Stomp, stomp and hey, I saw a movie this weekend and other stuff

Stomp, Stomp, Stomp...

July 17, 2006

PS: For more information in conservation of the over fishing thing, please check out the following link: http://oceanfutures.org/default.asp

Kudos also, to Mister Jam himself, Nury Vitacchi for the encouragement for me to continue writing stuff. I will have more stories up.

Eventually.

And to Nick for the comments re: the fish thing. One day, I will remove the yoke that the meat industry has hoisted upon me and become vegetarian. You know, maybe there is no time like the present to start. Tell you what, let me finish all the meat products I have at home and try it out. As soon as that is done, I will go get some gardenburgers and other soy alternatives and see how long I last before going back to beef, chicken and bacon. Now, this starts after I have exhausted all the meat at home, so I can still have bacon for breakfast today. Right?

How much meat do I have at home anyway? A bag of meatballs. Some pizza pockets. Six beef pepper steak TV dinners. A bag of frozen garlic chicken. Several cans of chicken tortilla soup and Italian sausage. And other stuff I am sure I am forgetting.

I will tell you how it all goes.

The Vegetarian Experiment.

Soon to be a major motion picture.

Because nothing is a minor motion picture.

Speaking of which, I saw the Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift this weekend. My prognosis? If you have a choice between this movie and the Initial D live action movie, go see Initial D instead. It is not that the movie is bad; it is just that Initial D did it so much better. Tokyo Drift has gotten press from Asian American interest websites due to its, let us say, nonstandard portrayal of Asians in an American film. I would not call it a completely positive portrayal as there are still the obligatory yakuza and they still take a back seat to the gaijin/gweilo/round eye. But there are no jokes about how short we are, how small our equipment supposedly is, how the food/customs is just so weird nor does the round eye get the Asian girl in the end. He gets an Australian one. In fact, in all respect, the round eye should be the bad guy in this film- however the story is just told from his point of view and this movie is sold to the American audience primarily. But did he have to be a screw up red neck that wanders into any new place like he owns it, messes with the status quo and steals the Asian guy’s girl? An allusion to American Imperialism, perhaps?

It has been said that director Justin Lin wanted an Asian American as the lead, that the studios actually auditioned some APA’s but in the end, whey went with a round eye. The director said that he was chosen because he was the best one for the role. Never mind the passing resemblance to the round eye who was in the other two Fast & the Furious movies, whatever his name was, so people would think he was in this movie as well. I wonder if an APA would have been cast, if the character would still have the Southern Drawl. Cutting straight to the point, I did not care for the round eye as the lead. The other characters fared better, even Lil Bow Wow and especially Sung Kang apparently reprising the character Han from Better Luck Tomorrow.

The drifting scenes were done well. They are still better done in Initial D. But there are not as many as you think there would be. Now that this movie is done, Justin Lin is going back and doing smaller movies, the first of which is a comedic take on the finishing of the movie that Bruce Lee was making when he died featuring the Better Luck Tomorrow cast.

You can count me there.

By the way, the San Diego Comicon is this week. Or Nerd Prom as Warren Ellis puts it. The convention was always one of those I have always meant to go to but money and work usually got in the way (not to mention the crowds). From what I hear, there will be some cool panels and people there.

Now if I were there, I would go to the Stardust movie panel (Stardust being an awesome Neil Gaiman book- get the illustrated one- it is a lot better). I would also go to the Transformers panel and hope they show us what the big guys are going to look like. And I would give an old friend, Leila Tilghman a visit. She apparently has a booth this year. She is an animator now and from what I last heard, a San Diego resident. Go tell her I said Hi.

That and wonder in horror how many fanboys come dressed up as Japanese schoolgirls.

Plus: Crisis in the Middle East! Or at least another one. Growing up, I used to wonder at the fact that everyday there would be something on the news in regards to Lebanon. Looks like they are back at it. So now what? I bet you by this time next year, we will be paying the same amount for gas the rest of the world does (what, about five bucks a gallon?). Time to warm up them running shoes of mine.

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