Category: FILMS&TV

A.M. 11:00 (11 A.M.)

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This entry is part 63 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Well, I finally sat down and watched the Korean Sf film A.M. 11:00 with Mrs. Jiwaku last night. It’s a time travel outing I heard about (and mentioned here) ages ago; delays on film releases never bode well, but I thought the premise sounded promising, so we gave it  a shot anyway. Sadly, it was a disappointment, and for the usual sorts of reasons, when it comes to Korean SF films. Here’s what I had to say on IMDB.com about it: Yet another disappointing Korean SF film, 11 A.M. starts out potentially promising, but devolves into a nonsensical mess of melodrama …

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Daerijeon Soundtrack–Insight Strikes!

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So, I had a realization the other day, while trying to wrap my brain around this project I’m working on. Essentially, the insight came in two steps. I was talking to my wife about creative ways to get around the fact we’re missing clips and video content that was originally mandated in the screenplay for our current film project. One of the points I made was that, since we cannot reshoot anything, it’s up to us to think creatively about how to rework the script to tell the story, while taking up the challenge of turning the missing pieces into …

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Paul Auster on Writing in Oracle Night

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I usually find it kind of boring or annoying when writers write about writers (and about writers writing, especially, or even worse, about writers struggling to write), but Paul Auster has managed to do it well, both in his autobiographical Hand to Mouth (a review of which I wrote in 2006, though it was lost to the aether at the time and I never rewrote it), and in the book I’m reading now, Oracle Night.

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The Art of the Monologue

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Mrs. Jiwaku and I are currently watching (for me, re-watching) the TV series Dead Like Me. I have to say, the writing is pretty good, especially after the first few episodes. In the first season’s penultimate episode, the characters are sorting through a ton of paperwork, inputting the last thoughts of the souls they’ve reaped into a database. Daisy Adair, a sort of Hollywood cynic type turned grim reaper, has been fending off the sexual advances a British druggie reaper who is really not her type. They end up working together, and data entry ends up being something more like …

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Linkspray

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A spray of links and goodies. I’ve been saving up. The Shining: Since watching Room 237: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHE5YUNkssQ … and then rewatching The Shining, I’ve been a little fascinated with the film, and a lot fascinated with others’ (often slightly-to-very-crazy) fascination with it: Staircases to Nowhere: a documentary on the making of the film, with interviews of the crew: The Overlook Hotel is a tumblr dedicated to ephemera from the film’s production/promotion/etc. STANLEY KUBRICK’S MASTERPIECE, “THE SHINING”: Basically a book-length reading of the film in the form of a blog, which I have yet to read though I’ve read fascinating reviews. Apparently this …

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Cowboys in Space: A Mixed Metaphor

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I’ve always wondered why people were so fascinated by stories of cowboys in space. For me, it’s always been a non-starter. Granted, maybe I’d like these stories better if I liked the characters and writing better, but the widespread for Firefly kind of baffles me, though of course we could chalk it up to different tastes with the writing, or my lack of fannish devotion to Joss Whedon. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to think in terms of why things do or don’t appeal to me… to figure out my own tastes, as it were. After all, I’ve liked very few …

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Why Lewbowski?

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Well, Mrs. Jiwaku and I have become really big fans of the Coen Brothers. We’ve been watching their films, thinking about the structure and mode they use, and re-watching the ones we saw too far back to remember well, as well as checking out the ones we’d not gotten to yet. One thing I can say is that these guys buck the trend. Even with a picture like The Ladykillers, which in my opinion doesn’t quite hang together as it should, there’s plenty to enjoy, the characters are colorful, their collective fates well-deserved. I mean, a recurring gag where characters …

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The Terror Live (2013) and Killer Toon (2013)

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I’ve seen a couple of Korean movies lately worth commenting on. Those in Korea are probably too late to see this on the big screen, and those outside Korea may not get a chance, but anyway, Mrs. Jiwaku and I saw the 2013 Korean film The Terror Live this evening. My general thoughts on The Terror Live were very positive, despite having to make do with my iffy (and waning) Korean-language listening skills. (Probably seeing it at the cinema where we saw it–the Lotte Cinema at Lotte Mart–was the mistake; when I watched another Korean blockbuster a week ago at a …

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A Serving of Links

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A sampling of what I’ve been digging into lately. Books: Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? Remember how those Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone added die rolls and character information to that paradigm? Now imagine reading one and not having to flip from one page to another. Imagine one that takes advantage of all the possibilities of ebooks. Is this new version of Dave Morris’ classic Heart of Ice what you imagined?  (I haven’t read it yet, but it’s getting rave reviews, and I plan on checking it out.) R.H. Kanakia presents: a Taxonomy of Readers. I’m …

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On Enigma

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Jenny Greenteeth image

For the last few days, I’ve been taking medicine for an ear infection I suddenly developed. It’s not completely clear what caused the infection: contamination of the water in the pool where I swim is possible, but it’s just as likely that it’s a side effect of a particular asthma medication I’ve been taking. In any case, it’s not completely resolved, but it is a lot better than it was… yesterday, I was worried my eardrum might burst from the pressure, but today it’s almost normal again. (On the one side, at least.) Anyway, as a result, I’ve been unable …

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