#// of course ozus would be up for it they love money

[moonridge]

[PROFIT] ASTARION suggests selling the completed crown. (if they ever get to complete it, that's it ❤️)

( equinox event prompts. || accepting! )

　　　　　　　　　*

　　　❝ sell it? ❞ ozus regards astarion with a wide-eyed look and a slightly bewildered part of their lips. the deer-in-headlights look doesn't last for much longer before they relax a bit, a smile curling onto their lips. ❝ how much do you think we could get for it? a lot? ❞

　　　　　　　　　*

　　　　　　　　　　 —@charmsperson—

[secretshinigami]

Late Night Show

Title: Late Night Show Author: @complicatedmerary For: @fogspecs Pairings/Characters: Misa/Takada tease, Kiyomi Takada, Misa Amane, Hitoshi Demegawa (cameo), Light Yagami (mentioned only) Rating/Warnings: Teen and Up, alcohol mention, Demegawa being a gross boss, tabloid gossip nonsense, mean girl behavior, mild language, mild violence Prompt: Misa and Takada have romantic tension between them. Author’s notes: Misa and Takada, you say? Don’t mind if I do! As I was drafting ideas for the offered prompts, it occurred to me that the only time Misa and Takada met in canon was when Misa had no memories of being Kira. If we are being honest, that was a missed opportunity. Then, I thought, what if Misa has her memories intact, but Takada is not Kira’s spokeswoman? How will their dynamic change? Hope you enjoy!

______________________________________

“I’m telling you, Miss Takada, with your great assets and even greater personality, you will have my audience eating at the palm of our hands. My show has been craving a female perspective on scandalous gossip, you have no idea how much hate mail I receive for being unfair to these airheaded celebrities. If we get this right, no one will ever accuse me of having no substance, we are respectable journalists, dammit!”

Kiyomi Takada had barely started her first day of work and she already regretted every second of it. Truth be told, it was not a regular job, it was a weird hybrid of an internship that she had to fight to be eligible for credit and an arduous job that guaranteed humiliating tasks and low pay. The real reward is experience, she kept telling herself over and over as she reluctantly took this opportunity after being rejected by reputable news network stations. She had the nagging suspicion that Hitoshi Demegawa only chose her based on her looks rather than her impeccable academic record, but at this point it was too late to challenge this. No, she had to swallow her pride if she wanted to prove herself to be worthy of broadcasting intellectual journalism in the next few years.

“Hey, hey, what’s with the gloomy face?” Demegawa snapped his fingers close to Takada’s nose, startling her. “Celebrity gossip is supposed to be fun! Well, unless I report the usual actor breakdown, but that’s just show business, no one is truly getting hurt anyway.” He chuckled, holding himself by his belly.

Takada barely flinched.

“Come on, I’m just joking, don’t be so serious. We have something juicy coming up in thirty minutes and I need you to familiarize yourself with the news that has happened this morning.” Demegawa stopped speaking, gave Takada a nefarious grin, then patted her cheek as if she were a kid. “How about smiling for once? You will fit right in when people don’t see you as an ice queen.” He turned to the side and snapped his fingers repeatedly. “Everyone should be getting their makeup done, don’t you dare step out if your face is a mess!”

She took note of scrubbing her cheek raw until there was no trace of his dirty hand.

~~~

Takada looked over her script as her makeup artist fluffed some blush across her cheekbones. She wasn’t the type to focus on such frivolous things, but if she had to play the role of the tabloid host darling, she will gladly do so to keep Demegawa satisfied. Her credit and career depended on it.

She flipped the page with a lack of interest; Hideki Ryuga was out of the country for the third time this month? It wouldn’t surprise her if he ended up caught in a money laundering scheme, he seemed to be just that dumb. Next up, was A-list actress, Suki Aragaki, marrying his longtime beau, movie director, Kenji Ozu, after enduring a nasty love triangle that ended Ozu’s decade-long marriage. Congratulations, I guess, Kiyomi snorted, rolling her eyes at the absurdity.

She continued flipping until a familiar name made her stop on her tracks. Misa Amane. Without realizing it, her knuckles turned white as she gripped the script, and her jaw clenched painfully.

“Are you alright, Miss Takada?” The makeup artist placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Of course,” Takada let out a deep breath as her anger simmered down. “I’m just nervous, that’s all.”

The makeup artist nodded. “I understand. Don’t let Demegawa intimidate you, he is quite sweet once you get to know him.”

That was doubtful, but she was not about to argue, her attention was somewhere else. Misa Amane. The same silly model who appeared on campus and snatched Light Yagami away from her. To make matters worse, Amane randomly texted her out of nowhere months ago to let her and all of Light’s “other girls” know (which came as a disturbing revelation to her) that Light asked her to move in together and to back off. Why did Light love such an insecure, clingy woman? What could they possibly have in common besides good looks? And her classmates dared to call her superficial, how laughable.

As she kept reading the script, the gloom evaporated like a burst bubble. Misa Amane has been caught buying a pregnancy test despite declaring over the weekend at the premiere of her latest movie that she and her private boyfriend were waiting till marriage. Are we expecting wedding bells for the lovely couple, or did they marry in secret already to avoid the ire of her rabid fanboys? Unless there is something more sinister going on and her boyfriend is not the father of that baby. Perhaps that’s why Hideki Ryuga is out of the country, he is running away from his duty as a father! Those two have been fighting the persistent rumors of romance on set and that might settle it once and for all. Whoever the baby’s father is, congratulations to Misa Amane and her bundle of joy. We can’t wait to have more single mothers in the entertainment industry, such an underrepresented group in our society!

Takada tried to stifle her giggles between her fingers, but her amusement couldn’t be contained. For once Demegawa’s brutal commentary came in handy, there was no way Misa Amane could recover from this scandal. If there was anything juicier than an affair, it was a pregnancy resulting from the affair!

Oh, tonight’s show was going to be so much fun.

~~~

“It just does not make any sense, Miss Takada,” Teppei, her co-host, shook his head. “How can this movie be such a critical success when every review I have seen declared it the worst movie of the year even though we are halfway there? Who is bribing the industry to keep promoting it on television when no one wanted this movie to be made in the first place? It is a conspiracy; I am so sure of it.”

Takada pretended to act interested in the topic and simply smiled widely. She barely met Teppei today and she finally had the confirmation that she was dreading: He was a certified spoiled brat who assumed himself to be the greatest thing that has ever happened to comedy. The son of a politician, he got far enough to step into movies and television because his father left him a bottomless pit of money. He wasn’t good looking, so he relied on his short stature and misogynistic jokes to compensate for the lack of attention he never received in the spotlight. It worked perfectly enough to be perceived as harmless and now he got to hang out with late night show comedians and tour around the country. Takada wondered for how long mediocrity was going to be standard. If he were someone else, Demegawa would have no doubt chewed him out, but money and publicity ruled in his greedy heart.

“The real conspiracy is,” Takada pointed at the screen, a photo of Hideki Ryuga and Misa Amane on set, holding hands. “What is up with these two? They keep stating over and over that there is no romance, but I have yet to see her publicly with her supposed boyfriend. What exactly is she hiding?” The next slide showed a paparazzi shot of Misa Amane allegedly going to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test.

The audience gasped loudly, as expected, thanks to the teleprompter.

“Woah,” Teppei spun around dramatically. “Didn’t she say she was waiting till marriage?”

“It makes you wonder why Hideki Ryuga is out of the country for the third time this week,” Takada gasped. “What are the odds that he found out about her pregnancy and is panicking about the possibility of being a father?”

“If that’s not the case, then she married her boyfriend in secret to keep up with her indiscretion and avoid the ire of her fans.” Teppei covered his mouth and giggled like a schoolboy. “Sucks for him because if they were supposed to be celibate, then that’s Ryuga’s baby! Man, things are not going well for Misa Amane!”

“Congratulations to Misa Amane and her bundle of joy,” Takada recited the script with unnecessary enthusiasm. “We can’t wait to have more single mothers in the entertainment industry, such an underrepresented group in our society!”

The phone rang on the set, which meant that a fan of the show had the opportunity to give their perspective on the topic. This was Demegawa’s idea to encourage “respectful dialogue” on live television, but Takada knew better: It was to enforce the trashiness of the show with inflammatory controversy, and there was no doubt one of Misa’s fanboys was calling to defend her “honor and dignity.”

Yeah, you cannot defend something that never existed, Takada thought bitterly.

“Looks like we struck a nerve,” She hummed and picked up the phone, setting it to onset speaker. “Yes, how can we help you?”

“YOU DISGUSTING, UGLY BITCH!” A shrill voice echoed around the studio, creating some feedback on the boom microphones. “I ought to sue every single of you for defamation of character! I would never cheat on my boyfriend, especially not with Hideki Ryuga! You are all sick in the head for lying this bad!”

Takada couldn’t help the grin that was plastered on her face … No one could mistake that voice to someone else. So, Misa Amane was the type of celebrity who watched gossip shows to hear if she was relevant? This was just too hilarious and unsurprising for her.

“Sorry, Miss Amane, we are just reporting the news,” she said coolly. “We are not fond of frivolous lawsuits, so I ask you to respect the press.”

“YOU ARE NOT REPORTING ‘NEWS’, YOU ARE SPREADING GARBAGE!” There was a brief silence on the other line, and then the sound of chugging down a liquid echoed on the speaker. “You are just jealous that I’m in a committed relationship and you are stuck with your misery,” Misa’s words were slurred. “How about spreading some good news? Whatever happened to being kind?”

“With all due respect, Miss Amane,” Teppei had a smug grin on his face. “You are in the entertainment industry; we don’t owe you kindness. If you can’t handle criticism, maybe being a celebrity is not the job for you.”

Takada covered her mouth, hiding the twitch on her lips that she couldn’t contain any longer. Was this truly the end for Misa Amane? No one seemed to be on Misa’s side, and she was humiliating herself on live television. Things were finally looking up for her.

“Oh, shut up, Teppei, no one likes you, you are only relevant because of your daddy,” Misa shot back. “And as for you, Kiyomi Takada, my boyfriend will never be with you, he prefers me, he said so himself, so knock it off.”

The bombshell caused a murmur amongst the audience and Takada stiffened on the spot. No, she was not going to let Misa Amane win this fight, not now, not ever.

“Wow, Miss Amane, are you having a mental breakdown?” She chuckled. “Jealousy is not part of a healthy relationship, it’s not good that you are projecting your insecurities on me. We don’t even know each other.”

“That’s it! I’m going down to Sakura TV, find you, and kick your butt! You’ll be sorry for messing with me—”

“Like that’s ever going to happen.” And with that, she slammed the phone and there was nothing but the dial and laughter from the audience.

She wondered if she ruined her chances of ever being taken seriously, but one glance at Demegawa’s blissful face told her everything she needed to know: This episode was one for the books.  

~~~

It was close to midnight when the show finally ended, and Takada stayed overtime to talk to Demegawa about the possibility of hosting the show by herself. He said he would think about it, but he couldn’t guarantee anything despite the reception. That was good enough for her. For now.

As she approached the parking lot, she heard footsteps to her left, but there were so light that for a second, she thought she imagined it in her head. She was tired and it had been a long and overexciting night, she couldn’t wait to go home and sleep on her bed.

“There you are!”

Takada turned around and she couldn’t believe what she saw: Staring at her with malice was Misa Amane, standing up straight with her legs apart, and clenched fists.

“I told you I was going to find you and kick your butt! Now, don’t you dare move!” Misa sprinted forward with so much velocity on her direction, her gaze still focused.

Takada panicked for a few moments, darting her head back and forth, looking for a way out. Instinctively, she raised her arms across her face to defend it and swung her leg on any direction her adrenaline asked her to do, her eyes closed.

It all happened so fast: As Misa aimed to kick Takada on the shin, she tripped on Takada’s swinging foot, and she landed on the concrete, stomach down.

Takada opened her eyes when she heard the agonizing whines below her and gasped at the sight of Misa laying flatly in the middle of the parking lot. Oh, God, I didn’t hurt her that bad, did I?

“Are you alright?” She felt pathetic; of course, she was not alright, she just tripped her with her foot, what a terrible question!

“Here, let me help you—”

“Don’t touch me!” Misa shrugged her off as she managed to stand on her own. Well, just barely, she couldn’t maintain her balance as she tried to step away towards the street.

Despite hating that woman with a burning intensity, she was not going to let Misa walk by herself with injuries all over her, especially in such a shady area. No, if she drove away and Misa ended up missing (or worse, dead) because she was alone, she could no longer call herself a virtuous person.

“You are not going anywhere. Come on, I need to take you home.” Takada dragged Misa roughly by the arm towards her car.

“Let me go!” Misa tried to resist her, but her balance betrayed her. “I’m not going to tell you where I live, you are going to stalk Light if you know!”

God, would she stop being so freaking loud?

“Either you tell me where you live, or you have no choice but to spend the night in this parking lot,” She pushed Misa inside the car and dropped her legs on the passenger seat. She then held her arms as she put the seatbelt over her body.

“I don’t have time for this, you are a grown woman, act like it—” She caught a whiff of cheap wine on Misa’s breath. “Ugh, so you are drunk. That’s it, I’m going to drive all around the city until you tell me where I should drop you. I’m not stopping until you get over yourself.”

~~~

The drive did go longer than expected; it was one in the morning and Misa refused to speak one word to her. Two could play the game, Takada did not say one word either. The only sound filling out the silence was the pop radio station playing the same song for the third time. At this point, she wondered if she will ever get peace for at least trying to help another woman out.

“I did mean what I said on the phone,” Misa murmured quietly. “Light does not want you, he never did.”

Why was she bringing that up now? Why did it matter after she ignored her this time entire time?

“I don’t care,” Takada rolled her eyes. “You don’t need to do this, you have him, why isn’t that enough for you?”

“It’s easy for you to say,” Misa snorted. “He dumps you and you act like it never happened. If Light were to dump me, I don’t think I would want to continue living.”

Good lord, this woman is insane.

“You want to know what the worst part is?” Tears suddenly rolled down her eyes. “The reason why I don’t want you to drop me to my apartment is because you will not find him there. He has been acting so weird since—” She shook her head. “No, he is a man, this is a man thing. It’s normal for your boyfriend to not spend every night together, right?”

Takada really wanted to say, no, it was not normal, but she didn’t know what she could possibly say that could make this situation better. She didn’t ask for this personal information, this was none of her business. And yet, why did she want to hear more about Light’s inability to keep his own girlfriend happy? What the hell was wrong with him?

“I’m not pregnant, you know,” Misa whispered, and Takada’s glanced at her, confused. “We have tried—Well, I tried my best to let that happen. I’ve been so hopeful that maybe if we have a baby together, we will be bonded for life. That, maybe, just maybe, he would look at me differently. Yes, I did buy that pregnancy test, and yes, the photos are real, but I’m not pregnant. Are you happy now? You got your little revenge by making fun of me, now I’m asking the media to do the same.”

It was hard to swallow, her throat was so dry. She couldn’t believe this, but she felt guilt. Guilt for even entertaining the idea of messing up someone’s life in such a public manner. Guilt for doing that in the first place for the sake of ratings!

Sorry was not going to be enough, she wasn’t even sure what was she apologizing for. Sorry I tripped you with my foot? Sorry I bullied you so badly that you had to get drunk to deal with the pain on live television? Sorry Light Yagami is not a perfect man? She felt nothing, anything that she could possibly say was going to be in vain if she didn’t mean it.

She suddenly stopped her car and parked on the side of the road. She turned off the radio and breathed out slowly, attempting to calm herself. Screw this, she had to do the right for once.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea that you are left drunk in your apartment.”

“What?” Misa’s eyes widened.

“If Light is not there to keep an eye on you, then—”

“What are you trying to say?” Misa was instantly furious. “I can take care of myself, I’m not a child. When Light comes back in the morning, he won’t even notice I was drunk, it’s like it never happened, we are back to being a normal couple. If you are suggesting that I would do something drastic … I’m not stupid! What do you take me for?”

“Please listen to me,” Takada pinched the bridge of her nose and breathed in and out slowly again. “I’m not saying you are stupid; I’m just trying to say that you are not in control of your emotions, and I don’t trust you to be by yourself for now.”

“I am in control of my emotions.”

“You literally cried to me that Light is not spending every night with you.”

Misa kept her mouth shut.

“All I’m saying is that I need to keep an eye you.” She regretted the words once they left her lips. Was it the guilt talking? Was she considering taking care of Misa until she got over her drunkenness? What the hell was going on here?

“I know what to do now,” She restarted the engine and shifted to drive.

“Where are we going?” Misa asked with suspicion.

“I’m taking you to my apartment and give you the chance to rest there.”

“YAY!” Misa hugged her suddenly and kissed her cheek, almost causing Takada to let go of the steering wheel. “We are going to have a girls’ night, we could stay up all night, tell each other stories—”

“Not happening,” She cut her off, but she smiled despite herself.

Misa giggled. “You know, your numbers just switched, it’s like they moved up.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing that you should ever worry about.” She said in a sing-song voice.

Takada rolled her eyes. It was going to be a longer night than anticipated.

[letterboxd]

A Leaf in a Stream.

The matriarchs of Minari—Youn Yuh-jung and Han Ye-ri—talk to Aaron Yap about chestnuts, ear-cleaning, dancing, Doctor Zhivago and their unexpected paths into acting.

A delicate cinematic braid that captures the sense of adventure, sacrifice and uncertainty of uprooting, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari might be the closest approximation of my immigrant experience on the big screen yet. Sure, Arkansas is a world of difference from New Zealand. But those dynamics and emotional textures of a family in the process of assimilation—authentically realized by Chung—remain the same.

The film is a wonder of humane storytelling, with the American-born Chung encasing deeply personal memories in a brittle, bittersweet calibration that recalls the meditative, modest glow and touching whimsy of an Ozu or Kore-eda. As Jen writes, “To describe Minari? Being embraced in a long, warm hug.” Or perhaps, it’s like Darren says, “floating along peacefully like a leaf in a stream”.

Neither is alone in their effusive praise. Minari rapidly rose to the top of Letterboxd’s Official Top 50 of 2020, and by year’s end our community had crowned it their highest-rated film. Despite its cultural specificity—a Korean family shifting to the Ozarks in the 1980s—the film has transcended barriers and stolen hearts. Run director Aneesh Chaganty says, “I saw my dad. I saw my mom. I saw my grandma. I saw my brother. I saw me.” Iana writes, “Its portrayal of assimilation rang so true and for that, I feel personally attacked.” The versatile herb of the title, Kevin observes, is “a marker of home, of South Korea, but it can grow and propagate as long as there is water.”

Though a large portion of Minari was vividly drawn from Chung’s childhood, a few of the film’s most quietly memorable moments were contributions from its Korean-born cast.

Youn Yuh-jung as Soonja in ‘Minari’.

Veteran actress Youn Yuh-jung, who’s extraordinary as the visiting, wily grandmother Soonja, traces the origins of the scene where she cracks open a chestnut in her mouth and hands it to seven-year-old grandson David (Alan Kim), to her time living in America. “I’ve seen one grandmother visiting at the time—we don’t have chestnuts in Florida—she brought them all the way from Korea. Actually it was worse than the scene. My friend’s mother brought [the] chestnut. She chewed it and spit it out into a spoon and shared it with her grandson. Her husband was an Irishman. He was almost shocked. We didn’t do that, but I shared that kind of thing with Isaac.”

Most viewers watching this scene will likely recoil in horror, as David does, but co-star Han Ye-ri, playing Soonja’s daughter Monica, notes the practicality of the gesture: “If you give a big chunk to children they could choke on that, so it’s natural for them to do that for their children.”

In another brief, beautifully serene scene—one that is so rarely depicted in American cinema that it’s almost stunning—Monica is seen gently cleaning David’s ears. Han came up with the idea. “Originally it was cutting the nails for David,” she says. “Cleaning your wife and husband’s ears is such a common thing in Korea. Initially the producer or somebody from the production opposed the idea because they regarded it as dangerous, but because it is something that is so common in our daily lives I thought we should go with the idea.”

Neither actress comes from a traditional movie-oriented background. With no acting ambitions, Youn began her fifty-year career with a part-time job hunt that led her to distributing gifts to an audience at a TV station. “It was freshman year from college and they gave me pretty good money. So I thought, ‘Wow, that’s good!’.”

“I’m kind of ashamed about that, as nowadays all the kids plan their future,” she says. “When I talk to the younger generation, they start having dreams about being an actor in the sixth grade. In the sixth grade, I was just playing—nothing. I didn’t plan anything. [Laughs.]”

Han Ye-ri and Noel Kate Cho in ‘Minari’.

Before acting, Ye-ri trained as a professional dancer, and while she wasn’t specifically inspired by movies to cross over into acting, she was an avid film watcher in her formative years. “Working as an actress made me realize how many films I’ve seen growing up.”

“My first memory of a non-Korean-language film left such a strong impression on me, especially the ending,” she says. “The film is called Doctor Zhivago. I saw it on TV and not in theaters. The first film I saw in theaters was Beauty and the Beast. But even growing up I remember because Koreans love films so much they would have films on TV all the time. I watched a lot of TV growing up because both my parents were busy, and in retrospect that really helped become the basis of my career. [Laughs.]”

She also grew up “taking reference from Miss Youn’s body of work to study from, as did many other actresses”. Grateful for the opportunity to work with her on Minari, Ye-ri says, “On set working with her, it made me realize how wonderful it is that this person still carries her own distinct color and scent. And seeing her taking part in this production in a foreign country—she’s over 70—it just really encouraged me that I should be more fearless like her.” She adds: “One of the things that I really want to learn from her is her sense of humor but I think I’m going to have that for my next life. [Laughs.]”

As for Youn’s adventures in early movie-going, she recalls the first Korean film she saw with her father was the 1956 historical drama Ma-ui taeja, based on a popular Korean fairy tale. “I was so scared. I cried so my father had to take me out of the theater.”

“At [the] time, we always had to watch the news on the screen before the movie. It started with a national anthem and every audience from the theater would need to stand up and pledge to the Korean flag. It’s a very stupid thing for you guys but it was like that 60 years ago.”

Han Ye-ri as Monica in ‘Minari’.

For Minari fans who want to discover more of Youn’s work, she recommends starting with the first movie she made with the late, great director Kim Ki-young, Woman of Fire—a remake of his own 1962 Korean classic The Housemaid. “A long time ago I couldn’t see it. Of course I first saw it when it was shown at the theater back when I was twenty. But later on we had a retrospective, so I saw that movie 50 years later. Wow, he was very genius. I was very impressed. That time we had censorship and everything but with that crisis he made that film. That was a memorable movie to [me].”

Youn admits finding it difficult to be emotionally invested watching a film starring herself, including Minari. “It’s terrible, it’s killing me,” she says. “I always think about why I did this and that scene like that. I’m just criticizing every scene so I’m not enjoying it at all.”

Asked which films she enjoys, she offers: “Some other people’s movies like Mike Leigh and Kore-eda Hirokazu. Your Chinese movies I fell in love with. Zhang Yimou when he started. Then later on when he became a big shot, I don’t enjoy [them]. [Laughs.]”

During the shoot, members of the cast and crew caught Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, 2019’s powerful, heartfelt Chinese-American immigrant story. While Youn missed it (“I was just staying home trying to memorize the lines and resting”), Ye-ri watched with interest: “That film also had a grandmother character, so did ours, and these two are completely different. But at the same time from both films you can feel the warmth and thoughtfulness of grandmothers in different ways. To me they are both very lovely films.”

Of her recent viewings, Ye-ri reveals she found Soul made her as emotional as Minari did. “It made me look back at how I live and my day. It’s not necessarily for children but I think it’s a film for adults. [Pauses.] I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I love that film also.”

‘Minari’ is out now in select theaters across the US and other territories, with virtual screenings available to US audiences in the A24 screening room.

[albertserra]

yes that was phrased badly idc abt Hollywood specifically so just 30-60s stuff in general mhm. And if you have some recs of your own that would b lovely thank u <3

i was abt to amend my original answer before u sent this nfdjkfdsnjfd but: keep in mind that with older films its up to archivists/preservationists etc to make them accessible to modern audiences which is of course a matter of money and is very heavily influenced by the western world+critics which will always prioritize their own white cinema. AND i only speak english and a lot of older, non-english movies simply werent made with export to english-speaking countries in mind so even if i were able to find a copy of some older movie i wouldnt be able to watch it anyways unless someone had prepared a translation. ANYWAYS w all that said heres some recs i can give. im starting w the 20s because theres some i wanna rec there too

within our gates (1920)

picadilly (1929)

apart from you (1933)  - mikio naruse would be a good one to explore as hes a little less talked about though ive only seen this so far

kurosawa, mizoguchi, masaki kobayashi, ozu obviously

gate of hell (1953)

godzilla (1954)

the bedford incident (1965)

pather panchali (1955), the big city (1963) and the hero (1966) - satyajit ray is another major name here, but unfortunately south asian cinema is a huge blindspot for me still which i hope to fix this year lol

jigoku (1960)

all night long (1962)

hiroshima mon amour (1959)

pigs and battleships (1961)

deus e o diabo na terra da sol (1964)

black orpheus (1959) - the racial politics of this one are a little iffy imo but it is a beautiful movie

la noire de... (1966) and mandabi (1968) - sembène is really good

pitfall (1962)

the house is black (1963)

the night of counting the years (1968)!

soleil o (1970)

i am somebody (1970)

[universitychallenged]

University Challenge 2019/20, Episode 37: THE FINAL

UNICHALL FINAL, BRAP BRAP! An Oxbridge versus a Russell Group! Boys! Shirts! ’What will we do on Monday nights?’ said Andy, bewildered. I didn’t know how to answer him.

‘Well, I hope you enjoy it,’ said Jez, with the same grim smile as a man about to make eight chaps walk a plank into a pool of sharks.

Corpus Christi, Cambridge (CCC): 105

Imperial College: 275

Team Vibe: Corpus Christi, Cambridge:

Imperial: 

Grandad Count: Imperial were slightly the older, with an average age of 23.

Gender Diversity Count: Yes, well, I knew it was coming. 8 boys (at least some racial diversity in there). Props to Captain Wang for this:

Style News: Quite a few jackets and open-necked shirts in there, like they’d all got an invite to their first party with their lecturers to drink mid-priced white wine and chat about trans-dimensional strings. Not Brandon of course, bringing in another of his delightful sweatshirts - this one had an iconic Greek NYC deli advert on it – plus, of course, his ‘NOT HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS’ badge. Captain Wang of CCC also brought a bouncy knitted star-patterned jumper which was Very Good.

Cult Hero Of The Episode: HOLY GUACAMOLE! Here we were, lazily going on about Brandon vs Wang, only for Brandon to have a relatively quiet one and literally the whole of Imperial coming out with all guns blazing. I think the whole series was a hustle for them – pretending that Brandon was the one to fear, and then BOOM! Brooks gets the first starter, McMeel gets several and they all confer utterly equally. Poor CCC didn’t know what had hit them; despite answering the film and music bonuses at the speed of light, it wasn’t enough to keep up. ‘You get three bonuses on physics,’ said Jez, and Imperial all looked so delighted. But goodness, this episode’s A-Lister was Captain Caleb Rich: he was all over the early bonuses, and bagged almost every starter going in the second half. He was like a quiet, deadly assassin disguised as a South London hipster, killing everyone with his knowledge of poison ivy, symphonic suites and postcolonial theory. I was AGOG.

Also, love this: 

Wang & Brandon being shocked by Rich's buzzer #UniversityChallenge pic.twitter.com/W4CA0hNooA

Captain Rich now has an even more marvellous beard, making him look the absolute spit of avant-garde singer-songwriter David Thomas Broughton, and which you can fawn over on Bobby Seagull’s YouTube interview with the Fab Four here! 

Handsome Person of the Episode: An even match between beaming Gunasekera of CCC and calmly impassive Captain Rich of Imperial, both wearing under-par shirts. Let’s give it Captain Rich, because he deserves everything today!

Horror Bonus Question: ‘Your bonuses are on experiments performed on board the International Space Station: the STPH5EHD experiment tested a cooling system in which cooling fluid is pumped without the need for fragile mechanical parts; for what sub-field of physics do the letters EHD stand for here?’

‘Electrohydrodynamics,’ said Andy, nonchalantly.

Regular Music Fail By Composition PhD-owning Composer, Kerry Andrew: ‘Your bonuses are on popular music in the irregular time of 7/4,’ said Jezter. ‘YASSSSS!’ trumpeted I, with a fist in the air. I got 2/3 because CCC’s Stewart is the sort of person who knows Peter Gabriel singles and I am not. Brubeck and Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’, phew, answered just about at the same time as Wang, ie in 0.0000023 seconds. Elsewhere, CCC’s Gunasekera was even faster with the tone poems. I got the Rimsky-Korsakov starter and the Mallarmé, hooray.

Dream Bonus Question Round: Crusades journey maps, 2/3! I have recently listened to a (much-recommended) You’re Dead to Me podcast, and the Eleanor of Aquitaine episode helped me out here. 2/3 in the Sight and Sound best ever films – was stoked to get Tokyo Story by Ozu.

STOP PRESS! I have just seen that Captain Wang, definitely the cineaste of the series, writes on film - here is an article of his in fabulous alt-culture bible The Quietus. 

Jezza-Watch: Pretty nice again! I think he wore out all his insults on the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Bonus Trophy-Giving Feature: Andy and I had made a bet on who would appear to give away the (hideous) trophy in the always-awks ceremony at the end; I went with Mary Beard and he went with Simon Armitage. Instead, Jezzo introduced a tall, bland-looking chap called Andrew Wiles. ‘Who the fuck is that?’ I said. ‘Pttth,’ said Andy. But then we are rather humanities-biased. ‘They say maths is a young man’s game. I’d say University Challenge is a young man’s game,’ said Andrew Wiles. Hmm, yes, it does still seem that way, bruv.

The best thing of course is seeing what a) the bottom half of contestants looks like and b) how tall they are. Brooks is wearing well skinny jeans! Stewart’s huge, like a glossy champion horse! Brandon is teeny-tiny!

They underscored the ceremony with some slushy orchestral music, as if we were watching the end of a particularly weepy love story. Perhaps we were.

Kerry and Andy’s Score: 21, divided equally (we shouted ‘LEILA SLIMANI!’ at exactly the same time), or 105 points.

Brain Food: Leek and chard soup and salad

Tweets of the Day:

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Jokyō (女経, A Woman’s Testament, 1960) by Kozaburo Yoshimura, Kon Ichikawa, Yasuzo Masumura

Jokyo is a 1960 Japanese anthology film, one of a few examples of this genre from the years of Golden Age of Japanese cinema. Three novels are shot by different directors Kozaburo Yoshimura, Kon Ichikawa, and Yasuzo Masumura and tied together by a theme of a strong woman who had discredited the men and learned not to trust them, under any circumstances.

  The first story by Yoshimura depicts a female protagonist Kimi in quite an unpleasant light. She works in a club squeezing money from all the men approaching her. She excels in cynism and decayed moral. The motivation and background of Kimi played Ayako Wakao remain unclear causing no sympathy to her. Kimi is a sort of courtesan, and this is tribute Yoshimura pays to one of the most prominent themes of Japanese Golden Ages films. For instance, it has been one of the most significant themes for the acclaimed classic of Japanese cinema Kenji Mizuguchi. Ayako Wakao played a similar character in Mizuguchi’s final film Street of Shame. Though, in that film, her motivation was pretty much understandable. She’s been living with other geishas for years hoping to buy her way out of business. Very few women were able to do that, but Wakao’s character was shown very smart, emotionally stable and down-to-earth. Street of Shame was a poignant drama of geishas, while Yoshimura’s short film just tells heroine’s fiancée had dumped just before the wedding. So she ended up this way hating the men and thinking they are not worth any consideration and trust. It is certainly true in many situations, but Kimi doesn’t radiate anything positive. The viewers can express respect to her sense for business, but it is not quite clear why she ended up this way and why all the other women around are also shown to illustrate such way of interaction between men and women is the only thing that works out. Of course, 10 years back women in Japan had no chance to live the life as Wakao’s character lives so it’s a good thing she can be independent. But from the other hand, the entire idea is quite bleak, and at some point, it seems like director conveys that men always lie to women, and women are meant to scam them in return. And that’s about it, there is no alternative.

Even though I was not really fond of the first story, I must say Ayako Wakao always colours me amazed of her roles, and this case was no exception. She is one of the most outstanding leading ladies of the late Japanese Golden Age.

The second story shot by Kon Ichikawa brings a different tone. Kon Ichiwaka casts here another shining star of Japanese cinema of the 1950-s and one of his favourite actresses who collaborated with him several times – 1950 Miss Nippon Fujiko Yamamoto. In cinema industry, she’s primarily known for her role in Yasujiro Ozu’s Higanbana, but from my point of view in this film, she has one of her most stellar roles. Yamamoto portrays a woman agent tricking men into buying an expensive property. With elaborate decoys, she makes the men fall in love with her and convince them to help her buying the things belonging to her husband who passed away (though, the property belongs to the agencies she works for). In this story, she meets a writer who seemingly falls under her charm too and buys an almost rundown house for a huge amount of money. Later, the plot twists and the viewers come to know that the writer knew initially about the woman’s plan and decided to keep playing this game. A character portrayed by Yamamoto is adorable, mesmerizing, enthralling and tantalizingly enchanting. However, despite her nasty business she appears to be the type who just hasn’t met her love yet, but she is not as cynical as a character played by Ayako Wakao in the first novel. This story ends happily with the characters meeting each other and realizing they have nothing for each other, but joint affinity. The performance and emotions of one of the most beautiful Japanese actresses Fujiko Yamamoto make this story visually wonderful. Also, a short appearance of Hitomi Nozoe in one of her first roles in the cinema is very remarkable. She would get her spot of the top star of Japanese cinema later than the Golden Age faded away.

The third story is directed by Yasuzo Masumura. This novel stars a famous kabuki actor Ganjiro Nakamura famous for his roles in Ozu’s Floating Weeds, The End of Summer and many other famous Golden Age Japanese films. Also, it stars Rashomon’s star Machiko Kyo who played in a duo with Nakamura several times before this film. Machiko Kyo’s roles of the 1960-s are often even much impressive than her breakthrough performances of the early 1950-s. In Masumura’s novel, she plays a former geisha Omitsu who is currently a businesswoman. She has money now, yet she lacks happiness and emotional connections with people. As she gets older, she loses the hope to be happy with someone since she had learned the women should not trust men. This is what she tells her younger relative, a girl who intends to get married. Omitsu has been through many problems and social pressure during her life, and she tries to teach the young girl in a skeptical manner. However, in the end, she realizes that the young people are very vivid and passionate and they are supposed to experience ups and downs themselves. Eventually, she gives up agreeing to finance the future wedding and says one day she hopes to be happy in a family as well. The subplot with a schoolboy meeting an accident also helps her to soften her feelings and attitude. She is shown as a very experienced and strong woman who doesn’t interfere with the other lives, though. And I really liked this character Machiko Kyo plays in the story.

  All-in-all, Jokyo tells three very different stories of women of a new Japanese generation who have been raised on the necessity to be strong and independent. This theme is crucial for the films of Japanese Golden Age of the 1950-1960-s as the social behaviour and roles of genders in social construct change radically in Japan at this time. This theme has been pivotal for Ozu, Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Masaki Kobayashi and other famous Japanese masters of the Golden Age.