Took a while but Talib Kweli has finally approved the music video and rockumentary that I cut for Amoeba Music way back when. (Even has the old ghetto title that I did before we had the new branded template.) Anyhoo, there's some unique stuff in this so if ya like your Kweli then check it out. (This was in support of his recent album Ear Drum.)
The other is a clip for San Francisco based uber-guitarist Six Organs of Admittance. The turn around on this video was crazy fast: like less than a week between cutting, color correction and posting for approval and getting approval. Nice.
I've known about this for a year and half but couldn't talk about it as I made a promise to the kind folks at Studio 4ºC. This is the real reason why all of you film festivals were having a hard time booking Genius Party and the sequel Genius Party Beyond (that's apparently the title of the second film!).
What I was told was that since they were asked by the Kennedy Center to bring something unique to JAPAN! CULTURE AND HYPER CULTURE (February 5-17, 2008) festivities Studio 4ºC wanted to reserve Genius Party as their special contribution. This is why NYAFF couldn't get Genius Party last year and why Fantasia couldn't either etc etc.
Start your booking now. I'm sure that once the Genius Party films have had their screening in DC they'll be available for your local film festival.
Now only if I can get to DC to see this.... (Probably not though...)
The 'Genius Parties' will be screening on February 15-16, 2008.
It turns out I was right: Rambo is Che and... Jesus?! (Nope. Musta missed that part...)
After snooping around on-line for more info, I found that a certain monsieur 'Cheesesteak the Impaler' of the coolly name Bostodelphia blog actually scooped me on the whole Rambo/Che thing that I wrote about in a previous post. After contacting him about it he just posted back a response mentioning that he had uncovered some new info about the who Rambo/Che ad campaign. As it turns out The New York Times ran an article on January 13th (pic above) called "Tough Guys for Tough Times" (written by Alex Williams) which focuses on the new rise of 80s action stars and their new pop-cultural status.
Comments in the article run from the typical "Everyone is talking about change...[people] want to go back to the way things were, the things they knew." to "Everything seems to be up for grabs; we don’t believe in institutions. This country needs stability, and in an archetypal, hyperbolic way, that’s what these figures represent.”
But the real mind blowing one is the what I have chosen to call this post, courtesy of Lionsgate's co-president for theatrical marketing, Mr. Tim Palen:
It helps that these figures need no introduction. “Stallone and Rambo are huge, iconic images already,” said Tim Palen, who works at Lionsgate, the “Rambo” studio, as a co-president for theatrical marketing. “It’s really kind of holy territory, especially when it comes to young males, and males in general.”
WHEN marketing executives were deciding on a strategy to sell the new “Rambo” film, they shunned splashy posters in favor of a minimalist image of a black spray-painted stencil outline of Rambo’s head on a white background.
“We called it Che Guevara crossed with Jesus Christ by way of Andy Warhol,” Mr. Palen said. “In a way, he’s all of those.” (Link.)
There's a lot I suppose I could write about this, but in the end I agree with Cheesesteak's analysis of it all -- which you should go and check out if you have a moment -- and that is: as long as it gets tickets sold, no one cares about what it actually means.
I'll let you decide if that's problematic or not-- idiotic though it may be-- I think you can guess what I think.
Don't usually like to repost stuff that I've read on Twitchfilm.net (cuz most of my traffic is from people who visit their site too, duh!), but this is both good news and related to a bunch of Studio 4ºC stuff that I've written about here before.
From Twitch:
"Fantastic news here for animation fans. Word has come down that Masaaki Yuasa will be returning to the Japanese airwaves in April with a new series titled Kaiba. Very little is known about the series yet beyond that it is a science fiction oriented love story but the sheer fact that Yuasa at the helm makes this absolutely compulsory viewing. His feature debut, Mind Game, was one of the most startlingly original and utterly compelling pieces of work I’d come across in some time and his television directorial debut Kemonozume has displaced Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop and Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex to become my favorite anime series ever. Yes, he is really that good. Now somebody out there make Todd a happy boy and license this one along with Kemonozume so I can get decent English friendly versions of them on DVD." (link.)
Señor Todd Brown neglects to mention Yuasa Masaaki's contribution to 4ºC's Genius Party Volume One (HAPPY MACHINE), but I do agree that Yuasa is one of the best 'anime minds' currently working in Japan. Bar none.
This link to Japanese cable channel WOWOW's KAIBA splash page doesn't have any links to any trailer or nuthin' but you can go and see it just to look at some Japanese language characters if you want.
Previous postings: on Mindgame and Studio 4ºC Here and Here.
THE GIRL WHO LEPT THROUGH TIME (aka. Toki Wo Kakeru Shoujo) dir. HOSODA Mamorou Cast: Naka Riisa Ishida Takuya Itakura Mitsutaka Kakiuchi Mitsuki Hara Sachie Sekido Yuki
98 min. Format viewed: DVD
Hi Blog,Been a delay in writing and posting more capsule reviews here. While I've still been watching stuff there just seems to be less time to write about it.... Anyway, let's get on with it.
Hosoda Mamorou's Madhouse production and Kadokawa Herald Pictures distributed anime Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo (aka. TokiKake) is another sci-fi time and logic bender from the fertile mind of author Tsutsui Yasutaka. Famous for writing the source material for that other anime that came out in 2006, Kon Satoshi's Paprika, Tsutsui's story is about firsts and how despite our best intentions we often squander what is most valuable in our lives only to find that we don't miss it until it's gone. I'm writing, of course, about 'time' more than 'love'-- but TokiKake's story as handled by director Hosoda makes little distinction between the two.
Makoto Konno is a regular high school girl who is best friends with two guys: Chiaki and Kosuke. Though just platonic friends, there's a hint of romantic tension between Chiaki and Makoto. When Makoto stumbles upon a totem item that enables her to literally 'jump through time', she uses it at first to satisfy all of her ingenuous fantasies. These consist mainly of eating her fill of her family's deserts and then jumping back in time to avoid detection, but when she starts using her power to avoid a declaration of love from Chiaki we get the sense that something bigger is about to happen. And it does. Right when Chiaki most needs her ability to jump through time to avert the death of Kosuke and his girlfriend she discovers that she has a finite number of jumps and has used up almost all of them. By using this last one to save her friend's life she soon learns that she has somehow sacrificed her friendship with Chiaki, who must now go away. Though I don't want to explain why, because it is a spoiler, suffice to say that we learn that mop-headed Chiaki is not who he appears to be...
An interesting fact that might not be known to most anime fans and certainly not to most non-Japanese anime fans is that there was an original live-action adaptation of TokiKake done in 1983 directed by Obayashi Nobuhiko (of HAUSU fame!). A hit at the time of its release and still remembered fondly by those who were teenagers back in the day, it has not been disregarded for this anime production. In a neat bit of connectivity, the Madhouse animated version of TokiKake includes the main character of that version, Yoshikawa Tomoko, as Makoto's aunt in this story. The aunt we learn in this film version is somehow key to the plot and she hints that she is aware of the abilities that Makoto has gained. Not to be cute here, but to see how, you'll need to watch the movie.
Madhouse's animation is very good for this production. One of the top animation houses in Japan -- and in the world (to my mind) -- Madhouse gives the animation in the film a clean and (somehow) optimistic air. The color palette tends towards the bright end of the crayon drawer with a unique, almost Evangelion inspired character design by Sadamoto Yoshiyuki. (It should, therefore, come as no surprise that he did character design on various Evangelion series.) Sound design and score are solid and all production values are really top-notch.
In addition, the storytelling is spry and well realized with a good economy. While I wasn't as floored by this anime-- because, quite frankly, I don't think it was aimed at someone like me -- I found it a sweet film that was well worth my time and most likely yours. Bandai Entertainment has licensed the film for US distro. Check this out to find out where you can get your copy. (Bottom right corner.)
LA is plastered with these Rambo posters in a fevered run-up to its January 25th release.
Driving past them over and over again I've been wondering when did Rambo-- the symbol of Ronald Reagan's 1980s-- become a Cuban revolutionary? Because there is more than a passing similarity to the famous Alberto Korda picture of the communist Che Guevara that has become the uber-symbol of dissent and revolution (and fashion!) for pimply youths all around the world.
Are the guys at Lionsgate serious?
(You know, I can't post this without including the incredibly excessive trailer. Just let it load and skip to minute two. Unbelievable.)
Happy New Year! Or as it is formally written nihongo de: 謹賀新年!
It wouldn't be a new year without the annual culling of the elderly through sticky balls of glutinous rice - aka. Mochi. An annual occurrence along the lines of Christmas tree fires in the west, every year a few unfortunate souls choke on a bit of tradition that dates back hundreds of years.
"Five people died in the Kanto area on Tuesday and Wednesday after choking on sticky "mochi" rice cake, it was learned Thursday.
In Tokyo, a total of 13 people were rushed to hospital on New Year's Day and the following day after choking on mochi, according to the Tokyo Fire Department. Two of them -- a 59-year-old man from Ota-ku and an 83-year-old man from Adachi-ku -- died on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
A 71-year-old man from Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, a 76-year-old man from Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture, and another man living in Yokohama also died after choking on the bubblegum-textured rice cake.
Mochi is traditionally served during the New Year's period in Japan." (link)
I ask you, when will the madness end? (And how can this not remind one of the Monty Python's 'Crunchy Frog' skit?)
Hi Blog,
