Tag: FILMS & TV

[Some] Koreans’ Perception of The West Wing

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A few weeks ago, in one of my classes, we watched that episode of The West Wing titled “Han,” where a North Korean musician playing in the White House informs President Bartlet of his wish to defect, in preparation for a panel discussion on the depiction of leaders in American media. (We also looked at scenes from a King Arthur film that the department had on hand.) I found my students had some interesting things to say about it, though. Well, not “say,” in many cases, but I always have students write up a Prep Sheet and a Reaction paper, …

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Seumniette?

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I’m somewhat mystified, but had to share: Lime just informed me that, among Korean fans of the TV series Lost, in online discussions the character Juliette, is (sometimes: see the comment section) referred to as 슴리에트 “슴리엣”, which for those of you who can’t read Hangeul sounds like “Seumniette.” The “n” sound is a liason between the m in “Seum” and the “l” in “-liette,” so the latter half of the name, “-liette” obviously taken from the character’s name, but “seum” requires a little explanation if you don’t speak Korean. It’s the second half of the word “gaseum” (which could …

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Movies Of Late…

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As per comments that my reviews of things run long when I clump videos and movies along with TV and music, I’m going to only do movies and TV here. I’ve got another post on books in the works. These will be quick-capsule reviews, for the most part. Martian ChildSaw this in Seoul with Lime. She found it a little too “normal,” as in, the supporting characters were just a little too predictable for her tastes. I haven’t read the original story, though I have read other things by David Gerrold, but I found the movie entertaining in how it …

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삼거리 극장 (The Ghost Theater, aka Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater)?

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UPDATE (17 Feb 2008): I have a copy on its way. Lime ordered it for me. Last time we checked, it wasn’t available anywhere, but now it is. Whee!  Ever since I heard about this film, I’ve wanted to see it, but I’ve never seen it on any shelf, or advertised here, and it’s never available at Yesasia.com. And yeah, it does exist — there’s even a trailer here er, here: And yeah, in one way, it looks like another Fox Family, a film I hated in the theater (though it grew on me later), but even if the ghosts …

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The Horror of Arirang, and on Ao Nang

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A few nights ago, when I started writing this, I was in my room in Vientiane, wondering whether I should go to the North-Korean restaurant Pyongyang for dinner. It was rather far off, and I’d already wandered around a fair bit that day, but curiosity, oh but it niggled. I didn’t end up going, though. Probably a good thing: after all the Korean practice I got in Luang Prabang — the town was FULL of Koreans — I would have slipped into the language without thinking and would later have been kidnapped from my room and shipped up to Pyongyang …

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Recent Readings & Stuff, Late August, September & October ’07

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Books The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker may not blow away people with some real familiarity with the sorry state of affairs in the human sciences — like a friend who shall remain nameless (unless she wishes to comment here) and who said that the criticisms made in the book were not uncommon among grad students in her department. But in that it encapsulates the argument in a way really easily parsed by nonspecialists, frames it in terms of the harmful effects of Blank Slate-ist denial of inherent human nature, and movingly retaliates against the scummiest of Blank Slate-ists who, …

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No Maps

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It must be weird to be asked to talk to someone with a camera long enough to have an hour and a half of footage. I’m watching the William Gibson documentary No Maps For These Territories, and I’m struck by the difficulty of this kind of “performance.” No doubt it is a performance: sitting around and talking is different from sitting around and talking to a camera. It’s interesting in a number of ways. It certainly provides some context to Gibson’s career, especially his recent comments about SF and the comments in the documentary about the relative difficulty of imagining …

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Watched/Read/Listened: July 16th to August 13th

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First off, I’m writing this in pieces, as I complete each book, so that my comments about each aren’t based on hazy recollections of a month past or more. BOOKS: Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow I’ve been a fan of James Morrow’s writing for years now, since I read, by chance, his novel Only Begotten Daughter back in my undergrad days. Since then, I’ve read Bible Stories for Adults, This is the Way the World Ends, and Towing Jehovah, the latter of which is the book to which Blameless in Abaddon is the sequel. Morrow’s made a name for …

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Read & Watched & Listened

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This list spans June and the first half of July 2007. READ: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.Fascinating, disturbing, and surprising. It has the usual disclaimers from locals, but what I found unusual and particularly inspiring was her continuous reminders of the kind of horrific objectification that was forced on female slaves in America, on the downright moral and sexual depravity of white masters. What was striking was that she spoke less in abstract terms, instead slamming home her point with specific examples from her life, which were enough to turn my stomach. She wrote …

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April Readings / Viewings

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It’s been a busy month, but I’ve managed to do some reading and to watch a couple of movies. Deeper discussions of the books, less so on the movies. Books: Korea Bug: The Best of the Zine that Infected a Nation, by J. Scott Burgeson. I’ve finished it! Not that it was a ponderous read, but that I feel like I have achieved something here. It’s a really fascinating text, actually — all kinds of interviews with people in whom I would have been interested, if I’d thought to think of them. The last gisaeng (Korean geisha)… a shaman… interesting …

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