Note: This blog expresses only the opinions of the blog owner, and does not represent the opinion of any organization or blog that is associated with The Golden Rock.
Today’s song of the day is again an alternate version that is probably not available on any record. From the Zazen Boys, who seem to make a very unique type of freeform rock that mixes R&B sensibility, it’s “Kimochi” from their first album. Except this is the live version featuring Shiina Ringo.
You can find another live version here, but embedding was disabled, so just clicked on the link.
I don’t know why I started putting titles for every entry, but after having to think of over 100 of them, I’m a little tired of them. So News from tomorrow on will just be under generic titles like “Golden Rock News for _______).
- The big worldwide opening this weekend is, as everyone knows by now, the third and (perhaps) final Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Spiderman 3 had already set the bar this summer with record openings all around the world. However, this blog only tracks a few, and it seems that Pirates isn’t quite tall enough for the bar.
In Hong Kong on Thursday opening day, Pirates took up 119 screens and made HK$6.8 million (this may or may not include Wednesday night shows, if there were any). It was close, but it fails to break the Spiderman record, which is 7.38 million on 122 screens. There are going to be arguments that suggest Pirates made less because it’s longer, but in Hong Kong, longer movies charge more money. In the case of Spidey, it saw a $10 extra charge because it runs at 140 minutes, while Pirates saw a $15 charge for the 168-minute length. Perhaps that’s the reason people bulked - it’s a three-hour movie that charges 15 dollars extra. This is the case where theater owners went a little too far in trying to make money, considering they are the ones pocketing this PLUS the 50% gross that’s the usual theaterowner fee. Of course, I’m making it sound a little bad, but the truth is Pirates still scored one of the Hong Kong’s biggest opening days ever.
On the rest of the top 10, Spiderman 3 still managed to make HK$600,000 on 33 screens for a 24-day total of HK$52.66 million. Gong Tau actually saw a better per-screen average than last week with HK$120,000 on 8 screens. There are only two openers, both limited releases, that entered the top 10: The animated Conan the tiny detective movie made HK$20,000 on 2 screens, which means it might be looking good this weekend for the family business. The art film The Go Master opened on one screen with HK$20,000. Looks like it’ll be the counter-programming indie hit this weekend.
Oh, in America, Pirates also failed to beat Spidey’s gross, though it also made a ton of money on Thursday night showings, which means it might be able to best Spidey’s record 3-day numbers.
- An Asian-American filmmaker hits it huge in Cannes. Raised in rural Arkansas and studied film at Yale, Lee Issac Chung’s Munyurangabo, about the Rwanda genocides, earned a rave review from Variety.
Meanwhile, if anyone is still interested in what’s going on, EastSouthWestNorth translated the whole questionnaire, including the mock answers, at the risk of being reported to the TELA for reprinting obscene materials. I’m not currently living in Hong Kong, so I don’t believe I’m under the jurisdiction of this law (though I am a Hong Kong permanent resident), but much credit goes to Mr. Soong’s work and his dedication to cover the important topics of Chinese media. He even goes into the entire classification process, which I have no idea how I managed to miss the link for.
- Speaking of conflicts, looks like Harvey Weinstein and Luc Besson is going at each other over The Weinstein Company’s release of Besson’s last film Arthur and the Invisibles. Even though Weinstein does have a record of screwing with their foreign acquisitions, I actually haven’t really heard anything positive about Arthur and the Invisibles, it was probably going to flop anyway.
- Another conflict that might pop up is going on in Japan, where outspoken director Izutsu Kazuyuki (Pacchigi - Love and Peace) praised films in general…..except Kitano doesn’t exactly care whether directors like films or not. This is ironic, considering Kitano’s movie emulates just about all popular genres of film, which I figured only a director that likes film that do.
- Japan Times also has a review of nationalist Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara-penned “For Those We Love,” which he claims in an anti-war film….except reviewer Mark Schilling says Ishihara writes the war as “an idealistic crusade to free Asia from Western domination.” Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds awfully pro-WWII to me.
- The Hideo Nakata-helmed Death Note spinoff L already has an official site up with a teaser trailer. Don’t get excited, though, it includes absolutely no footage from the film, because it’s a teaser announcing that shooting starts in the summer.
- Lastly, there’s a 4-minute trailer up for Kenta Fukasaku’s latest film X Cross (no, not the action film he announced he would do a few weeks ago). According to the trailer, it’s about a woman running away from a cult that cuts young girls’ legs off, and it promises a scare every 5 minutes. Except for the cross-dressing killer, it looks pretty intense. Remember it’s the very fist link.
I heard this song from the Hong Kong radio programs I listen to when I’m at the gym. They released this song on the radio around the time they were plugging YUI’s album (Midnight Sun had just left theaters at that point too), so I would literally listen to it quite a bit over the course of the 10-hour minidisc I recorded the programs on (don’t freak out, I pay for the access to the archive). And it’s been stuck in my head ever since. From the album Can’t Buy My Love, it’s YUI’s “I Remember You.”
Note: The video was shot in Kamakura, where I went during my trip in January. It’s an absolutely beautiful city even if you don’t want to go to the temples and shrines there.
Two notable films (at least for me) premiered at Cannes - the big Hollywood blockbuster Ocean’s Thirteen and Lee Chang-Dong’s Secret Sunshine.
While many people didn’t like Ocean’s Twelve, I really liked the fun French New Wave spirit Soderbergh was trying to express. He knows that it was an excuse for everyone to just go on vacation in Europe, and pretty much shot it that way. It might’ve seemed like film snobbery (People seriously thought I was bullshitting with the French New Wave thing), but I liked it nevertheless. Anyway, The gang returns for more of the same in Ocean’s Thirteen, although I expect Soderbergh turning down the genre homage by quite a bit. Anyway, seems like critics are liking it more, with Hollywood Reporter calling it spirited and engaging, while Variety calls it as smooth as a good mojito and as stylish as an Armani suit. Alright, I’ll bite.
Who else other than the director of Pleasure Factory not having such a good time? The coordinators for the booth representing Korean films this year. Apparently, they are just not having much luck at all at Cannes, marking a down trend in the Korean market for the first time in years.
But nevertheless, studios seem to be opting to buy films from independent studios rather than making them themselves, even though some independent studios aren’t biting what the big guys have to offer.
As Cannes starts to get to the end, it’s about time to decide who gets the Palme D’or. In many instance, the jury doesn’t quite agree with the critics’ choices, but the critics can’t even agree among themselves this year.
Out of those, I’ve only seen Cafe Lumiere, and if i haven ever been to Tokyo, I would’ve been bored to death by it. But for some reason(most likely in that I’m a bit of a transportation nerd), I really liked how Hou Hsiao-Hsien captured Tokyo in such a naturalistic fashion. It’s not really a crazy city. In fact, despite its sheer size, the city is rather serene when you leave its busiest districts, and that’s what Hou managed to capture. Also, I was in a Japanese cinema class at the time, and I was actually looking for recurring Ozu themes throughout the film, which made it even more interesting. Plus, it was fun playing “what’s that train” and “which train station is that” throughout the film. However, I expect everyone else to be pretty bored.
This leads me to a short rant. Recently, I signed up for a Japanese video service named Gyao, which is by the Usen Group and basically provides streaming video service for free. Unlike websites like Veoh and Crunchyroll (no link for you!) basically allow users to upload and watch films for free and illegally, this one is actually 100% legal and free, paying for itself through advertising. It has films, music videos, dramas, basically everything users wanted when they go to sites like Youtube. I was signed up and ready to watch (I knew something was fishy when they asked for my Japanese zip code, though. I used the zip code of someone I know), then the service won’t let me watch it, limiting it to Japanese computers only.
Obviously, I understand that it’s a matter of copyrights when foreign films or films sold to foreign distributors are involved, but this just shows how much the studio cares about exposure versus pure profit. Who cares who watches their movies when they got money from their foreign deals all lined up? This disdain for international audiences by Japanese distributors are why copyrights for their shows are infringed all the time. This is why sites like Crunchyroll and Veoh pop up, while the Japanese authorities moan and whine about how foreigners are stealing their copyright. Mind you, I’m not going to start downloading Japanese movies without paying my dues, but I think they brought it onto themselves.
- Director Naomi Kawase’s “The Mourning Forest” hasn’t even premiered at Cannes yet, and she’s already announced her next film, which will be released next summer. You have to give Asian directors some credit; even the best ones work amazingly fast.
- Remember three weeks ago, when Spiderman 3 broke all kinds of records with humongous screen counts and what have you? That seems so long ago, doesn’t it? Well, the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie is opening, and sounds like it’ll be more of the same - breaking screen counts, box office records, and the blah blah blah. In Japan, Eiga Consultant is predicting the three ways it can go - the V way, as shown by the Lord of the Rings and Spiderman franchise in Japan (High gross for first installment, dips the second, and jumps back up in the third), the “yama” way, as shown by the Matrix and Mission: Impossible franchise (increased gross for the second film, then dipping on the last film), or the descent way, shown by the Harry Potter franchise and the Star Wars prequels (this one doesn’t need explaining).
Considering that the Pirates franchise saw its first film make 6.8 billion yen to 10 billion yen for its sequel, it’s safe to say that the descent way is out of the question. But with a 2-hour-and-48-minute length and the big Japanese comedy battle next week (Dai Nipponjin vs. Kantoku Banzai), don’t be surprised if it goes the Yama way.
- Here’s kind of an interesting idea for a new film. The Korean-Canadian co-production “Anti-Hero” introduces a world where everybody has some kind of unique power (where are they going to think of 6 billion different unique powers?) except for the protagonist. Doesn’t that make him unique in the first place?
In light of Ryuganji’s, EastSouthWestNorth, and Lovehkfilm’s recent shout-outs to this blog, It’s probably a good time for me to acknowledge some, if not all, of the links I have on my right here as well.
Film Philia seems to be a new site, and updates about once a week-2 weeks with news and trailer links that are short and to the point.
Like him or not (he hate Lord of the Rings, but loves Michael Mann and Babel), Hollywood Elsewhere is an enormous informative column/blog about the movie business. Jeffrey Wells is indeed a bit opinionated for some people’s taste, but he’s a columnist, not a reporter. So what else can you expect?
I don’t think I have to profess my love for Lovehkfilm anymore, or I’d just seem like huge suck-up. Plus, they have a really talented reviewer that seem to really like the Hong Kong defunct rap group LMF….
Ryuganji doesn’t update his site often enough, but his page’s feed to all news Japanese films may just make this blog’s existence a waste of internet space. Good thing I know a thing or two about Hong Kong cinema too.
TV in Japan is just kick-ass. Even if there’s no context to the clips sometimes (Japanese TV is not especially weird; it’s just as sensational as any other mainstream TV industry, but in another culture), it never ceases to provide hilarious clips that I somehow never caught when I was there. The reason I don’t mention it in my post is because the whole thing is about entertainment, and they update it as frequently as I do anyway.
A Pity I’m an Aquarius is an interesting photography blog, even if it doesn’t have much film stuff in it. Plus she was one of the first people to link to The Golden Rock, and I’m more than happy to return the favor.
Asian Cinema - While on the Road is by Brian of brns.com. As a programmer for the New York Asian Film Festival, he gets to watch a lot of Asian films that I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on.
I don’t do much celebrity gossips on this site. I leave it to Daily Dumpling to fulfill all of your Asian celebrity news instead.
Professor David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson’s blog is always informative for an aspiring filmmaker and those interested in film as an art form. As a film studies major who almost went into film research for grad school, it’s always an enormously rewarding reading experience for me, especially those entries about shot lengths.
There are not enough words (at least in my limited Japanese vocabulary) to describe how thankful I am for a blog like Eiga Consultant. I didn’t think anyone cares about box office statistics as much as I do until I found this blog. It’s been very very useful for this site, for what I wanted to do with this blog, and for satisfying my own curiosity with having to know the box office statistics of everywhere I’ve lived before.
And Hoga News was the how I found Eiga Consultant in the first place. Providing translations of Japanese film news and box office statistics, Hoga News was also the first major site that linked to the Golden Rock, and I am eternally grateful for that.
Old school Hong Kong martial arts movies aren’t my cup of tea (I just didn’t get to grow up with it, and I have no time to catch up with it now), but head over to Hong Kong and Kung Fu DVD News and Reviews if they are your cup of tea.
Jason Gray provides an interesting inside look at Japanese cinema - both mainstream and the lesser known stuff like Pink films - that you can’t find in the news.
r@sardonicsmile just has a really cool pop culture blog that seems to share similar sensibility as I. Too bad she doesn’t update very often.
Fellow Lovehkfilm reviewer Sanjuro shows so much knowledge in comic and early contemporary cinema cultures in Ronin On Empty that I honestly feel a little behind on everything. No, I haven’t seen any of the Rocky movies, but he has, and even reviews all of them! Like the previous link, I wish it’d be updated a little more often, but it understandably isn’t because of his schedule.
Web of Significance is a blog that’s about a bit of everything, and it’s always informative. Of course, I’m especially attracted to the movies stuff, but it’s all good anyway.
Just added is Hongkie Town, a blog I’ve been following for over a year now about the adventures of a foreigner living in Hong Kong. It doesn’t have much movie stuff (a review here and there), but it’s still immensely rewarding with fun stories from Hong Kong and abroad, music stuff, and political observations.
Also added is EastSouthWestNorth, a blog that mostly cover Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan political news with translations and links. Extremely useful for anyone interested in seeing how the media work in these three places. Even crazy enough to link to this blog twice within a week. Extremely honored, I am.
And I just realized that I never put Korea Pop Wars on the blog list, even though I use it every week to look at the Korean box office. Shame on me. That glaring error has now been corrected.
Thank you all for the knowledge I have picked up from your sites, and if you happen to read this as well, thank you for your support as well.
Today continues the classical mood I’ve been in lately, except I only know the stuff that pretty much everybody knows. The most memorable use of this piece was, I believe, in Gus Van Sant’s powerful “Elephant.” In fact, the entire soundtrack is filled with classic pieces. By Ludwig van Beethoven, it’s the first movement of Moonlight Sonata, or Au Clair De Lune.
And here is a piano genius playing it like he’s bored.
Since there isn’t a lot of new from Cannes, we’ll just do it the way we always do it around here.
- First, some news out of Hong Kong in a follow-up to the Chinese University of Hong Kong newspaper scandal. After the news broke out that the student newspaper was slapped with an interim category II rating (ruling it as indecent), Ming Pao Daily reprinted the page on one of their Sunday issues in an attempt to show what the hoopla’s about. After receiving more complaints, the TELA has also given that issue an interim classification of category II. Meanwhile, a survey was also done with over 1000 people about the CUHK newspaper, and to further complicate the definition of obscene, the general public seemed to have been offended by the CUHK newspaper.
Besides the obvious problem stated by EastSouthWestSouth, that most of those people haven’t even read the page themselves because the law won’t allow anyone to reprint it, what about the issue of target audience? The newspaper is not produced nor distributed for the general public, but rather just a small number of people that goes to Chinese University. Some people say that students might bring it back home, where kids can get to it. Then it’s the student’s fault for laying a sex page around the house, not the fault of the editors. Until then, only the students of CUHK should have the right to decide what they can or cannot read.
This is a frustrating situation, because people who have no business in denouncing a newspaper is doing so, and there’s such a hypocrisy going on in the media that I’m surprised no one is pointing it out. This is the Oriental Daily “Male Extreme Section.” It comes out once a week, and it contains articles about how prostitution is a natural thing in society, a column about a woman’s experience with a younger man, a guide to having sex during the summer heat, among other things that would not be very acceptable in a mainstream newspaper. So why hasn’t these people been fined week after week?
Same reason why Easyfinder has managed to survive week after week of exploiting female celebrities: It’s titillating. The contents in the sex pages of mainstream newspapers are meant to encourage people to feel sexual desire, which is why they are often sensational and written in casual Chinese. Though Easyfinder is now closing after years of public pressure, it only got into trouble because of clear acts that are illegal (such as violating Gillian Chung’s privacy by printing the pictures of her changing). Other than that, no one points out that it’s been nothing more than a trashy tabloid that’s meant to entertain.
On the other hand, the CUHK newspaper forces people to face their hidden fantasies, and it pretty much presents the same thing the other mainstream newspapers write about. As for the questionnaire problem, it doesn’t even encourage such behavior, nor is it even meant to be taken seriously. Look at the choices: There are four relatively short answers and an extended mock answer that’s just played for laughs. Hell, for the question about whether readers thought about bestiality, the closest thing to a “yes” choice is the mock answer. Maybe it’s in poor taste, but I don’t see anything particularly obscene about it, as long it’s not encouraging people to engage in such behavior, and that’s my conservative side talking already.
- It’s time for the Japanese Oricon charts. On the singles side, Keisuke Kuwata’s latest single “Will It be Sunny Tomorrow,” also the theme song for popular drama Operation Love, debuts at number 1 with 167,000 copies sold. The single also marks his first solo effort in 5 years, and his 5th consecutive number 1 as a solo artist. The debut breaks the record for the consecutive number of number 1 debuts for a solo effort from a band member. Meanwhile, Exile’s latest debuts at a weak number 3 spot with only 89,000 copies sold as the singles market continues to weaken over time. Next week, expect boy band V6’s new single to rule the charts, only to see a huge drop off afterwards.
On the album chart, Linkin Park debuts at number 1 with 150,000 copies sold, while Maroon 5 debuts at the number 3, selling 64,000 copies. The biggest news is the new album by Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi, who is also starring in Kenta Fukasaku’s latest film, debuted only at number 4 with 61,000 copies sold. If the daily rankings hold up, then we should see Japanese albums ruling the charts again.
- Anyone that’s looking to watch Sexy Voice and Robo episode 7 online (I’m not, but I’m just saying) can forget it - NTV pulled the episode after an incident last week where an ex-Yakuza holed up in an apartment shot and killed a police officer during the stand-off. They also have no plans to air the episode yet, as they’ll just skip straight to episode 8 next week.
- Last weekend, the distributor for the independent film sequel Pacchigi - Love and Peace predicted that its gross would past the 1 billion mark based on the opening day of the first film. And it’s true, Love and Peace did indeed open at 150% of the first film, except the distributor didn’t take into account that the first film played to strong word-of-mouth for 22 weeks. Considering that the opening was also only 59% of last year’s indie hit Hula Girl, perhaps expectation is a little high.
- Reviews from Cannes time. The latest film by Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Invisible Waves, Last Life in the Universe) Ploy premiered as part of the Director’s Fortnight. Variety didn’t really like it, saying that it made the slow Invisible Waves look like a rapid approaching tsunami in comparison (that was a pun in bad taste, I say). On the other hand, Twitch likes it a lot, calling it beautiful, thought, and mediative.
- The Edge of Heaven, the new film by Fatih Akin, the director of the great “Head-On” (the film, not the product), is competing in Cannes. Looks like both Variety and Hollywood Reporter liked it. Variety calls it utterly assured and profoundly moving, while Hollywood Reporter calls it intricate and moving. I’m looking forward to it already.
- There have been clips of Sammi Cheng’s Hong Kong concert on Youtube, prompting the record company to ask Youtube to take it off the site. Problem is that these are just badly recorded clips from cell phones of digital cameras, so why start some petty copyrights fight to give up some promotion for the concert DVD?
- The Korean film I’m anticipating the most right now is probably Kim Ji-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and the Weird, and it was recently sold to France in a 6-figure deal. Good for them.
- Dave’s Trailer Page has a link to a pretty good trailer for the fabulous Paris Je T’aime. I have the Hong Kong all-region DVD, but I urge everyone to give this a try in the theaters. Trust me, it’ll appeal to a wide audience better than the arthouse ones, except for a few of the shorts.
- Apparently someone used a digital camera or something and bootlegged some footage from the reel for Feng Xiaogang’s The Assembly from the Cannes Film Festival. It looks technically accomplished, with huge explosions and whatnot, but Feng Xiaogang is first and foremost a commercial filmmaker. And honestly, the battle scenes look like they were taken straight out of Taeguki, which took its battle scenes out of Saving Private Ryan.
- China is not just looking to Hong Kong for co-production. Those promiscuous bastards are looking all over the world.
- Isabella Leung is going to Hollywood. The star of…Isabella is set to play Michelle Yeoh’s daughter in The Mummy 3, also known as “the latest way to fuck up Chinese culture for worldwide consumption.” Stop taking our people down with you, Hollywood.
- Cannes isn’t even over yet, and the Venice Film Festival is already announcing that Robert Zemekis’ latest film, the 3D Beowulf (can he just go back to doing live-action films already?), will be opening the festival. Also, Ang Lee and Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest films also have a pretty good chance of showing up there as well.
Today’s song of the day is my favorite track from Faye Wong’s 2003 album “To Love.” The deep rhythmic beats and the lyrics (”I gave you the movie ticket/I gave him the seat/I gave you the candles/I gave him the dinner”) make this a great side track from her last great album. It’s “Not Remaining.” Of course, another way to literally translate it is “Not Stay,” but the song is about leaving nothing behind, hence my literal translation.
The big Cannes screening this past day was the director’s cut of Quentin Tarantino’s self-indulgent Death Proof. Essentially, the new cut extends the film by about 20 minutes with two major scenes - the missing reel with the lap dance, and a scene where Stuntman Mike (played by Kurt Russell) actually meets the girls in the second half. Variety likes it even more than the theatrical cut, saying that now the film benefits from the additional details in the second half. And I guess Hollywood Reporter doesn’t really have much of a problem with it either, which probably means that the director’s cut is pretty much a longer version of the same film. On the other hand, Jeffrey Wells, who actually liked the Grindhouse cut of Death Proof, is indirectly slamming it all of a sudden. Lastly, the Risky Biz blog by Hollywood Reporter has more on the press conference.
Meanwhile, there have been quite a few business deals made in Cannes:
Martin Scorsese, with other directors from around the world such as Wong Kar-Wai, Walter Salles, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and Stephen Frears, have started the World Cinema Foundation, which is committed to restoring and preserving old neglected films.
Meanwhile, the Independent Film Channel (IFC) picked up the North American rights for Cannes front-runner “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days,” among other films.
Colombia Films, owned by Sony, has signed a production deal with Stephen Chow’s production company Star Overseas. The first film under the deal is the Stephen Fung-directing effort Jump, starring Hong Kong’s spoiled bad boy Edison Chen. This doesn’t seem like a surprising decision, considering that Sony handled the distribution for Kung Fu Hustle and will do the same for Chow’s latest A Hope.
In the past few years, Korean films have hit it big in Japan, with huge distribution deals being made at film festivals around the world. Seems like the tables have turned, with Korean distributors now buying up Japanese films for their market after their recent relative success.
Yet another film investment fund has now established. A3 International will produce films with Korean, Chinese, and Japanese films in the mid-budget range. No films have been announced under the fund yet.
Now back to regular programming:
- Speaking of launching funds, the Pusan International Film Festival has also launched a film fund for Asian filmmakers. But there’s a catch - the fund is for documentaries.
- Numbers from the Japanese box office ranking this past weekend are in. As I mentioned yesterday, only two films penetrated the top 10, with the other 8 remaining films staying at the same place as last week. And most impressive is that none of the remaining films dropped by more than 30% from last week’s gross. Even Spiderman 3, which has been suffering pretty big falls around the world, dropped only 24% after losing only 21 screens.
- Eiga Consultant analyzes the 10th place opening for Will Farrell’s Stranger Than Fiction. He basically compares Farrell to Adam Sandler, another American comedy actor who has a huge following at home, but whose films fail to perform in Japan. At 26 million yen, the Stranger Than Fiction opening is only 17% of Bewitched’s opening in Japan, but it’s also 113% of Click. I doubt that Japanese people buy Farrell’s type of humor anyway.
- There were a few Asian films on the North American box office as well, excluding Shrek 3, which was co-directed by an Asian. Sad news is they’re at the 101st and 102nd place. The two films are Triad Election (which moved on to a San Francisco engagement this week with almost no fanfare) and Ken Watanabe’s Memories of Tomorrow, which also opened with pretty much no advance word at all.
- Following in the footsteps of Variety Asia, Hollywood Reporter has recently decided to expand their coverage into Asia with new offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. Good for them.
- New York Post critic Lou Lumenick warns that Evan Almighty, now officially the most expensive comedy ever made, might not be any good. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of a good comedy that runs under 90 minutes.
- EastSouthWestNorth has a link to an English TVB-produced special about The Society For Truth and Light, a conservative group in Hong Kong that is very much on the opposing side against the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper controversy, and is a strong opponent against laws that outlaw discrimination of “sexual minorities” (that would mean the gays). The focus of the program is that they have recently been teaching a human rights course to schoolteachers. My favorite quote about the course: “If you think your time is valuable, don’t try to join this course.” Sounds like a quote ready for print.
- Japan must really love Richard Gere. After being featured in several ads in Japan and dancing with former Prime Minister Koizumi, now he’s taking part in one of Japan’s most beloved pet stories. That’s right, Richard Gere has signed on to star and produce “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story,” playing the role of the professor owner who meets a tragic end. At least Japanese distributor Shochiku has its hands in it, or Japanese audiences might be crying foul.
- I’m sure many people know that there’s such thing as a news agenda, which means news producers has an agenda in putting what they think is the most important story early in the newscast. This, I believe, is the reason why perhaps such agendas may be a little misguided sometimes. If you look at the top left corner, this news came on 12 minutes into the newscast. Are there actually less important news out there then a Civet running around in a TV station, or is it just to show the Japanese police’s lack of priority in solving crimes?
Today’s song is again featured very often in films, and remains one of my favorite love songs. My favorite use was in the ending montage for Boogie Nights, although the use of it in the ending of Love Actually is quite popular as well. From the 1966 album Pet Sounds, it’s The Beach Boy’s “God Only Knows.”
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