Category Archives: film & television

ScarJo Interview

One of the main reasons I’m a Scarlett Johansson fan is that she’s so clearly intelligent.

“I love to travel and I made sure, as I always do when I go to a major city, that there was an Anthony Bourdain special on Taipei. Turns out that it’s a culinary mecca, much to my delight,” Johansson said. “It’s a city that comes alive at night. Tokyo was really quite a unique metropolis; this mix of fantasy and a very practical way of living. It’s just so different than any other place I’ve been. Japan and Taiwan both have their own culture of cinema, but film is a universal language, so it’s interesting to see how you can be in an entirely new place and environment, but kind of be talking the same language while making a movie. There’s an unspoken sense of collaboration on a film set, so it’s a nice way to travel.”

Buzzfeed interview about her new film Lucy

Death of an OTP

So I had FEELS after Audrey died on 24: Live Another Day. So I wrote about them on Sound on Sight.

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One of TV’s most beloved romances is that of Logan and Veronica (affectionately termed “LoVe” by fans) from Rob Thomas’ cult classic Veronica Mars. The romance and the series had enough power and pull to drive a wildly successful Kickstarter and a reasonably successful film. Coming back to 24 for24:LAD, it struck me for the first time that one of the most famous lines from the Veronica/Logan romance, while it doesn’t quite entirely fit that couple, does, seamlessly, describe Jack and Audrey.

“I thought our love was epic, you know? Spanning years, continents, lives lost, blood shed – epic.”

The scene is highly romantic, but the actual content of this famous line is not reflective of the couple’s relationship. Their romance does not include lives lost and blood shed, and while it does span years by the time the film comes around, the epic hyperbole of this statement is simply not reflective of the kind of stakes at play in the series.

Yet it’s a perfect description of the romance that Jack and Audrey live out and the kind of obstacles they overcome. Their romance literally spans continents – when Jack is captured by the Chinese Audrey travels to China to look for him, is captured, Jack returns to the U.S., and the two reunite a year later when Audrey is also brought back from Chin (and when the two reunite in Live Another Day, it’s in London).  Their relationship also endures for five years, through lives lost and blood shed: Jack kills (or lets die) Audrey’s husband; Audrey is badly wounded during events Jack is caught up in, and later tortured by the Chinese for Jack’s sake.  By the time the two reunite in London, their relationship has endured years of absence, violence, loss, and each thinking the other was dead. They’ve spent the majority of their relationship apart, have pulled through both thinking the other was dead, Audrey’s severe PTSD after her torture, and the past years of Jack being missing under the radar and Audrey married. Yet nothing has changed about their relationship – when they reunite for a few brief moments that connection still rings true, steady and certain as it always has for them. By the time Live Another Day comes along, you really do believe that nothing on earth can separate or overcome this couple.

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The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy Interview

Yesterday I got the chance to interview some of the lovely people behind The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy!

The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy is a webseries created by Kyle Walters (most recently known for his role in Welcome to Sanditon) and Shawn DeLoache. Loosely based on J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, it’s set in a fictional Neverland, Ohio in which Peter is a comics writer, Wendy an advice columnist, and Wendy’s brothers John and Michael a neurotic editor and ne’er-do-well slacker, respectively. New episodes air twice weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays on Epic Robot TV. The  charming series has been well-received and SoS had a chance to speak with writer and creator Shawn DeLoache and lead actress Paula Rhodes (who plays Wendy).

Read the full interview at Sound on Sight

Miss Fischer’s Murder Mysteries – “Heartlines”

One of my much-loved television shows that is relatively unknown here in the U.S. is the Australian series Miss Fischer’s Murder Mysteries. It’s witty, it’s suave, it features one of the most compelling, long-simmering small-screen romances of all time…what are you waiting for?

This is Not the Plot You’re Looking For: ‘A Million Ways to Die in the West’ For Worst Movie of the Year

A_Million_Ways_to_Die_in_the_West_posterIt seems too easy, for a film with so much toilet humor, to label it a pile of dung. So let’s say instead say that A Million Ways to Die in the West is a resoundingly bad film that seems almost hellbent on removing any element that might actually be entertaining. The concept is great – set in a deliberately anachronistic American West in which the plot and setting are 1882 and the language and sex jokes are 2014, this could have been an engaging romp in which the tension between the elements cast humorous illumination on the conventions of both time periods and on the Western genre as a whole. And in a summer market saturated with tentpole action films and sci-fi franchises, a Western film promised a breath of fresh air.

Alas, MacFarlane reaches for a genre spoof in the line of Blazing Saddles or Airplanes!, and is unable to deliver on any aspect of it.

Albert (Seth MacFarlane) is a sheep farmer with a pretty, pouty girlfriend (Amanda Seyfriend) and a serious lack of self-confidence. The latter takes a further blow when his girlfriend dumps him in the first five minutes for mustachioed store owner Foy (Neil Patrick Harris). After getting wildly drunk with his friends Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and Ruth (Sarah Silverman as a brothel-working prostitute), Albert meet-cutes the new girl in town, Anna (Charlize Theron). From there, the film loops slowly around Albert’s attempts to grow up and be a man (as coached by Anna), Edward and Ruth’s relationship drama, and the menace posed by famous gunslinger Cinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson).

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Recommended Summer Drama: Buzzer Beat

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Buzzer Beat is a 2009 Japanese drama starring Yamashita Tomohisa (better known as Yamapi) and Kitigawa KeikoThis is a drama about a group of young people, it’s set in summer, mostly light-hearted, features a lot of outdoor scenes, and in general has a magical, buoyant vibe that makes it a perfect summer show.  It’s a drama about two thoroughly decent, intelligent, hardworking people (played with great charm and beauty and chemistry by Yamapi and Kitigawa) who have an instant connection, become friends while both are involved with other people, and later fall in love. There’s so much magic and loveliness about the way their relationship is portrayed. Yamapi is a talented basketball player struggling to get his groove back, and Kitigawa is a self-assured, charming, endearing violinist. There is some drama and angst but it’s mostly fairly low-key and this is a great romance and a fun story about a group of friends and about growing up.

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Favorite Asian Dramas #6-8

Continuing the series as we count backward, see the previous post Favorite Asian Dramas #9-12

6)Devil Beside You (Taiwanese)

I know some people who love the other Mike He/Rainie Yang drama Why Why Love a good deal more, but for me this was the first drama I saw them in and one of my first Taiwanese dramas ever, and while it could be argued that WWL has a more consistent plot, DBY has my heart. It was love at first fight when Qi Yue(Rainie Yang), after gathering all her courage to hand a letter of confession to her long-time crush Yuan Yi(Kingone Wang), hands it by accident instead to bad boy Jiang Meng(Mike He), the school troublemaker known as “the Devil”. The exchange sparks the Devil’s interest and he begins pursuing her, to her horror, which becomes even greater when she realizes that he’s the son of the man her mother’s going to marry and that they’ll be living in the same house from then on…

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Love Actually and You Light Up My Star Twdrama Reviews

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It took me a long time to warm up to Joe Cheng, mainly because he’s never starred in a drama I genuinely loved. However, catching bits and pieces of It Started with a Kiss and a few other dramas, I gradually concluded that he was a good actor (and attractive) so have been more willing to try dramas starring him. Recently I checked out his two latest dramas.

Love Actually. This 2012 drama starring Joe Cheng and Lee Da Hae (whose voice is dubbed) is sweet but unexceptional. It has a fairly standard drama plot: down-on-her-luck woman who is raising her shiftless brother’s child is mistaken for the daughter-in-law of a wealthy family and is taken into their home, while lying about her true identity. It’s all fairly Mrs. Winterbourne, and had quite a bit of potential for romantic and plot drama, but alas it’s written as very paint-by-numbers. Every event is predictable from a mile a way, and all the small factors – lead chemistry, dialogue, small interactional nuances – that can illuminate and elevate a standard plot aren’t present. The Joe Cheng/Lee Da Hae romance definitely has some sweet moments (all of which can be watched in Youtube compilations) but there’s relatively little tension to it and Cheng and Da Hae have good but not crackling chemistry. At 34 episodes, this is cute but forgettable.

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Recommended Viewing: Taiwanese Romance Fall In Love with Me

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I impulsively started watching recent Taiwanese drama Fall in Love with Me last week, and was swept away by it. This drama is fast-paced, romantic, and completely charming.

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The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy

If you are a cynical human being, head for the door, because the adorbs is strong with this one.

Still around? Good.

Because the producer of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has a new show out, and it is completely worth your time. It’s very loosely  based on Peter Pan, though really that’s just an excuse to have some off-the-wall characters who live in a small town called Neverland in Ohio. It’s less romantic than LBD (though really, everything is less romantic than the Darcy/Lizzie romance), but it’s funnier and faster-paced; some of the one-liners and terms coined are GEMS (“hipster spinster”). Watch it. Fall in love.