I've been dragging my feet on the latest reviews so in a pathetic attempt to stall, here are three clips from Mystery Science Theater 3000, each with a song about a Sandy Frank-related picture. (See, there's a tenuous Japanese film connection!)
Sandy Frank Song:
Gamera Song:
Fugitive Alien Song:
Yeah.
So you may have noticed I changed the color scheme of this here site. Got bored with the old black look. I was all set to make a cool banner for the top of the page when my meager art skills failed me. Mainly the problem is I don't have Photoshop, and trying to make a banner in Word is pretty pathetic.
Does someone want to make a banner for me? Be your best friend.
(Or give me Photoshop...)
While watching Sonny Chiba's fine martial arts film Karate Bull Fighter last night, I was reminded of just how extremely hot Yumi Takigawa was. Sort of like Charlie's Angels hot, with the thin eyebrows and high-waisted '70s slacks. And then of course there's her turn as the bad girl who takes on a whip-happy convent in School of the Holy Beast. That's a good time right there.
Wanting more, I reached for the internets. And what did I find? A scanned lobby card for 1976's Shin joshu sasori—701 go, that being New Female Convict Scorpion #701 in 英語. I had no idea Yumi Takigawa took on the role of Sasori after Meiko Kaji split for diminishing returns. Alas, Yumi-chan only donned the big black floppy hat once. But every night, she's Sasori in my dreams.
I've been doing this here site for something like a year. The bulk of my posts have been film reviews. I've collected them on a Reviews page, organized alphabetically. Wow, I've got 60 reviews posted. Yay, me.
The page is always accessible from the column on the right, above "Recent Comments."
So now you know. And thanks for reading!
I've gone and done it. I've started a new blog. yakihito is its name. While Slash and Burn will continue to cover Japanese film, yakihito will give me space to cover anything else Japanese. TV, idols, food, beer, whatever. Yay!
I was poking around at Amoeba today in San Francisco and came across a bootleg DVD-R of Kure Kure Takora, usually translated as Gimme Gimme Octopus, a Japanese children's television show from the late-'60s featuring an octopus, a peanut, a walrus/dinosaur hybrid, and many more odd costume animals. It's like Eiji Tsubaraya and the Krofft brothers took DMT together and their collective hallucinations were reliazed for Japanese children.
Yes, it's that good.
See for yourself:
What's with the mouth?
A friend of mine has started a blog called Kuzu. He plans to write about Japanese pop culture.
Why pop culture? Well, through the morass of sugar-coated sailor-suited sweetness, blank faced tie and suited sarariimanism, and ultra-violent robo madness that we Americans know Japan for, lies a lot of Japan's values as well as hints on where the country has been, where it's at, and where it will soon be.
He's currently got a great review up of Nagisa Oshima's 1960 new wave flick Cruel Story of Youth up now. Check it out.
After a lengthy hiatus to finish up at community college, take a vacation, and move to my new digs, I'm ready to start posting again. Alert the media!
I found this over at Japundit. That's a robot, people. I don't know whether to fall in love or back away screaming.
Looks like we've finally made it out of the uncanny valley.
If you haven't already heard, Tower Records is no more. It was bought by a liquidation company today. The product will be discounted over the next few weeks and then the doors will close. This is a double bummer for me. One, because I've been working at my local Tower Records for the past two years, and two, because it's one of the few places left to buy Japanese DVDs in the suburbs. City shopping is fine if you live in the city, but what's a suburb-bound Japanophile to do now? Internet shopping just isn’t the same…
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