thoroughly thrashed for making me sit through this lame-o rip off of every mafia movie cliche in the history of cinema. The imprisoned mafia hero tells his son who visits him in jail: 'In life my son there is sweet and there is bitter', mostly bitter after you see this film. Undoubtedly the only way it would be seen was to double bill it with I'm Not There. I include the film poster here just to give an idea of how crappy this film is. No, it's not sideways, it was designed that way.

NIGHTWATCHING by Peter Greenaway (UK/Poland/Canada/ Netherlands, 134’, language: English, subt. Italian) cast: Martin Freeman, Emily Holmes, Eva Birthistle, Jodhi May, Michael Teigen double billed with L'ORA DI PUNTA by Vincenzo Marra (Italy, 96, language: Italian, subt. English) cast: Fanny Ardant, Michele Lastella, Giulia Bevilacqua

Martin Freeman as Rembrandt makes up for the fact that Peter Greenaway is still making the same film he's always made. Check out the artist and the actor, the before and after.

L'ORA DI PUNTA was so bad even the Italian audience boo'ed it after the screening. Really. I felt bad for Fanny Ardant who is always so charming, but she was actually delusional enough to compare the director of this ocular travesty to legendary French filmmaker Robert Bresson! It was either strained PR or she really is incapable of sound judgment and gets what she deserves. Booooo. I love Italian audiences, there's no holding back. It was that bad. It made IL DOLCE E L'AMARO look good that's how bad this was. Not a good showing for Italian film (otherwise exciting and very healthy at the moment).

Two documentaries from the festival that I saw:

WUYONG (USELESS) by Jia Zhangke (China, 80’, language: Chinese/Shanxi, subt. Italian/English) cast: Ma Ke
Slow paced doc by hot-new-thing Jia Zhangke (whose STILL LIFE won the Lion in 2006). Couldn't tell though if he was laughing with or at the designer featured in the film.

ANDARILHO by Cao Guimarães (Brazil, 80’, language: Portuguese, subt. Italian/English)
Even slower paced art film about the travels of different men on the same Brazilian highway. Really good and gives you an insight into the existence of these men, but requires patience.

AND that my dears was this year's Venice film festival (I was there to work in the Marciana afterall). Movies I missed:

JIANG Wen Taiyang zhaochang shengqi (The Sun Also Rises) - China / Hong Kong, China, 116’ Jiang Wen, Joan Chen, Zhou Yun, Jaycee Chan, Anthony Wong
LEE Kang Sheng (LI Kangsheng) Bangbang wo aishen (Help Me Eros) - Taiwan, 107’ Lee Kang Sheng, Yin Shin
KITANO Takeshi Kantoku banzai! (Glory to the Filmmaker!) - Japan, 104’ “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, Tohru Emori, Kayoko Kishimoto, Anne Suzuki, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
Alexi TAN Tiantang kou (Blood Brothers) - China / Taiwan, China / Hong Kong, China, 95’, Daniel Wu Zhang Zhen, Shu Qi, Sun Honglei - I had to go to dinner with a friend that night and friends are more important than seeing Daniel Wu (though you can check out his blog photos from the red carpet).
AOYAMA Shinji Sad Vacation - Japan, 136’ Tadanobu Asano, Aoi Miyazaki, Joe Odagiri, Ken Mitsuishi
Julian SCHNABEL Lou Reed's BERLIN - USA, 85’ Lou Reed, Emmanuelle Seigner

MWLLKR

2007-11-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

The Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers site is just too funny not to post. The creators seem to be supporters for Senator John Edwards. Pity he doesn't look like Kenny Rogers or go for a KR makeover. Is anyone going to tell the Senator "ya gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, and know when to run."

Malco Poro tlavered flom Venice to Beijing

2007-11-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is the premise: Japanese game show, you're not allowed to laugh and if you do you get spanked with a big ass bat.

Disclaimer

2007-11-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

I was sent this game by a trustworthy source and was up until 2 am last night rolling sushi. Do NOT play if you cannot control yourself.

Sushi Go Round

Serve all the customers in the Sushi Restaurant

Play this free game now!!

Seconds

2007-11-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

So here we go, first blog entry. Well, not really. I had another one way back when, but I forgot the account name and it's probably lost in some black hole with a bunch of abandonned Second Life avatars sitting around doing nothing in that thing we used to call cyberspace.

Welcome to my memory palace. I was going to call this blog CHISEEN to collect all the crazy things I don't want to forget that I've come across and that are sent to me, but someone actually got to it first. The funny thing is that someone is Daniel Wu who is a truly worthy person to lose a blog title to. Ironic. He even had the same photo from the Venice Biennale that I took this September.

First things first: get yourself a Wu-Name (no relation to Daniel Wu, but the irony here is not lost): Wu-Name Generator.

x Pre-Raphaelite Shaolin.