#andrew lau

[sesiondemadrugada]

As Tears Go By (Wong Kar-wai, 1988).

[orpheuslookingback]

100 Essential Films: Honorable Mentions

Infernal Affairs (2002), dir. Andrew Lau & Alan Mak

[peterpumpkinhead]

about yibo's recent controversy

it's bad!!!!!

I'm a black fan of his and needless to say, I'm devastated lol

Yes, I fully understood the context of the scene. Yes, I also understand there were many black people on set (and I will not hold them responsible or use them as tokens to justify what cannot be justified). Yes, I get that actors have contractual obligations and have limited say in what makes it in the film, in spite of what people might think.

That being said, there's a reason why blackface is 99% of time and abhorrent practice in the arts. I leave 1% out because, in certain instances, like in the show Mad Men, it appears for the sake of historical accuracy and it is MEANT to cause revolt and disgust in the audience.

The fact is - as much as the plot of the film is based in real life, blackface, as an aesthetic instrument, reinforces many negative stereotypes, it perpetuates itself in the collective imagination and is more so a tool of dehumanization and naturalization of the relegation of black bodies to the category of costumes, props, tools.

I don't even need to get into the paternalistic approach of foreign law enforcement, coming from powerful countries of the global north, working in developing countries and portraying themselves solely as heroes - which is the storyline of a film that has no main black characters and relegates the black cast to either victims, criminals or extras in the background.

The entire cast, crew and production company should be held responsible for this enormous error, so I won't single one person out.

Being critical and demanding a response is not the same as being a hater. I'm nobody's hater, or anti and I believe in measured, strategic responses to a situation like this. But being angry is a very, very valid feeling right now.

I myself work on television and ~believe it or not, am a socialist. You don't need to explain away the inner workings of the entertainment industry or the complexities of cultural impact and ongoing symbols of oppression. I'm *quite* aware.

But, as a good old socialist, I must ask the question: what do we do? My thought process is: I fear that the Chinese audiences will not give two damns about this, which does not mean we shouldn't mobilize ourselves to demand change, an apology and consequences.

Being someone's fan is not the same as joining a cult and my admiration for the actor involved is not larger than my responsibility to social justice and to my people.

So I suggest we contact and comment on posts made by international brands endorsed by the talents in this film - like Dior, Chanel, Lacoste, Pantene, etc. We need to ask them if they're ready the back actors who have agreed to this outdated, highly insulting practice.

This film will not be getting my support and I will not defend actions that need no defense. I'm nobody's attorney, I'm a working class artist and I know better than to infantilize a grown man, as much as I've a history of admiring him.

[lifestill]

無間道 / Infernal Affairs (2002) dir. Andrew Lau & Alan Mak

[fdo7]

Infernal Affairs (2002)

Andrew Lau, Alan Mak

[llpodcast]

(Literary License Podcast)

Internal Affairs (2002) (Hong Kong)

 Infernal Affairs is a 2002 Hong Kong action thriller film co-directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. Jointly written by Mak and Felix Chong, it stars Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Sammi Cheng and Kelly Chen. The film follows an undercover Hong Kong Police Force officer who infiltrates a Triad, and another officer who is secretly a spy for the same Triad. It is the first in the Infernal Affairs series and is followed by Infernal Affairs II and Infernal Affairs III. The film was selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Academy Awards but was not nominated. Miramax Films acquired the United States distribution rights and gave it a limited US theatrical release in 2004. 

  The Departed (2006)

 The Departed is a 2006 American epic crime thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by William Monahan.  It is both a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs and also loosely based on the real-life Boston Winter Hill Gang; the character Colin Sullivan is based on the corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, while the character Frank Costello is based on Irish-American gangster Whitey Bulger.  The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, with Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, and Alec Baldwin in supporting roles.

 Opening Credits; Introduction (.37); Background History (11.49); Infernal Affairs (2002) Film Trailer (14.13); The Original (16.13); Let's Rate (34.13); Introducing the Double Feature (39.43); The Departed (2009) Film Trailer (41.58); The Attraction (44.22); How Many Stars (1:13.11); End Credits (1:20.49); Closing Credits (1:21.54)

 Opening Credits– Epidemic Sound – copyright 2021. All rights reserved

 Closing Credits:  Believer by The Imagine Dragons. Taken from the album Evolve.  Copyright 2017 Interscope Records.

​

Original Music copyrighted 2020 Dan Hughes Music and the Literary License Podcast. 

 All rights reserved.

 All songs available through Amazon Music.

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

Further notes:

Infernal Affairs is part of a trilogy, but The Departed is only, to my knowledge, remaking the content of the first film, so the rest of the trilogy is not counted on the poll

Infernal Affairs famously has two endings, one that was part of its original release in Hong Kong, and a revised ending that was part of its release in mainland China. The Hong Kong ending is the more "original" one in that I believe it came first, but it should be noted that The Departed's ending matches more closely with the revised ending.

There have been other remakes, but I can't find great info on their accessibility and so have chosen to just focus on these two films

[moviecinepelis]

[ultrameganicolaokay]

Conan the Barbarian #18 by Jim Zub, Danica Brine and João Canola. Cover by Darick Robertson. Variant covers by (2) Roberto De La Torre, (3) Jonathan Lau and (4) Andrew McClean. Out in January 2025.

“Conan the Cimmerian and Bêlit, Pirate Queen of the Black Coast, are in their prime, enjoying a life of decadence and debauchery, but a flagrant flash of wealth brings unwelcome attention from thieves with a taste for danger and agents from Stygia on a dark mission for their serpent god.”

[film-cult]

Infernal Affairs (2002) dir. by Alan Mak and Andrew Lau Wai-Keung

[graphicpolicy]

SDCC 2024: BOOM! reveals Something is Killing the Children and House of Slaughter Convention Exclusives

SDCC 2024: BOOM! reveals Something is Killing the Children and House of Slaughter Convention Exclusives #comics #sdcc #sdcc2024

[sesiondemadrugada]

As Tears Go By (Wong Kar-wai, 1988).

[ddf-deepcuts]

[redsnerdden]

What is the Ghost Planet? Space Ghost Issue Two Offers A Hint

What is the Ghost Planet? Space Ghost Issue Two Offers A Hint #SpaceGhost #Comics #HannaBarbera #DynamiteEntertainment

Dynamite has been on a roll with their new line of Comics, whether it be Gargoyles, Thunder Cats, or even the Phantom of Spaceways, Space Ghost. Speaking of Space Ghost, the first issue was a huge success according to the comic publisher, and the second issue is looking to bring even more suspense and mystery in this new preview. Our three young heroes, Jan, Jace, and Blip found themselves…

[lautakwah]

new meme format dropped <3

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 9, Number 11, Part 1

Niecey Blues

Where did the year go?  Seems like only a week or two ago, we were scraping together a list of albums we had somehow missed out on in 2022.  Now we’re about to do it again, I suppose, and the number of misses seems to grow larger every year.  Still, we’re still shoveling away at what 2023 has brought so far—nouveau shoegaze and Vangelis synths, Michigan rap and free-improvised vibraphone.  Check out this month’s Dust, the next to last for 2023, for music you might have overlooked.  Contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes, Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Justin Cober-Lake, Alex Johnson, Jim Marks, Christian Carey, Patrick Masterson and Tim Clarke. 

Like last month, we'll be doing this in two parts, here's the second one.

Bedroom Eyes — Turned Away (Ala Carte)

Bedroom Eyes, from Boston, balance the churn and drift of shoegaze. This fourth LP (the last was in 2019) floats cool, slow-moving melodies over rackety barrages of feedbacked guitars and drums. Whether cuts like “Around” are still or in furious motion is an open question. It depends on where you focus. The title track manifests itself out of the slow buzz of feedback, bits of singing, guitar and percussion taking form out of a vibrating soup. It sounds, to me, like Simply Saucer or maybe the Telescopes, submerged by fuzz, suggested rather than stated. “Brood” runs harder, the guitar notes bending with volume like MBV’s did, but the singing remains untouched and serene. If it’s calm on the surface, that’s because Bedroom Eyes is paddling furiously underneath.

Jennifer Kelly

Cherry Cheeks — CCLPII (Total Punk)

Cherry Cheeks, from Portland, Oregon, crank a wired, anxiety-ridden garage punk, the short, sharp shock of guitar stabs running through nattering bass lines and the tremulous whinge of keyboard sounds. This second LP captures their rattled energy with more force and clarity than the debut. You can hear the negative space between bursts of aggression. And yet, the sound is much the same, an aura of dread punched up until it seems to dance. “Switch” is maybe the best cut here. It cuts and jabs in antic motion, organ dopplering off from a sing-along chorus. “Explode” is nearly as pop-slanted, hopping up and down on speed, but catchy. Cuts like “Data” and “Ad Shark” make fewer concessions to anthemic-ness, but prickle and clamor with antsy sarcasm. The future is bleak, but maybe kind of fun?

Jennifer Kelly

Buck Curran — The Long Distance (Obsolete Recordings)

Buck Curran is so interconnected with the guitar, it’s easy to forget that he plays other instruments. The Long Distance shows off his skill as a synthesist. Sweeping, Vangelis-like melodies are the focus of these poignant hymns, which rest upon a foundation of sizzling analog modulation. Emotions run deep on these recordings. Leveraging reminiscence as his muse, Curran called to mind familial and foundational memories, channeling them into these moving passages. Particularly effective is “Morning Song with Lucia,” on which he adds a lovely guitar melody inspired by his daughter. The pieces are relatively short, but Curran beefs up the length of the album by offering alternate versions of some tracks. Each take offers a unique emotional angle, and the subtleties evoke an echo-like effect. The Long Distance is a surprisingly pleasant shift in oeuvre from this talented instrumentalist.  

Bryon Hayes

Great Lake Swimmers — Uncertain Country (Pheromone Recordings)

It is a very white Canadian thing to wonder whether our regional equivalent of Americana should be called Canadiana or just folk (or maybe folk rock? indie folk?). Regardless of our typical dithering over local identity, Tony Dekker’s Great Lake Swimmers have been a mainstay and exemplar of the form for 20 years now. They’d be forgiven for resting on their laurels (or around here… pinecones?) but the restless, quietly gorgeous Uncertain Country doesn’t take anything for granted. Whether adding choral vocals on the graceful “Moonlight, Stay Above” or whipping up a surprisingly dense churn on the title track, the band’s eighth album is a showcase of what they do well. The effect is perhaps most powerful on songs like “Riverine” and “Swimming Like Flying” that feel equally at home in the concert hall or sung en masse around a campfire.

Ian Mathers

The Invisible Hands—The Big Minute (Abduction)

The Big Minute, the third official release by the Invisible Hands, comes a full eight years after its predecessor. Yeah, that is one big minute. Blame it on COVID, a revolving drummer’s chair, and the fact that Alan Bishop, the one American in this Cairo-based band, has a lot of other irons in the fire. The LP’s crisp, slightly trippy sound, and wide-open but particular repertoire establishes the Invisible Hands as the biggest fish in a very small pond; can you name any other Egyptian psychedelic garage bands from with a thing for 50-year-old soundtracks? I thought not. While Bishop’s aesthetic clearly points the way, this is a band. For every one of his signature moves, there’s also a moment when it’s Cherif El Masri’s encyclopedic guitar licks, Ayawasqa’s scrappy Arabic singing, and Adham Zidan’s arrangements and production that sells the song. If you have read this far, yeah, you should give it a minute. 

Bill Meyer

The Inward Circles — Before We Lie Down in Darkness (Corbel Stone Press)

Scottish composer Richard Skelton’s previous work as The Inward Circles involves subjecting clean recordings of strings to all nature of electronic and physical destruction to portray decay and environmental collapse. On his first album in six years, Skelton manipulates a six-second fragment of Baroque recorder music taken from the run-out groove of a battered 50-year-old vinyl recording. From this already degraded source he builds haunted soundscapes that to tap into something primordial and timeless. To call them drones does a disservice to the depth of nuance and detail in Skelton’s music. He captures something elemental within layers of sound built like geological strata trapping a record of growth and death, of destruction and recovery. Before We Lie Down in Darkness is a powerfully evocative elegy to the earth and warning to its inhabitants.

Andrew Forell

Lando Bando — Family Business (The Hip Hop Lab Records)

The Hip Hop Lab’s CEO Lando Bando brought together Michigan rappers close to his studio for this tape. Family Business showcases the state of things in Michigan. That state is not great, by the way, but it’s not bad either. Quite a lot of clumsy rapping on here, and a few cuts should have been left out. Still, it shows that all three ShittyBoyz members are in excellent shape, and Lando deserves our highest appreciation for scoring not one but two Rio da Yung Og’s verses. The highlight here is “Dirty Pop,” an unexpected collaboration between Rio and StanWill on a Danny G beat.

Ray Garraty

Lau Nau – Aphrilis (Beacon Sound/Fonal)

Finnish composer Lau Nau (also known as Laura Naukkarinen) tends to make slow-moving music, but, this year at least, she makes it fast. Aphrilis marks her second release of the year, following spring's 5 x 4. She spent years developing that release, focusing on equipment (Buchla 200 modular synthesizer) and time-signature (5/4). With Aphrilis, she returns to a meditation on time and place (something her past field recordings have captured so well) through mostly acoustic instrumentation. The album opens with “April,” as both instruments and vocals suggest the opportunities of that month's bright beginnings. The mood continues into “Kielet on viritetty tuuleen,” with Hermanni Yli-Tepsa's violin providing the linear guide through the accessible yet intricate composition. The album builds off these initial expressions, settling into a sense of home that remains expansive, the unusual instrumentation — including celesta and jouhikko among other unnamed “various instruments” — maintaining a very specific sound. Múm's Samuli Kosminen produces, and the fit makes sense even as Lau Nau captures a melodic ambience in a specific setting, adding flow while mixing synthetic and acoustic sounds. The album closes with “Seitsemäs taivas,” which might mean “seventh heaven” but sounds more like the start of autumn, tracing an emotional arc throughout Aphrilis. The belief in hope lingers, the brightness reshaped into an iterative composition that finally yields to something colder but never foreboding.

Justin Cober-Lake

MJ Lenderman — And the Wind (Live and Loose!) (Anti- )

Not exactly starched and buttoned-up to begin with, Jake “MJ” Lenderman and Co. come out even more ragged and rangy on the new live album And The Wind (Live and Loose!). The 15 tracks, recorded at gigs in Chicago and Los Angeles, are drawn almost exclusively from last year’s Boat Songs and 2021’s Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, and aren’t so much reimagined in front of their audiences as revved up and deepened. A few telling moments: Lenderman’s voice finds a lower pit of wistfulness in the sighing line “I know why we get so fucked up/I do” from “TLC Cagematch”; “Knockin” – in its third recorded iteration – gets an extra few roaring seconds and snarling decibels added to its big, heart-on-sleeve conclusion; the heavy drum fills and pugilistic blasts of guitar that end “SUV” veer closer to chaos. The band’s showcase, though, comes near the end on an extended jam of “You Are Every Girl To Me,” where the players, led by the points of light spinning off of Xandy Chelmis’ pedal steel and shredding lead guitarist Jon Samuels, rip out any remaining seams before easing back down for Lenderman to make introductions. And if you haven’t met them yet, And The Wind is a good place to start.

Alex Johnson

Mac J – I  Shoulda Been Dropped This (TrueStoryEnt)

Mac J’s been lazy lately. His recent tapes sound as if he’s only put one third of his talent in his music. I  Shoulda Been Dropped This, sadly, is no exception. He’s desperately trying to make his sound more mainstream and less street. Instead of crazy punchlines, witticisms and gritty reality, we get banalities and half-assed street ballads with Mac J on Auto-Tune almost on every song. It’s a wonder how “Engine Ina Trunk,” his track with another California resident Philthy Rich, even made it to this tape. It’s the old good rapping-his-ass-off Mac J, hungry for rhymes and punching you in the guts with every line. Except for this song, he shouldn’t been dropped this. 

Ray Garraty