Coming Soon: Gwacheon International SF Film Festival!

This entry is part 40 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

So I should have posted about this before, but there’s an SF Film Festival on soon. It’s starting in a few days (28 October) and runs until 7 November, down at the National Science Museum in Gwacheon, South Korea. There’s a twitter account that’s announcing events and so on, but unless you read Korean, it won’t mean much to you. Much better to head over to the website. It’s a chance to see all kinds of SF films on the big screen, from 2001: A Space Odyssey (and the sequel) to an all-night Back to the Future trilogy marathon this …

Continue Reading

방가?방가!

So the other day, I got a chance (apparently rare!) to see the film Bang[g]a-Bang[g]a. I’d seen the poster around, but had I not been told about the wacky screening schedule, I’d have missed it completely. If you haven’t seen it and plan to, I strongly encourage you. I don’t think the film is perfect, but it’s rare to see a film that deals with multiculturalism at all in Korea, let alone one that hits some really right notes. The film has a very limited release, but it should be on screens on Sept. 30th. Yes, one day. I don’t …

Continue Reading

El Sistema, Musical Utopianism, and Social Change in Venezuela

Have you ever wondered how to fix an unfixable mess? That’s the question that faced José Antonio Abreu, of Venezuela, except for one thing: he didn’t regard the mess that Caracas was in as unfixable. In 1975, he decided that there had to be a way to get kids off the street, away from the innumerable dangers vying for their attention, energy, and lives. He realized that there had to be a way to wake up families, to form communities, to give the handicapped and the poor a chance to be respected and shine. How? Music. I kid you not. …

Continue Reading

The Lost Airbender

So, I only started watching the animation a month or two ago, and only here and there. Nonetheless, I quite like it, and I think it’s for the same reason I’ve been enjoying The Muppet Show, as I mentioned recently. And this reason becomes even more apparent on watching the M. Night Shyamalan adaptation travesty, which I did the other night. I mean, even the creators of the series backed away carefully when asked what they thought of it. You know, that means it’s really bad. Well, it was. The funny thing is that I happen to agree with a …

Continue Reading