I miss playing with Hajime and to spice things up for him to get even angstier about, I'm seriously contemplating having his father come out as a tranny.

^_^

For a 30-day word race, it would be pure armchair psychology, of course.

Sick, burrowed under the covers with Luther, watching Goodbye Again from 1961 with Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins and Yves Montand, wondering what the heck it is with French male actors that have made them so irresistible over the course of a century of film.  I've never understood it because on the surface none of them have been physically attractive to me.  I'm not particularly fond of them as actors, either.  It certainly doesn't have anything to do with them coming from a different time because there are so many actors from the past who I watch with a sigh on my lips... Cary Grant... hold me back!  The French heart-throbs, however, have left me uninterested and unimpressed.

BUT, give me a film with Gerard Depardieu and I positively melt with adoration (and for some reason there have been a lot of them on cable recently).  He's hardly on any list of "most attractive men," yet I go to mush at first sight.  He's certainly a skilled actor with the ability to tackle any kind of role, which seems to be a prerequisite with me (it's a big part of my fascination with Toyohara, after all), but handsome?  More like an oversized, adorable teddy bear.  And I'm not the only one... I've run into others who've been afflicted with the same condition.  Why?  What is it about this overweight, rather slovenly man that makes the heart go pitter-patter???

It cracks me up that Toyohara is the other extreme... so rail thin that recently it's looking unhealthy (I agree with a friend & fellow fan...  at his age he should be "thickening," but he's not).  Obviously, weight/bulkiness or lack thereof is not a factor for me.   Instead, it seems to be talent & versatility.  What a strange thing to be attracted to and turned on by.  Why am I so weird?  LOL

TCM seems to be on French kick this month just because Leslie Caron is their star of the month.  This is October --- I want more horror movies, dammit!  I shouldn't complain, though.  I'm sleeping so much right now that it's rare for me to be able to get through anything from start to finish and I hate missing classic horror films.  At least with the j-horror films I'm watching I can pause the video and nap.  (But whatever is going on with me is wreaking havoc on my ability to get commentary written for them for Blog365/NaBloPoMo... I'm feeling predispossed to failure on something that's not that difficult to do.)

Sometimes there are reasons for remaking a film that have nothing to do with making it better or telling the story with a more modern reference. Suna no onna (Woman in the Dunes), the 1964 Teshigahara Hiroshi film I watched today, could not be improved upon. It's stunning and everything about it is relevant in 2009.

The reason I would love to see a remake... and I'd never thought of such a reason until today... is there are two actors I would absolutely love to see take on the lead male role.

( a male role for a man! )

Tanihara is in the upcoming Nodame Cantabile movie????  That's his name on the banner of the new site, yes?

http://nodame-movie.jp/

I'm not finding him listed anywhere.  Time to do some major sniffing around... tomorrow... when I've had some sleep.  Also, the trailer shows up in a Toyohara search on both YouTube and Google.  I'd so love to see more Eto-sensei, but I think the uploader is crazy.  (And if I'm lucky, I've just jinxed that and he WILL be in it just to leave me with egg on my face.)

EDIT:  Yup... it's official... as in it's on his official site.  Tanihara is in the Nodame film that comes out in mid-December.  Wonder what kind of character he'll play.

Something else that's coming up at the end of December... Tanihara as the bad guy in an NHK production of Kao... Tokyograph article

It'll be good to see him playing something nasty for a change.

"anonymous" found the news item released today. Toyohara's got a new fall drama after all... ON A FREAKIN' PAY CHANNEL!

He's caught on to me and is terrified.  LOL  No more easily accessible stuff.

We can get almost all the dramas that come on WOWOW.  Will we be able to get the dramas from the new Fuji pay system NEXT (and I think there are a couple sisters channels, ONE and TWO)?  At least it's television and not a cell phone.

Yoshito Usui, the creator of the manga that spawned one of my most favorite anime series, did indeed die on the hiking trip he went on last weekend.  The body at the foot of Tomoiwa Cliff was positively identified by his family today (yesterday over there). 

I've never had a chance to read any of "Crayon Shin-chan," but I fell in love with the anime, Shin-chan.  Shin's precociousness is hilarious enough, but it was his parents who hooked me on the series.  I could so relate to them, to what they went through as individuals and a couple trying to raise kids... no matter the culture, parenting is parenting and it was so dead on.

I'd love to see Cartoon Network's Adult Swim run a marathon in remembrance.  Parents in Japan might not let their kids watch the anime for fear they'll get ideas from Shin's antics, but what a delightfully fun thing to leave behind & be remembered by.

I understand well the need to protect children and the fact I'm more than fond of Elton John, but...

Whether or not gender-neutral marriages are legally recognized, Elton & David have been in a relationship more stable and longer lasting than the vast majority of heterosexual marriages.  Traditional marriage doesn't equate a happy home any more than the notion that unmarried people (or same gender couples) are incapable of providing one.  Adopting children with special needs should be a case-by-case examination that recognizes exceptions rather than denying them out-of-hand.

Does anyone question whether or not they have the financial means to raise an HIV-positive child?  David is friggin' wealthy in his own right as well as coming from a wealthy family.  How many couples in the Ukraine (or most anywhere else) could afford this child's medical needs let alone give him every advantage medicine can provide?

Yes, Elton is 62, but David is only 46 and within the limits the Ukrainian minister says are set for adoption.  Both are healthy and responsible about it.  Seriously, it wouldn't surprise me if Elton outlived me.  He has the energy and enthusiasm, he's past the need to slave for his career.  There are as many good reasons why older people make good parents as there are for younger people.  In terms of emotional and social support, age isn't a reliable gauge of anything anyway.

Thank you very much for all the personal hard work & effort to provide positive support & PR and the millions tirelessly collected for AIDS and HIV-positive victims all these years, but you're not acceptable to provide a child with an uncertain future a chance for some happiness.  We'll take your time, sweat, and money, but not your heart.  I can't imagine two people more understanding & sensitive, more qualified to look after an HIV-postive child, than these two.

The child has no one.  AIDS has claimed both parents and if there is extended family, they don't want him.   Elton & David weren't out shopping for a child... out of all the children they see on a regular basis on behalf of the foundation, they fell in love with this one.   He's only 14 months old... give him a chance to grow up with happy memories, not look back in remembrance of an orphanage.

Protecting a child sometimes means making reasonable exceptions.  I'm sorry, but I just don't see how this isn't one of those exceptions.

Today has started with a couple of firsts.

I d/l my weekly jdrama episodes from Share over the weekends and I was so happy to see the next ep of  "Kyumei byoto 24 ji" show up right away.  Downloaded it and clicked on the file to transfer it over to jumonji (my external drive), but accidentally clicked it twice, so it opened in a player.  Ummm... the emergency room had changed quite a bit since last I saw it.  Point of fact, it's not the episode at all.  It's pr0n!  LOL  This is the first time this has happened (and it's the first time I've seen a live nude Japanese male... up close & personal, y'know... la di da!).

^_^

What a nice way to start the weekend.

EXCLAMATION POINT!!!!

You can count the number of love scenes I've seen this man do on one hand (and probably not use up all your fingers) and now... now... something I can't watch and probably will never get my hands on! (After a year of no new dramas from him, too!) A 1-minute promo for the episode "Room Service" he's doing for the keitai drama Sweet Room.

[video was removed]

It's just not fair...

Random Tsumabuki caps from Yami no kodomotachi...

( as you will see, quality is not great )

The poster for next year's taiga, Ryomaden, is out.  Fukuyama Masaharu in the title role.


Kind of reminds me of Tanihara's Ito.  ^_^

Looking forward to it.

'Lost' exclusive: Japanese superstar Hiroyuki Sanada lands 'significant' role

Doesn't mean much to me... have never liked "Lost" and not particularly a Sanada fan... but it's strange to see someone I know of from jdrama & film stepping into something so mainstream American.  ^_^  Does he want to follow in Ken Watanabe's footsteps as well as Chiba's?

New NHK series coming in October, Jin... from DramaWiki:

The story follows a brain surgeon named, Minakata Jin, who falls into a "time slip" that sends him back to Edo during the Bakumatsu era, the period that spelled the end of the shoguns' rule over Japan. There, Jin ends up using his 21st-century medical expertise to help the people, who are suffering from various epidemic illnesses from the time, with the help of the modern medical knowledge of his era.

Will be interesting to see what Uchino Masaaki's Ryoma will be like.

This looks like a lot of fun... Ruang rak noi nid mahasan.

I just got carded for a cigarette purchase!  Give me a freakin' break!  I'm 49 years old and there's absolutely no doubt about me being well over the legal age.  I haven't washed my hair in two days.  I'm living on about 3 hours sleep after pulling an all-nighter.  It's bloody hot out there and I walked over to the store.  In short, I look like sh*t and nothing like a young thing out on the town on a Saturday night.

Nothing impressive to the ol' vanity one bit.  In fact, it's quite disturbing.  I wasn't just carded.  My ID was scanned into a little machine.  When I told the guy that carding a 49-year-old woman was about the stupidest thing I 'd experienced in quite some time, he said, "I know, but we have to do it now."  Have to do it?  I didn't have the presence of mind to ask who was issuing the order, whether it was the company or the government, but I'm not happy about it, especially since I haven't heard anything about this new requirement.  They're collecting information and it concerns me why and how it's going to be used.  If I'd had more money on me, I would've gone back and purchased a beer to see if they're doing the same thing with alcohol purchases.  If they're going to use the info to discriminate in some way, I'm going to be royally pissed.  I've said it before and I'll say it again... the amount of processed sugar this country consumes is just as bad, if not worse, than cigarettes and alcohol.  If the government is determined to "protect me" from harmful things, there's a helluva lot of other things they need to control as well.  What are they going to do about the freakin' sun and its intensity here?  Force us all into burqas?  I mean, it causes cancer (among other things), too.

Next time I go in and one of the guys I know is behind the desk, I'll ask about it.  In the meantime, I'm off to do some googling to see if this is a government thing.

Once upon a time, I was an adult and could do adult things.  The older I get, the more interference I encounter.

EDIT: Oy vey... this could get messy and is even more troubling... article on Target carding on any purchase of items with age criteria  There are actually several articles mentioning the same thing at other stores.  Yeah, I trust stores with sensitive information about as much as I trust the government. [/sarcasm]

I hate Russell T. Davies.

Captain Jack on a 55" HD tv and surround-sound.  Yes!!!

I watched the ep that aired today (yesterday, actually) with my dad (it would be the last episode of last season, but it does set him up for the mini-series & if he watches, he'll get an overview of the series Monday night before the first ep airs).  He'd never seen any of Torchwood, only experienced the ups & downs both seasons created in me (and my kid when she came over and watched it later).  He really got into it, as crazy as the premise is, and I'm hoping he watches all five nights next week and enjoys it.  Not sure how he's going to take to Jack & Ianto messin' about.  LOL!  As for me, it's gonna get hotter inside than outside.  ^_^

I still think he'd like Doctor Who given the chance to see a real episode.  Unfortunately, BBC America made a horrible mess of one of my fave episodes, the Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned," and after I had told him how wonderful it was, too.  I swear, they cut out all the best of it and it made no sense.  I shudder to think what they're going to cut out of Torchwood this week, but it's the only way I'm going to get him to watch it since he doesn't have a DVD player that will recognize .avi files.  (I've put a bug in his ear about getting a player that will when the times comes... )

EDIT:  I'll never believe anything BBC says again, especially in regards to Torchwood/Doctor Who.  This series was supposed to be broadcast same-day in the UK and US... they made a BIG thing of it because we don't get stuff until months, sometimes years, until after it airs in the UK.  I just now found out that it aired in the UK last week.  I'm so on it and hope to watch it tonight.  IT would've been so helpful to my mood last week and I would've known about it if Torchwood sites weren't so damn quick to post up spoilers I don't want to know about, so I tend to avoid them.  **sigh** You can't win.

A huge THANK YOU to whoever anonymously provided me with the link to the article on the recent promo event for Hikidashi no naka no love letter on the Cinema Magazine site! It's funny... I read a blurb about a week ago on Japan Today about the event, but there was no mention of any of the other cast being there. Really cool to see Toyohara dressed for tanabata. He should so come here to the desert... according to the article, he wrote "the passing of the rainy season" on his tanzaku (he suffers from allergies & undergoes regular acupuncture treatments for them). No rain here, dude! ^_^



I'm so thankful there are people out there looking out for me. I haven't done any general web surfing for whatever I could find since Eguchi went down with his bike... the MJ hullabaloo really took me out of my stride.

However, in the found while looking for something else department, I bumped into a blog by someone in the business who wrote about a dinner given back in early June at what appears to be the conclusion of a CM shoot. Guess who was there...



If the translators are anywhere near accurate, the comment to this pic was something to the effect of "Toyohara after not having had a drink since the day before." There must be something to the gossip on 2ch about his fondness for drink. Regardless, it's fun to see him cutting up rather than just the stoicism he usually shows at promo events that I always run into. (Now, if he wants to get drunk and naked in a Tokyo park at 3am... I'm still waiting for images to get leaked onto the net of Kusanagi Tsuyoshi's recent little foray into the natural state :P )

One of these days... soon... I'll get back to googling (and binging, too). Right now, I'm in a massive jdrama & film organization project. After my DVD-R drive going bonkers at the beginning of the year & screwing up burns and now close to completely filling a 1T external drive, things have gotten really screwed up. Computer files are great, but NOTHING beats an old-fashioned card index for quick reference (and for keeping up to date on what I'm acquiring).

Farrah Fawcett was expected, sadly, but Michael Jackson... that was a total surprise.  Just got off the phone with my mom (who called because she just had to put her beloved cat down) and we were talking the usual about how things like this always seem to come in threes.  Apparently, it's looking like Walter Cronkite is very bad off right now, but I reminded her we lost Ed McMahon a day or so ago, too.  And, y'know, I haven't heard recently how well Stephen Hawking recovered from this last bout of pneumonia.  He was supposed to be here back in April (or was it March?) for the Origins Symposium at ASU, but was rushed to the hospital just before departure, so his daughter came in his stead.

Michael might've been crazy, but I loved his music and his stage performances.  I have a very fond memory of when my daughter was young and we ordered a pay-per-view live concert.  We brought in a bunch of stuff to munch on, turned off all the lights, turned on the stereo receiver & cranked it up (the neighbors be damned... this was a special family thing), and let her stay up WAY past her bedtime.  It wasn't the "real" thing, but it was as close as we could get to her experiencing seeing him in concert.  We had a great time.  ^_^  Thanks for that memory, Michael.

It's always creepy when someone my age dies, even as aware as I am that I'm no longer young.  Obviously, any of us can die at any time, but once you've survived for half a century (or close to it), you kind of think at this point you're going to make it another couple of decades.  His death kind of puts it in mind that my generation is coming to the time when things are going to start happening, physically & naturally, and mortality becomes a little more real.

REVISITING... Cronkite is indeed not expected to last.  UPI reports that CBS is currently updating its obituary for him.  Not good.  There will be grieving here.  ASU's School of Journalism is named in his honor and the school has always maintained close ties with him (and with Hugh Downs).

Interestingly, Cambridge University issued a news bulletin yesterday regarding Hawking's condition.  He recovered enough from the pneumonia that kept him from coming here to go home, but last week returned to the hospital with a (undisclosed?) chest infection and he's still there.  They say he's recovering, but his rushed trips to the hospital are coming more frequently.  I think it's only a matter of time, especially since he's a lot older than I thought he was.  I thought he was in his 50's, but remarkably he's 67!

Cool... people are generally being kind about Michael and remembering the artist he was rather than all the gossip and scandal.  Having fun watching all the old music vids that helped make MTV.  The complete "Thriller" vid just started.  ^_^

City asks applicants for Internet passwords... article from AP about Bozeman, Montana's peculiar job application request...

"Please list any and all current personal or business Web sites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."

Apparently it also includes supplying the passwords to those accounts...

Bozeman City Attorney Greg Sullivan told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle Thursday that the city may look at changing the policy so that they could view an applicant's social networking sites without asking for login information. One option would be to have an applicant add the city as a "friend" on such sites as Facebook.

That is TOTAL bullshit and I don't apologize for my language.  Why not also ask how often they have sex and what gets them off if they're so concerned about what employees are doing in their private lives?  The day this kind of rot becomes "the way it is" is the day we can truly forget calling ourselves "the land of the free" and take our place among the totalitarian states.  I'm getting really tired of being punished and having freedoms threatened in so many areas of my life, from the trivial to the major, because a few people do bad things and/or are greedy.

US fan --> Japanese actor --> fansite on German webhosting

Since Yahoo! is doing away with Geocities in the near future, I've had to go out searching for a new home for the site, and since I'm still not in a position to be actually doing the right thing and paying for hosting, I've spent the past few days looking into what's available for free (as well as some of the more popular paid hosting, just to get a feel).  Even free hosting has become complicated since I first started using Geocities ages ago.  Man, I just want someplace to upload my simple FrontPage pages that I play around with on my own computer rather than online.  I finally just now signed up with janhost.com out of Germany and have been exploring it a bit.  I've got some learning to do... again.  If all goes well and they don't shut me down because I use images from dramas, etc., there's a lot for me to explore and learn that I hope will make a future transition to paid hosting easier on my brain.  One look at the godaddy home page the other night had my eyes crossing and my brain frying... I found it totally intimidating.  The page is just so... crowded... with info and options.  LOL!

Anyway, the next few days are going to be spent cleaning up some things I currently have on the site and seeing if I can get it uploaded onto janhost.  Once I have it up & running (hopefully relatively painlessly achieved), then I'll let it sit there for a while & see if some admin decides it goes against their TOS.  I'm not looking forward to the process of changing links on all the various blogs & forums, but that'll have to start being done, too.  Yuck.

Maybe it's just as well he hasn't shown up on a drama cast list.  I know what'll happen, tho'.  I'll be in the middle of the worst of this transfer and THEN I'll find him in a drama.  Such torture... on one hand, I'm glad for this downtime from new work and on the other, hoping that my getting busy elsewhere will be the jinx to produce a weekly fix.  Just so long as the crazy person in North Korea doesn't decide to blow us all into the next dimension between now & then...

Ooo, strong reminders of Yami no kodomotachi this week... the current Diet session is expected to produce new legislation about organ donation in Japan before it ends.  They have four plans before them, but the downside is that they'll be discussing & voting on them one at a time and the first that passes ends the whole process.  Fortunately, Plan A seems to be the strongest and most far-reaching of the four.  Maybe Sakamoto felt the need to postpone release of the film as long as he did in order to provide a strong vision of why things have to change & wake the Japanese up to the realities? Don't know how much in advance insiders knew when the WHO were going to make a decision on organ transplant policy (which ended up getting postponed for another year thanks to H1N1).  Holding back on it for so long really does seem timed to coincide with formal international discussions.  At the same time, I don't think it achieved much commercial success.  I really haven't heard anything about how it did, but its subject is just the kind of thing people will avoid, even with the incredible cast it had.  Maybe he should've cast more idols just to bring in the fangirls/boys.  I don't see how anyone could watch that film and be unable to avoid the horror of what was going on.

EDIT:  Geez... I should never try to write anything beyond fangirling when I have technical issues crowding my brain...  That last sentence should have been --- I don't see how anyone could watch that film and be ABLE to avoid the horror of what was going on.

So Ken Watanabe's daughter is dating Seiji Ozawa's son.  LOL!  Man, there's a couple of dads with some powerful egos.

Eguchi Yosuke wrecked on his motorcycle last night... broken collarbone and several ribs on his left side... major OW!  The fourth season of Kyumei byoto 24 ji is/was scheduled to start in less than a month, too, and now no one knows what's going to happen with it.  Someone over on Tokyograph mentioned a rumor that they might replace him.  I'm hoping that means the character and not trying to slip someone in to play Dr. Shindo. Either way, that would totally suck because Eguchi is the reason I've been looking forward to this summer season.  I haven't seen all the seasons, but after three of them, there's just no way anyone's going to accept another actor as that character (especially since Eguchi has won awards for that series).  The recent Star Trek film solved some of those issues rather neatly, but that's scifi, not a medical drama... LOL!  Maybe they could make it like a Doctor Who thing... "the doctor" regenerates into something completely different.  ^_^

He's been a very busy man lately.  Goemon just came out at the beginning of May and he's had a drama lead (Triangle), and 2 drama specials (Keikan no chi and the jidaigeki Kogarashi Monjiro) so far this year.  It's like he & Toyohara switched places... STILL no news of any drama appearances from Toyohara (just two films, Omoshiro nankyoku ryurinin and next year's Zatoichi: The Last) and the summer season is almost upon us.  (please let his name suddenly show up in a cast list somewhere... I'd love to see him return as Kazuki in the upcoming season of Keishicho sosa ikka 9 gakari... please?!)  I really hope Toyohara isn't following Asano's lead and completely abandoning television for theatrical films only.  Afraid it does seem like something he'd do, tho.  I'd prefer he follow Odagiri's example and still do some television, but even that would break my selfish little heart after being so spoiled.  He has slowed down since 2005, but I've been happy with him doing only 3-4 tv roles a year (only... ha!... as if that's not time-consuming enough). Seems he may be working on a stage career, too, with two plays in two years after over a decade away from it.  I expect to see him doing another this fall.   ::sigh::  I so miss watching him and the trailer to Omoshiro is like giving me the female equivalent of blue balls. -_-

My best wishes go out to Eguchi-san, though, for a quick recovery!

EDIT:  After an afternoon of googling and "binging" (?), it looks like the one film is now going by just Nankyoku ryurinin (Antarctic Chef).  Also, as I mentioned to someone in the comments to this post, there's another film coming out in October that I found out about while playing around with Bing... Hikidashi no naka no love letter (Listen To My Heart)... link to an English subbed version of the trailer & some comments about the film/director are in my reply below (Mishiro is hoping it'll follow in Okuribito's footsteps... would be cool if it did... can't find anything on Mishiro, tho... is this his first film???).

I have NO idea why Toyohara's official site would fail to mention him cast in a film with such high goals when its release was announced in early May and it made some rounds at Cannes.

EDIT 2: Well, duh... Mishiro has been directing dramas, not films (including one of Eguchi's with Yajima that I'm waiting for the hardsubs to be finished, Tobosha (Runaway)).  He's also producing what sounds like one of this summer's most potentially interesting dramas, Orthros no inu.  He actually has a pretty impressive drama list as director/producer with just what's in the dramawiki.  Can he make it work on the big screen, tho...

No matter what role I saw him do or how crazy he could get in younger years, I always liked him and respected his talent.  He'll be missed.

It's taken a few days, but my thoughts on the new film have coalesced somewhat, at least to a point where I can write about it in a more organized fashion than before now.  I still haven't read anyone else's thoughts on it because I wanted to think about it without influence.

Some randomness...

Zachary Quinto and Keith Urban were absolutely dead on character.  They blew me away with how easily I recognized and accepted Spock and McCoy. (My dad hasn't stopped bringing up how much he enjoyed Urban.)  It was practically seamless.  I had a little more trouble seeing Sulu in John Cho, but he snagged so many of Sulu's behavioral characteristics that I adapted quickly enough.  This surprised me because it was the one casting choice I had the most difficulty accepting, not because of any concern over Cho himself, but because I saw so little of Takei/original Sulu in him based on what I'd seen him do in the past. (There was also the fact that Takei being Japanese brought that to the character and it felt like more Hollywood BS that they cast a Korean actor.)  Big kudos to him for pulling it off as well as he did.  Same with Chris Pine, although... I don't know... maybe it's because he doesn't have Shatner's hyperness and fat ego.  He was a good Kirk, but not the Kirk I know (and I blame that more on what the story is about than Pine's abilities).  Zoe Saldana was beautiful and intelligent, and I liked the character, but she wasn't Uhura to me.  Simon Pegg was hilarious, but lacking the obsessive quality that bordered on arrogance that Doohan brought to Scotty.  He was the one case in which I preferred his portrayal over the original actor's.  (Maybe it's because he reminded me more of David Tennant's Doctor Who and Tennant has become my favorite Doctor.)  The one portrayal I didn't like was Anton Yelchin as Chekov... he had the irritating enthusiasm down pat, perhaps the accent was a little much (interesting how like Koenig, he's Russian like the character he portrayed), but he came off too old for what he was portraying... I didn't buy Chekov was only 17 even though the actor was 19 when it was filmed.  Koenig was much older when he played Chekov, but there was a naivete about his Chekov that evoked youth.  Maybe it was as much the fact Koenig has a baby-face.

The story was confusing.  I guess I should've expected that from the producer of  "Lost," one of the more confusing series I've seen on television.  LOL!  Some of the shots... I don't know how to explain/describe this.  In many of the high action scenes, they were too chaotic, too out of focus, felt sloppy.  I kept thinking that in some ways I'm probably going to enjoy this more on a smaller screen when these scenes are more "contained."  They hurt my eyes and I came away with a bit of a headache.  In a weird kind of way, though, they fit the story and evoke a sense of a less technological age, so maybe it was intended. 

Shatner can bitch all he wants.  There was no place for the older Kirk in this story and Shatner would've ruined it.  He's simply not a team player and his inclusion would've detracted rather than blending.  Nimoy's sedateness (and by virtue of that, Spock's) was perfect to connect the old to the new.  He was a powerful figure, kind of awesome in his own way, and yet he didn't rob the actors of any glory nor the story itself.  That's the way Nimoy is and why I'm a fan.

I must say, I totally enjoyed the refreshing change from the Piller/Berman look & feel of the Trek universe.  I admit to complete prejudice on this issue... they made Trek so sterile while they controlled the franchise.  There were some great stories, don't get me wrong, but there seemed so little real humanity in the characters or the universe itself and the best of it was supplied by the tremendous roll of actors over the years who breathed life into them.  I'm so glad they're not involved anymore.

On to some nitty-gritty... ( MAJOR spoilers ahead... )

I'm going to have to look for tracks or the CD itself on this one.  I'm curious.  And I had no idea he'd played on Jero's first release.

Megadeth Guitarist Goes Pop!

My long day in & out in the heat yesterday really did a number on me.  (Today's the first time in two weeks that we haven't gone over 100F... we've been having June heat instead of the warmth of May... we're even having monsoon conditions, which usually doesn't happen until almost July or the first week in July... so strange.)  I was so hyped after seeing the film, but my body was totally wiped out, making for an uncomfortable rest of the day and night.  I've been drowsy since this morning, so just taking it easy and drinking LOTS of water.  Pathetic, but that's what happens since I don't get out & about much.

...and I am totally emotionally drained right now; also, in such an adrenaline rush that my poor dad is experiencing just how much I can run at the mouth and how deep my knowledge of Star Trek canon goes.   I did warn him it was going to be like this.  ^_^

It's going to take me some time... maybe a few hours, maybe a day, maybe after I go drink my first Asahi beer... to think rationally about the film to a point I can write about it.  For now, to those who've asked me, just know that, while I had some problems with it, overall I LOVED IT.  It's killing me that I'm not going to be able to go see it again, too.

Oh, and another thing... I can so see myself going back to writing K/S!  The fandom is surely going to find a new life after this.  I wonder if the 7 boxes of K/S zines I have packed in a closet just went up in value...  :P  (Which reminds me, I should go check out if The Organization For Transformative Works has gotten their K/S archive up & going now.)

I'd love to know why whenever I set myself a task to do, something always comes along to change the horizon (kind of like always being close to out of debt, but something always happens to throw you back).

I told myself I was going to get through the rest of the 1994 jdrama Imoto yo tomorrow, but I just now got my hands on Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters, directed by Paul Schrader, produced by Francis Ford Coppola & George Lucas, music by Philip Glass, and starring Ogata Ken.  I've been hunting for this film for close to 10 years after falling in love with the music (which I knew about long before I knew about the film, Glass fanatic that I am) and people telling me it was difficult to track down.  No shit.  But now I have it.  I'd watch it tonight but 1) I'm having too much fun watching Peter Lorre flicks, and 2) it'll be muy late by the time the Lorre fest ends.

**sigh** Given the choice between a Cinderella story that isn't keeping my attention and a film about Mishima with all that gorgeous Glass music... it's not even a horse race.  I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get through Imoto yo... even with Toyohara playing an obnoxious character.  O_o

Okay, I know there are plenty of stupid dramas out there and the need for entertainment can make things stupider than they need to be, but this season's Rinjo ranks as the stupidest start of a jdrama I've seen yet.  omg...  If it wasn't for the fact that I love the genre, highly respect the person subbing it, and like several of the cast, I would drop it right now.  Unless things change drastically... and maybe the writers just need to get into the swing of things (though I'm not holding my breath)... it's going to be a painful next few weeks.

( major spoilers to episode 1 ahead... )

I'm sooooo happy!  (Well... the weather has me in the dumps, but that's different.  ^_^ )

Finally got a dry-erase board that I could use to write out a weekly schedule for myself (I do so much better with a list and the easier & more visible it is to use & see, the more success I have) and added drama episodes I need to be on the look-out for.  The spring season has already started, but it isn't until this upcoming week that it really gets going in earnest.  A couple weeks after that, we'll have a good idea of what's going to get subbed, at least subbed in a potentially timely fashion.  In a weird sort of way, that's kind of fun to watch unfold.  ^_^

( Winter and spring seasons tend to be the heavy ones for me in terms of how many dramas I decide to collect. )

Meanwhile, across the other pond... the first 2009 Doctor Who special airs tomorrow, Planet of the Dead.  Looking so forward to soothing the pangs of missing a new season.  I still hate that David Tennant is leaving the role at the end of the year, but I understand.  And, oh man, it's looking like a wait till June for the abbreviated Torchwood season.  Five episodes of Capt. Jack & Co. just isn't enough!  I don't care how good it might be.  Some things need quantity as much as quality.  ^_^

It nearly drove me insane getting it, but I got my hands on a really stupid 1984 film that Toyohara did that isn't usually listed in credit lists for him... just skipping through it, I can see why.  I wasn't expecting great cinema from something called Underwear With Holes, but it's even worse than I expected.  LOL!  I don't care... I went after it for the chance to see Toyohara when he was 18.  Just taking a peek, it was worth it.  ^_^

Watched the new episode of "BBC America Reveals" this evening, which was John Barrowman exploring the possibilities about why he's gay, "The Making of Me: John Barrowman."   Aspects of the program were disturbing, mostly in how desperate Barrowman came off in his wanting it to be purely nature rather than any nurture.  I'm sorry, but I still think it is (or can be) a combination of both rather than strictly one or the other, however, when it comes right down to it, it doesn't matter... the world is better off having all kinds of people.

What was so fascinating to me was the idea that science is looking at the possibility of a kind of immunological effect that may cause younger sons to be gay with the more older brothers a guy has, the higher his chance of being gay.  There's long been a strong theory that the level of testosterone a fetus is exposed to during pregnancy effects masculinity & femininity in terms of physiology & brain development, therefore behavior.  The idea that male birth order may have an impact on orientation comes from the theory that with each successive pregnancy where the child is male, a woman's body forms a kind of immunity so that less and less testosterone is produced (because a male fetus is even more "foreign" than a female fetus due to different hormone ratios). 

Makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint and dovetails nicely with some other behavioral/evolutionary psychology studies that suggest homosexuality in humans was actually selected for.  It controls population size, reduces competition, and improves survival of the species by providing caretakers for the group's offspring (as happens in wolf packs and with how long humans take to develop, how necessary).  With each male a woman produces, the stress would increase for reproductive rights, but if each one becomes more hardwired for homosexuality, the less stress within the group.  It's ingenious, really, but too many give too little credit to the ingenuity of nature.

Another interesting study going on about how the length of the ring finger may indicate the level of testosterone someone was exposed to during pregnancy.  In women, being exposed to less, usually the ring and index fingers are the same length (same length meaning that when the hand is held up, the tops of the fingers are at approximately the same level).  In men, the ring finger is usually longer than the index finger and closer to the length of the middle finger.   Among gay men, however, some 60% had the more typical female pattern.  Poor John... he has a man's hands... LOL!  (And, yeah, I immediately sought out pics of Toyohara's hands... his ring finger is longer, too.  ^_^ )

I have some issues about some of the tests they gave John... I think testing things like verbal and spatial capacities can be skewed way too much by culture and individual experience.  John scores high in verbal tests, which is typically higher in women, but is it because his brain is more feminized or because he's been involved in theatre most of his life and exposed so much to language?  I also don't think too highly of his navigational skills... I thought he was typically male as he gave directions to his driver, but maybe it's just because he made it so complex.  Maybe what made the behavioralist regard him as more feminine in that respect was his putting their position into context with the map rather than seeing things 2-dimensionally (and getting lost).  I couldn't help but laugh as John kept twisting the map around.

It was a fun hour.  Any hour with John Barrowman is a delight.  ^_^  (What a freaky thing to hear him speak like a Scotsman with his family!)

To my buddy, Barb, it's a damn shame we can't get together in Tampa for this one!  ^_^

Personally, I think the Steelers will win, but frankly, I'm still so stunned that Arizona made it this far that I'm willing to believe in miracles.

So I'm channel-surfing and ended up staying on Logo because an anime was on Alien Boot Camp.  I only got to see the last 15 minutes or so, but apparently it was a broadcast of the OAV Fake, based on a popular manga about two NY cops who become partners in more ways than one.  What I saw was really fun and I'd like to see the whole thing... will be looking for a rebroadcast.

Decided to check the Logo website for more information about it and, omg, they have short (very short) clips from the three eps of another anime that I have GOT to track down,  Fuyu no semi (Winter Cicada).  As soon as the first clip started, I recognized the time period (and the animation... looks like the same people who did RK) and being on Logo, I knew it has to have a gay theme.  Looks really cool.  If it's been mentioned before, I was totally brain-dead at the time.  Don't have time right now, but I plan on seeing if I can track this one down asap.  (information on ANN ... brief episode clips on Logo, starting with ep 1)

Majel Barrett Roddenberry died today.

Christine Chapel won't be chasing after Spock anymore...

I hate it when someone thinks that just because they're older, they know better and/or only their opinion is right/worthwhile.  I'm actually a few years older than the person pissing me off and the nasty side of me would so love to tell him that, but it wouldn't change a damn thing, so why bother.  (I'm old enough to know better???  LOL!!!!)  This person has also decided that anyone who bad-mouths Hollywood & US remakes of television programs from other countries is doing so only because it's the "popular" attitude to have.  Excuse me, jack-ass, but I'm entitled to the opinion I have that's based on what I see and if it's "fashionable" then that just might be because that's what Hollywood & its small screen associates have been producing way too much of in recent years.  There's good reason why I live off of UK and Japanese programming.  Yes, they're more than capable of producing crap, too, but at the very least their crap has the advantage of being different.  (And, frankly, the larger part of UK & Japanese programming is just like US programming and I don't watch it for the same reasons I don't watch very much US stuff.  When it comes to dramas, however, I much prefer their format of changing programming seasons and getting a complete story... too many US dramas are simply primetime soap operas that go on and on and on.)

Can we bump up the release date of the new Tom Cruise movie, please, just so I don't have to see the promos for it every 10 minutes no matter what channel I'm on?  I agreed with the protests of von Stauffenberg's descendants in regards to their concerns about Cruise doing the film before it even started filming and seeing the promos... gads, it looks SO BAD!  I absolutely cannot buy into his portrayal... he looks like just some hyper-patriotic American rather than a German desperate to save the honor of his country.  I know there are people who think he sucks as an actor.  I'm not one of them... I've enjoyed most of his performances... but this was simply not a role meant for him.  It's like how I feel about Leonardo DiCaprio.  Incredible actor.. blew me away in What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Marvin's Room ... but he so cannot do historical dramas.

Am I the only one who thinks there's some potential danger in all these ads for 5-Hour Energy with athletes talking about how they use it all the time?  (Yeah, like, I really want to be on the same track as a fellow driver who drinks it before a race!) Screw diet, exercise and actual sleep... just drink something instead.  It's scary considering the ads are shown all through the Adult Swim program slot on Cartoon Network, which largely targets a teen-age/twenty-something demographic.  The cable channels, in general, are inundated with them, though.

/bitch mode ^_^

EDIT: Okay, so not quite out of bitch mode.  No blacks in England???  Hello???  Tonight's ep of Venture Brothers (a guilty pleasure of mine) has a black character in it who says there are no blacks in England.  The writers are obviously ignorant of English demographics (or not doing enough to show it's a joke).  It's beginning to seem like the ratio may be closer in England these days than in the US.  I've been sitting here thinking about it and there isn't a single program I've seen in several years out of the UK that hasn't had blacks involved (and I'm not talking about Pakistanis or other Indian subcontinent groups).  Just a few hours of watching BBC America would dispel any ignorance about the presence of blacks in England.  I was more amazed when "Torchwood" came on with a regular Japanese character... she was an unexpected pleasure.  ^_^  Tosh and Jack would've made an interesting fling.  I loved it when they got stuck together in WW2 London.

Damn... only 5 eps of "Torchwood" coming in March.  The stupidity of that knows no words.