tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88960697877828468112024-03-12T16:05:11.941-07:00HUNGRY GHOST BLOG<strong>“Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say”</strong>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comBlogger1155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-13771583622747275832014-10-01T13:31:00.003-07:002014-10-01T13:33:43.321-07:00Born to WriteFinally started to read "<b>Gone Girl</b>," worried that the buzz about the movie would spoil all the famous surprises. As a half-assed student of the crime novel I'm impressed, a third of the way in, by what you could call the book's technical achievement: Two unreliable narrators testifying on different timelines, Nick narrating in the present while Amy's journal fills in past events.
<P>
Almost a century ago Agatha Christie shocked readers of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" by unthinkably making the first-person storyteller the culprit. This has always seemed to me to be the perfect example of a trick that can only be played once. No-one can ever do this again because the book they'd be stealing from is too familiar. But a similar stunt has been pulled off at least once. Scott Turow managed it in "Presumed Innocent," because the narrator was covering up not for himself but for a loved one.
<P>
There are a few seedy supporting players milling around in "GG," but it seems obvious, so far, that there are only two real candidates for the role of malign behind-the-scenes manipulator. It's a sign of Flynn's enviable skill that she has us changing our minds on the subject almost from chapter to chapter. (There is one other quite interesting possibility, but to even speculate about it would be spoilerish.)
<P>
There are still people who insist that books like this can never be profound. But admitting they are not often deep is not to concede that they must be a snap to write. In fact, for most of us, they would be impossible to write. Our minds just don't work that way. There is a form of duplicitous intelligence needed to construct books like "GG" that one may simply have to be born with.David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-31508836260064681452013-12-04T19:47:00.000-08:002013-12-04T19:47:40.137-08:00At lunch, two birds...Deep Fried Quail w/ Lemon Sauce and Cambodian Pork Stew w/ Chicken Eggs at Sien Reap Khmer Cuisine, 1810 E. Anaheim St., Cambodia Town, Long Beach, CA.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi486wZ7LeGJ62ZVF38RaBppbk26TmRfhRNxp1lc93ZkxD2QxRHBGfAr1dxIixNj6CQ779PZN53WqV3idPbJfb1k774a1cTlt9KpqabRKZ4SPH91nKCAS8RLw5-9Ae8IOGwzrohFCDUEZHo/s1600/quail-pork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi486wZ7LeGJ62ZVF38RaBppbk26TmRfhRNxp1lc93ZkxD2QxRHBGfAr1dxIixNj6CQ779PZN53WqV3idPbJfb1k774a1cTlt9KpqabRKZ4SPH91nKCAS8RLw5-9Ae8IOGwzrohFCDUEZHo/s400/quail-pork.jpg" /></a></div>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-57082325182426930152013-08-16T08:50:00.000-07:002014-10-01T13:34:50.467-07:00Discomfort FoodMore late night iPhone research while reading, this time enjoying (if that's the word) "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Available-Dark-A-Crime-Novel/dp/1250013232"><b>Available Dark</b></a>," Elizabeth Hand's second crime novel about middle-aged ex-punk photographer Cass Neary. This one takes place largely in Iceland. It's as if the coastal Maine of the first book just wasn't cold and dark enough, so Hand decided to up the ante. Some would argue she goes a few steps too far. Topics here include Norwegian black metal music, human sacrifice and "transgressive" posed-corpse photography a la Joel Peter Witkin.
<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_pF7nyTu6bXJ3oxy9vaOI-CnCYpJft7KNf9u8tXu_wxnJHMMyS_rofrhqfHu7u0uwcKlg1jl21rPecNCqvjyr2X4Gr5c1M6zlChzZGreK7hynxbNGSCdRGem8EeuS5XGikLykAlrDeY9j/s1600/Svid-x604-y447.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_pF7nyTu6bXJ3oxy9vaOI-CnCYpJft7KNf9u8tXu_wxnJHMMyS_rofrhqfHu7u0uwcKlg1jl21rPecNCqvjyr2X4Gr5c1M6zlChzZGreK7hynxbNGSCdRGem8EeuS5XGikLykAlrDeY9j/s200/Svid-x604-y447.jpg" /></a></div><p>
The key supporting role played by <a href="http://blogaddress-generic.blogspot.com/2013/05/you-cant-buy-it-at-bevmo.html">Allen's Coffee Brandy</a> in the first Neary book, "Generation Loss," is occupied here, roughly, by <a href="http://www.georgetowner.com/articles/2012/jan/25/cocktail-week-icelands-pungent-black-death-brennivin/">Brennivin</a>, a caroway-flavored liqueur affectionally known as "the black death." Fittingly, I guess, as Neary spends more time in an altered state than any fictional sleuth this side of Nick Charles, although her buzz is as likely to derive from crystal meth as Jack Daniel's.
<p>
Not as much information as I would have liked in the book about Icelandic food, though the local <a href="http://nammi.is/ss-smoked-leg-of-lamb-13001700-gr-p-391.html">smoked lamb</a> gets high marks. Sadly, the US is one of several countries to which Icelandic vendors are not allowed to ship food items. Can't imagine why, as according to this "The product carries a veterinary health certificate."
<p>
I'm afraid my sense of Icelandic cuisine has been shaped irrevocably by the excellent Reykjavik crime novels of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arnaldur-Indridason/e/B001ILIBV0">Arnaldur Indridason</a>. I was especially struck by a scene in the early installment "Jar City" in which Detective Erlunder selects as comfort food from the local super market a product called Svið, which turned out to be a shrink-wrapped singed and boiled sheep's head -- a treat that tops an authoritative online list of the <a href="http://www.planiceland.com/5-best-and-5-worst-foods/?gclid=CMvru8iUgrkCFUyk4AodjHAA2Q">five worst Icelandic foods</a>. (The scene makes an even stronger impression in Baltasar Kormakur's <a href="https://vimeo.com/5590685">film version.</a>)
<p>
If there's a list being drawn up somewhere of "transgressive foods," Svið will certainly be on it.David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-63015117060918622692013-07-04T12:03:00.001-07:002013-07-04T12:29:29.945-07:00"So" is the new "like"So I noticed this irritating verbal tic several times recently in the speech of expert witnesses interviewed on NPR, brainiacs who begin sentence after sentence with an unnecessary "so." The sort of thing that, once noticed, can't be unnoticed.
<p>
Figuring I couldn't have been the first person to pick up on this, because I so rarely am, these days, I went Googling; learned that the first known account of this behavior appeared in a 1999 book about Silicon Valley. So it's a subculture usage that went general, adopted by people who want to sound like techies.
<p>
<a href="http://anand.ly/articles/so-pushes-to-the-head-of-the-line">This New York Times article</a> on the "so" plague includes a classic example of NPR-speak: "So it’s, I think, the fifth largest in the nation. So, but now that’s the population in general. So there are sort of two, there are two things that are circumstantial.”David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-20959974302234292222013-06-30T22:27:00.002-07:002013-08-16T16:04:33.221-07:00The Next Big Thing? (Probably Not)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsiXhTOOrrqtfhRX3RTKF8w-7J-amoQ_hnNza6CZ3W1ljeBJMc7CTIUtF6hmv1kdL548nm_lJ5OPdom8beMncn2EbR9dAY6ITG6mKGL7pHF5a1PYHPqSfRRIdyjS_bYUIQDoAG4GvjmO2w/s435/ray-donovan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsiXhTOOrrqtfhRX3RTKF8w-7J-amoQ_hnNza6CZ3W1ljeBJMc7CTIUtF6hmv1kdL548nm_lJ5OPdom8beMncn2EbR9dAY6ITG6mKGL7pHF5a1PYHPqSfRRIdyjS_bYUIQDoAG4GvjmO2w/s435/ray-donovan.jpg" /></a></div>The terrific new series "Ray Donovan" is premiering on Showtime Sunday night -- and you should be watching it rather than reading this. If the show fulfills the promise of its pilot episode it could turn out to be one of the great ones, an ideal anecdote for those of us who expect to be suffering from "Breaking Bad" withdrawal in a few months.
<p>
Its credentials could scarcely be more promising: Writer-creator Ann Biderman ("Southland") and founding director Alan Coulter ("House of Cards") are top drawer television drama veterans. Still, a couple of the early reviews have been truly clueless, knocking the show for getting the details wrong in its portrait of the title character, a ruthless and amoral Hollywood fixer, played by Liev Schreiber with the most charismatic barely-audible growl this side of the all time grandmaster of the form, Clint Eastwood.
<p>
To our great relief, "Ray Donovan" turns out to be nothing at all like "Entourage" and way more like "Get Shorty," in which a gangster comes to Hollywood and fits right in. A grimmer, grislier "Get Shorty," we should add, without the leavening of Elmore Leonard's dry humor. The show's view of Tinseltown, in fact, may be the darkest we've seen on a screen of any size since the Los Angeles sections of "The Godfather."
<p>
The show has a what-if premise about a clan of violent thugs from South Boston, complete with deep-dish "Fighter" accents, transplanted to LA and finding a niche ready made for them. The best accent of the bunch is fielded by the wonderful Paula Malcomson, of many fond "Deadwood" memories, as Ray's long-suffering wife.
<p>
Schreiber's senior brother Ray is the tough guy who has been holding the family together for decades, by any means necessary. Like the classic gangster figures, from M. Corleone to T. Soprano, he's the one who is "strong for the family." Outwardly a model of focus and control, he also has violent, anarchic impulses for which his dirty work getting Hollywood slimeballs out of trouble provides, on occasion, an outlet.
<p>
When Ray snaps a slimy executive's fingers against a pool table, or goes after the stalker of a frightened pop star with a baseball bat, Ray is obviously going well beyond what's needed to "fix" the given situation.
<p>
One of the three Donovan brothers, Eddie Marson's soulful Terry, is, in fact, a fighter, now running a seedy training gym, a has-been pugilist brain-damaged into a form of Parkinsons. So far younger brother Bunchy (Dash Mihok), seems to be the weakest link, an agitated addict, whose problems seem to have begun years ago when he was molested by a priest, a hackneyed bit of backstory, especially for a drama centering on Boston Irish Catholics.
<p>
Force of habit, you could say, and the key event of the first episode is the arrival in LA, fresh from Walpole, of the family's heart of darkness in human form, Ray's nemesis and father Mickey, played with magnificent malignancy by Jon Voigt. (One of his first acts after he hits town is to give Bunchy some drugs, looking on with paternal affection as his youngest snorts up.) This monster in the middle of West Hollywood is, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler, "about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-57199856438294707632013-06-30T22:22:00.002-07:002013-06-30T22:22:51.915-07:00Martial Master Lau Kar-leung 1936 - 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDBu2QwjSIGhVa6H9wMbIGs_YZpKFcUPYeBkfpLRS7UZHLzXjD8NI3HEETqb5GRQLa9Xmz6CKixJDtfcxE8M7FO0rn2GOo1Q1BNPUxNIBL_qPVrrlPLp8ibe0dXF906-OWG1VZ3lETk04x/s485/lau-kar-leung-with-jackie-chan-on-the-set-of-drunken-master-ii.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDBu2QwjSIGhVa6H9wMbIGs_YZpKFcUPYeBkfpLRS7UZHLzXjD8NI3HEETqb5GRQLa9Xmz6CKixJDtfcxE8M7FO0rn2GOo1Q1BNPUxNIBL_qPVrrlPLp8ibe0dXF906-OWG1VZ3lETk04x/s485/lau-kar-leung-with-jackie-chan-on-the-set-of-drunken-master-ii.jpg" /></a></div>
The pioneering martial arts choreographer and director Lau Kar-leung, who died last week at age 77, was a kung fu purist.<p>
He was a stylish martial acrobat but as a movie director he was not a great stylist. Unlike the other top action film directors who were his colleagues at Hong Kong's Shaw Bothers studio in the 1970s, such as Chang Cheh and Chor Yuen, Lau made violent masculine melodrama or elaborately staged magical conspiracies.<p>
Lau had, however, a vivid imagination and great skill when it came to devising and staging fight sequences, and he was a sincere advocate for the Chinese martial arts themselves and of their cultural context, the traditional values of teacher-student fealty and family and clan loyalty inculcated by his father and first teacher, Lau Charn.<p>
In fact, Lau was a key figure in every phase of Hong Kong martial arts movie making. He became a performer and a martial arts choreographer (or "fighting instructor") in the Wong Fei-hong films in the '50s, and in the 1960s, with collaborator Tang Chia, brought unprecedented martial authenticity to "New Style" Mandarin-language wu xia swordplay films such as "The Jade Bow" (1965).<p>
The senior Lau claimed a direct martial lineage from "Magnificent Butcher" Lam Sai-wing, a disciple of turn-of-the-20th-century Hong Fist legend and latter-day iconic HK movie character Wong Fei-hong. Lau Charn played Lam in the early films of the long series of black-and-white B pictures about Wong that began production in HK the late 1940s. Kar-leung entered the family business as an extra and stuntman on his dad's films around 1950.<p>
Lau conceived and directed what is widely regarded as the definitive historical Chinese martial arts movie, "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" (1978), starring his adopted martial brother Gordon Lau Kar-wing aka Gordon Liu ("Kill Bill"). Based on a Cantonese pulp novel of the 1940s, the film gave lasting shape to the central populist myth of the Shaolin Monastery, the story of a fugitive from oppression who works his way through a series of grueling training rituals, acquiring skills that enable him to turn the tables on his enemies.<p>
The classic martial arts movies Lau made at Shaw Brothers also included "Challenge of the Masters" (1976), "Executioners from Shaolin" (1977), "Heroes of the East" (1978), "My Young Auntie" (1981) and "Legendary Weapons of China" (1982). Later he did strong work with younger performers such as Jet Li, in "Martial Arts of Shaolin" (1986), and Jackie Chan, in "Drunken Master II" (1994).<p>
At Shaws, Lau and Tang choreographed most to the violent macho kung fu films of Chang Cheh, including "Men From the Monastary" (1974), "Five Shaolin Masters" (1974) and "Shaolin Martial Arts" (1974). And in his first film as a director, "The Spiritual Boxer" ( 1976), Lau created nothing less than a new sub-genre, the raucous kung fu comedy, which would become a Hong Kong staple in the 1980s in the work of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.<p>
This Japanese TV segment has cool footage of Lau sifu directing Gordon in "The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter" (1983). No English, unfortunately.<p>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ApVCEzZX3Y8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><p>
And the final fight sequence from the film:<p>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/IZLqC04uR6c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-57940597432520406682013-06-16T22:53:00.002-07:002013-06-16T22:53:44.056-07:001982<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/16992326" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>
C.I.: TOHDavid Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-90451708914893002362013-06-15T11:21:00.003-07:002013-06-15T11:59:06.221-07:00Buy Now, Play Later<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj20E71HCLfq3PiErN8GOno1I4SJLwgNDnO2D44jW1YGsZrwOOINizeM0_oOu1UVsW7FfSRKlfrDnkR1hyF-a6Bc7MwujkrOtaCAx2lRKXdbyTM14h8Xspp_rGkCukyo3uZ43Ov4rby5mSL/s1600/future-palmer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj20E71HCLfq3PiErN8GOno1I4SJLwgNDnO2D44jW1YGsZrwOOINizeM0_oOu1UVsW7FfSRKlfrDnkR1hyF-a6Bc7MwujkrOtaCAx2lRKXdbyTM14h8Xspp_rGkCukyo3uZ43Ov4rby5mSL/s400/future-palmer.jpg" /></a></div>Some remarkably <a href="http://gawker.com/5944050/amanda-palmers-million+dollar-music-project-and-kickstarters-accountability-problem">boneheaded</a> opinionizing over the past year about whether it is "fair" for established artists such as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/28/zach-braff-kickstarter-campaign-closes">Zach Braff</a> to avail themselves of Kickstarter-style crowdfunding. Amanda Palmer, who <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour">raised over $1 million dollars last year</a> by passing the digital hat, insists that it is; that a form of barter economics comes into play in which the goods exchanged are not always easy to tabulate.<p><iframe width="460" height="245" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xMj_P_6H69g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-86900864795893493932013-06-13T21:21:00.001-07:002013-06-15T12:17:08.205-07:00Flashback: Khmer PopDaughter Nora planning a stopover in Cambodia on her way home from China, which reminded me of this post from a few months ago. Distant music from the flourishing pop music and film industries of the 1960s in Cambodia, all but wiped out on Pol Pot's Killing Fields. Rock critics in the West still like to talk about how "subversive" the music is, even in an era in which there is nothing meaningful left to subvert. But how about living in a time and place in which pop culture was seen as literally subversive, and targeted accordingly?
<p>
<iframe width="400" height="265" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/J_fkNEuX-qw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/may/20/worldmusic.features">Information from our favorite source</a>.
<p>"Long Beach, California - <a href="http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/361035">Little Phnom Penh</a> - is the world's largest Cambodian enclave outside the homeland, founded by refugees."
<p>
Dengue Fever perform's Ros Sereysothea's "A Go Go:"
<p>
<iframe width="400" height="265" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1rBvV7egCy8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>
C.I.: TulkinghornDavid Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-90760705499102777992013-06-12T17:22:00.001-07:002013-07-04T13:51:36.225-07:00South Korean Super-Train<iframe width="420" height="245" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/r6UmqNuMdY4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
We always have mixed feelings when admired Asian filmmakers first get work in Hollywood. For some of them, such as John Woo, who loves American Westerns and musicals, the journey was a lifelong dream come true, and we were happy for him. Yet Woo didn't again make a film as good as his landmark Hong Kong gangster films of the 1980s until 2008, he returned home to make the great "Red Cliff."
<p>
Giving up the home-culture advantage, in other words, can be a risky proposition.
<p>
I hate to say I have a bad feeling for other reasons, too, about the just-released first trailer for "Snowpiercer," a film credited to a trio of Korean production companies (giant CJ Entertainment along with Opus and Moho) that marks the English-language debut of lively director Bong Joon-ho ("The Host"). The amazingly deep cast includes Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Allison Pill and Ed Harris, with two top Korean performers, Song Kang-ho ("Thirst") and Ko Ah-sung, who in "The Host" played a father and daughter menaced by a giant ambulatory fish.
<p>
"Variety" noted that two other major Korean directors crossed the Pacific this year, "Oldboy" evil genius Park Chan-wook (“Stoker”) and almost as evil "I Saw the Devil" semi-genius Kim Jee-woon (“The Last Stand”). Not surprising, since South Korean film and TV productions continue to be among the most popular in Asia.
<p>
All production values in the trailer look pro, as the trades used to say, but the premise is alarmingly silly: After a new ice age brought on by global warming, all the people left in the world are passengers on a giant train that circles the globe continuously, powered by a perpetual motion engine. Our hero, Evans, leads a rebellion of the underclass, relegated to the dark and dingy cars at the ass end of the train, against their cruel overlords, led by Swinton in coke bottle glasses, who get to ride up front.
<p>
"Snowpiercer" turns out to be a literal translation of the title of the source material, the French bande dessinee graphic novel "Le Transperceneige." It's said to be opening in South Korea and Europe beginning in August. American distributer The Weinstein Company acquired the film over a year ago but hasn't set a US release date, perhaps not a smart move, if true, with a film that's all-but guaranteed to be heavily pirated.
<p>
And for those of you who don't realize that the title of this post is a reference, this is what it's a reference to:
<p>
<iframe width="420" height="245" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gUERtAe73NI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-34885194156014214522013-06-11T12:10:00.003-07:002013-06-11T12:10:42.022-07:00GoT 3.10<a href="http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/game-of-thrones-310-mhysa">"Mhysa"</a>.David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-85643322107920864862013-06-07T16:06:00.001-07:002013-06-08T14:51:30.335-07:00Empress Pavilion 1989-2013<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgnR88q-a9TZaAopTyRymwjEiFk-kymHFJCSXTjoRoRJdkwApFLLuOzqefEsb62uv3792_XyCFyg0jb9Rydf9B2SR4g6pOWg5-K8Ttnu0pgGBPw2FzoDu_I_RV6gzif4y-IW8Xe2vqV84z/s1600/steamedBBQporkbuns.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgnR88q-a9TZaAopTyRymwjEiFk-kymHFJCSXTjoRoRJdkwApFLLuOzqefEsb62uv3792_XyCFyg0jb9Rydf9B2SR4g6pOWg5-K8Ttnu0pgGBPw2FzoDu_I_RV6gzif4y-IW8Xe2vqV84z/s320/steamedBBQporkbuns.jpg" /></a><p>Back in the dinosaur days of the mid-1980s, when we still saw most of our Asian movies in dedicated ethnic theaters in Chinatown or China Valley or Artesia's Little India, one of the key dividends of being a Hong Kong Cinema or Bollywood fan were the opportunities the fixation afforded for eating lots of Asian food. Restaurants were carefully ear-marked for movie night meals in the vicinity of each theater. No matter how bad the film turned out to be, there was always a plate of Crispy Salty Shrimp to look forward to.
<p>These experiences have shaped my sense that the ideal Asian cinema blog would be less like Deadline or even Twitch and way more like Chowhound -- dedicated above all to the experience of moviegoing. Listings of favorite Asian cinema venues would be accompanied as a point of honor with restaurant recommendations, as as an aspect of the complete experience.
<p>
In part this ideal is nostalgic. The Bollywood houses have survived; are in fact flourishing. There is <a href="http://www.cgvcinemas.com/">one fairly lavish multiplex in LA Koreatown</a>, but it shows mostly Hollywood films with Korean subtitles. The Chinese theatrical exhibition circuits, alas, are no more.
<p>
Now <a href="http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2013/06/empress_pavilion_closes_i.php">LA Observed is reporting</a> that one of LA Chinatown's most beloved dim sum emporiums, <a href="http://www.empresspavilion.com/dimsum.htm">Empress Pavilion</a>, in the Bamboo Plaza mall on Hill Street, is closing. Those of us who were led to Chinese food by a love for Chinese movies should observe a moment of silence.David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-36046910505921699192013-06-07T14:14:00.001-07:002013-06-08T10:55:30.548-07:00★ ★ ★ ★<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdm02u76IVXd2KlasSQFLX2JtCQa-krXbyaKv9MTrJTK0yYKkBirTZQM5y9g8TKaEK_ODCrw7slNW3VM3eTSRyTyx2zix9yLEAnmfodMbzVwfcP1AJKRxSuVtLw_XjI-BKM2QtkwB1gfF/s1600/hannibal.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdm02u76IVXd2KlasSQFLX2JtCQa-krXbyaKv9MTrJTK0yYKkBirTZQM5y9g8TKaEK_ODCrw7slNW3VM3eTSRyTyx2zix9yLEAnmfodMbzVwfcP1AJKRxSuVtLw_XjI-BKM2QtkwB1gfF/s320/hannibal.jpg" /></a>
<p>
Late to the dinner party watching the very solid NBC series "Hannibal." Still three episodes to go, so no spoilers.
<p>
The show is skillfully crafted at just about every level. The orchestration of its "workplace drama" approach to creating the backstory of Lector and Graham, who at this early stage are colleagues, enables their by-play as a mutual-admiration team of agitated crime-solvers. It would be fun to think of Hugh Dancy as an Aspie Watson to Mads Mikkelson's super-elegant, flesh-eating Holmes, but in practice the characters and the amount of screen time they receive are carefully balanced. Neither is sidekick to the other.
<p><a name='more'></a><br />
I like the fact that show is made in a continually overcast Canada, the nation that supplied the crucial drizzly atmosphere of the early seasons of "The X-Files." Also the fact that it's being produced in European-style 13-episodes seasons, which mandates tight, padding-free storytelling with a clear arc. It's consistently clever. There are images and situations that resonate with earlier installments of the Lector saga, such as a the glass-walled asylum cells introduced in "Silence of the Lambs," this time inhabited by a special guest psychopath played by a puffy Eddie Izzard.
<p>
Show's not in a hurry to reveal Lector's secret to the other characters. This gives the central wary friendship between Will and Hannibal some of the will-they-or-won't-they tension of a rom com crime show like "Castle." We fear, as fans of that show did, that when the true character of the relationship emerges, a lot the fizz will fizzle away.
<p>
Of course it's a running gag that the dinner invitation everybody else on the team wants is Hannibal's, to one of his elaborate sit-down feasts. ("What's this I'm putting into my mouth?" "Rabbit.") The show's food stylist <a href=http://janicepoonart.blogspot.com/">blogs here</a> about the suggestively chunky and organic looking food-art meals she creates for these occasions, effectively representing the stylistic consistency of Lector's various creative enterprises.
<p>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-11320331499485471022013-06-06T17:00:00.004-07:002013-06-07T14:41:39.908-07:00The Squirt in China<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/jeffrey-katzenberg-dreamworks-barack-obama-fundraiser">"Mother Jones" looks in its May/June issue</a> at Jeffery Katzenberg as a rising force in politics ("The New George Soros") includes an interesting summery of DreamWorks' China agenda, and at The Squirt's role in pushing the PRC to relax import quotas on US films.
<p>
<blockquote>The industry's expansion into China's $2.7 billion film market, which is expected to supplant the United States' as the world's largest in 5 to 10 years, hasn't been without obstacles. Several studios, including DreamWorks, are under federal investigation for potentially violating US anti-bribery laws in China. And until recently, the Chinese government would allow only 20 foreign films to screen in its theaters each year, and kept a greater cut of ticket sales than Hollywood thought was fair. In 2009, the United States won a World Trade Organization ruling urging China to open up, but to no avail.
<p><a name='more'></a><br />
<p>
In July 2011, ahead of a trade visit to China, Vice President Joe Biden met with industry leaders who asked him to press their case. Biden, too, returned empty-handed. Seven months later, Xi Jinping, then China's leader-in-waiting, made his first official visit to America. On hand to greet him was Katzenberg, who scored a seat next to Xi at a State Department luncheon.
<p>
Later that week, Xi and Biden traveled to Los Angeles, and Katzenberg joined them for lunch with Gov. Brown. Biden spent the day pushing Xi on the film quota and profit sharing disputes. The White House wanted to bump the studios' portion from 13 percent to 27 percent, but as the negotiations intensified, Biden asked Katzenberg and Disney CEO Bob Iger what they could live with. Then Biden made Xi a new offer: 25 percent. Xi agreed, and he also said China would let in 14 more foreign-made 3-D and IMAX movies each year.
<p>
Katzenberg was simultaneously working on a $350 million deal to open Oriental DreamWorks, a new animation studio in Shanghai—and it couldn't happen without Xi's approval. That same day, at a US-China economic forum held at a downtown LA hotel, Katzenberg officially unveiled the project—and proudly announced that it now bore Xi's personal endorsement. "It's hard to overestimate how big a deal this is for DreamWorks Animation," he told the Financial Times.
<p>
Spahn insists Katzenberg had no discussions with "anyone in the Obama administration" about the Shanghai project, and denies he had any role in the WTO resolution. But those wins did more than show the perks of having friends in high places; they put Katzenberg's deal-making savvy on full display. At the end of Xi's visit, all parties walked away as winners: The White House rushed out a press release celebrating the WTO agreement as a "breakthrough" in trade relations. Xi got a Hollywood ending to his trip. And the entertainment industry—including DreamWorks Animation, which has invested heavily in 3-D—won more access to a booming film market.</blockquote>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-57493969297467001022013-06-06T15:26:00.001-07:002013-06-06T15:34:22.918-07:00More epigrammatic coolness...This time from <a href="http://adilegian.com/FranzenGaddis.htm">Jonathan Franzen on William Gaddis</a>, via CI Dennis.<blockquote><p>Fiction is the most fundamental human art. Fiction is storytelling, and our reality arguably consists of the stories we tell about ourselves.
<p>
Just because you're touched where you want to be touched, it doesn't mean you're cheap; before a book can change you, you have to love it.
<p>
Difficult fiction of the kind epitomized by Gaddis seems to me more closely associated with the lower end of the digestive tract.
<p>
The curious thing is that I suspect Gaddis himself would rather have watched "The Simpsons." I suspect that if anyone else had written his later novels, from "J R" onward, he would not have wanted to read them, and that if he had read them he would not have liked them.
<p>
(In fact, the work of reading Gaddis makes me wonder if our brains might even be hard-wired for conventional storytelling, structurally eager to form pictures from sentences as featureless as "She stood up.")</blockquote>
David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-20370076213831169512013-06-06T10:35:00.000-07:002013-06-06T10:55:38.333-07:00Raymond Chandler<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3p6WJijbHLnoc7VWfB68smonz2iCZB2MiwLlmw_sJ8oZXV_diNVLBD-zvyQ09Q6429QJS44jWnhSHQmUx1z5RiOK_WmrxhTRon4jqps_LGQSAVwVAmQBMTMW012JxVhiqgh2Cxz3xrHjS/s1600/200px-TheSimpleArtOfMurder.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3p6WJijbHLnoc7VWfB68smonz2iCZB2MiwLlmw_sJ8oZXV_diNVLBD-zvyQ09Q6429QJS44jWnhSHQmUx1z5RiOK_WmrxhTRon4jqps_LGQSAVwVAmQBMTMW012JxVhiqgh2Cxz3xrHjS/s320/200px-TheSimpleArtOfMurder.jpg" /></a><p>Quotations from the introduction to <I>The Simple Art of Murder</I> (1950):
<blockquote>"An average critic never recognizes an achievement when it happens. He explains it after it has become respectable."
<p>
"The technical basis of the <I>Black Mask</I> type of story...was that the scene outranked the plot, in the sense that a good plot was one that made good scenes. The ideal mystery was one you would read if the end was missing."
<p>
"...the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand."
<p>
"A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong."
</blockquote>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-39223576708512704792013-06-05T22:07:00.001-07:002013-06-05T22:15:38.647-07:00Grace and Ingrid Love Stories Perfect Romantic Subjects for Bollywood Expat Producer<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-i5Zuq3JIrGDbsaDYruxp9rbovTy-bcmb29RMHb-4BYVMTMQV3BrxohYOWemGYFmugCFCvhyphenhyphenR7OL6f-SSsNFTA4_cu33VjBkGk8lA5oz-NXHuIHjnFfYRpht6vDf2K1Ym0wfrAILA_kf/s1600/uday.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-i5Zuq3JIrGDbsaDYruxp9rbovTy-bcmb29RMHb-4BYVMTMQV3BrxohYOWemGYFmugCFCvhyphenhyphenR7OL6f-SSsNFTA4_cu33VjBkGk8lA5oz-NXHuIHjnFfYRpht6vDf2K1Ym0wfrAILA_kf/s320/uday.jpg" /></a>
<p>
<a href="http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/grace-of-monaco-team-sets-epic-love-story-between-ingrid-bergman-and-war-photog-robert-capa/">Deadline Hollywood reports</a> on a new film project announced by Uday Chopra, of India's Yash Raj Films, the Mumbai-based Bollywood powerhouse created by his late producer-director father, Yash Chopra, in 1970. Uday will follow the upcoming "Grace of Monaco," which stars Nicole Kidman, with a bio-pic about Ingrid Bergman's wartime romance with combat photographer Robert Capa.
<p>
A director since 1959, Yash Chopra, who passed away last year, pioneered a lush. romantic style that came to exemplify Bollywood glamour. He helped launch the careers of megastars Amitabh Bachchan (in "Trishul" and Deewaar") and Shah Rukh Khan (in "Dard"). He is regarded by critics such as <a href+http://www.amazon.com/Yash-Chopra-Rachel-Dwyer/dp/0851708757">England's Rachel Dwyer</a> as a key evolutionary influence on the modern shape of Bollywood, both for his film style and his corporatized business practices,
<p>
In fact, biographical films about the loves of Hollywood royalty should by a perfect fit for the brightly colored glamor of the Yaj Raj house style, a species of film that no one in Hollywood knows how to make anymore.
<p>
Uday Chopra began his acting career at Yash Raj with a supporting role in his director-brother Aditya Chopra’s “Mohabbatein” (2000), co-starring with Bachchan and Khan. Now a charter member of the younger generation of Bollywood leading men, along with Hrithek Roshan and Amitabh's son Abishek Bachchan, Chopra's signature vehicles include the “Dhoom” action franchise ("Dhoom 3" is due in December) and romantic comedies such as the recent "Pyaar Impossible!" (2012).
<p>
Chopra learned the ropes of the American studio system as a graduate of the <a href="http://www.filmprograms.ucla.edu/">UCLA Professional Program in Producing</a>.
<p>
The musical number below, from Uday's hit rom-com "Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai" ("My Friend is Getting Married," 2002), is an expert pastiche of the location-shot song numbers in the romantic blockbusters of his dad, such as "Chandni" (1989), with Rishi Kapoor and Sridevi.
<p>
<iframe width="440" height="245" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eETms3gxXBE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>
<iframe width="440" height="245" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oIAWNE_pulk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-73585319572406290402013-06-05T15:19:00.003-07:002013-06-05T17:45:26.736-07:00FLASHBACK 2008: Sierra Madre Public Library Bollywood Starter Kit™ This is being posted to provide additional information for people who attended my presentation on Bollywood movies at the Sierra Madre Public Library on January 17. It was great to hear that several of you are interested in exploring further this "movie industry that is also a genre." To that end I've collected a few links and recommendations that I think might be helpful.<br />
<p><a name='more'></a><br />
I led off the Sierra Madre session by asking what people had heard about Bollywood: That all the films are very long musicals. That it is the world's largest film industry. 1,000 + titles a year in a dozen regional languages. (Number three after the US and, of all places, Nigeria.) That the wish-fullfilment plot and the release of emotion in song and dance in "Slumdog Millionaire" is very Bollywood. All true, IMO.<br />
<br />
The stereotypes have some validity but need to be tempered. This is the trailer for the most successful Bollywood movie of the last few years: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjVKxXTnYl4&feature=related">Ghajini</a> Not just the urrent Indian box office leader but one of their biggest hits ever. A moony-Juney flashback romance (music by "Slumdog" Oscar nominee A.R. Rahman) interpolated with sledgehammer bullet-time action sequences..<br />
<br />
A few notes on where the conventions originated can make them seem less outre. Bollywood is not just an arbitrary hodgepodge. Proximate sources are village pagants based on the Hindu epics, which were laced with music; the British-influenced Parsi theater companies of Bombay, which furnished personal to many Indian silent films, and to early Hindi sound films that had as many as 30 songs.<br />
<br />
Here are some clips that bounce through Indian film history several decades at a time, like the giant-frog-like superhero in Ang Lee's <em>Hulk</em>:<blockquote><strong>Devdas</strong> (1936) "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watchv=3IPKMmDrB0Q&feature=PlayList&p=0D44B023CF85579D&playnext=1&index=11">Dukh Ke Ab Din</a>" Mus: Timir Baran<br />
In the early talkie era, singers were the only superstars, and K.L. Saigal was one of the most revered. Sitting under a tree feeling sorry for himself -- a far cry from the acrobatic showstoppers of today's Bwd.<br />
<br />
<strong>Shri 420</strong> ("Mister Grifter"), "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAGj6YmYLOk&feature=related">Mere Joota Hai Japani</a>" ("My Shoes Are Japanese")<br />
Raj Kapoor became an Indian icon as this Little Tramp derivitive, and the character's introductory number is arguably the most famous of all Bollywood film songs, quoted by everyone from Mira Nair to Salman Rushie.<br />
<br />
<strong>Pyassa</strong> ("Thirst"), "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0TW6xMl9l0&feature=PlayList&p=E5398EB2CF1100F8&playnext=1&index=4">Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi</a>") ("So what if you win this awful world?")<br />
This classic Guru Dutt lament is one extreme, certainly, of the variety of moods that can be expressed in the Bollywood film song format. It isn't all hoop-ha wedding dances.<br />
<br />
<strong>Teesri Manzil</strong> ("Third Floor"), "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzBjj5QRCI4">O Hassena Zulfan Waali</a>" ("Girl With Beautiful Hair") R.D. Burman<br />
Shammi Kapoor, brother of Raj, "The Indian Elvis," as a hotel bandleader named Rocky embroiled in a murder plot.<blockquote><strong>The Three Khans: Dominant stars of the 1990s and beyond.</strong><br />
<br />
Shah Rukh:<br />
<br />
<strong>Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge</strong> ("The Brave One Will Win the Bride") ("<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dt-K6RTbhc&feature=fvst">Ruk Ja O Dil Deewane</a>")<br />
<br />
Salman:<br />
<br />
<strong>Maine Pyar Kiya</strong> "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAv48xBN2IQ&feature=PlayList&p=91A0C8070C707FB1&playnext=1&index=1">Tum Ladki Ho</a>"<br />
Not quite as pumped up (or as self-absorbed) as in his later films.<br />
<br />
Aamir:<br />
<br />
<strong>Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak</strong> ("From Doomsday to Doomsday") "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA5jMs1TzhE&feature=channel">Papa Kehte Hain</a>" ("Papa told me...")<br />
Aamir Khan's first adult screen appearance, circa 1989. Note that the papa in question, released from prison that very day, is lurking at the back of the room, listening tearfully. Pure Bollywood!</blockquote><strong>Lagaan</strong> ("Land Tax") "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9dnRFyGQzg">Chale Chalo</a>" A.R. Rahman<br />
Aamir Khan in only the second Bollywood Best Foreign Oscar nominee (after 1960's Mother India). And <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP-Vc4mDfG8">another number</a> you might like even more.<br />
<br />
<strong>Kal Ho Naa Ho</strong> "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHepxbbqD6g&feature=PlayList&p=F5E620DCAC2D9D01&playnext=1&index=5">Mahi Ve</a>" ("My Love") Shankar-Ehsan-Loy.<br />
Greatest. Bollywood. Wedding song. Ever.<br />
<br />
<strong>Don</strong> (1978) "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qdLmNBvBt8">Khaike Paan Banaras Wala</a>" ("Eating a Paan from Benares") Mus: Anandji-Kalyanji<br />
The great Amitabh Bachchan dances in character, as an ordinary man blowing off steam.<br />
<br />
<strong>Don</strong> (2006 remake) "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzEKspE-VKY">Khaike Paan Banaras Wala</a>"<br />
Also a great scene, but noticeably more of a choreographed production number than the original.<br />
<br />
Abishek and Hrithek: pretenders to the throne(s)<br />
<br />
<strong>Dhoom 2</strong> (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVTc0CTwe78&feature=related">title song</a>)<br />
About as far as you can get from K.L. Saigal sitting under a tree.<br />
Trailer <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeKGl3aeG5k">here</a>.</blockquote>Here are some good Bollywood films available from the online rental service Netflix:<blockquote><a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Kal_Ho_Naa_Ho_Tomorrow_May_Never_Come/60036735?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=776744524_0_0">Kal Ho Naa Ho</a><br />
A good bet as your first-ever Bollywood rental. Definitive Shah Rukh Khan star vehicle with great music by S-E-L, including the all-time wedding-dance number "Mahi Ve" (see YouTube link below).<br />
.<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/An_Evening_in_Paris/23997173?trkid=1660">An Evening in Paris</a><br />
This is a stand-in for the Shammi Kapoor title clipped at the event, <em>Teesri Manzil</em>; not available on Netflix, for some reason -- though inexpensive <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teesri-Manzil-Shammi-Kapoor/dp/B0001CVAL0">sale copies</a> abound.<blockquote><strong>Mani Rathnam: From Kollywood to Bollywood</strong><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Dil_Se/17671454?trkid=204759">Dil Se</a> ("From the Heart")<br />
Shah Rukh Khan and the great Tamil director Mani Rathnam (<span style="font-style:italic;">Guru</span>) attempted to make a Bollywood musical about terrorism. And it even kinda worked, except at the box office.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Alaipayuthe/70075625?trkid=1660">Alaipayuthe </a>("Waves")<br />
One of Rathnam's most perfectly realized films; a beautifully textured middle-class love story with a couple of startling plot twists.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/A_Peck_on_the_Cheek/70053874?trkid=148368">Kannathil Muthamittal</a> ("A Peck on the Cheek")<br />
An activist political epic with gorgeous stars and A.R. Rahman music: remarkably effective.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Guru/70063017?trkid=1660">Guru</a><br />
Abishek Bachchan in the title role in Rathnam's rousing bid to create a capitalist/entrepreneur role model for the new India.</blockquote><a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Lagaan/60020906?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=889599238_0_0">Lagaan</a> ("Land Tax")<br />
Only the second best Foreign Oscar nominees in Bollywood history, after <em>Mother India</em> (1960). Irresistible entertainment. Music by A. R. Rahman.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Dil_Chahta_Hai/60021525?trkid=174831">Dil Chahta Hai</a> ("The Heart Desires")<br />
Pioneering yuppie/buddy romantic comedy from producer-star Aamir Khan<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Munna_Bhai/60036104?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=1687250065_0_0">Munna Bhai MBBS</a><br />
A lovable gangster strong-arms his way into medical school to make his parents proud. One of the best Bollywood comedies of the past decade.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Rang_De_Basanti/70047320?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=943208504_0_0">Rang De Basanti</a> ("Color Me Saffron")<br />
The rallying cry of the Indian independence movement energizes a group of contemporary slacker college students in this surprise hit. More great A.R. Rahman music.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Jhoom_Barabar_Jhoom/70072686?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=824652071_0_0">Jhoom Barabar Jhoom</a> ("Dance Baby Dance")<br />
Song and dance as a way of life. Close to perfect. Music: S-E-L.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Dhoom_2/70059536?trkid=174833">Dhoom 2</a><br />
State of the art for big budget Bollywood action, dance and star glamour.</blockquote>And since I argued so strongly, on the day, that you should try to see at least some of these films in theaters (and ideally in Artesia's <a href="http://9onthetown.com/Segments/1221littleindia.htm">Little India</a>, for the full gustatory/cultural experience) here are the titles of some upcoming theatrical releases that I think stand a good chance of being interesting -- though of course there are no guarantees. (Note that even though some of the trailers are not subtitled, the movies almost always are.)<blockquote>January 30: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POxhFFGfR7o">Luck By Chance</a><br />
A satirical look at Bollywood by the younger generation of "star kids." Excellent cast includes a cameo by megastar hunk Hrithek Roshan (<em>Dhoom 2</em>). Songs by the top composer trio Shankar-Eshan-Loy. (<a href="http://www.laweekly.com/movies/luck-by-chance-437782/">LA Weekly review here</a>.)<br />
<br />
February 13: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIW7Qb6Hc-0&feature=related">Billu Barber</a><br />
The wonderful actor Irfan Khan (the dad in "The Namesake" and the cop in "Slumdog Millionaire") has his first mainstream Bollywood leading role as a village barber whose long-lost childhood best friend is a movie superstar (Shah Rukh Khan) shooting on location in the area. Songs by the most pop-oriented of the newer composers, Pritam. (More <a href=" http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en-us&q=billu+Barber&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&oi=property_suggestions&resnum=0&ct=property-revision&cd=2#">here</a>)<br />
<br />
February 20: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkD5TThRvsQ&eurl=http://delhi-6-movie.blogspot.com/">Delhi-6</a> <br />
An autobiographical exploration of emigration and return by the excellent writer-director Rakesh Omprakash Mehra (<em>Rang De Basanti</EM>; see DVD list below), with the top leading man of the younger generation, Abhishek Bachchan. Songs by "Slumdog's" Oscar-nominated A.R. Rahman.</blockquote>Here are some theaters in the Los Angeles area where Bollywood movies are shown regularly.<blockquote><a href=" http://www.naz8.com/artesia/index.html">Naz 8</a>, 6440 South St, Lakewood, CA 90713 (Little India)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.moviefone.com/theater/academy-6/15/showtimes">Academy 6</a>, 1003 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena , CA 91106<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.culverplazatheatres.com/">Culver Plaza 6</a>, 9919 W. Washington Blvd, Culver City , CA 90232<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.laemmle.com/viewtheatre.php?thid=8">Laemmle's Fallbrook 7</a>, 6731 Fallbrook Ave, West Hills , CA 91307<br />
<br />
AMC Covina 30, 1414 N. Azusa Ave, Covina , CA 91723<br />
<br />
Norwalk 8, 13917 Pioneer Blvd, Norwalk , CA 90650<br />
<br />
Orange Stadium Promenade 25, 1701 W Katella Ave, Orange , CA 92867<br />
<br />
Laguna Hills 3, 24155 Laguna Hills Mall, Laguna Hills CA 92653</blockquote>The only paper in the LA area (perhaps in the entire country, outside the Indian community) that lists and covers Bollywood film openings regularly is (ahem) my own frequent outlet <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/movies">LA Weekly</a>. Because the films are rarely screened in advance, reviews tend to run the Thursday following a Friday opening. <br />
<br />
Please feel free to use the comments section below to ask questions.<br />
<br />
Thank you!</span>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-780739683831552542013-06-05T14:51:00.001-07:002013-06-05T17:45:09.036-07:00Yuen Wo-Ping<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBMZVaJUesPrYcM01m-2LlJ18-t28S4_ETetZUOI6K9DdzcsHl9fLrefy5qiGCHUrLClY-pO9xPeJD9w1vMkymH2Jz27NuA9JPleVobq8UhPx-lcOmFuKsmYK7Xpw86TpYkRSk4Tr-Jikl/s1600/yuen_woo_ping_a_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="225" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBMZVaJUesPrYcM01m-2LlJ18-t28S4_ETetZUOI6K9DdzcsHl9fLrefy5qiGCHUrLClY-pO9xPeJD9w1vMkymH2Jz27NuA9JPleVobq8UhPx-lcOmFuKsmYK7Xpw86TpYkRSk4Tr-Jikl/s400/yuen_woo_ping_a_l.jpg" /></a></div>
<h2>Martial Artist</h2>
<p>Action cinema’s wirework puppet master
<p><I>LA Weekly</I>, December 15-21, 2000.
<p>
“Imagine you’re an actor putting on a corset,” says James Schamus, co-writer and executive producer of Ang Lee’s martial-arts fantasy "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." It’s “a heavy canvas corset with a bunch of metal cables attached to it, and you’re getting strung 75 feet up in the air while hanging from a crane. The crane is just an arm supporting wires on pulleys that are being manipulated by five guys wearing construction gloves. They have to maneuver in sync, both with the other cranes and with a team that is pulling another set of wires, attached to another actor who is whipping through the air only a few feet away. One slip-up, just two or three steps in the wrong direction, and someone could get really badly hurt.”
<p><a name='more'></a><br />
In "Crouching Tiger," the distinctive Hong Kong style of airborne stunt choreography known as “wirework” gets an eye-popping showcase. As 17th-century crusading Chinese kung fu masters, Asian superstars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh balance in treetops and leap tall buildings, righting wrongs as they go. To achieve these stunning effects, Lee hired Yuen Wo-Ping, the world’s pre-eminent vaulting-wire specialist, for his unique expertise in the 400-year-old sword-and-sorcery genre known as wu xia, or “martial chivalry.”
<p>
You probably know Yuen Wo-Ping’s work, even if you’ve never heard his name. He’s the guy who dangled Keanu Reeves from a great height in "The Matrix," in sequences that you may have assumed were done with computer graphic imaging and trick machines like the motion-freezing Timeline camera. “Maybe consciously people assume that 'The Matrix' is all CGI,” Schamus contends. “But I think the grain of reality comes through. That’s why those scenes were so spectacularly well received. You felt that these people were actually in the air, flipping and kicking and jumping. What you didn’t see was the highly trained core of people that Yuen works with, pulling all the wires.” One of the producers of The Matrix, Barrie Osborne, calls the technique “a form of puppeteering, only with people.”
<p>
Like all fans of Chinese action movies, Lee had known about Master Yuen (as he is nearly always called) for years. This was, after all, the man whose first two films as a director, "Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow" (1978) and "Drunken Master" (1979), vaulted Jackie Chan to international celebrity. Most of the glory fell to Chan as the star, but for Lee, “It was Yuen Wo-Ping who really revolutionized the kung fu genre in those films, by making the action into a form of slapstick. He took away some of the grimness, some of the self-importance and the violence, the lust for revenge, that got into the genre after Bruce Lee.”
<p>
In person, Yuen doesn’t look much like a revolutionary. He is a mild-mannered, middle-aged gentleman with big, curious eyes, who, on a breezy day in Santa Monica, comes to a poolside table in a tightly zippered windbreaker, with a baseball cap jammed on his head. He presents himself as a blunt and practical man, but also speaks frequently of what he was trying to “express” in the martial-arts sequences: “I want to bring out the aestheticism of the art form, because I really believe that this is a type of art. I want to bring out its beauty by incorporating dance movements, so that the elegance of the gestures can be seen more clearly.”
<p>
Master Yuen’s formative training wasn’t in combat martial arts, but in a Chinese performance tradition he is always careful to refer to as “stage wu shu, theatrical kung fu,” which is a whirlwind form of acrobatic dancing. Born into a family of Beijing opera performers in 1945, Yuen also has deep roots in the central traditions of Hong Kong action cinema. He was trained by his father, opera performer turned movie actor Simon Yuen Hsiao-tien, and entered the Hong Kong industry in the late 1950s as a stuntman and background fighter in old-school martial-arts films. “In the early days, I was always the one who was picked to die first,” he says. “I was very good at falling down dead.”
<p>
For all his traditional background, Yuen has proved amazingly adaptable, scoring major box-office hits as a director over three decades. In the ’70s, he made rambunctious old-style period films like "The Magnificent Butcher" (1979) and then switched to kung fu–flavored contemporary cop movies such as "Tiger Cage" (1988) after John Woo’s gangster pictures set a new trend. Yuen was uniquely equipped to reinvigorate sword-based Chinese martial arts that had survived mostly on the Beijing opera stage. He used these with great flair as the producer and stunt choreographer of the first two films in director Tsui Hark’s mid-1990s "Once Upon a Time in China" series of jazzed-up retro revivals with swashbuckling heroics. “In those films,” Lee explains, “Wo-Ping was moving away from the hard Hong Kong–based kung fu of his early work, taking the exhilaration to another level. The style was more operatic than anything he had done before, and his talent for wirework really came to the fore.” The Once Upon a Time films helped kick off a new wave of interest in the wu xia genre.
<p>
For Lee, the touchstone was not "The Matrix" but later Yuen films like "Iron Monkey" (1993) and especially the Michelle Yeoh/Jet Li vehicle "Tai Chi Master" (1993). “As a practitioner of tai chi myself, I wanted to do softer Wudan-style martial arts [flowing, yielding movements], instead of the hard Shaolin style [short, hard punches]. Wo-Ping is the only martial-arts expert who is into the soft styles.” This was crucial for a movie that is as much a love story as an action drama. Yuen agrees. “When I did films like 'Iron Monkey,' I wanted the martial arts to be very down-to-earth. Everything happens from the ground up. That’s a more practical and realistic approach. But in 'Crouching Tiger,' I was trying to express the magical characteristics of old-style wu xia. I still tried to incorporate some realistic touches, so that the people were not just flying through the air. They can leap high, but they always have some kind of springboard on the ground.”
<p>
Like many leading lights in the stunt and action fields, Yuen is a safety fanatic. “If you watch him work,” Schamus says, “you are looking at someone who knows he has people’s lives in his hands. It’s difficult for the rest of us to understand what it must be like to get up in the morning and go to work and know that if you’re not 100 percent focused, every second of the day, somebody could be dead. That’s certainly not my workday!” For all his modesty, Yuen runs his stunt team as a rock-ribbed Confucian hierarchy. “For them it’s a master-disciple relationship,” says Lee. “They come from a blue-collar work-ethic background. He brings them into the movie business as apprentices, gives them a livelihood, gives them knowledge. So they treat him like a master, like a father, and they show him absolute loyalty and obedience.”
<p>
Lee, an NYU Film School graduate who established his reputation with high-toned art movies like "Eat Drink Man Woman" (1994) and "Sense and Sensibility" (1995), admits there may have been some tension at first in his dealings with Yuen’s crew: “To them, I’m probably a bourgeois daydreamer. Even to squeeze in and say something was not easy. Over the months, I was very grateful that they began to open up.” On a day-to-day basis, though, the action was left almost entirely in Yuen’s hands. In his script, Schamus says, he often put down little more than “They fight,” leaving Yuen to work out the specifics. “You would literally watch him create storyboards in his head as he was moving through the action.” As Lee sees it, “No one else can help Yuen Wo-Ping with that stuff. His brain is not like anybody else’s.”
David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-84722808781750242222013-06-04T14:28:00.002-07:002013-06-04T14:32:20.323-07:00Don't say we didn't warn you...<iframe width="400" height="245" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/78juOpTM3tE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-24720752517913633192013-06-04T13:02:00.002-07:002013-06-04T14:47:55.234-07:00Jiah Khan 1988-2013<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6IboCzq7hC8cQ4wEc0x3qVWQPe6QR3YMNXN4BEUg8KZotcGrggECPLTGFFHHhu1r5cOamz4UDfC7rxQtQ0Edf0-ZnZq6FhKBqh7XEVrKLN8sem6jT7S0tBp100Z6q_BlJKXz5G22l23J/s1600/17710-jiah-khan.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6IboCzq7hC8cQ4wEc0x3qVWQPe6QR3YMNXN4BEUg8KZotcGrggECPLTGFFHHhu1r5cOamz4UDfC7rxQtQ0Edf0-ZnZq6FhKBqh7XEVrKLN8sem6jT7S0tBp100Z6q_BlJKXz5G22l23J/s320/17710-jiah-khan.jpg" /></a>
<p>
Sad news about <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Jiah-Khan-Gone-too-soon/articleshow/20425956.cms">the apparent suicide of a promising Bollywood ingenue</a>, a London resident born in New York who studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. She came and went as a medical student working on anterograde amnesia in the Aamir Khan <I>Memento</i> re-make <I>Ghajini</I> (2008). But at that point her career may already have taken a lethal hit from the notorious nature of her 2007 debut movie, which I reviewed for the <I>LA Weekly</I>.
<p>
NISHABD Writer-director Ram Gopal Varma’s scandalously anticipated new film was preceded by shrewd tactical whispers to the effect that it was a Bollywood remake of Lolita, with the 64-year-old masculine icon Amitabh Bachchan (think Eastwood or Newman) becoming enamored of a slinky 18-year-old. But Nishabd (The Silence) turns out to be an undeniably stylish, if also dizzyingly uneven, mixed bag, deeply affecting one minute and ludicrous the next; the fetishistic slow-motion shots of ingénue Jiah Khan cooling herself with a garden hose would not be out of place on a Playboy DVD. The sleek Khan is certainly a von Sternberg–worthy object of obsession, but Varma is locked into presenting her as an emblem of free-spirited modern youth, which for him seems to be synonymous with callow and rude and almost pathologically self-absorbed. For Jiah, Bachchan’s solid and self-contained Vijay is a prize she’s fixed on with a whim of iron, and if Varma had pushed her manipulations a bit further, the movie would be more interesting. In fact, our interest picks up considerably after the halfway point, when the movie teeters on turning into a thriller with the arrival of Jiah’s bouncy young college boyfriend, who hides out on the premises to surprise her unbeknownst to anyone but Vijay. No Hitchcock movie ever had a better setup for a stalk-and-kill finale, but Varma is after a bigger, more slippery fish — the “fear of aging and death” that draws the old man to the young girl. Varma’s honesty and seriousness are impressive, if not his showmanship. (Naz 8) (David Chute)David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-7744018837187178422013-06-03T02:33:00.000-07:002013-06-05T17:45:59.558-07:00Archive: "LA Weekly" review of Aamir Khan's jackhammer thriller "Ghajini"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kCR2YC5TtFKomdaUvJwVxtIGm6vuu2zxvv3_RbSrCmuP3GF6QLIICfabdFuCaxNvWTeRrVUtqzlwD86Jtn1MKRsREGlV_l9m_aEktX8SBXvOf46GFbO-_vxRv1hyfavV61vrDvkNLc2A/s1600/2013_time100_khan.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kCR2YC5TtFKomdaUvJwVxtIGm6vuu2zxvv3_RbSrCmuP3GF6QLIICfabdFuCaxNvWTeRrVUtqzlwD86Jtn1MKRsREGlV_l9m_aEktX8SBXvOf46GFbO-_vxRv1hyfavV61vrDvkNLc2A/s320/2013_time100_khan.jpg" /></a>
<p>Bollywood star Aamir Khan as one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World 2013"<p>
GHAJINI (2010)
<p>Aamir Khan, a teen idol of the early ‘90s turned dashing romantic leading man, has for several years been Bollywood’s most exportable overachiever: producer-star of the Oscar-nominated "Lagaan," director-star of this year’s Indian Oscar submission "Taare Zameen Par." In his latest offering, "Ghajini," Khan goes aggressively down-market, indulging a midlife urge to kick ass and snap necks in slow motion, like some of the South Indian action behemoths who have recently been kicking Hindi cinema’s ass at the national box office. The result is an experience almost too stimulating for the non-Indian nervous system, a blockbuster layer cake of full-strength escapist entertainment. In a series of gaudy, tuneful flashbacks, Khan is the sleek CEO of a cell-phone company, a prince of industry passing as a commoner so that a radiant young actress will fall in love with his soul and not his money. In the much darker present-day sequences, he’s a revenge-obsessed victim of anterograde amnesia, complete with shaved, scarred cranium, bulging muscles crawling with tattoos, and a pocketful of annotated Polaroids.
<p>The movie does, indeed, owe a large debt to "Memento," albeit once removed: This version of "Ghajini" is an exceedingly detailed redo of a 2005 Tamil/Telegu carbon of Christopher Nolan’s film. Although there are some variations, especially in the second half, long stretches of the two Ghajinis are virtually identical. The new cast includes several prominent holdovers, including leading lady Asin Thottumkal, bad guy Pradeep Rawat, and muscle-bound cop Riyaz Khan, with Aamir seemingly pasted in over original star Surya, who won a regional Best Actor award for the role. If Khan was hoping some of the commercial mojo of South Indian action icons such as Superstar Rajnikanth ("Sivaji the Boss") might rub off, he could scarcely have picked a better collaborator for the project than A.R. Murugadoss, the writer-director of both versions of Ghajini, auteur of the legendary headbanger "Stalin: Man for the Society" (2005), a master of the pile-driving Southern style. (Key YouTube clip: “megastalin intro.”) The reinvigorated performer strides into battle in Ghajini haloed with bullet-time clouds of glittering water droplets, wrapping his opponents around tree trunks and perforating them with iron pipes, already half-transformed into Superstar Aamirkhanth. (Culver Plaza; Fallbrook 7; Laguna Hills Mall; Naz 8 Artesia; Naz 8 Riverside) (David Chute)David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-79116433791097809102013-06-03T02:22:00.002-07:002013-06-08T10:54:24.796-07:00"Game of Thrones" 3.9 - The Red Wedding<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPhLX7CiEMRKW2GAshpHIS8X-KYqAEnRmA4ppb1loKRCSBLlow6BOtBxf6Nlrs3hjvFDYpdplLIjX3Gse8eqxrMAR4ooTfRN5MwljZBmdEIoYgDOttOr3QlcRjYedeCh1UexrTw1uSyCW/s1600/game-of-thrones-rains-of-castamere-madden-fairley.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPhLX7CiEMRKW2GAshpHIS8X-KYqAEnRmA4ppb1loKRCSBLlow6BOtBxf6Nlrs3hjvFDYpdplLIjX3Gse8eqxrMAR4ooTfRN5MwljZBmdEIoYgDOttOr3QlcRjYedeCh1UexrTw1uSyCW/s320/game-of-thrones-rains-of-castamere-madden-fairley.jpg" /></a><p>
No spoilers of any kind in this small contribution on the single most significant GoT episode to date. Recap write-ups from the East Coast were posted hours ago, and HBO has been sending out screener discs not in advance but days or even weeks after episodes are shown, which makes it tough for Westies to compete. We've decided simply to ignore the problem.
<p>
TIME magazine's James Poniewozik has correctly described this episode, "The Rains of Castamere," as "brutal, heartbreaking, impeccably well-constructed, horrifying, and appropriately cruel. It was, like the betrayal itself, ruthless and efficient and left no doubt about the finality or ugliness of the crime." And EW has a terrific George R.R. Martin interview about writing the Red Wedding chapter a decade ago, and readers' often bitter reactions.
<p>
I've read only the first three Ice and Fire novels, but it already seems likely to me that the Wedding will be a defining, pivotal event of the entire saga -- a literal pivot that stops the train, spins it around, and sends it roaring off in a new direction. A truer direction, probably, than the one we had in mind.
<p>
Raymond Chandler used to say that in the hard boiled pulp magazines of the 1930s there was rule of thumb for keeping stories from getting into a rut: "When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." Martin's inclination to deliver energizing shocks at regular intervals is more extreme, and it isn't just a tactical choice to help keep the books humming.
<p>
My thought is that plotting his stories this way is an ethical choice for Martin. Like quite a few OG literary dinosaurs, he believes a writer's prime directive is to tell the truth. A student of the brutalities of medieval history (The Red Wedding derives from Scotland's notorious Black Dinner) determined to adhere to the way things most often play out in the real world. And could there be a more radical context in which to make this point than in a genre like Fantasy, so often stereotyped as the last word in escapism?
<p>
As central as this theme is to the novels and the TV show, so too is the "Game" plotter who best understands it and plays the dire probabilities like a stringed instrument, Tyrion Lannister. The way things work in Westeros, of course, I'm afraid say anything too doting about my favorite character. I have an image of an Acme anvil, or one of Terry Gilliam's giant animated feet, slamming down out of the heavens. Or a man coming through a door with a dagger in his hand.David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-75497486521087789542013-05-31T19:53:00.002-07:002013-05-31T19:53:52.739-07:00Ugh. How childish.<iframe width="400" height="245" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0_IjM63FH2o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-39953101165913154862013-05-28T16:24:00.001-07:002013-05-28T16:55:10.215-07:00The way to a man's heart......or at least his arteries. <a href="http://fryupsgoodornot.blogspot.com/">A UK website</a> devoted exclusively to the subset of the classic English Breakfast known as the Fry Up. The absence of American-style bacon is a flaw, but forgivable.
<p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5OYdF7RtoBhxg4hxN71xwsBx88bsLylT3be2vZtY4pRScvciAdMI31-DP9c9Ep8xgUEUshe8i0xRQHpDBdHs5sBYMmiVf8sRkxBXX0CM_oJODiXdlYYFcAqwAM74l3Scrt3Q3zVAeX35/s1600/IMG_1095.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5OYdF7RtoBhxg4hxN71xwsBx88bsLylT3be2vZtY4pRScvciAdMI31-DP9c9Ep8xgUEUshe8i0xRQHpDBdHs5sBYMmiVf8sRkxBXX0CM_oJODiXdlYYFcAqwAM74l3Scrt3Q3zVAeX35/s320/IMG_1095.jpg" /></a>
<p>
CI: Dennis
<p>
Also this, Taco Bell's signature breakfast item; sausage and eggs, in a waffle. Proves that food can be NSFW.
<p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DngymlaR18_lGa-GW6zKczuGlmzLIwSQoRmrkAR5mWCPtL_nnOyWkUGrrGHghxQLZsQ3s7N7CpalZBhiRflomD2oYKJTwEwVC0lB9BTS98AJoEDwSDJGNqZsRfKPNEnbpIV5Kk0wwnPE/s1600/ynps06B.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DngymlaR18_lGa-GW6zKczuGlmzLIwSQoRmrkAR5mWCPtL_nnOyWkUGrrGHghxQLZsQ3s7N7CpalZBhiRflomD2oYKJTwEwVC0lB9BTS98AJoEDwSDJGNqZsRfKPNEnbpIV5Kk0wwnPE/s320/ynps06B.jpg" /></a>David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.com