I found this really cool streaming webcast site that plays nonstop japanese music (J-Pop, J-Rock, Electronica and Anime)... even the name is cool:

SickOnion.com

I stumbled upon the site while searching for the song that plays at the end of episodes 21 and 14 of Samurai Champloo, called "The Million Way Of Drum" by Force of Nature and Nujabes.

Speaking of Samurai Champloo, Nation Public Radio's Day to Day animation critic Charles Solomon recently reviewed Samurai Champloo, Paranoia Agent, and Full Metal Alchemist.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4492335

Samurai Champloo and Paranoia Agent are two of my favorite recent anime releases, and Full Metal Alchemist is currently the most popular anime in Japan.

Eternal Family
dir. Koji Morimoto

Weird weird weird weird weird...

Koji Morimoto is one of my favorite anime directors, and I'm so happy that I finally got to see Eternal Family.

The 30 minute film was original released online as a 53 episode series for Mangazoo TV. Each episode is only 30 seconds long, so when they're edited together, the film is very spasmodic, frenetic, and dizzying, but the animation is amazing and the characters are freaking hilarious.

Onibaba
dir. Kaneto Shindo
1964

Onibaba is a film President Bush needs to see, though I doubt the irony will seep into his feeble little brain (plus he probably doesn't have the attention span to read subtitles). The "Devil Woman" of the title tries to convince her daughter-in-law that sex is a sin, while killing is not, but it's the murderous old woman, not the lustful youth, who is punished in the end.

(watched in Melnitz for my Sound Seminar)

The Onion A.V. Club review

Days of Heaven
dir. Terrence Malick
1978

Beautiful film.

(watched in Melnitz for my Sound Seminar)

Roger Ebert's review

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
dir. Fritz Lang
1933

With The Testament of Dr. Mabuse Fritz Lang wrote all the rules for crime thrillers that Hollywood has followed ever since: explosions, interrogations, ticking time-bombs, car chases... really nail-biting stuff. I'm not sure what sort of influence the film really had though cuz it was made in 1933 but was banned by Nazi Germany until after World War II (apparently Hitler thought the plot about a psychopathic criminal mastermind bent on terrorizing society to the brink of total chaos hit a little too close to home).

I watched the film for my sound seminar and I totally understand why the professor assigned it. Lang understood sound was essential to the film, using it as a source of tension as well as a plot device. Lang opens the film with an ominous pulsing boom and he closes the film with the sounds of a locking asylum door over the "END" title card. The murder scene with the honking car horns drowning out the gunshot is truly brilliant and Dr. Mabuse's whispering voice is dreadfully horrifying throughout the film as he beckons his henchman to commit murder and mayhem.

Now I need to see Lang's 1922 Mabuse precursor Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, which is referenced several times in this sequel made a decade later. I also need to rewatch Lang's M, which first introduced the superb character Inspector Lohmann.

I should also note that, as often is the case, I watched this film in the dark wearing headphones, which added to the creepiness of the experience. I seriously expect to hear Mabuse's raspy whisper in my dreams tonight... :-(

Black Books
Season One

Evander lent me some region 2 DVDs a while back of Bill Bailey's standup routines, which are hilarious, so he thought I'd enjoy Black Books. Not the funniest British comedy I've seen, but definitely funny stuff.

Martin Freeman of The Office makes an appearance in the first episode, and the third episode turns into the weirdest Frankenstein parody I've ever seen.

Bill Bailey has a blog at his website: bill-bailey.co.uk

Where's the Party Yaar?
aka Dude Where's the Party
dir. Benny Mathews

Lame lame lame...

This movie is a formulaic romantic comedy with Indian leads. I watched it with Sam and the rest of the Progressive Reform Organization (formerly A Little to the Left) cuz it stars Sunil Malhotra, one of our members.

Sunil is great in it, despite a weak script and cheesy performances from the rest of the cast, including Kal Penn from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.

Onion AV review:
http://www.theonionavclub.com/review.php?review_id=6776

Citizen Kane
dir. Orson Welles
1941

Rarely does anything really deserve being declared "The Best," but I truly find it impossible to disagree with the accolades bestowed upon Citizen Kane as the "Greatest American Film of All Time."

From the cinematography to the acting, from the script to the sound, every single frame of the film is perfect.

I wish I could say something original about the film, but I don't think any film has ever been more analyzed than Orson Welles' masterpiece.

Thanks to my college experience at UCLA , both undergrad and now grad, I've had the priviledge watching Citizen Kane on the big screen at Melnitz multiple times, most recently for my "Phenomenology of Sound" seminar.

Nobody Knows
dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
2004

Hirokazu Kore-eda has directed two of my favorite Japanese films, After Life and Maborosi. Nobody Knows is his fourth film that I've seen, and like all of his previous films, it made me cry.

(watched with Sam at Melnitz)

Mind Game
マインド・ゲーム

dir. Masaaki Yuasa
2004

Aptly titled, Mind Game is an anime dreamscape... very psychedelic (though I watched the film completely sober, my experience was probably enhanced by the fact that I watched it at 2 o'clock in the morning by staring at my computer screen and listening thru headphones)

The opening sequence (which is repeated in an expanded form at the end of the film), immediately reminded me of Cat Soup and Dead Leaves. All three films are so incredibly unique that I can't help but to compare them. Not surprisingly, when I googled the director, Masaaki Yuasa, I discovered that he was a writer on Cat Soup (I'm guessing he had a major influence on the time-bending end sequence). Yuasa also worked on another bizarre anime, Koji Morimoto's Noiseman Sound Insect.

Mind Game is his debut feature, and judging from this stunning achievement, I'm sure Masaaki Yuasa is going to be a major player in the anime world, much like Koji Morimoto became after Perfect Blue. I eagerly await Yuasa's next project and I'm crossing my fingers that there will be a domestic theatrical release of Mind Game or at least a DVD which I'm totally going to buy the day it comes out in the US (if ever... though the super-deluxe special edition Japanese DVD and the fact that gems like Dead Leaves and Cat Soup made it to American DVDs give me much hope)