The O-Team

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!

Back to Black

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.

Super Simpsonize Me

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.

'Better Britney than Whitney'

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)...

Happy Fat New Year!

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

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!

Asian Hair Simulator Software?!

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.

Yatta, yatta, yatta...

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

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!

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

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):

Sugary C-Pop eye candy may cause blindness

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

"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)

MWLLKR

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

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.