Posted on

About Los Angeles, (other?) worthless places and pinkish symbols of virginity

Manderlay

Manderlay

I want to see the last part of the trilogy!!!1!!11eleventwelve
Okay, the last movie you should fangirl about is Manderlay – but I have to admit that the movie had a great impact on me. I hated Grace during the whole movie (which was rather bad) because she was so blatantly naive and stupid to me. I think that’s mainly because the american “missionary work” is one of the most highly debated subjects nowadays… so it’s way too easy to see the parallels between the movie and, for instance, what happens in Iraq.
On the other hand, the movie had its great moments: How many funny scenes there were (unlike Dogville which actually wasn’t funny at all), how exactly everything fit together at the end… And especially Grace’s father is cool.

Notice the ending. There’s a lot to discover. 2 points precisely *g*

Broken Flowers

Broken Flowers

I think I would have liked “Dead Flowers”. In fact I remember first hearing about this movie under the name “Dead Flowers” and I liked it. But actually there’s no big difference.
There were funny scenes, but unfortunately the movie started off very well and became worse. The only later scene I liked was the one with the flower shop girl and how he sit besides his ex-girlfriend’s gravestone. It reminded me a lot of Horváth’s “Don Juan kommt aus dem Krieg”. The premise of the story sounds gorgeous: An old Don Juan, an absolutely likeable and hilarious friend, a great Sharon Stone (not to talk about her daughter called “Lolita” *hrr*). But the rest was blah and the movie was slightly boring. That’s why I feel like sleeping *uh oh*

Soundtrack-wise: God-like. I love the ethiopian music and I especially love “There is an end”.

Lost Highway

Lost Highway

Uh-huh. How many people will kill me now if I say that I actually found this particular movie extremely boring? It’s easier to talk about what I liked about the movie:
1. Everything that was similar to Mulholland Drive. (Which means the parallels between part 1 and part 2.)
2. The soundtrack. Although I usually dislike Rammstein, it just fitted and sounded extremely well.
Considering these 2 points, I’m glad to have watched the movie nevertheless. ^^

Next movies I want to see: the malicious J-pop movie (aka Shimotsuma monogatari), No Man’s Land and Los lunes al sol.

Posted on

How to be ahead of your time

I have just started to read a big article about Leonardo da Vinci, featured in a magazine similar to National Geographic (which is as good, or even better, if you ask me). He was amazing… but I’m not talking about his genius, I’m talking about his attitude about work, science and beauty. The truth is beautiful, and you can only reach the truth when you go and look at it. You can talk a lot about perception – like all the empiricists, but how many of them actually went and perceived? The attitude of absolutely wanting to know the truth was ahead of his time. All of his character was ahead of his time and his only goal in life was to be even farther than anyone else.
Shakespeare is similar. He wrote about things nobody else could have imagined to write. And to be honest, I don’t know of any historical person except for these two to be so visionary. Both have lived in the 16th century. What could that mean?

A theory just came in my mind, and that is: Geniuses are ahead of their time not only because of their geniuses, but also because their society is too retarded. During the medieval times, the european society was behind its time. If there weren’t the middle ages, Europe could have been as far as China was at the same time. In my opinion, this is one of the reasons why Shakespeare and da Vinci were able to do so many unexpected things.
Another example: During the cultural revolution, my father was around 16-17. It is the time where everybody is in puberty and wants nothing but fun. In fact, my father is a very hedonistic person, he loves to go out and be in company, and he puts fun above everything. But despite this, he did nothing but learn all by himself and aspired to become an engineer. Obviously, everybody laughed at him and nobody could understand him. 40 years later, time showed him that he was right. Why was he able to be ahead of his time like that? Because the chinese society was fallen behind.

We just had a little discussion about Microsoft’s problems about bringing out Vista… and the lack of a ‘IT revolution’ in the past decade. Late 80s were the computers, late 90s were the cell phones. Now that evolution should have accelerated even more, the whole industry is stuck (more or less). Another (obviously more important) thing is that mankind stayed in capitalistic systems for way too long. Nothing new really happened in the last 5 years. I think it is time for a weird person to think up something new.

It is not easy to be ahead of your time though. As for myself, when it comes to trends, I think I’m usually somewhere between the early adapters and the rest of the masses. This is mainly because I have a few early adapter friends *hrrr*
Examples? Manga: I started in 1996 with WMTs and Sailor Moon, that’s not the early 90s Akira generation but not the manga kiddies from 2003 or later. Music: I started listening to Nu Metal about 2002, a few years later it became popular and despised, that was pretty annoying. Electronical devices: I basically never buy them, but if I had bought all of the ones I wanted right after I had discovered them which I would have if I had the money (an iPod for instance). Clothes: It happened a few times that I wanted an item I couldn’t get at ANY store. One year later, it was in the stores, but everybody had it already. For example: black mini skirts, pleated skirts, ruffles and shirring. I also discovered gothic lolita at the end of 2002, at a time where a community for that didn’t really exist in the States nor in Europe. It was when the Gothic Lolita Bible didn’t even reach 2 years of publication. Now, gothic lolita style even reached H&M even before I was able to get one single gothic lolita in these 4 years I’m into the style. That’s depressing.
Oh by the way, one of my hobbies is to try to catch what the european and the american manga market wants. I also like to try to predict which anime will make it big and which wouldn’t. With Haruhi, I was obviously totally wrong *g*, and I’m making more mistakes than I hoped I would. But mostly, it works well^^

I find it fascinating to be ahead of time, to be able to predict things. You need intuition, intelligence, skill, knowledge and a certain amount of luck for that. Basically you need everything. Of course, a lot of your prediction wouldn’t be right even when you’re a genius like da Vinci. But a person who was able to take of these huge mobile phones into his hands, saying: “This is the future in the next 10 years.” earns all my admiration even when he has predicted 10 other things that were wrong.

Posted on

Hunter x Hunter volume 5-11

Hunter x Hunter does not leave out any interesting subjects, I’m impressed… Now it’s about negotiating!

And I have come to like “Benz”, that’s cool, somehow *g* If I had a knife one day, I would name it “Benz”. There are very few objects in my life that have a name, only the old plushies that I have for over 10 years now. But nearly every fictional object I want to have one day has a name:
– Hermes for a motorbike
– Sumomo for a laptop
– Erda and Freya for a PC (with two partitions, of course)
And now Benz for a knife.
I still need a name for
– my future sewing machine
– my future car
– my future bass *g*

I particularily like the humour in HxH. With this kind of humour, it surprises me even more that he’s married to Naoko Takeuchi who does not show any trace of humour at all! But oh my, at least she managed to make him a son. *hrrrr* He must have any problems… otherwise he wouldn’t marry a bad-looking, princess-like and humourless woman.
(In fact, I liked Sailor Moon and I want to have the special edition SO badly *puts down in wishlist*)

Notes on chapter 88: Bluffing?

Yes, indeed, the manga has becoming more interesting again… *g* At volume 10, just like a certain person I know had predicted *hrrr* Absolutely lovely, I cannot wait to read more!

The techniques about bluffing are gorgeous. I remember having read until volume 10 back then already, but the only thing I really remembered were these bluffing techniques *g*

Arrr~, I have to say that the Ryodan look incredibly well designed. Especially Shizuka – she’s teh sex, even with those simple eyes. But the others look intriguing as well…
I have to think over my opinion about Hisoka. I really hate him, but on the other hand, he has his principles while killing people (if you can say such a thing *g*)
I have to say that the mobile phone design is absolutely gorgeous XD It looks so old and lovely *g*

I like the Ryodan arc now. Okay, I still don’t like it as much as the hunter exam, but I extremely like the characters – while at the hunter exam, the characters themselves weren’t that interesting (because they changed the whole time), it was the intriguing story elements that made you continue reading.

It is so great to see Kurapika smile at the end of volume 11! It reminded me a bit of Ayanami’s smile at the end of volume 3 in Evangelion (yes, I read the manga before watching the anime and yes, I found that particular scene a LOT better in the manga). It saddens me a bit to know that Kurapika will be disappointed soon.

Posted on

Hunter × Hunter volumes 1-4

As I mentioned it awhile ago already, I decided to pick up reading this manga again. And since it’s so long, it might be a good idea to blog about it *g* If I come to like this, maybe I’ll blog also about other manga.

Awww~, Gon’s pet Kon is so incredibly cute… and the other animals too! *___* (He himself is cute as well! XD I wonder if he’ll grow up, just like in Hikaru no Go where the protagonists have become really handsome *g*) I wonder if Kon will ever appear in the manga again… considering how much I like him already after 2 pages XD A shônen mangaka who draws cute animals is rare *_____*

Notes about chapter 4: Your daughter or your son?

It’s great to re-read the manga from the beginning again. I notice so many little things that I didn’t when I read it 4 (or 5?) years ago. At that time, I only really noticed chapter 3, the test with the 2 questions (“If you can only save your daugther or your son, which one would you choose?”) Out of all those action/battle manga in the german shônen anthology Banzai!, this chapter had convinced me that this manga is (at least slightly) more intelligent. And I liked how Gon looks rather dumb on the surface, but is able to think deeper than everyone else. To be exact, I was amazed by that chapter: Such a simple question, and so much meaning behind it!
I hope HxH will stay as good as this. (I even heard it gets better after volume 10! I’m looking forward to it~)

Mangaka x Mangaka?

Oh, and I’m still wondering why such a good mangaka is married to Naoko Takeuchi, the biggest and probably most stupid mangaka diva out there. Hm. (Why doesn’t he try Masami Tsuda? *hrrr* They’d fit.)
A propos Masami Tsuda: To me, in some ways, Kareshi Kanojo is actually the pendant to Hunter x Hunter. Kare Kano runs in the “sister magazine” of the Banzai!, an anthology full of rather stupid shôjo. Chapter 3 of Kare Kano deals with Arima’s past for the first time, and that’s when I felt like this manga is better than your typical highschool shôjo.

Notes about chapter 19: What a futile thing democracy is!

Majority choices… yes, this highly interesting matter is also subject in my favourite anime Kino no Tabi. Simple democracy effectively does not create a unity, but divides people! The reason why democracy nowadays works, while Hobbes (for instance), considering the situation at his time, did not believe in it, is what I would call “modernization of democracy” or what Milkmaster would call “free democracy”. A civilization has to mature enough to be tolerant towards minorities…

Notes about chapter 20: Psychology of the logic

Jan-ken-pon, oh my, the japanese name for this game is the ugliest I have ever heard. But that’s not the subject here: The psychology stuff about what you tend to use is interesting… this is the psychology of people who think logically and intuitively at the same time!

Notes about chapter 22: Geniuses?

Another time, the mangaka chose – I mentioned it already, seemingly dumb – Gon to be the one with the brilliant idea who saved everybody, while they were about to split up. In fact, he chose to ‘cheat’. I have always been a little bit annoyed by mangaka who create a stupid and mindless protagonist… but who shows incredible intelligence when it comes to a crisis. It always appeared like a marketing strategy in order to make the dumb masses, aka the readers, identify themselves with the dumbness of the protagonist – while being able to feel special and intelligent at the same time.
Later, I understood that highly intelligent people *really* are like that: They think so differently that it seems stupid, but in difficult times, it’s these people who came up with original ideas.
The only bad side effect of this revelation is that a seemingly stupid person doesn’t automatically have hidden talents that just do not show. MOST people really are stupid.

In fact, I have mentioned a lot of subjects that are pretty important to me, but didn’t talk much about it… I’m sorry. If I have time, I will definitely add more to the democracy point.

Posted on

Popetown Ep.1

Hm, well, it’s not an anime, but a cartoon… and I liked it *g*

To be honest I was switching between PC and TV so I didn’t follow the whole story, but from what I have seen so far, I can’t understand all the tam-tam about it. What’s so incredibly shocking about this series? It’s not ‘that’ funny, but not that provocative either. A typical MTV cartoon if you ask me. For some reason, I like the animation and the way the pope moves XD So I’d love to follow this series further (which isn’t sure because it’s likely for MTV Germany to stop showing it if the reactions are poor.)

Is there really nobody who watches this? O_o

Posted on

Short Cuts – Another jazz rhapsody

Short Cuts

I don’t know much what this movie is about yet, but I love it already. After watching Gosford Park and 20 minutes of this movie, I think I know a bit mor what Altman movies are about… and I love them like this. It basically is a collage of portraits of people… I love it.

Somehow I think it might be interesting to try to compare this movie to Citizen Kane. They both are very sociocritical, well, not even really critical, just… an overview of society. Hm, now I could start to write an interesting and deep interpretation of both movies. But I’m too lazy for that, sorry XD

By the way, I know already that I like Gosford Park more. But only because I prefer the 1920’s England over L.A. at the end of the century. Somehow I believe a lot of things have changed since the 1990’s…

To me, the highlight of the whole movie is the dispute between Ralph and Marian. Wow, it might have happened to me, I was like… wow. It immediately made the movie a lot better. Julianne Moore and that guy were perfect in that role. This is how good actors get angry.

Of course the “other” jazz rhapsody I mean is Magnolia, a movie which I totally hate. I have read a few websites recommending Magnolia to people who like Short Cuts, but to me, it’s two totally different movies. Of course there’s also Julianne Moore in Magnolia, it’s both movies about different people’s lifes, but somehow I think Short Cuts is a lot more… real. Magnolia was just crazy, nothing more. Oh, and Magnolia is a lot about love, Short Cuts is about lifes that include love and feelings.

Oh my god, MASH is an Altman movie? Okay, I understand, I really have to watch it.

PS. I want to play cello as well.
PPS. These kinds of movies make you think your boyfriend cheats on you. Really, it’s funny, satiric and all, but showing human’s egoistic, hypocritical and dark sides is just… depressing.

Posted on

Sh…sh…sh…

After watching Paranoia Agent, 9 episodes of Mushishi and 8 episodes of Jigoku Shôjo, I have finally noticed that the “sh” sound in japanese is totally different to the “sh” sound in english or the “sch” sound in german (well in Paranoia Agent, they talk about “Shônen Bat” the whole time, in Mushishi about the “mushi” and in Jigoku Shôjo they talk about… Jigoku Shôjo!). In fact it’s more a thing between the german “sch” and “ch”, on top of that, there is a very little “i” in the sound, so that it’s really more “syôjo” than “shôjo”. So basically it’s very easy to pronounce “mushi” (like “moooo~shi~” with the japanese “sh”) without letting it sound like the german “M*sch*” (argh…) Wow. I’m shocked that it took me so long to figure it out.

Oh by the way, I absolutely love this kinds of classic lolita dresses. I just discovered this one today:
Juliette et Justine dress (this girl wants 120$ for the replica of a dress with such an ugly colour! I wonder if anyone would want it *cough*)
I love the cut of the dress. It fits people like me who have no bust whatsoever and it makes a slim figure since it’s waisted *___*
To give you an idea what I mean, this is my all-time-favourite dress:
Mary Magdalene dress
Colour, cut, fabric, it’s just perfect *__*

Posted on

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane

Currently in the “rant” category. Who knows, maybe I will want to watch more in the next time so that I will include a “movies” category.

This is by far the most tiring movie to watch but I was so curious about what actually is so good about this movie that I’ve stuck to it. I really want to go to sleep now but I feel that I should comment on this great movie a little bit more. First of all, I have to say that I preferred “To be or not to be” over this movie – it was a lot more fun to watch, and in some ways I even think it is better done. I watched “To be or not to be” 2 days ago, and it looks like I’m more into fun movies right now, although both of them are, in some ways, sociocritical.

So in some ways, I have to admit that I did not enjoy the movie. Watching it is like… reading Tolstoi. You really think it is unbelievably good, but you can’t feel it. I adore the cinematography of this movie (and the way the story was told, with all those time gaps and flashbacks), definitely, but I hate the storyline. There was no psychological analysis whatsoever, there was no attempt to make any of those characters interesting except for Kane, who – to me – rather looked like a nobody who’s unable to love and nothing more. I expected a deeper insight of Kane and/or into the society that surrounds him… or the way he actually became that successful he was.

But I have to say that I was impressed how big the impact on me was when I saw the end. 30 seconds before it ended, I thought it was over and that “Rosebud” really doesn’t mean anything. That might have been possible too: A life is too complex to be explained with one only word. But there was an explanation, and that explanation was just absolutely gorgeous. It saved the whole movie – at least in my eyes. From “Hm, pretty nice, nothing spectacular” to “Oh, wow.”

Posted on

Tagged by Puffel™!

I’m ranting more and more… oh well. I will probably watch an anime today as well ^^ (And oh by the way, I updated my wishlist *g* I took out what I have already and added a PSP and a kimono ^^)

Name 5 of life’s simple pleasures that you like the most. Try to be creative and original and not to use things that someone else has already used. Tag 5 people on your list.
5 people? Do I even talk to that many people? *hrrr*

1. Having sex with the beloved person. Sorry for not being creative, but this is the non plus ultra. Point à la ligne.
2. Reading/Hearing/Seeing a creative product dedicated to me. What I consider a creative product is obviously up to me. (I’ve never got a plain love letter, by the way.)
3. Chai tea, my parents’ dumplings and chinese, korean and polish sweets (candy, chocolates, caramel… awww~~ *____________*)… well, good food is the most simple pleasure for me that exists *g*
4. Suddenly get a letter, an e-mail or something else from a person I like a lot, but lost contact to
5. Stay up the whole night for whatever reason, as long as it is a good reason (aside from the most obvious one: long parties, good online conversations, staying overnight at a friend’s house etc.)

Hm… who should I tag? Really, there isn’t anyone.
1. Carl wouldn’t do this kind of test.
2. Shi~chan doesn’t have a blog.
3. KingFish isn’t even reading my blog.
4. adventurer_killy surely doesn’t even know my blog.
5. Isochinolin and Bittersweet are apparently never online. (And don’t know my blog. They don’t watch animes anyways.)
6. I hope nobody of ‘these’ people would read my blog.

Continue reading “Tagged by Puffel™!”

Posted on

A little picture

Recently, I found this picture on my harddisk again… *~* This was our hotel room when we spent a few days in Cracow. Aaa~h, I want to go on vacations again~ XD

Krakau