Edmund Yeo

Swifty’s blog is all about reviews right? So indubitably, I, the honorable guest blogger, have to do my part in reviewing something too. Let’s see…what should I review? Music? Books? Movies? Me? I know! Today, I shall review…

It’s implausibly cramped in here but I want to pretend like I’m thin and petite hence I will not grumble at all about my squashed face. Betcha didn’t know May Zhee could type with her breasts! Okay too much info. Anyway, one of the good things that come out of being callously treated like a tomato all the way to India is…I get to broadcast to you what Swifty has inside his suitcase, which I am deigning to do in munificent amounts. *cue evil Powerpuff Girls music* Hey, dude, no one asked you to stuff the hot girl in a suitcase! Question is, are you ready for it? Can you handle the truth? Are you up for it? Can you take it? Will you still want to know what’s inside if I keep doing this? Ahem. Swifty keeps skeletons in his suitcase. *horror* And all this while you thought skeletons lived in closets. *horror, consternation, trepidation, nausea (you, not me)* Funny thing though, all the skeletons seem to be holding laptops, just like me, and getting their faces squashed by another skeleton

Heya, I'm posting this from an Internet cafe at Bangalore, India. I was at this Tibetan Colony few hours away from the city during the past few weeks, hence the lack of Internet access. I took lots of wonderful photos and videos, which I hope I can upload tomorrow. I won't actually return to Malaysia until the 8th of February, Justin's incapable of posting that much (seemingly), not wanting to keep my loyal Swiftyholics waiting, I have enlisted the help of a guestblogger, give a warm welcome to the sensational, the phenomenal, Malaysian literary rising star, 15-year-old (16 this year) novelist Lim May Zhee ! (I've spoken about her, and posted a video of her here ) On the other hand, my sister will also be handling some guestblogging duties. Yes... my blog has now officially been taken over by teenage girls.

Minori Kawasaki's The World Sinks Except Japan 日本以外全部沉没 is the parody of last year's Japanese blockbuster, Japan Sinks! 日本沉没 (aka The Sinking of Japan ), which I recently reviewed . Definitely more lo-fi and audacious than the latter, watching The World Sinks Except Japan reinforced my opinion that there's no one crazier than the Japanese!

(From left to right: Sonim, hiro, Aya Hirayama, Saeko) I watched Backdancers! during my flight back from Shanghai, it was the first film I chose from the in-flight entertainment after finding out that it starred Hiroko Shimabukuro, now known by most only as hiro, member of the now disbanded Japanese girl group, SPEED. She who was once an object of my foolish teenage infatuation, the inspiration of my many creative works, my first attempt in video editing , my first attempt in screenwriting, my first attempt in fanfiction. Ah, the foolish whims of an ignorant teenage boy, unsure back then what his true dreams were, only to slowly get into writing and filmmaking, things he fantasized as a child, all because of her.

(Back from Shanghai! Finishing up a review that took me three nights to complete!) Babel had just won the Best Drama award at the Golden Globes last night. Howsy noted my lack of Golden Globes prediction this year, to the few who cared, I make my predictions, but on a message board instead of this blog, because I am insecure, and I feel rotten when my lifelong personal interest in film awards shows is greeted with indifference and disinterest. So yes, my predictions were, as usual, pretty good, getting 9 out of 12 categories correct (I was wrong about Best Drama, Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film). So, I immediately went to watch Babel upon learning of its victory, because my ego does not permit me to NOT see an Oscar frontrunner when the Oscar nominees are about to be announced. I am so insecure that I can only derive pleasure from telling people things like 'hah! i've seen all five of the Oscar Best Picture nominees! and you haven't neener neener

One of the advantages of getting heavily into J-Pop is that, almost unconsciously, I've started to appreciate and enjoy musical genres I once scorned. When I was a teenager, anything remotely pop or commercial was anathema to me, and R&B was the worst of the worst. R&B was irritating screaming melismatic female voices, moronic beats, grating lyrics. R&B was something listened to by people I held in contempt. If you said your favorite music was R&B, I probably wouldn't like much else about you, either, and if you had of given me Crystal Kay's 2006 second album Call Me Miss as recently as five years ago, I probably would have spat in your face.

I went to the Peace Hotel two nights ago to watch the Old Jazz Band , which, according to Peace Hotel's webpage , is one of the most famous jazz bands in Shanghai. They have also performed for (from the webpage) former USA president Mr. Carter and Mr.Reagan,the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin,the Australian Prime Minister Paul Kyten, the Hollend Prime Minister Viam Kirk. And the presidents from Italy, Portugal, Israel, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico. I myself saw a photo they took with Bill and Hillary Clinton hanging on the walls.

Also known as The Sinking of Japan , Japan Sinks 日本沉没 , the most expensive Japanese movie ever (I heard), is Japan's answer to Korean and Hollywood movies that usually appeal to international audiences. It is a soulless, propagandistic blockbuster that sang praises of Japanese culture (and the country), displaying the sheer Samurai-like courage of Japanese people and their subtle and ridiculously honourable approaches in romance for the not-too-intelligent audiences. The opening credits were played over various famous landscapes and sceneries of Japan, all my years of watching Japanese films and never have I ever seen that many Japanese landmarks crammed in one film, let alone one montage.

Video of my second day in Hangzhou, China Part 1 of my adventures in China is here . What you'll see in this video:

Edmund Yeo in China 2007 (part 1) Well, I'm currently in Shanghai, turned out that I wasn't able to get Internet access at my hotel in Hangzhou, thus the lack of updates. But as I've promised, I'll be posting up videos of my vacation in China so I can share the wonders I've witnessed with everyone else. Anyway, here are what you'll see in the video.

I have my problems with Koda Kumi. Apart from her lacking a certain...how to put this tactfully, star quality (i.e. if she wasn't famous already...) and relying on an obvious gimmick (feigned sluttiness), I've come around to much of her music, even if it struck me as undistinguished at first. The production is often good, befitting an Avex artist; and KK is talented, even if the hooks sometimes take a while to sink in. She tried out for Morning Musume and was rejected, yet that actually reflects well on her: no one in H!P can really sing like her; their voices need to be massed together to achieve any real resonance or tone. But KK is more than capable of carrying a track, and her voice is distinctive.

Listened to their entire discography over the course of like six hours. Think I just found my new favorite band. Can't be bothered to write an in-depth entry. Just...wow. As much 'ink jizz' as a site like Pitchfork expends over a band like Deerhoof , you wonder what they'd make of JAM or ( the previously discussed on this site ) Ego Wrappin'. I mean, 'Judy is a Tank Girl'? Just brilliant... Get Warp or The Power Source if you want to hear Japanese music completely overstepping national bounds and stacking up against anything on a world stage.

On my recommendation, Craig of Your Opinion Doesn't Count has just read and provided a three-part review of Tanizaki's Naomi , analogizing the novel to the idol world. His interpretation is highly original and provocative, and there's definitely some kind of graduate-paper potential in there somewhere about idol-continuity in Japanese culture over the course of the twentieth century. Was Tanizaki a proto-wota?

Night At The Museum is the last film I saw on 2006, not a spectacular way to end the year (it's not on my top 10 favourite 2006 films list ), but not exactly a bad way (it's not on my top 10 disappointing 2006 films list ) either. It's just what it is, popcorn entertainment meant for an entire family.