It was an LP. It was a soundtrack. I had that whole thing memorized a few days after I bought it. Later would come Glenn Miller (my mom’s choice, since I was about to start playing the saxophone), and then Bon Jovi (yes, Slippery When Wet, I’ll admit it), Miles Davis, Guns’N’Roses (and then the famous backpatch jacket), and then John Coltrane (and then the tenor sax I still have with me), and much more… … but this was the first album I bought for myself, with my paper route money, and man was I happy to have it so …
Category: REVIEWS
Kick-Ass
I thought I’d posted this, but anyway: Kick Ass is a wonderful, wonderful superhero film. If you’re in Korea, see it while you can… it’s not some huge crappy film, so it won’t play for long! (I find films succeed more when they are mediocre, and less when they are wonderful, here: the same goes, very generally, for Korean films, unfortunately.) And yes, it does have the most violent little girl you’ve ever in your life seen. This is one of the film’s charms, and anyone who’s horrified by it needs to go kiss Frank D’Amico’s crooked, murderous ass. But …
Hanyeo (The 2010 Remake)
Those of you who might remember my glowing review of the 1960 Kim Ki-Young film Hanyeo (하녀, Eng The Housemaid) included in this post may also have noted that a remake is in cinemas now. I saw it with a few people the other day, including Miss Jiwaku and our friends Mark and Jin. Miss Jiwaku thought that stylistically it was a very effective remake of the film, and I have to agree: in terms of camera work, mood, music, it’s something of a cross between the original film, and something Wong Kar Wai would make. (The Wong Kar Wai …
On Recent Post-Apocalyptic Films
Not long ago, someone in an email described called this past winter as having been cruel and cold and hard. It is, surely, only chance that this was a winter of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films. I count three, though I may have missed one or two during my travels: The Road in 2009, and The Book of Eli and Crazies in 2010. Having seen all three of these films in the space of a week, some thoughts occur to me. This rambles, but I am going to post it anyway, as I have other things to do right now…
Wackiest Korean Book I Ever Bought
If you’re curious, I found the wackiest Korean book I’d ever seen this past weekend at the Kyobo Bookstore in Gangnam, and got myself a copy while I could, because I don’t imagine it’s going to sell too well and will likely end up sold off for cheap before long, at which point it’ll be easier to find hunting in discount book stands (in one of which Miss Jiwaku and I found several books of translations of Lovecraft stories this past winter, for example)… but who has time for that? The book is titled 도해 쿠툴루 신화 (Zukai Cthulhu Shinhwa) …
The Power of Pride: Stylemakers and Rule Breakers of the Harlem Renaissance by Carole Marks and Diana Edkins
This is a book I purchased a while back in the hopes of writing some SF set during the Harlem Renaissance, but which came in handy for my course Understanding English and American Popular Culture. (The first half of which has been pretty much devoted to African-Americans’ role in building the foundation of American popular culture.) The strength of the book is that it builds up a picture — and one that is honestly critical without stooping to being demeaning — of the world in which the Harlem Renaissance occurred, and a number of the major figures of the Renaissance. …
They Don’t Make ‘Em Like That No More… or, on the Soundtrack ofLes Liaisons Dangereuses
Maybe I’m exaggerating. But it seems to me movie soundtracks, however danceable they may be, no matter how much they may support a film’s action sequences, very rarely stand up on their own as art anymore. I do have a copy of the Lola Rennt soundtrack, but I can’t really call it art, not except in that cheesy industry way that any dipshit in skimpy or stylish clothes who can lipsynch becomes a “recording artist.” Not like, say, the soundtrack of the 1959 Roger Vadim film Les liaisons dangereuses. I mean, Art Blakey and the friggin’ Jazz Messengers? (As well …
Satchmo Blows Up The World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War by Penny Marie von Eschen
This is a book I bought to have some background on the use of jazz as part of Cold War-era promotion of America abroad, primarily for research on a longer work I was (and still am) considering writing set in the world of “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues.” Interestingly, during the Cold War (from the 1950s through the 1970s) jazz music and jazz musicians were used by the American government in the same way circuses were used by the USSR, as part of what we now so often call a “hearts and minds” campaign carried out throughout the …
“Jazz? Yes Please… As Long as There’s No Actual Jazz or Colored Folks!”
UPDATE (17 April 2010): I feel I ought to clarify one thing, but if I put it here, it won’t make sense, so I’m adding it to the end of the post. ORIGINAL POST: There’s isn’t quite a sign up at the Incheon Airport saying that, but there might as well be. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I was talking with a student I know about this. He was scrambling for a topic to do with Korea reception of Western popular culture (past and present) and I asked him who the most famous American rapper is in Korea. Who is it? …
The Last Books of H.G. Wells — The Happy Turning: A Dream of Life & Mind at the End of its Tether by H.G. Wells, Forewords by Rudy Rucker and Colin Wilson
Much as I enjoyed it myself (primarily as a curio of sorts), this slim little book is one that most SF fans, I think, need not hurry to read. Unless one is truly interested in Wells as a man, in seeing how old age and the knowledge of his approaching death (by liver cancer) affected his thinking and writing, I don’t think someone is likely to get much out of it. But if you are interested in Wells, this book can help you get a handle on his last few years. These works, especially Mind at the End of its …