Saturday, March 26, 2011

Movie: "Confessions" (2010)

Child violence, tons of blood every 5 minutes, euphoria of sadism - all in best traditions of Japanese violent anime and "Battle Royale".... Mixture of such elements should be sold very well in the West (film was even included in Oscar short list of Best Foreign Language Movie) - but I don`t like it - destructive, ugly world...
Good points: cute merry tunes for scenes when people are cut, blown up, beaten, "stylish" camerawork , and cute girl who played heroine named "Mizuho".


Monday, March 21, 2011

Reading: Edvard Radzinsky "The Last Tsar : The Life and Death of Nicholas II"


I remember this photo in my Russian History textbook in high school...only couple of sentences about last Romanov Royal Family and this photo. I was looking at people on it - young girls, tsar, his German wife, son - all cold-bloodedly killed in the tragic time of Russian history and asked questions to myself: why in our country we haven`t known about family of last Russian tsar for so long time (only in 1993 they started to write about them and public photos in History textbooks), how we could so easily forget about this tragedy - tragedy of history and tragedy of this family in particular...
Radzinsky is very famous writer and TV host in Russia. His books on Stalin, Nicholas II, Rasputin are bestsellers not only in our country but abroad as well...
Should admit that sometimes he is too much melodramatic in this book about last Russian tsar, sometimes not accurate with facts of history and documents when uses only those which match the story he is reconstructing for his reader..But with all that we should not forget that he writes not historical textbook or research work - it is sort of history novel .. Novel which was interesting but very hard to read - the more you follow author - the more depressing feeling of tragedy in last Royal Family carries you away...
It was very hard week - I spent it in Shikoku - checking Internet news and TV every 5 min. and seeing how more and more of my friends foreigners were leaving Japan...This book - especially chapters about Siberian exile of Royal Family even more aggravated depression feeling in this hard time....
But last Chapter finished in shinkansen heading back to Tokyo and tomorrow will be a new day - first working day after almost a week - and it seems all unpleasant thoughts and memories have already gone away with the last page of thebook...

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Remember the time

Japan gave me wonderful experience of completely different professions - in only 2 years I was a model, a TV program host, sales man, web designer, translator....
Here is "model"... Nice memories and I really miss the time, but I will hardly do it again..
Now I am struggling not to become Japanese zombie-salariman without individuality as they try people to be like and surprisingly my other professions especially such "childish" like this help me not take it all seriously and enjoy my life.... You never know where you will be tomorrow and what you will be ... so the only important thing is you

**Just realised - in all photos the same pose....
They always said : "just stand like you are standing now..."
Iroquois 2010


GANT (Mitsukoshi Sendai) 2007


IYATAKA Group (Akita) Bridal Fair Oct. 2010



Number (N)ine ("POP-EYE" 2009)
(photo by Yasuyuki Takaki
style by Yosuke Matsushita)




"TAKEO KIKUCHI" (2010 S/S)
photo by Toru Kitahara


"STUSSY"mook 2010
style by Yosuke Matsushita






"UNDERCOVERISM"2010 S/S mook (photo by Katsuhide Morimoto)






Sunday, March 6, 2011

Studying: "HTML+CSS Handbook"


Finished!!3 months reading in morning train this heavy 700-page Handbook...I guess for Computer skills and knowledge rather than read books you should do it in practice..but it is my addiction to "written knowledge"..maybe wrong, but before doing smth I should read a book on it. This one was sort of dictionary of HTML tags in it`s first part and CSS in the second . Not bad for beginners- examples (with mistakes sometimes) also help you understand the subject. Next I want to check functions of TeraPad - Japanese text editor I use in my job - all these short-cuts and other functions to speed up coding/code fixing process (TeraPad is not the best editor yet and sometimes just piss me when it cannot read Thai or Korean symbols)..

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Movie: "Last Tango In Paris" (1972)

Film by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci with American actor Marlon Brando (famous by his role in "Godfather").. Passionate physical relationship of Woman and Man - something animal in the way they treat each other...From the first minutes I realised how it is amazing - in European films they depict everything in a completely different way...There is no typical plot patterns , typical heroes you`ve got used to see in Hollywood movies...
In Bertolucci film they are real and unpredictable....
Marlon Brando is really good in his dramatic role and music in the movie is wonderful.