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(photo by Antman)
First of, the Wang takes a nice and laid-back drive to work, daily via the beautiful stretch of the east side of the SF proper. This involves passing through the middle of tourist travel routes to the pier 39, the Ferry Building, The Infamous Giant Spider, and the Hell of Pedestrians, (The Chinese have like 18 Hells...) AKA
The AT&T park is located in a nice stretch of the 2nd largest freeway exit area for Downtown SF. Basically, the cooler hipper 280 exits right on to the street that leads to the ballpark. This is also the gathering spot for the Caltrain and the end of the line for a pretty well used Muni light rail. So with all this, this means that the none-car-loving SFians love to walk fill up the 3 small intersections that spans between the park and the Caltrain station. This of course, backs up all the cars trying to exit the 280 freeway. Now this is going one way. The other way of the street is jammed packed with people trying to park, more pedestrians, and the general slowness of the cars in the area. So come baseball season, (and why cant they play on Sundays like the football ppl do? They r nice enough not to bother me...) the whole area in front of AT&T park becomes an even lower level of hell, The Hell of Slow Traffic. One can see an example of this on the 405 between the I10 and El Segundo in LA, but then LA is like a whole other lvl of Hell. (That's needs an entire blog post of its own, one day... Don't get me wrong, I luv and miss LA, no hate man) So baseball season, though happytime for some, utter chaos on the Wang's schedule. And this is the main reason why the Wang has the Giants Schdule as a bookmark, just so he can keep track of the times where baseball becomes the national traffic time.
The 2nd wine and cheese moment for today's post is the whole issue of "Limited Releases". Now when a foreign, indie, art house, or early release of film gets a "limited release", they usually mean LA/NY. So being once a melancholy citizen of the greater LA metro, the Wang was happily partaking in the early release of films that others won't see for weeks to come, or at all. With places in LA like Laemmle chain, the Arclight, and other art house theaters, LA was pretty much a Mecca for films that the studio won't market to large Cineplexes. It took awhile before the Wang discovered all the art house theaters in SF, but they r there, just buried in neighborhoods less traveled. Most of the time the Wang isn't a rush to catch films early, but the Wang has like 2 favorite directors from the 90s, and 1 of them is Wong Kar Wai. Mr. Wong's latest film after his epic 2046 is his English debut, My Blueberry Nights. So the fact that its Limited release means that its is shown in LA RIGHT AT THIS FRAKKING MOMENT and not in SF till 4/18 is pissing the Wang off, only slightly less than the fact that the Giant's baseball season has started.
Now we move to the less whining and more comment portion of the post.
The Wang has always been a fan of Wong Kar Wai, even though some of his films r truly hard to digest. But as w/ 2046, the Wang followed and waited for all the rumors and news about My Blueberry Nights. Much like the matrix and any other esoteric things, Wong Kar Wai's movies are best experienced. So here's a beautiful clip from the My Blueberry Nights... I guess it might be a spoiler since it shows who and who hooks up, but I doubt any of his movies really lives story progression. The Kiss This of course is a scene between Jude Law and Norah Jones. Yes Ms. Jones not only lends her sultry voice to the soundtrack, but also her debut-acting gig. This movie is supposedly done in parts, dealing with difference couples and their stories of love, relationship and companionship. As with all Wong Kar Wai films, he enjoys slow slow editing, saturated lighting, layering of subjects and defining music. And since the lucky folks of NYC and LA have alrdy have their limited releases... (note rant above), the Thighmaster has alrdy graced the web with his review. The Wang hasn't seen it, but much of Wong's films do not disappoint if u r in a certain mindset to absorb all his stuff. Though slow and chaotic, he tends to shine in scenes, characters and ambience, rather than grand stories and plot. So if u don't live in LA or NYC check ur local weeklies or movies showtime sites and see if u r lucky enough to be graced by My Blueberry Nights.
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Here's another one Wong Kar Wai's latest work. He did a series of short movie/commercials for Philips Aurea HDTV:
There's only One Sun
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A nice collection of clips from the Wang's favorite Wong Kar Wai film, Fallen Angel.
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And in case u still haven't gotten enough, here's a great MTV for the Nationals' Fake Empire, which really carries a Wong Kar Wai feel, and should have been directed by him anyways:
THANKYOUs:
Achtung Baby!
So this past weekend was the end of the big GDC event which blurred right into WonderCon, the tiny sister of ComicCon. The Wang wasn't really involved with the GDC, cept by proxy of a visiting WoW friend. But the WonderCon did lure the Wang with some panels, that were minorly related to the Wang's work. Which turned out to be completely unrelated. But the whole potential lead the Wang to learn about professional free pass for WonderCon. So free cons = good cons.
We're not really going into a WonderCon review, but the Wang will note that he sat in a J. Michael Straczynski panel. JMS is most well known for Babylon 5, which is a legendary TV show. It had some of the best television seasonal arcs. But unfortunately due to crappy art design and dated special effects, it might be really hard for anyone to pick up the DVD sets and start watching it these days. JMS now is doing a lot of comic work and might be involved with a lot of future movie scripts. Specially with all the new comic to movies that are coming out, all these famous comic/TV writers are getting great exposures.
Now back to the main topic of today's post, the Oscars. Yes, here at WWW we're looking at the Oscars. Normally we flee from this type of direct media coverage reserved for The Daily 10, Defamer, or any of Perez Hilton's blogs. But this last year was actually a pretty good year for film. So in old school style, we jump right in to the paw listings.
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Mahalo Daily's Monday post: Oscar in 60 sec. A great list but they miss a few important gems, one of which is the win by Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová's for their great song "Falling Slowly". Here is their Oscar live performance, which the Wang thinks that Glen toned down his usual vein popping performance during the high climax of the song. This of course lead to the best moment in Oscar history where John Stewart brought back Markéta Irglová to let her finish her cut-off-ed speech. She proceed to give one of the evening's most memorable speech about how hope unites us all. Here are the texts to the full speech for both Glen and Markéta, from Firstshowing. And if all this coolness isn't enough to convince you to go see this gem of a indie film then you are dead to me and might as well take you RSS feed for this blog off you readers. So go watch Once, or prepare for the burning wrath of the Wang.
Here's the FirstShowing, Full List.
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I hate transformers, but really Visual Award? At least thanks to the Onion, Michael Bay gets his Oscar @ the cost of a $120m digital production. He did make that "AWESOME!" commercial. how the frak did Golden Compass win this? Really? I mean the Wang digged the airships, but it was clearly no match for the 10,000 pieces of moving metal fighting another 10,000 pieces of moving metal that is Transformers. And Bourne ran off with 3 technical awards. Great movie, but it felt like they gave it to Bourne for the trilogy, not Ultimatum.
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I was rooting for Ellen Page for Juno. But since every prediction and their mother's prediction was for Julie Christie and the fact that the movie, Away From Her, was directed by Sarah Polley, The Wang was swayed... But I guess it is good that Tilda Swinton got it in the end, which shocked everyone. And ended the Wang's internal struggles. Because there's enough Wang for both Ellen Page and Sarah Polley. Email me. (makes phone gesture.)
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Sure I like Johnny Depp in his myriad of characters, but really? How did that Sweeney Todd clip even fit with the others?!
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Great Speech Quotes: Joel Coens: "...letting us continue to play in our corner of the sandbox"
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Plus who knew, Clooney was the man. He predicated most of the acting nods. He's truly as they say, "old Hollywood". He's got it all, class, style and devilish smile. The Wang aint gay, but if George showed up an bought us diner, hey u never know... I'm just saying, not gay.
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Ebb and Flow of Movies:
NYT gives us this wave-like visualization of movie grosses in the last few years.
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On Monday night, the weekend ended in a really fun concert with Missy Higgins @ The Independent. She was rather funny with a few Aussie/American jokes, some humor about how her Target bought Bra kept falling of her shoulders (ZING!!), how she finally got her song into Grey's Anatomy and the overall comments on the American accent, which she demo-ed for the audience. Fun times were had and the Wang probably had the fun-est time at a "Pop" concert. There was something about the happy upbeat energy that Missy Higgins was going off on.
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And in the end all this seemed make a really fun music weekend for the Wang. And in the recent artistic posting line, we end the day on a grammy winning music short dedicated to Johnny Cash:
THANKYOUs:
My Extra Life, Firstshowing.net, Vulture
( photo by: [Zakkaliciousness])
This of course is the artistic mindset left by the music of one of the Wang's favorite movie of the year, Juno. The general gist of the movie is that 16 yr old, sarcastic high schooler, Juno finds out she's pregnant and goes on the movie length journey of understanding love and maturity. Director Jason Reitman of Thankyou For Smoking fame, brilliantly delivers this indie darling of a film with a witty script and slightly off-the-wall comedy.With Quotes like these gems:
Rollo (Rainn Wilson): That ain't no etch-a-sketch. That's one doodle that can't be un-did, homeskillet.
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Juno MacGuff: You should've gone to China, you know, 'cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.
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This movie comes around the corner with its witty, brilliant acting from everyone; from Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, & even Jennifer Garner, in seemingly small role that turns a whisper of a character into a pretty nice side plot of the story, that seems to comment on the whole question of maturity and relationships. J.K. Simmons as the funny and understanding dad has got to be one of the best dad's in movie history. The Wang only wishes that his future father-in-law would have that kind of humor and open minded-ness. Of course seeing that the title character Juno is pretty much the witty equivalent of a wet dream center fold, plus indie guitar playing skills.
This leads us to the soul of our musing, the soundtrack. The sound track is mainly filled with the works of Kimya Dawson, in her many guises. She's either performing with her old claim-to-fame, The Moldy Peaches, or her solo stuff, or her recent co-lab with The Antsy Pants. Kimya Dawson is labeled as Anti-Folk. Which at first, the Wang was lost to the labeling and genre. Of course after an evening with the Moldy Peaches titular album, smack the concept home in its wordy, witty, & experimental sound. Though overall, the music used in Juno tend to be what the Wang originally felt as some sort of kiddie-folk or twee-folk. With lyrics about love, life, hamburgers and vampires all fueled by Kimya Dawson's childish voice. Her seemingly young and innocent voice is instantly shattered when one noticed the lyrics and topics that smartly flow off her folk-style guitar like verbal syrup.
Also included in the Juno soundtrack is a few songs the movie use to hammer home the character's love of music. Juno of course prefers the 1977 punk era, as her counter point, Jason Bateman defends the grunge era of 1993. Songs include "All the You Dudes" by Mott the Hoople and "Superstar" by Sonic Youth. Check out this great entry by Indiemuse.com which include a few tracks. (SPECIALLY check out Kimya Dawson's Loose Lips) Kimya Dawson really adds to the movie, from its title-opening track to the ending song which cements the movie, "Anyone Else But You" cover by Ellen Page and Michael Cera, originally a Moldy Peaches song by Adam Green and Kimya Dawson.
This leads us to the interview with Ellen Page by Pitchfork, where we learn that:
Ellen Page: [Juno director] Jason Reitman and I were meeting for maybe the second or third time and he simply said, "Well, what do you think Juno would listen to?" Immediately I said the Moldy Peaches, and he, I guess, wasn't familiar with their work, so I hopped on his computer and I played the Moldy Peaches for him. The next thing I knew he'd fallen in love-- rightfully so, they're awesome-- and he was in contact with Kimya Dawson, who is the female in the band, and he added the song at the end of the film, which is a Moldy Peaches song. That song's been in my life for years, actually; there's a lot of sentimental value there. And the next thing we know Kimya Dawson is doing the music for the film. It was really incredible how that all worked out because it just feels perfect.
So the Wang puts two paws up on Juno, and the soundtrack which is now available on iTunes, and in Jan. in hardcopy. Of course you can just get some Kimbya Dawson stuff to work you over till then.
The Moldy Peaches - Nothing Came Out (MP3) : Inspiration for the opening pic..
The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You (MP3) : The song that sets the mood for Juno.
And just to catch up on the old days of WWW glory, a few recent things on the Wang's RSS reading list, paw style:
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Tad Safran of the Times stirs the British Hen House with this Op-Ed on how American Women groom themselves better. Of course this lead to a nation-wide (British Nation) fervor and scorn by the ladies, which earned a second article.
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Tabula Rasa may not be the best MMO around, nor may it be top dog, but the Wang donated some time, and gives it its just deserves. But what really hits the sweet spot is the fan base that took Richard Garetts new world to heart and created more fanfic and roleplaying than any Tauren cow cosplay will ever do. Here's an example from Massively on Remembrance Day. And from tabularasaroleplayers.com of their fan gathering on Dec. 21, Remeberence Day, basically a memorial honoring the day when Earth fell to the alien invaders, The Bane.
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The year end round up video games and games of the year is too long to keep track of. But the Wang was sorely entranced by the Gaming Club on Slate.com. The Gaming Club is a mimic of Steven Totilo of MTV's Multiplayer Blog and N'Gai Croal of Newsweek's Level Up Blog 's usual vs Mode. Its normally a series of emails that would debate/discuss a specific game or video game related subject. This time for their big year end round up they included Seth Schiesel of NYT and Chris Suellentrop (most currently of Slate) into their mix. They brought forth an email roundtable that talks from everything from game design to the criticism of video games. Specially in the light of the recent events involving Jeff Gerstmann, which promoted the entire industry a new to critically comment on the field of Video Game Journalism. None the less, this was a great read about video games, industry, and and what it means to be critical.
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Also related to video games, the MTV Multiplaer Blog's Tracey John also wrapped up last weeks great series of article of Women Working in Games. Tracey goes off and interviews Morgan Webb (X-Play/G4TV), Janet Pickard (Game Girl Advance), Elspeth Tory (Ubisoft), Brenda Brathwaite, and Tali Fischer (Sega). Of course hidden under the subtlety of the general interviews is the questions about the recent Jade Raymond incident. But overall it's a great set of interviews about the whole industry from journalists to developers to PR. Sure the topic is about women, but it gives a nice view of the field and the people in it. Personally, the Wang comes to the conclusion that the industry seems to be embracing the female influx, but the it's the webtard players that seems to be dumbing it up for the male populace by scaring off most of these women from forums and comments.
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On that note, here's a nice review of Bioshock from the Mighty Pony Girl. Yes it has a female perspective. I give her credit for reading Fountainhead before playing the game, just to get the full experience.
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And since the Wang hasent been blogging about everything that was cool of recent, here's a cool link to the semi-spoiler-best-ending-ever-for-a-video-game-credit-sequence of Portal: GlaDOS - Still Alive (Youtube link). Of course if you have not experienced it, please give it a try, Portal is one of the best games this past year. Plus its short, fun and well written. It comes in slightly around 3 hrs. (without the repeatable time trials) and packs a great subtle story telling all wrapped in witty dialog. Of course the entire Orange Box is pretty worth it, for it contains Portal, Half Life, HL: Episode 1 & 2 and Team Fortress 2. TF2 is the bastard child of The Incredibles and online multiplayer mindless fun. Plus if you have the time, you should check out the "Meet the ____" videos on YT. Some of them are hilarious.
THANKYOUs:
Level Up Blog, Massively, MTV's Multiplayer Blog, [Zakkaliciousness]
So the Wang just saw Brick last night. Quite an interesting movie, very noir, very odd that it is set in a high school. Its was like a odd revenge film, done in noir, all wrapped up in a borderline twinpeak mood. And not much a review, but the Wang does recommend this little number.
U can hear some of the music here At the mySpace page for the Brick's soundtrack Play close attention to "The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze" jazzy piano number with lyrics from the Mikado enigmaticly voiced by Nora Zehetner, the hawtness above.
This has to be one of my favorite songs from like 8-9 yrs back.
A man named Bumble said he was so hungry
Him had that craving for something under the sea
I told him I had chicken franks
I told him I had Charlie
He smiled and said to me “I’ll have some Bumblebee"
Sometimes things are just that simple.
Mephiskapheles – Bumble Bee Tuna Song
Original Jingle from the Official Website
Well incase u r life s boring in the upcoming week, u can fill it with the 05' AFI Film Fest. The Wang is always a big supporter of old school film fest such as the the great HIFF, where the Wang use to trek the red carpet to free films due to his Asian connections. But just as Noble linked awhile back, there was this article about how there r WAYYY too many film fest in LA.
A few films do catch the Wang' attention, like Dead Run by Sabu. If i'm not mistaken, this is the same Sabu that did one of my favorite Japnese films, Postman Blues.
Also a screenign ofthe old Jarmusch classic, Dead man. As part of their tribute to Johnny Depp. Which include other movies like Edward Scissorhands and Fear and Loathing.
Racoon Princess a film where good friend Yojimbo claimed to be a "not as good" comparision to Pistol Opera. Still worthy of some viewing. Also starring Zhang Ziyi, clearly cementing her role as the hardest working international film star. As this must be her 31st film of 2005.
Another ground breaker in the Asian horror genre, The Red Shoes.
Shanghai Dreams. From the same dude who brought us Bejing Bicycle, Wang Xiaoshuai.
But if u r in the mood to sample some foereign film or catch some earlier screenings of upcoming films, than a boring weekend can be solved by paying huge at the Arclight for the AFI film Fest. Seems like most tickets are $11 and some nasty full fest prices. But its always nice to get a dose of cool film fest viewing. Otherwise, there's always Cinefile... but we can be anti-social on Tuesdays.
Square promised awhile back to never continue a individual Final Fantasy title. Each FF series is one game and one game alone. This of course ended with Final Fantasy X:2, “dress-up doll Combat Evolved." Now we get this glorious dose of Square animation to its fullest, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. This is suppose to be a follow up to the video game, almost 10 yrs ago. I think most fans of the series would know that FF:VII was a milestone in the gaming history.
Final Fantasy VII, it was a important game in many aspects. Mostly it was the eye opener of what the technology of PS1 can do for RPGs. The Wang remember a relatively boring day during my college years, when I drove down to Software etc. (some sort of gamestop chain now…) and got my pre-ordered FF:VII and the free t-shirt. The Wang still have that t-shirt, a little worn, but still got clouds polygon faces all over the back of it. Being a fan of the FF series, getting the first FF for the PS1 was the thing to do.
We all thought that what more is there to a RPG then 2d polygon grids? What more is there to the mindless humors in small talk bubbles? The Comical wackiness of flatly animated characters with nothing but moving arms and the only facial emotion was eye blinks.
Then it hit.
FF:VII came out swinging. From the opening sequence with Aerith selling flowers. Zooming out in full FMV to the city of Midgar. (The wang get goose bumps just imagining that scene) Before this, FMVs were the realm of opening videos, something cool, something to watch to catch the ideas of the creators for the game in a much cooler rendering. But FF:VII took the FMV and layered them with the little polygon characters and created action sequence never done before. The Wang cant help but remember when a section of Midgar exploded, and the characters all swung towards the camera infront of an FMV, that was a moment of action. The Wang jumped up and cheered in excitement. But I think many gamers of our age shared this experience with FF:VII, and thus the greatness of Advent Children.
Square has always been great at creating worlds. I cant say they r the best storytellers, but they know how to make a world come to life, and make it memorable. The first line of Advent Children, was asking the viewers, those who fell in love with the world, to go back for a moment and share with friends another story. Square likes this new theme of “friends", much like their current FF concert tour, "More Friends." this worked for Advent Children. It wasn’t till the end of this movie did I realized, that 10 yrs ago, I sat on my bed glued to my, then 16" TV playing FF:VII. Now that last night I sat there watching it again… How the world of FF:VII is grew up in its own way and stayed the same. How each of the characters u came to love and dislike all show up once again. It makes u look back at ur own live and think, “wow has it been 10 yrs?!" At very end of this movie, u find ur self thinking, “Yes. Hello everyone from FF:VII, thank you for another story, thanks you for another journey." And it does leave u a conclusion. It does leave u an ending… to something FF:VII kinda of needed. For how much a kids game it was, FF:VII had grown-up themes and stories. Only looking back now, can the Wang truly appreciate the greatness of the game. And this new movie is the best “part II" to a great moment in the memories of all those who grew up with the FF series.
With the coming of the Serenity movie, these little viral marekting clips were released about the past of River Tam.
R Tam Session 416 Second Excerpt
Good stuff, almost goes a little Ring-esque with the video camera thing here. I guess viral marketing is really taking off, even with the recent Xbox, Origen Xbox 360 rabbit and tree thing, which gained some apples today.
Ok so beside the fact that we saw it in a not-so technically advance theatre, the Wang was content with seeing it on opening day/morning. So there I was, after 28 yrs, the saga comes to an end. Right? So there wasnt any die-hard fans in jedi robes, but there were a few toy sabers. Still, 3 hrs later, i wish it ended back in 83. When i still remember the young Wang watching Return of the Jedi in the theatres. I mean sure the first 2 episodes sucked, how hard was it to make a movie that links two crappy movies to 3 good ones? half of the plot of this movie is set alrdy the other half is alrdy revealed in later/earlier movies. Lucas still manages to turn an almost 3 decade event into a merchandising machine, catering to none other than himself and a few fanbois that worships the ground he walks on. I mean Lucas could of throw sh1t at these Hardcore fans., and they would of loved it.
The Setup: The first to episode before werent the best pieces of work. The original three were up to opinion on which one is the best. So here's the connecting chain. To link 2 crappy movies, and conclude an epic saga of almost 30 yrs. into 3 alrdy well known movies of our generation. Some of the biggest revelation are, infact not. Watching this movie is like reading a book, where u know the ending to. Its all about the delivery. Fans of the past 30 years would of taken mostly anything, just a simple tie-in movie that started with some cool lightsabers, and ended with Anakin in a vader suit. I mean how hard is that? Actually it thats all u expected, then this movies is pretty much that, if u can sit through all the bad dialog and cold acting.
The Visuals: Hands down this movie was great to look at. The art direction, the CG, the integration of actors and CF characters, the effects, and even the action was pretty good. Lightsaber fights were brilliantly fun to watch and safe. Space battles were on another level. More space/land vehicles were shown off, which will probably lead to a few more billion for the Lucas toy empire. This time, most of the characters dont seem as out of place in their chroma-keyed studio lighting.
The Story: Now here's where it bombed for me. The first 40 min of this movie felt like a Greek play. Sure the tragedy bit i can buy, but really the cold acting, the scene per scene dialog that basically plays out like a rushed con-game, where everyone needs deliver two important lines so everyone can stand around awkardly after. All that. that didnt work. The pacing for the story was so off, that Ep. 2 should of been the first 40 min. of Ep 3, and the crap we call Ep. 2 should of been some videogame or comic book. Best quote i read about the Anakin/padme love scenes is this:
...and his approach on romantic scenes is comically asexual. (To come to the Revenge of the Sith screening, as I did, having written all morning about the eros-charged work of novelist James Salter, was akin to falling asleep in a brothel and waking up in a monastery.) -Scott Foundas, LA Weekly
And the some of the later scenes that involve some dramatic story climaxes, Lucas deliver these scene so short, so un-focuses, u think other scenes like R2-D2's bizarre adventure was more interesting. And those choices angers the Wang. I mean droids arent real! Also the Wang refuse to buy the attempt that Anakin Dynamite's turned to the darkside as tragic hero. I mean please, enough of those whining, "i'm doing it for u" crap. Also as much as Lucas says he doesnt accept the whole Expanded Universe thing, he does draw a lot fomr it. Like the sith and the whole line about understanding the darkside before mastering the force bit.
The Full Circle: So ep.3 is suppose to bring the Star War saga to an full circle, in some ways it did. I give the story credit for showing some scenes that mimic scenes in the future ep. but seen in different angles, which bring more to the later scenes. And might add elements when u see the ep.4-6 once again, after watching the prequels. In that aspect, there were some good moments. And some of the bestest scene cut short by the Lucas maniac is definitely the Vader thing. Also the naming of Leia and Luke, seemed like there could of been a scene there, but no, the bad juxtaposing and short edits made the scene feel rushed and meaningless...
Over all it wasnt the conclusion the Wang wanted. It was more of the result of Lucas to make a "thing" to satisfy his fans and his ego. I hope the leaked copy cut atleast cut a dent into his profits. One of the bestest lines came from Padme:
"This is how democracy ends - with thunderous applause."
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Thankyous:
Data What
BoingBoing
AFK Gamer
Achtung baby!
