Monday, September 06, 2004

George Iida's Dragon Head
Dragon Head

it's hard to say whether or not i truly took advantage of the 3-day weekend. if sleeping whenever on a whim (and yet staying awake until 6AM), bidding on and winning more needless items on ebay, viewing anime torrents and watching a few DVD movies all count then i made out pretty well. feeling somewhat guilty after 2.5 solid days of indulgence i decided to do something productive today and worked on my frontroom for a large part of day.

my ghetto shelves are down to two final boards which i intend to eliminate tomorrow evening and begin the massive rearrangement. i managed to pack up _all_ my micronauts which was a tad bittersweet: happy to finally get them packed; sad b/c i've spent a lot of effort (and coin) to acquire my micros and not having them on display sucks. but it had to be done. i'm still undecided as to whether to make the leap and get the proper shelves i want or wait until i move to a new apt. i bailed out of moving to LA this summer for a few reasons and one was b/c i thought there was a possibility of moving to a different, more desirable locale. but i'm thinking that dream is quickly fading and i may be stuck here in the windy city a lot longer than i planned. so... what to do?

i definitely do not want to continue living in my current craphole. besides growing to hate my apt i've developed a major aversion to my neighbors and apt location. i wish i knew that i was going to be moving to a whole other place so i'd had least have some assurance in making my plans. ugh. i'm tired of it.

Nobou from Dragon Head mangavisited The Glen saturday evening w/some friends. such a peculiar place it is! residing in the middle of Glenview some city planners took the old vacated Naval Air Station and restored it into a spanking new modern *urban* suburban mini-town. and it's an odd place b/c there's no 'tweeners to found on the hopping weekend nights; it's all teens and +40 set. our party seemed to be the only representation of our age group during the crowded evening. just bizarre.

caught Hero yesterday at Crown Village and as expected, it's simply gorgeous on the big screen. and this was despite a piss poor screening (subtitles cropped off initially than overcorrected so that the top of screen was cropped; dumbasses!). theater was surprisingly full! not surprisingly it took top box office honors again (good!! take note, miramax, next time you consider sitting on a film for 2 fucking years. assholes).

Spy Girltoday i finally finished watching Dragon Head (over 3 sittings). it wasn't an easy film for me to watch. best described as twisted spin on Day After Tomorrow meets 28 Days Later post-apocalyptic theme set in modern Japan the flick is dreary, bleak, hopeless, grim, etc (read the review story & *spoiler* warning!). based on a manga series by Mochizuki Minetaro, Dragon Head is not a bad movie by any stretch just very desperate. there was a tremendous amount of fanfare around this flick when it was released in Japan last year and i'm not sure why (maybe from the popularity of the manga?) b/c it's not particularly all that great but is worth watching. and the sets and demolished landscapes were done extremely well.

after that i watched the Korean comedy Spy Girl which kept me captivated for the entire 2hrs (not easily done these days). this is not a great movie but very watchable and reminded me of lot of the late 80s Patrick Dempsey teen/romance-comedies (Loverboy, Can't Buy Me Love, etc.) of which i am rather fond of, good or bad. read this synopsis and you'll understand what i'm talking about:

synopsis of Spy Girl

Jeong-hwa Kim in the lead "spygirl" role is the ice queen hottie that you expect will melt by films end. but Spy Girl sidesteps the easy "hollywood" ending offering a sly finale (possibly signaling a sequel; hell, they sequeled My Wife The Gangster so why not?). i recommend it, natch. check the review here (slight *spoiler* warning).

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