Sunday, April 05, 2009

Blame Andre79

A little culture this evening.

The San Francisco Symphony


And Metallica
The Call of Cthulhu

12 comments:

Andre79 said...

Not a Metallica fan but I like HP Lovecraft. And Cthulhu.

midnight rider said...

Ah well. An excuse to put up metal anyway:)

Did you get to see Cloverfield?

Andre79 said...

Yes. Did you get to see "The Host" movie?

P.S. I'm a big fan/collector of Asian (especially Japanese) cinema. There is a huge lack of ideas in Hollywood and they borrow massively from the Japanese/S Koreans.

Starting with Sony Chiba's "Bullet Train"/ v.s. "Speed" or "Ringu"/ v.s. "The ring". Don't make me start.

midnight rider said...

No, didn't see The Host.

My one daughter likes the horror stuff like The Ring. Me not as much. I didn't realize there was that much borrowing going on.

But don't start :)

Andre79 said...

Ringu 1-3 was the original Japanese series in the 70's. The only thing added were some (meager) special effects; the story is the same, if not less creepy.

Sad if you don't want to know more, many Americans diss a lot of cultures and ideas, and then re-discover them and claim as their own. Not that I care anyway but I like movies; if I were to chose between Kurosawa's "7 samurai" and "The magnificent 7", I'd knew at least why I'd chose the Japanese version: because it bears no comparison.

Pastorius said...

I like Kurosawa's Dreams and I think it was called Ran (the King Lear story).

midnight rider said...

You misunderstood me, Andre. You said don't get you started so I was letting it go. If you want to enlighten I'm all for it.

I have actually not seen many Asian movies.

Andre79 said...

My favorite actor/director and blackbelt Beat Takeshi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_7W0chc92Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3WNmW5X8dI

Asian cinema had an impact on slumbering coke-snorting American one. If you want powerful visual scenes seek no further:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLn1y9v6yno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUFaDj3mBCI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_KxupTrI78

All of them in my movie collection but none of them for the faint of heart. I have more but these are the "moderate" ones.

Pastorius said...

Oh, come on, MR, I'm sure you've seen more than your share of Asian Movies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimi_Miyagi

midnight rider said...

Do these count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tera_Patrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Carrera

Pastorius said...

Yes, I think they can count, but that's not what they are known for.

Andre79 said...

Ran was one of the Kurosawa's final projects. At that moment in time he could do whatever he wanted to. He wanted a Japanese King Lear with a big budget but frankly is quite boring.

I have all Kurosawa movies and while I don't think he was a genius, he and his movies managed to represent Japan as a human society after an inhuman war (think on the context his movies were made). I really like him as a person and artist who thought it is important his country is in a human/culturist (he, he John) way.

Who would imagine that after 8 years WW2 ended, a 3 hour 100% Japanese made movie will have success in the US? The "7 samurai" delivered and IMO it is still one of the greatest movies ever made.