Korean Zen Cinema

Last night I finished watching the 1989 film Why Has Bodhi Dharma Left for the East? [IMDB, Amazon], a film I've been wanting to watch since I glimpsed the cover in the library. It has comparisons to Ozu (whose films I've not seen) and Tarkovsky (who did Solaris [IMDB], which I love).

The Korean title is Dharmaga tongjoguro kan kkadalgun. Yong-Kyun Bae [IMDB] is the Director, Writer, Cinematographer & Editor, and took 7 years and his own funding for the film. Not entirely unlike Mike Jittlov.

Like Solaris, this needs multiple viewings.

Looking over Solaris, at the IMDB, it's soon going to be time to watch this again. I wish I had the VHS and DVD versions myself. Lots of subtile changes between them. I remember how the VHS version had both letterboxing bars at the bottom to allow a bigger area for subtitling. None of the titles were on the picture. It's funny to remember watching Return of the Jedi in the theater and seeing the subtitles over the picture. But when you watch it on DVD in widescreen, the subtitles are below the picture, in the black bar.

Methinks there is something wrong with blogger again. The photo is showing here in the edit of my post, but not on the view of the blog. Also, the bold is gone. At first, I thought that an issue with the template I'm using. Perhaps I should go back to my old tripod page after all. I've got better control there.

Make your own Venture Bros Bonus Audio CD

The Venture Bros has to be one of the best shows on TV and sadly, the new season won't be on Adult Swim until "winter" which could mean late 2007 or early 2008. I have season 1 and I still need to get the actual DVDs of season 2, even though it's been out for 3 months and a couple of days. There are quite a few extra songs and such out on the net and if you put them all together, it makes a nifty bonus CD. I was going to post this over a year ago and everytime I'd get close, I'd find something else to add. As it is I even found another person's blog entry in the same vain, but my list has a few more things. They are grouped in show order, then in order of release and the extra commentary is at the end. Feel free to choose your own order:

1. Venture Bros Open - 0:53 (ZIP file) [Adult Swim]
2. Revv Me Up - 4:09 ("Mid-Life Chrysalis", episode 8 - Brocks workout song) [Offical Site]
3. Look Away - 2:02 ("Return to Spider-Skull Island", episode 13 - end of season 1) [Offical Site] or (ZIP file) from [Adult Swim]
4. Everybody's Free - 3:32 ("Powerless in the Face of Death", episode 14 - start of season 2) [YTMND]
5. Mitre Storm - 3:04 ("I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills" - episode 23) [Offical Site]
6. Wedding Song - 3:20 ("Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part I)" - episode 25) [QuickStop]
7. Venture Bros Close - 0:33 (ZIP file) [Adult Swim]
8. Monarch Prison Phone Call to Henchmen - 3:21 [IGN]
9. Monarch Prison Phone Call to Dr. Girlfriend - 3:11 [IGN]
10. Little Drummer Boy - 4:48 (Christmas 2004) [IGN] or [QuickStop]
11. Hard Candy Christmas - 5:08 (Christmas 2005) [IGN] or [QuickStop]
12. Venture Aid - 3:07 (Christmas 2006) [QuickStop]
13. Lost Commentary (1x07) - 23:13 ("Home Insecurity" - episode 3) [QuickStop]

Yes, "Everybody's Free" by Aquagen featuring Rozalla is not actually a freebie. But I'm not telling you to save it.

There are plenty of graphics out there to make a nice cover for it. Of course, you can still go and and get your own Brock Sampson OSI ID at the official Venture Brothers website.

Westbridge Camera Club & Women Astronauts

I met David at the camera club meeting and afterward were were discussing, among other things, a picture of Kathy Sullivan. I found some links out at GRIN (GReat Images in NASA). There are 50 photos specifically on women here. I put these pretty much in chronological order. Links for the photos in various sizes are at the bottom of the pages. The two I was talking about of Kathy are numbers 4 and 7:

1. Jerrie Cobb Poses beside Mercury Capsule
2. Nichelle Nichols, NASA Recruiter
3. First Class of Female Astronauts
4. Kathryn Sullivan Sets Altitude Record
5. Ride on the Flight Deck
6. Sullivan and Ride Show Sleep Restraints
7. Sullivan Views the Earth
8. Christa McAuliffe and Barbara Morgan
9. Christa McAuliffe Experiences Weightlessness During KC-135 Flight
10. Female Astronauts

Hope Vitellas is on MySpace

I was listening to some small sample clips of Hope Vitellas and went out to see if she's added anyting new. Her official site is suspended for now. What the _? I checked and she does have a MySpace site here. I still need to get her CD from last year. She's got presence!

I'll go update my post in June 2006 and put the link there too.

Sydney Forest, where are you?

I'm surprised I've not watched Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo no takkyûbin @ IMDB) since the wife and daughter have been in China. I do need to watch A Mighty Wind and return it tomorrow, so I shouldn't be posting now, but I am. Thinking about Kiki made me think of the new beginning and ending music for the Disney VHS release back on 1 September 1998. (That version was Pan and Scan. On 29 September they released the widescreen and I should have waited. Of course there was also the subtitled widescreen VHS that I didn't get either.)

The songs Soaring, used for the opening, and I'm Gonna Fly, used for the ending, were sung by Sydney Forest. I like the songs in the original Japanese but these are good too. One of the things Disney/Buena Vista did right. (Some of the other musical changes are good too.) Back in 2000, you could order a CD from her site called "Collected Film and Television Works" for $5 that had those two songs and three others by her. The CD is listed at here at nausicaa.net at the bottom.

I went out and using the mp3 search on AltaVista, you can find very good quality (192 k) versions of these two songs:

• Soaring - you need to search the page
• I'm Gonna Fly

I'd still like the original CD. Looking over the Internet Archive, her original site http://www.sydneyforest.com/ was up from at least 9 August 1999 to 2 August 2002 - looks like it was registed for 4 years. There is an email sydmail@aol.com, but it just bounced.

Her IMDB page shows nothing since 2004. I wish I could find her site.

TV Saturday Morning

Up late last night, but up in time to talk with the wife on the phone. The daughter is not behaving as she should and so she's "in jail". That is, in her room, with nothing to do, except for meals and the bathroom.

The history channel ran "Beyond the War of the Worlds" about Mars. It featured Jeff Wayne's musical version of "The War of the Worlds" which is a 2006 computer animated movie.

Flipping channels and I see that Khaled Hosseini is on C-SPAN2's "Book TV" talking about "A Thousand Splendid Suns". It is from 5/24/07 recored in Philidelphia. He's reading the first chapter. But I've got things to do and I'm going to turn it off and either listen to the radio or to a movie that I've seen and don't need to watch. Maybe. I may just listen in, as it's not too distracting.

(Why can't I put in a title for this entry? That's weird. It's not letting me in the field with IE or Firefox.)

At the showing of Transformers there was a 7th trailer for an untitled movie produced by J.J. Abrams. There is an entry on IMDB simply called "Untitled J.J. Abrams Project". The working title or code name is "Cloverfield", "Clover" or "Parasite". The offical site seems to be http://www.1-18-08.com/, but there is only a photo there. And the "analysis" of the space between the two women in the picture is total conjecture. I say it's nothing at all of any significance.

Youtube.com has copies of the trailer but they are being taken down soon after being put up. In one comment, some pointed a much better copy here, but it has the beginning cut off. Keepvid.com won't download it. But it does look quite a bit better.

Transformers in 25 words or less

Here's my nutshell review:

Transformers is the movie I had hoped Independence Day was going to be
eleven years ago.

Sixteens words. For me, that is amazing.

In two words: "Wicked cool!"

(written 7/16/2007; back-dated to 7/4/2007)

Powerbook Screen Problems

My wife is having issues with the Mac. I think the screen is going out. Here are a couple of pictures:

It looks like we will be replacing the screen when she gets back from China.