Vegas 06.2006

Originally uploaded by minjungkim.

GOD FRICKING BLESS AMERICA.

And GOD BLESS ENGLAND.

AND LOVE. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

I haven’t had a chance to followup to my last video & text post re: my vegas trip but just to catch you up, I’ve finally recovered but still in awe of my experience. But unlike finding pubic hairs in a bar of soap, awed in a good way.

The morning after my Mirage debacle I found my way (after sleeping in) at the media center of the Mirage. After comically and calmly relaying my experience of the night before (lost reservations, the fricking cpk, pubic hairs, etc) I was kindly and graciously upgraded to a suite on the penthouse floor of the Mirage. Nice. A private lobby with a brilliant view, quiet, and the ability to enjoy a cigarette in quiet as I attempted to do some work.

I didn’t do much that day besides do some work, eat far more than I should of at the buffet, and try to make the rounds from within the hotel. I only realized after I left on Wednday morning that I hadn’t ever technically left the building. Funny thing about vegas that way. That’s ok. I fear that if I had left the building I would have spontaneously combusted anyway.

A & I met up with some of his friends for quick cocktails before heading ovwer the toe Beatles Show. I wasn’t too sure what to expect but I was trying to be reasonably open minded.

Now I won’t say that I’m the biggest beatles fan, but I’m wildy appreciative of energetic, guileless charm and lyrics. So yeah, I dig. I mean, “I want to hold your hand” is so marvelously innocent compared to “I’m going to get you love drunk off my hump”. Ok, maybe that’s just me. I’m old school and pretty vanilla after all.

I was stunned when I first stepped into the theatre. As per pre-release notes, the theater is a 360 extravaganza holding over 2000 seats. What people may not know stepping in is that for every seat there are 3 speakers exquisitly positioned for an impeccable sound experience.

Now, while there may not be any *bad* seats in the entire theater, I am of the firm belief that there are sitll some that are better than others. I had the best. Section 209. Row 0, for your reference. FRICKING DOPE.

The show opened with pirate-esque people climbing up ropes, a Srgnt. Peppper bandleader, visuals of bombers in B&W with explosion sounds, children running about in pure charm that we (us gauche americans) can only recognize as narnia’esque and dream mothers floating through the air. And then half of the set exploaded. Literally. As parts of the stage in sections rose and fell.

And then the beeping.

{beep}{beep}{beep}

The performmance came to a halt.

An alert message in the most monotone voice which serves to be the most disquieting experience to have when you know you have to climb over at least 800 people to the nearest exist.

{beep}{beep}{beep}

Blinking lights and a blaring alert message in repition. I turned to my friend sitting next to me.

{beep}{beep}{beep}

” Are those hippy canadian circus freaks fucking with us?”

His response

{beep}{beep}{beep}

“I dunno.”

{beep} {beep} {beep}

“Shit. I think this is real.”

{beep}{beep}{beep}

“So what do you think? The terrorists hate america and the beatles so much that…”

{beep} {beep}{beep}

“Fuck you.”

And then section 211 started the wave. THE WAVE.

Yes, my friends. This is how we know the terrorists will never win.

I gotta admit. For me, my concern was that the momentum and energy of the show would be totally decimated by that awkward disruption (that proved to be real and swiftly enough resolved).

I had *nothing* to worry about.

The rest of the show, well…

Let’s just say that I may have experienced my first asphyxia triggered orgasm, because, oh.my.lord, I was gasping for breath during the entire show.

Pure: PURE: Beatles sound and visuals, technical excellence, and remarkably impressive light and stage engineering had me gasping during the entire show. The performance, the costumes, the execution. Wow. My mouth was agape.

Unlike other Cirque performances this show had no live vocals or custom music associated with the performance. Instead, the performers and themes were the purest visual and synesthetic joy and energy in interpretation and spirit that anyone could experience for each and every Beatles song and bit that was performed.

From the blown bubbles to wild anemone style trapeze artists to rollerblading fuzzy boot maniacs to hippy protesters on trampelines to brilliant light engineering that swept you up to the sky and then plunged you to the most intoxicating visions of the sea, I was amazed.

Awed.

In love.

Ecstatic.

Joyous.

Stunned.

Enveloped.

Empassioned.

It was, in one word, AMAZING. Another word, FANTASMAGORIC
And utterly imbued with the spirit, the charm, the humor, the diversity, and the timelessness that we all know and attribute to those moppy head boys that we all know and love.

Ok, Mirage, you get dissed for the pubic hair soaps, but you done well fucking right by John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

Seriously. If by any chance you make it anywhere within a 500 mile radius of vegas, go hit the show.

You will feel your skin spark with shiny exclamation points for days on end afterwards.

(All photo creds go to the Mirage & Cirque Peeps other than the Pink one on top.. That’s mine.)

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You Are My Sunshine:

A lovely and sweet Korean flick HIV romcom between a cowfarmer and a coffee bar prostitute. Um. Yeah. I know it sounds weird but it’s not the strangest film I’ve seen today. Of note, our cowfarmer owns 1 cow. Of note, our prostitute with the heart of gold has some serious issues.
Honestly, a remarkably sweet film that confronts the notion that we all have faults, baggage, and damage to a degree. But love — real love — recognizes, accepts, and moves beyond it all. The title song is played at appropriate moments throughout the film in piano, guitar, accordian, and flute. It’s sweet and makes you forgive the film directors for allowing a Korean knockoff of Cyndi Lauper’s SheBop be basterdized in the karaoke scene.

Highlight scenes include seeing the birthing of a calf, our hero breaking a speaker system to grab the hand of his beloved, how cutesy the two are on their honeymoon in the bathtub blowing bubbes at each other, and when Seok-Jun gives Eunha a piggy back ride as cherry blossoms fall around them.

3.5/5 Pigtails. Good but not stunning. Not for everyone but definitely very sweet.

I bawled a little durning this film but it wasn’t the water works I had the night before.

The official film description below

Simple, sweet-natured farmhand Seok-Jung (Hwang Jeong-Min) longs for a wife. He is certain that he has found her the instant he catches sight of lovely Eun-Ha (Jeon Do-Yeon). She is far more experienced and sophisticated than he is, a difference made starkly clear by her job at a sleazy café where she delivers intimacy and coffee to the guests at the aptly named Beast Motel. No one is more surprised than she is when his unquestioning devotion wins her over, and she falls for her impassioned suitor. Seok-Jung thinks he has found the perfect love, but Eun-Ha is a woman with a past that has resulted in an HIV infection, and her former life casts a shadow that threatens not just their marriage but also his place within his family and community. What begins as a daffy romantic comedy of opposites attracting gradually darkens and deepens as writer/director Park Jin-Pyo examines the steadfastness of unconditional love and the outside forces that seek to destroy it. It is a graceful transition into melodrama, made all the more poignant by Seok-Jung’s naiveté and Eun-Ha’s vulnerability. The intense chemistry between the two actors ensures that while the latter half of the film is nominally about AIDS and the high cost it extracts not just from its victims but from everyone close to them, it is far more a testament to the bond between lovers. A box office success in Korea, the film received seven nominations for Korea’s Blue Dragon Awards, winning for best director, best actor and best couple.

—Pam Grady

Presented in association with the Institute of East Asian Studies. North American Premiere

Neoneun nae unmyeong

New Directors
South Korea, 2005, 121 minutes

SHOWTIMES

Sun, Apr 23 / 8:30 / Kabuki / YOU23K
Wed, Apr 26 / 2:30 / Kabuki / YOU26K

CREDITS

dir Park Jin-Pyo

prod Eugene Lee, Oh Jeong-Wan

scr Park Jin-Pyo

cam Seong Seung-Taek

editor Mun In-Dae

mus Bang Jun-Seok

cast Jeon Do-Yeon, Hwang Jeong-Min, Na Mun-Hee, Ryu Seung-Su, Go Su-Hee

source CJ Entertainment, 26th Fl. Star Tower, 737 Yeoksam-dong, Kangnam-gu, 135-984 Seoul, South Korea FAX: 82-2-2112-6599 EMAIL: heejeon@cj.net

Next up

Executive Koala

Um. Mix Office Space with Memento with Scream with A little Who Killed Bobby and the Fugitive and Shawshank Redemption and an Inigo Montoya vibe of “you killed my father, prepare to die”.

And then add a Koala head.

Uh. Yeah. Did I mention that there was a musical number? And a totally awesome fetish for things Korean including Kimchi and hot Korean boys?
I swear to God, those Japanese must have some awesome awesome drugs to come up with this stuff.

I don’t honestly know how many pigtails to give this film. My head is still broken.

I think I give it a 3.5/5 pigtails.

Official description below.

Though accurate to its subject, the film’s title doesn’t quite express the full-bore craziness of Minoru Kawasaki’s followup to The Calamari Wrestler (2004). Moving from the interspecies grapplings of the wrestling ring to the even more brutal milieu of office politics, it is the story of Tamura, a hard-working employee of the Rubbles Pickles Company who is working on a merger with a South Korean kimchi producer. He is introduced in the film’s opening song as a “kind-hearted fence-sitter, unhurt by layoffs or demotion.” The fact that this dutiful drudge has a giant koala head and that his boss appears to be a large rabbit is little remarked upon. Though the office secretaries bemoan his hirsuteness, they still see him as a nifty catch. Tamura’s desirability is called into question, however, when detectives start suspecting that he might be responsible for the disappearance of his ex-wife and the death of his current girlfriend. Thinking he might suffer from a split personality, our titular hero strives to recover the buried memories of his spouse’s disappearance through analysis, though his shrink might actually mean him more harm than good. Another rogue element is Tamura’s colleague from the kimchi company, who is never seen without his flying squirrel, Momo. Borrowing a pinch of plot from The Manchurian Candidate, a modicum of musical absurdity from The Happiness of the Katakuris and some animal anthropomorphism from Sesame Street, Kawasaki adds his own peculiar sense of humor and martial arts action to come up with something entirely new and entirely unforgettable.

—Rod Armstrong
Koala Kacho

Spotlight: The Late Show
Japan, 2005, 85 minutes

SHOWTIMES

Fri, Apr 28 / 10:30 / Kabuki / EXEC28K
Tue, May 02 / 4:15 / Kabuki / EXEC02K

CREDITS

dir Minoru Kawasaki

prod Shuntaro Kanai

scr Minoru Kawasaki, Masakazu Migita

cam Yasutaka Nagano

cast Hironobu Nomura, Arthur Koroda, Hideki Saijo, Eiichi Kikuchi, Lee Ho, Ellirose

source The Klockworx Co, Ltd, MF Bldg, 4-F, 1-6-10 Ebisu Minami, Shibuya-ku, 150-0022 Tokyo, Japan FAX: 81-3-5720-7792. EMAIL: senden@klockworx.com

web http://www.koala-kacho.com/

If I can get motivated, I will watch Sa-Kwa tomorrow.
Jayzus. 4 Films from the film festival + my netflix documentary of Born in Brothels.

Jayzus.

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This Film: Fascinating. Just totally fucking fascinating.

This documentary is both stark and intimate in revealling the creation, growth, corruption, and tragic end of of the Jim Jones cult known as the People’s Temple.

It’s amazing to me how a cult of personality can so enthrall people, overtake one’s will, and ultimately take the lives of so many people in a time & age of both bleak social/political climates and wild optimism re: a communistic & fully functionally lifestyle.

We’re first presented with the shiny rising of the People’s Temple via an early biography of the now infamous Jim Jones. Ferociously fascinated by religion and integration, Jones used to conduct funerals for neighborhood pets as a child and as a young and upcoming preacher clearly favored integration between African American communities into mainstream culture during a time on the cusp of segregation and revolution. Promoting physical & emotional discipline from drugs/avarice/sexual distraction, he appeared a posterchild of goodwill and social influence. Weighing heavy political influence and charismatic leadership with community and religious passion, it is easy to see why Jones was a force to be contended with and one that would be hard to resist.

This film features original photographs, footage, and interviews with several former members of the People’s Temple including a few who survived the Jonestown Massacre. All interviewed subjects lost family members from infants to mothers.

I give it a 5/5 pigtail rating though the subject matter may not seem very pig-taily.

Serious stuff but one definitley worth watching.

Official Writeup:

Documentaries
USA, 2006, 86 minutes

SHOWTIMES

Sat, Apr 29 / 6:15 / Kabuki / JONE29K
Sun, Apr 30 / 7:00 / Intersection / -2
Mon, May 01 / 7:00 / PFA / JONE01P
Tue, May 02 / 4:30 / Kabuki / JONE02K

CREDITS

dir Stanley Nelson

prod Stanley Nelson

cam Michael Chin

editor Lewis Erskine

mus Tom Phillips

source Firelight Media, 2600 Tenth Street, Ste. 636, 94710 Berkeley, CA 94710 FAX: 510-704-9201 EMAIL: marcia@firelightmedia.org

web http://www.firelightmedia.org

Veteran filmmaker Stanley Nelson traces the stunning rise and fall of Peoples Temple and its charismatic founder Jim Jones, who convinced hundreds of his followers in Jonestown, Guyana to participate in a mass “suicide” on November 18, 1978. The shocking tragedy made international headlines. More than 900 people, including more than 200 children, died in the utopian community they had tried to create in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Many of those who died were from the Bay Area as Jones held sway over a huge congregation in San Francisco from 1972 to 1977. Nelson interviews former members of Peoples Temple, including many whose family members perished in Jonestown. Initially, they felt they were part of an idealistic interracial community that could change the world. But they also reveal the fear, paranoia and beatings that were part of the traumatic experience. Jones became their father, friend, savior and god. The film includes remarkable archival footage of Jones discussing his childhood in Indiana and preaching in San Francisco, where he wielded considerable political clout due to his ability to get hundreds of his followers to appear at many local political events. There is also riveting footage of San Mateo Congressman Leo Ryan’s visit to Jonestown to investigate claims of people being held against their will and audiotape of Jones preaching, including his chilling exhortation to “die with dignity.” How was it possible for such an horrific event to take place? This disturbing portrait raises as many questions as it answers.

—Chuleenan Svetvilas

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Princess Raccoon with Zang Ziyi

First off, this film is incorrectly named. It should be Princess Tanuki, not not Princess Raccoon.

Per the ever resourceful Wikipedia

Tanuki (Katakana: タヌキ; or Kanji: 狸) is often mistakenly translated as raccoon or badger, but is in fact a raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), a canid species native to Japan and other Asian countries. Tanuki have been part of Japanese mythology since ancient times. The mythical tanuki is reputed to be mischievous and jolly, a master of disguise and shapeshifting, but somewhat gullible and absent-minded.

[edit]

Tanuki in folklore

The current humorous image of tanuki is thought to have been developed during the Kamakura era. The wild tanuki has unusually large testicles, a feature often comically exaggerated in artistic depictions of the creature. Tanuki may be shown with their testicles flung over their backs like a traveller’s pack, or using them as drums. Tanuki are also typically depicted as having large bellies. They may be shown drumming on their bellies instead of their testicles, especially in children’s art.

A common schoolyard song in Japan (the tune of which can be heard in the arcade game Ponpoko) makes rather explicit reference to the tanuki anatomy:

Tan Tan Tanuki no kintama wa

Kaze mo nai no ni

Bura bura bura

Roughly translated, it means “Tanuki’s testicles swing back and forth even when there is no wind blowing.”

OK, so now you got that knowledge under your belt, you’ll slowly be further and further annoyed by how this film proceeds. Or maybe that’s just me.

This film is an odd stew of fable, mythology, opera, greek mythology, shakespeare, and cinematics. While the costumes are gorgeous and the storyline playful and surreal, one can’t help but get caught up in the overwhelming state of ubermeta meta meta happening within the film which proves distracting and quite handicapping to the narrative and the visual splendor of the film.

First it’s a fable/fairytale. Then there’s guys in shakespeare garb singing in italian. Then there’s a Madama Butterfly “staging” vibe. Then there’s a cinematic (non tehater) component and visualizationthere. Then there’s some CGI. Then there’s singing in Japanese. Then there’s Zhang Ziyi singing in Chinese. And everyone understands each other. Then there’s a meddling huberous father who wants to kill his son who’s fairer than he (So very snow white). Then there’s some invocation of the Virgin Mary and images of a crucifix. Then there’s a Puck-like character who’se intention is to play mischief. Then there’s a Shakespeare esque fool character that tells the truth to the audience. Then the japanese grandparents are singing in a hiphop song. Then there’s a 70s style disco balad. Then there’s a calypso musical dance number. Then there’s a tap dance. Then there’s a shoowop number by the handmaidens of our Princess Tanuki. Then there’s a samurai fight scene. Then there’s a quest. Then there’s a golden frog. Then there’s some Buddhist chants. And then there’s a happy ending.
Confused? Yeah.

It’s like someone swallowed a Midsummer Nights Dream, Japanese fables, and Opera scores by Puccini, the complete library of musicals from 1940 to Ziggy Stardust, and then threw up in front of a video camera. The film is only redeemed by the fact that people at least look pretty and the music is reasonably decent.
I give it 2/5 pigtails. *Sigh* I shake my head in disappointment.

If you want to watch something *Good* about Tanukis, then watch Studio Ghibli’s full feature animation Pom Poko! That film gets 4.5/5 pigtails by comparison.
The official review

Operetta Tanuki Goten

World Cinema
Japan, 2005, 111 minutes

SHOWTIMES

Wed, Apr 26 / 9:30 / Kabuki / PRIN26K
Fri, Apr 28 / 2:30 / Castro / PRIN28C
Sun, Apr 30 / 8:00 / PFA / PRIN30P

CREDITS

dir Seijun Suzuki

prod Katashima Ikki, Satoru Ogura

scr Yoshio Urasawa

cam Yonezo Maeda

editor Nobuyuki Ito

mus Michiru Oshima, Ryomei Shirai

cast Ziyi Zhang, Joe Odagiri, Hiroko Yakushimaru, Yuki Saori, Mikijiro Hira

source Dentsu Tec Inc., 1-11-10, Tsukiji, 104-8411 Chuo-ku, Japan FAX: +81-3-5551-9475 EMAIL: movie@dentsutec.co.jp

t’s hard to believe we’ve had the pleasure of watching Seijun Suzuki movies for almost 50 years. What’s even more remarkable is that his films have remained as youthfully nutty as they were in the ’60s. His new musical Princess Raccoon is a love story of sorts, between a man and an animal. But there’s no bestiality here—this animal is played by the stunning Ziyi Zhang, who is a tanuki, a raccoon-like creature that can change shape and impersonate just about anything, including a human (if you saw Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko at the 1995 SFIFF you’ll know all about tanukis). The object of her affection is Prince Amechiyo (Joe Odagiri, also starring in The House of Himiko, SFIFF 2006). Amechiyo’s father, Lord of Castle Grace, banishes Amechiyo to the wilderness when his in-house witch informs him that Amechiyo is soon to be better looking than his father. There the comely Princess Raccoon discovers him and whisks him back to her castle. This being a Suzuki movie, don’t go looking for much more plot—Japan’s premier trickster would rather rescue us from such mundanities. Instead, glory in the spectacular production design and cheerful wackiness of this anything-goes pop opera, replete with singing frogs, a dancing ska band (skabuki?), a plethora of multi-mythical characters and images ranging from the whimsical to the profound. It’s all terrific fun, especially if you just pretend those subtitles are bouncing-ball sing-along lyrics and join in.

—Tod Booth

Presented in association with the Center for Asian American Media and the Japan Society of Northern California. Sponsored by Dolby.

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What’s more embarrassing than crying so hard in a theater that your contacts pop out?

Sitting in a private cube to watch a film in the press office and sobbing quietly to yourself while watching a film on a flatscreen monitor with headphones on and wiping your face as you sniffle and shake in a puddle of utter sappy embarrassment.

Yeah. That’d be me stubbling through Jtown wiping my face and looking towards my feet because I’m too embarrassed to face anyone with the shameless bawling that I’ve just experienced. I was planning on watching Zhang Zi Yi in Princess Racoon this evening but my dignity was too decimated to handle staying in the theater any longer.
Damn you Andy Lau.

All About Love

Ok.. indulge me with this odd introduction.
But you know those Korean pop music videos? Where there is a hunky sulky dude character who wears a slick white suit or a slick black suit and has a styling watch etc, falls in love with someone, there’s rain (or snow) some sort of tragic circumstance, and then someone either dies or has to give up their eyeballs or something. And even though you know it’s painfully cheesy, you still wind up crying your eyes out and trying to do anything you can to find out how you can loop the same music video over and over again because you kinda dig being wrapped up in so much melodramatic whimsy.

Ok. So yeah. Imagine that being an entire HK love movie with 2, count em, 2 characters played by the Mr. Hunky Andy Lau.

Suspend your disbelief a moment and imagine that you are suspended as a translucent ghost watching Dr. Ko (played by Andy Lau of Infernal Affairs, House of Flying Daggers, etc) as he travels between present and past and becomes lovelorn and desperate to redeem the love that he neglected for his wife Zi Qing (Charlene Choi … remember her in the Vampire Affect? No? Or how about the ultra cutesy packaging as one of the HK acting/action fighting chick twins?) who expires in a sudden car accident after their 108th rescheduled dinner together. The heart of Dr. Ko’s wife, premised with a scan of an aritcle re: organs retaining some memory despite transplants (and mind you, go along with the suspension of disbelief and ignore the fact that this idea has been used in countless horror films and even a Simpson’s episode re: an evil toupee) is transplanted into the heart of another woman,Sam, (Charlie Young) with a terminal condition and a husband Derek Hui, also neglectful, that looks uncannily like Dr. Ko.

Without telling you too much to spoil the joy (and sobbing) of the film, I’ll say that the imagery, direction and editing of the film are flawless in conveying univeral human themes on love, estrangement, guilt, obsession, abandonment, a desperate need for redemption, forgiveness, and ultimately letting things go. Water and magic are seamlessly drawn through the length of the film as is the desire to continue in the wildly extravagent and romantic possibilities that are only possible when you throw yourself completely and passionately into love.

I give it a sobbing nose sniffly faced 5/5 pigtails.

This film will surely be available at your local Intl or Asian film festival and major distribution soon. Bring Kleenex. And if you can, someone you love.

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