Wanky Art Post

(Note: The wanky art posts are called such not because I believe the art to be wanky, but because I feel wanky posting about them since I don't really know much about art)

While "working" yesterday, I came across the website of one Mizna Wada, who I would describe as the bastard love child of two of my favourite horror manga artists: Suehiro Maruo & Hadeshi Hino; with a little Junko Mizuno thrown in for good measure. Although her straight up horror work seems to owe more to Maruo than anything, her other work does have a nice trashy pop sensibility and the requisite obsession with Blythe dolls. Particularly Maruo-esque is the Sideshow collection which directly recalls Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show (which was made into a heartbreaking animated short called Midori that I cannot recommend highly enough, if you can gets your hands on it.)

My other favourite bit is Miss Kidora's 12 Transformation, a paperdoll set made on a Print Gocco. Sadly, it doesn't look like the site has been updated since last year, so I have no idea what she is up to now, but all in all a nice little webbased discovery.

Book Review

Just finished off TokyoScope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion by Patrick Macia, which we'd picked up in L.A. While providing some good background information, particularly with regards to the Japanese film industry and the studio system, the book is more of a primer than an ultimate companion. This may be due to the fact that the book was published in 2001, right on the precipice of the JapTrash explosion that is currently happening. As a result, much of the book feels dated, although it also means that his focus isn't just on what's been released on DVD.

However, for true cult fans the book is worth reading for two reasons: an extended interview with Noboru Ando (a.k.a. The Guy With The Scar), a real life Yakuza who became a fixture in Yakuza movies in the '70's after being released from prison, usually playing a mentor figure to Bunta Sugawara. He even wrote and starred in a series of "erotic" movies based on his own fictionalized memoires.

The second thing that rules about the book is an extended profile on Tetsuro Tanba (a.k.a. That Guy From That Show). Trust me, if you've seen more than 2 Japanese movies, you've seen him in something. He has over 200 acting credits on imdb and has worked consistently in film and television for over 50 years. He has never turned down a part and has never memorized a script, facts which he declares proudly. He also started his own religion/way of looking at death and created a series of unintentionally hilarious films extolling it that I absolutely must find.

As well, there's the requisite chapters on Godzilla, Sonny Chiba, Kinji Fukusaku & Miike Takashi (who gives a priceless afterword) and profiles of the author's favourites picks for each "genre" covered. The writing style is relaxed and enthusiastic, although the editing leaves something to be desired. The little cartoons and drawings are amusing, but in most cases just seem to take up space. However, I would still recomend it for people just getting into Japanese cult film as Macias does a good job of putting things into context and touches on a few less popular films I would love to get my hands on.

Holiday Loot

Ah yes, it's time once again for the traditional listing of all the cool shit you got from the Xmas Bunny. The boy & I did quite well this year. Highlights include:

A cell phone (him)
A raclette (me)
The Pinky Violence collection (me)
The Sin City Box Set (him)
Warsaw LP (me)
The Best of John Belushi on SNL DVD (me)
Black Christmas DVD (me)
A vintage steam iron (me) (?!)
Mister Rogers Adventures in Friendship DVD (me, from my sister)
Turkish delight (me)
Fruit candy (me)
Walkers shortbread (him)
And...


An Elvis mirror

Bonus gift: Since we found out 2 days before Xmas that my sister's boyfriend had also bought her the Muppet Show Season 1 box set, we decided to keep her copy and buy her something else.

Not so bonus gift: My parents generously splashed out on a nice big suitcase for me, which our cat, Darby, promptly pissed in. I think I managed to neutralize the scent with vinegar & will try a little vanilla extract to deoderize. Any other tips & suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Post your highlights in the comments & let me know what ya got.

Merry Christmas!!

A Christ-Mas Gift for You

Been spending a lot of time lately on the Music For Maniacs blog operated by Mr. Fab. It's basically a collection of Incredibly Strange Music and fun mash-up that reminded me of how much I actually love Incredibly Strange Music. Maybe it's related to my recent karaoke mania, who knows. Anyways, one of my absolute favourite finds on the site (soon to be yours too) is Wing. Yes, I may be a little late on the Wing bandwagon, hell, she's already been on South Park. But if you all knew about her, why the hell didn't you tell me?!?!?!

Basically, Wing is a lovely older Chinese woman who moved to New Zealand from Hong Kong ten years ago and started taking singing lessons. She performs at Hospitals and Retirement communites. She's recorded numerous albums of her favourite songs & a few pop novelties she couldn't pass up.

For the uninitiated, Mr. Fab recomends you start here and I have to agree with him.

For something truly brilliant however, go here.

And as a Channukah bonus, another of my favourites: Mr. John "Bowtie" Barstow.

Enjoy.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing Part 10

King Kong [2005] -- Not really sure it's worth even writing about it since I doubt I have much to add that hasn't already been said by about a bazillion people. Enjoyed it very much, although I don't think it needed to be 3 whole hours long. And the slow-mo (especially in a film of this length) was unforgiveable. The bugs are very creepy & scary and I had to close my eyes for those parts. And Naiomi Watts has kind eyes. And I love Jaime Bell. Also, Colin Hanks would make a very good Jimmy Olsen. The in-jokes were nice, although someone should just make a movie about Merian C. Cooper's life. That would be awesome.

The Brothers Grimm [2005] -- Didn't even finish this one. Fell asleep. Gilliam is just so hit and miss, it's infuriating. This is definitely a miss, although there are glimmers, but not enough to sustain my interest. Played out more like a lame immitation of a Gilliam film.

Robot Jox [1990] -- Due to the ad-hock nature of last week's movie night, I decided not to do a column about it, so I'll talk about the movies here. Cheesy yet compelling Stuart Gordon low-budget sci-fi. In fact, the more Stuart Gordon I see, the more I wonder why I haven't seen Re-Animator yet (yeah, I know, what's wrong with me?). Sadly Jeffrey Combs only has the tiniest of cameos, but recognizing Anne-Marie Johnson from In Living Color was worth a couple of laughs and Paul Koslo rules my world.

Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs [1974] -- The other choice from that night was a bit of a disappointment, considering the hype around it. Miki Sugimoto (Sukeban Guerilla) is cute, but she certainly doesn't have the icy cool of Meiko Kaji or the mad-dog rage of Reiko Ike. Maybe it's just that I've seen so much Pinky Violence at this point, but for some reason it didn't really stand out for me that way I hoped it would.

Alyas Batman & Robin [1993] -- The Phillipino Batman & Robin Musical. Included as a freebee with our order from B-Video 101, this is a gift I will cherish for quite some time. Nothing I can say could possibly prepare you for this movie, so please just go to Bryan's site and buy yourself a copy. Amazing.

Xmassacre Post-Mortem

First off I just wanted to apologize for taking so long to get to this. Between Christmas obligations and hosting one of my favouritest people in the whole world this week, Mr. Louie P, I've been a little distracted. Now on to the thank you's. First off, a great big thank you to Yuriko & everyone at Blim for letting us host our little party there. And a big thank you to everyone who showed up, especially the non-D.o.S. regulars. I hope y'all had as good a time as I did.

The evening started with a bit of a panic, as the trailer DVD I had been promised wouldn't be ready in time & it took us half an hour just to get a cab company on the line, let alone get a cab to actually show up. Kat came with me to help me set up and put her expert cookie arranging skills to good use. I, in the meantime, started on the rice-cooker glogg (since we don't have a slow-cooker/crock-pot). Worked even better than I expected, although I did have to watch it pretty much all night to make sure it didn't boil.

Once people started showing up, we decided to put on the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special, which I totally remember watching on TV with my sister when it first aired. Her recollections were a bit fuzzier, probably a result of only being 4 at the time. After Beej finally showed, we put on a segment called "Christmas in Monkeyland" off the Campy Christmas Curiosities DVD we borrowed from Graeme & Corinne. This was also a hit.

And so, with the clock running, we got started with the main event. Although I did take a bit of a bath dollars wise, I think handing out free glogg was a good idea. Only had 3 casualties (sleepers), which was good considering I'd say the movie was about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be. An hour and a half was far too long. I can't really tell you much about the film because a) I too had consumed some glogg & b) I was too focused on my role as super hostess to really pay attention for more than a few minutes at a time.

Once that the movie had finally wrapped up, it was on with the gift exchange which worked very well as only a couple people were left out (Kat, Corinne & I had all brought extra presents just in case). Highlights included the return of the beefcake calendar, a lime green fanny-pack & a six-pack of Heineken (I don't think River really got the whole "little or no value" thing). However, because Blim can usually count on beverage sales to make up their end and a) we were giving away free booze and b) people don't generally mill around to get drinks at a film screening, we have to change the door arrangement. I didn't really mind since I was just happy to have somewhere a bit larger to host our party (we got up to 30+ people!!), and we had free access to equipment we normally would have had to rent. But I'm not going to get rich doing this any time soon. I'm sure I would have made more if I'd charged for the glogg, but it really it was a Christmas party, and if I'd hosted it at home like the previous two years, I would have spent the same amount on booze & food. As for future screenings, it's a little up in the air now, but we should know more by January.

After we got all packed up it was back to the Den for the official after-party, which consisted of homemade Gingerbread cake (note for next year: would have been better with rum sauce...), the Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special, which I also remember watching with my sister when it originally aired; and of course, the traditional midnight viewing of my favourite holiday film (I'm dead serious), Badder Santa. Sadly, because Beej was quite ill at this point he had to retire early, but everyone still awake had a great time.
Thanks for everyone for all their support in putting this together and we'll hopefully see you in the New Year.

Nick likes his monster truck.

Beej isn't quite as enthused for his gift.

Kat & Chinese Marx

Mike got the best gift

Andria, Yael & "The Calendar"

Corinne is granted spiritual guidance by Crappy Santa

Me, playing Super-Hostess

The rest of the pix are available on Flickr.

Radio Contest Update

Just got a call from one of the producers for Definitely Not the Opera. Although the official announcement won't happen until Saturday, it's fair to say that I definitely won't be their new film critic. You can tune in Saturday to find out who did win, but apparently it's not a complete loss as I do get a T-shirt. And a fat cheque for my Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe review.

My New Camera: MIA

So, someone decided to take my digital camera to work with him, where it was left on a counter unattended (for 5 minutes, fine) and apparently stolen. The part I have the hardest time with is the timing, as one would correctly suspect there are many events and occasions in the days to come that I would have liked to record photographically for all of my web-based friends (well, for Theron anyways). But, that is not to be the case. So if you are coming to the Xmassacre on Friday, and you have a digital camera, could you please take lots of pictures and send them to me?

Thanks.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing Part 9

The Baxter [2005] -- Surprisingly charming romantic comedy that's really a dig at romantic comedies. Written & directed by Michael Showalter ("Wet Hot American Summer", "Stella") & featuring cameos by Paul Rudd, Michael Ian Black & David Wain, it's good for fans of madcap Howard Hawks style romances. Michelle Williams is particularly disarming as the true love interest, unbelievably cute & funny. Oh, and my boy Peter Dinklage plays a highstrung wedding planner. Whole thing was clever & cute, the perfect antidote to my sick-ass self.

Godzilla: Final Wars [2004] -- Had high hopes due to my love of Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack [2001] and the fact that it's directed by Ryuhei Kitamura ("Versus"). Sadly, like everything I'd heard, it's kinda disappointing. Very, very silly (even for a Godzilla movie) it was sorta cool to pick out the old Godzilla cameos & of course seeing the crappy American style CG Godzilla get bitchslapped by a guy in a suit will always bring me a thrill. Unfortunately, almost everything else was overshadowed by the hairstyling for the two lead guys (I have never seen men's hair as styled as in Asian action movies) & a lot of totally unnecessary one on one fights that didn't involve kaiju. Skip this & rent Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

Need A Little Help (From My Friends...)

Just got finished recording my review of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" for Definitely Not the Opera. It's phase 2 of the selection process for the film critic contest & I'm even getting paid for it. Think I did an okay job, despite being nervous as hell. Would have done better if I'd remembered to throw to that goddamned clip. I knew it was going to screw me up. Since I forgot, I had to start all over & I kinda lost my groove, but hopefully they can edit my two takes together so I sound competent.

"That's great," you say, "but why do you need our help?" Well, it turns out the contest is going to be judged by you, the radio listening public. So tune in to CBC Radio One this Saturday (December 10) between 3pm & 4pm, listen to my babbling about the resurrection of Aslan, then call or email DNTO to let them know that you think I should be their new film critic. Please. Tell your friends to do the same. I could really use this job!!

Bonus Links

(Since my postings have been kinda spotty-like lately)

Surprisingly good article from the LA Times about Bill Hicks. Not much new information, but a decent summary of what the man was about and why he's still important. In some ways more so now.

Vancouver Courier piece on karaoke in the city where I'm quoted. And for the record, my "cocktail" dress was actually blue.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Poor Judgement Edition

So, after birthday dinner for my brother on Tuesday, Kat & I decided to spend some quality time together and go see a movie. Being that it was after 8pm and we were confined to Burnaby for transportation reasons, our options were fairly limited. We managed to narrow it down to "Pride & Prejudice" (her choice) and "Aeon Flux" (my choice). Being that we both had to get up early the next day we opted for "Aeon Flux" since it was playing earlier and despite all of the warning signs I still wanted to see it. Maybe the critics were wrong I thought. It's happened before. Women directing sci-fi is rare enough, how could this not be at least worth a look? And I like Charlize Theron. I think she's a great actress as well as being very beautiful. And Jonny Lee Miller is in it. That must be worth something?

So, I knew that they'd cancelled the press screenings. Not usually a good sign. Then we got to the theatre and bought our tickets. Rated PG. PG!!!!!! The "Aeon Flux" movie is rated PG!! Again, this should have been a huge clue. But no, we wandered blissfully into the theatre, ready to prove the neigh sayers wrong with our superior understanding of cinema. Or at least I did. At about the 10 minute mark, after the second of two scenes that could have been the intro to the film (actually, it should have been the intro & they could have excised the first 5 minutes altogether) I realized that we had a very long 90 minutes ahead of us. Which isn't to say there weren't glimpses of hope. There were some good concepts (messages carried in psychic pills, genetically modified plant weapons) and the whole thing generally looked quite good. However, as Kat pointed out, the whole thing should have looked AMAZING! Instead, they gave Aeon a dead sister to look all misty-eyed about and a subplot about the fight to conceive babies naturally. Yes, they were trying very hard to make it a chick flick, but with ass-kicking. Which is all fine and good, but it never came together. The emotional scenes seemed heavy handed and it was all just poorly put together that I really had to stretch to care enough to make it to the end of the movie. Charlize at least tried, and she made a pretty convincing assassin, but making Aeon emotionally vulnerable right from the get go was a big mistake. And I have to blame the director. The movie had real potential, but instead decided to coast on standard sci-fi cliches while shoehorning girl-power rhetoric into what should have been a brutally violent style piece.

Oh, and Jonny Lee Miller's looking a little puffy these days.

My New Vespa

So, not surprisingly, Seattle was a bit of a goat-screw. The show was very slow (apparently Seattlites are even more afraid of snow than Vancouverites) & our booth wasn't in a very good location. And I got sick. So sick in fact that I had to go lie down in the first aid room for 2 hours on Sunday. On the up side, I did manage to pick-up my scooter (her name is Betty). Cost me five bucks, runs pretty fast & she even has a little trunk box. This is the closest I will ever come to owning a Vespa.

This & That

Few things I wanted to touch on before I take off to Seattle for the weekend:

1 - Finally found an article about the new Paul Verhoeven film, which is also his first film back in the Netherlands after about 20 years in Hollywood. I'd been searching for any kind of information about this since I first heard that he was returning to Holland, especially since he's reunited with Gerard Soeteman, the man with whom he co-wrote almost all of his early Dutch work. And just as I hoped, it's a World War II movie, the one he's been wanting to make pretty much his whole life. It's due to be released next year, although it could be another year before it makes it over here. As predicted, I am stoked!

2 - Disagree if you want, but this has got to be the best of the re-cut trailer trend. So creepy!!

3 - At Brendan's prompting, I actually entered the Definitely Not the Opera new movie reviewer challenge. I'd never really thought about radio, but figured it was worth a shot. Turns out I'm one of three finalists. Tune in to CBC One (690AM) on Saturday from 3pm - 4pm to hear me babble incoherently to Sook-Yin.