…walked into a movie theatre to see a film you barely knew anything about, slowly and gradually fell in love with the care that was taken into every small detail in this film, and about third of the way through came to the realization that you are indeed watching what will become one of your favorite movies of all time unfolding right in front of your eyes for the very first time?

that was what it was like to see it’s only talk last night at the ny asian film festival.

I got tired of seeing all these lame ass surveys all over myspace or whatever, so I decided to write my own. you should take it.

just read that hollywood’s going to do a remake of battle royale.

what??

you know what, let roy lee (the savvy businessman selling all the recent asian film rights to hollywood) make all the money he wants, I just don’t care anymore.

say, roy, how about you broker a remake of BUS UNCLE?

so I hit up two films this past weekend at the new york asian film festival: the great yokai war and shinobi (no mike, this movie isn’t about the video game).

the great yokai war was silly as expected. a young boy teams up with comically useless spirits of japanese folklore to take on an army of killer robots. chiaki kuriyama (you may remember her as gogo from kill bill) also stars in this somewhat family movie, and she definitely does not stab a guy in the crotch in this one (as you may recall from kill bill and perhaps battle royale).

now shinobi on the other hand is a whole ‘nother story. I had no expectations going in, as all I knew was it had elements of romeo and juliet in a feudal japan backdrop with ninjas and special effects fight sequences.

…well, uh, it blew me away.

my friends with whom I saw this seemed to so-so like it, and at the time I felt “yeah, it was pretty good” but the more I thought of it and obsessed over it I realized I was completely consumed by it. so I did the only sensible thing to do: bought a copy in chinatown and watched it again tonight. yeah, I fucking love it.

ok so go watch the trailer now that I’ve completely hyped it up.

other films I’m looking forward to checking out:

+ linda linda linda (if I see anything else it would be this one)

+ feather in the wind

+ always - sunset on third street

+ a bittersweet life

what’s curious is the absense of a single hong kong entry in this year’s lineup. what gives?

I was way into teen anthems back in the day and I rediscovered them recently, and holy fuck I had forgotten how awesome they were.

go on over to their myspace page and peep their tunes. how can you not like a song that rhymes “reason” with “aguilera” (pronounced incorrectly)?

that’s all I got.

so all of lower manhattan has been taken over by the shooting of spiderman 3. everywhere you go you see 18-wheelers and trailers and hundreds or extras being corralled every which way.

there are trucks parked right outside my apartment for fuck’s sake with PAs running around with CB’s and earpieces.

nuts.

yes yes y’all, today marks the 10th year since I moved to the nyc area. feel free to call me a new yorker.

so what has changed? let’s see… I’m nearly an inch taller and I weigh roughly 15lbs less. how? who knows.

so I stumbled upon this japanese name generator site. I entered my birth name into and it gave me a new japanese name.

what in the!

a happy 666 to you all, and to all a good night.

ps- fuck the omen remake.