[ current selection | supercar – strobolights (sunahara remix) ]
[ feelin’ | … ]

*gurgle gurgle…* my dreamcatcher definitely had a malfunction last nite. im not even going to ask why i dreamt what i did, but i did so ill just accept that. so there i am, decked out in…ahem, ring mail, brandishing a swishy long sword…and im in some kind of town hall meeting/tutorial about roaming vana’diel. yea, thats right…i dreamt i was in final fantasy xi. nevermind mind that ive never even played the game before, or how i even knew i was inside the game. i just knew. and it wasnt even that exciting either. i hooked up with two other newbies, and we kind of just roamed aimlessly around the countryside, checking out our armours and trying to coordinate our wardrobes. not exactly what i had in mind. i did however have the nicest shield amongst the three of us. wtf.

i finished off haibane renmei last nite…pretty poignant ending. i was hoping that they would answer more of the questions i had about the series (like what a haibane was…or what was beyond the wall), but at the same time i wasnt really expecting them to. alot of it was left for the viewer to determine…and i did. but definitive answers wouldnt have hurt either. ah well. i actually tossed on more anime on my netflix queue…so ill be anime-ing for a while. next up is magical shopping arcade abenobashi. and yea, i already have the japanese dvds. but there were a number of instances where the subtitles on the japanese version were a little confusing, so im getting the american release for clarification. and besides, the series rocks.

ADDENDUM
oh yea, and i just got my first email notification for the upcoming ny asian film festival…woohoo! theyre right around the corner…from june 18th to the 27th, so id better start planning. last years was the first one i attended, and i went to see four movies from the lineup…sympathy for mr. vengeance, ping pong, bounce ko-gals, and the phone. they have a few well-known movies on their lineup for this year, including hero, infernal affairs, and two of the juons…so maybe ill finally get to see hero on the big screen. tho the lineup hasnt been finalized yet, im hoping that they manage to add twilight samurai to the lineup, since id heard alot of good things about the movie. the current list is also primarily japanese movies at the moment, so hopefully theyll have as diverse a lineup as they did last year…

> ny asian film festival lineup
> subway cinema
> old post (sympathy)

ok, you know what? youre just gonna get movie news all day long. no journal entries, no political brain-farts, no religion bashing…just all movies all day. call it escapism. id seen this movie, shaun of the dead, mentioned numerous times on aicn…and never really thought much about it. im not too keen on horror movies. but then the posts kept coming and coming and i fig’d, ok…fine, ill take a look. so it turns out that its not exactly a horror movie. well it is…kind of. its main protagonist is actually a guy named shaun, and he works at a dead-end job and just got dumped by his girlfriend. then one day zombies start appearing everywhere, and shaun decides to be a hero to get his girl back. check out the trailer…its funny yo. well written halo. why thank you…did you like the banal literary style? quite…quite indeed.

> shaun of the dead trailer (via aicn)
> shaun of the dead site

well bugger that…looks like shaolin soccer is finally being released in america. after being delayed and put off for how long? a new trailer was released last week, and supposedly the movie will be out on april 2nd. id almost forgotten about shaolin soccer…i just fig’d miramax fucked it up big and scrapped it like so many other movies they planned to distribute, then tossed in the poop shoot. i cant even really tell whether theyre releasing the dubbed or cantonese version, as there is absolutely no movie dialogue in the new trailer. when last reported, it was said that miramax did intend to release the original cantonese version…but miramax is also highly stupid, so who knows. anyhoo, i havent really seen or heard much about the movie, so given the release date is next week, you have to applaud the marketing prowess of miramax too. go you. anyhoo, if anyones still interested, check out the new trailer. and maybe even consider seeing the movie in the theaters. dont let miramax’s stupidity put a halt to more asian movies making their way over to america…

> new shaolin soccer trailer
> shaolin soccer website (pretty swishy)
> old old shaolin soccer posts

shit, almost forgot about this today. aicn posted the new japanese trailer for kill bill v2. while alot of it consists of scenes from v1, the latter half has a few choice scenes from v2. looks coo…but i got distracted by what else aicn had today. in the same aicn post, they pointed out the new trailer for katshuhiro otomos steamboy, which definitely rocks much. check out the trailer and glimpse an alternate world where the industrial era ushered in steam power.

> kill bill v2 japanese trailer (via aicn)
> steamboy trailer
> official steamboy website

thanks to wvs for the link to an absolutely gorgeous movie, immortel…a french film by enki bilal. ive personally never heard of him, but he’s apparently a comic artist/writer/director from yugoslavia. the movie has ancient egyptian overtones overlayed onto a dystopian future…with the god horus looking for a mate(?) in a new york city of the distant future. im not 100% sure exactly what the story is about, even tho the trailer is in english. the description on imdb is of absolutely no help either. the visuals however speak for themselves, and the trailer looks absolutely stunning. so definitely take a look…

> immortel trailer (hi-res)
> immortel website
> immortel on imdb

a bit of an update to the prior ff7 | advent children trailer posted before. i happened upon a subtitled version of the trailer that sheds some light on the story behind advent children…of cloud and the remnants of the jenova project. you also find out that the female voice-over was actually that of aerith speaking thru the lifestream(?). the video quality is alot sharper than the older trailer from ign, so definitely check it out.

and if the playback or subtitles dont work correctly, you might need to install a codec/subtitle plugin such as ffd show.

> advent children trailer (subtitled)
> past advent children post

[ current selection | shiro hamaguchi + seiji honda – main theme (ff7 piano collections) ]
[ feelin’ | like a croissant ]

im not sure whether people knew this…and ive definitely been too lazy to post it as ive read about it…but square/enix was planning on releasing a sequel of sorts to the all-ass-kicking final fantasy vii. ffvii was actually the last final fantasy game i played…so its admittedly the one i have the most bias towards. the sequel…final fantasy vii: advent children wont be a game however. its going to be a direct-to-dvd cg movie (being made as we speak), and ign posted new images today, as well as the trailer that was shown at the tokyo game show last september. where the original ffvii was super deformed (tho with a serious storyline), advent children looks decidedly more realistic…and it looks absolutely badass. the trailer has alot of nostalgic imagery…a view of the ruined midgar, the flowing lifestream, scenes of cloud fighting with his massive sword, glimpses of vincent(?), barrett, and even images of sephiroth. theres even a flashback(?) of the scene when aerith died. wow. i got shivers when the final fantasy vii theme started playing…*sniff* i dont play the final fantasy games much anymore, but i think ill definitely be looking forward to advent children.

> advent children (via ign)
> advent children trailer
> past advent children posts (via ign)

[ current selection | faithless – killers lullaby ]
[ feelin’ | good ]

yay, more ghost in the shell news! and of all the news sources i read, im actually surprised to see it come from ign. they have an “exclusive preview” of the forthcoming second ghost in the shell movie by mamoru oshii, innocence. the ign article included a 6 minute preview with extended scenes of those shown in past teasers. in an earlier post, i mentioned that there was a 70 meg preview floating out there…but i never got a chance to download it. while this preview is only 57 megs, it could be what they were referring to back then. so definitely check out the preview. again tho, no motoko…only bateau. wtf.

also check out ghost in the shell: stand alone complex if you get the chance, a prequel series to the first movie. if you dont care to wait for the u.s. release (where theyll charge you $25 for 4 episodes), the japanese set of the complete 26-episode series is already widely available. im still working my way thru the first disc…

> ghost in the shell | innocence (via ign)
> innocence preview

[ current selection | moby – southside ]
[ feelin’ | word ]

jane dropped by last nite with some sushi in hand and my 2009:lost memories dvd. i returned her infernal affairs, but got to keep her diva ah-hey because, quote jane, “it sucks!” i havent been able to get thru the entire movie before the cantonese made me woozy, but ill still hold my judgement til after i finish it. lah. jane headed out after our little sushi dinner, so i popped in the eye which i just got that day from netflix. the eye is about mun, a blind girl who after receiving a corneal transplant, not only regains her eyesight but also starts seeing ghosts as well. having been blind since the age of two, she’s not sure what it is shes seeing…whats real and whats an apparition. when she also starts seeing images of a past life flash in and out of existence, she tries to track down the history of her donor. the eye…is some crazy shit yo. the premise that you cant be sure that what your eyes see are real give me the shivers. while the movie in general wasnt as scary as i thought it would be, some of the ghosts that mun sees…and talks to (she doesnt know theyre dead)…are very creepy. theres the little boy in her apt complex who committed suicide, the dead wife and baby of the local butcher who hovers into his shop, a burning man running alongside the road in thailand, and the creepiest one…the old man with one eye who hovers in the corner of the elevator in her apt building. fuck, he scared the shit out of me. anyhoo, the only gripe i had with the movie was the resolution of her donors past. other than that tho, thumbs up yo. oh, and tom cruise already bought the rights to the movie. hollywood remake…woo.

> the eye official site
> the eye trailer