The Mamma Mia Ticket

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

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)

*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

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!!!

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!!!

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 Gramsci 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

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 other 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

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

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

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

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

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?

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!

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

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?