East Screen / West Screen #21 – Frequent Flying Fists of Fortune

NEWS:

Intermission: Il mondo di Suzie Wong From Cinema Festival (iTunes Link)

EAST SCREEN:

WEST SCREEN:

  • Up in the Air (2009)

Intermission: Come Fly with Me by Frank Sinatra (iTunes Link)

iTunes Page

Running Time (01:00:38)


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Un-fortunately

Here Comes Fortune [財神到]: Kevin and I (along with a few unfortunate others) spent about two hours last Friday ending up the Chinese New Year film fest with this messy travesty of celluloid.  On the plus side, we were at the Dynasty Theatre in Mongkok which is really the only place to truly enjoy such a feature.  I know Kevin is just waiting to eviscerate this one in our next podacast.  Until then, I leave you with the trailer…

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East Screen / West Screen #20 – Anthologies and Mythologies

NOTES:

Episode #68 of Podcast on Fire has some really good in depth discussion of the character of Su Chi-er and his appearances in other media.  Worth checking out if you are a fan of the character or want some more insight into True Legend.

The Filmbiz Asia site is up and running.  You can find it over at http://www.filmbiz.asia/

NEWS:

Intermission: Beams by Agatsuma (iTunes Link)

EAST SCREEN:

  • HOT SUMMER DAYS (HK 2010)

WEST SCREEN:

  • VALENTINE”S DAY (US 2010)
  • PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF (US 2010)

iTunes Page

Running Time (45:03)

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East Screen / West Screen #19 – Chinese New Year Special 2010

It’s Chinese New Year, and that means it’s time for family gatherings, red envelopes full of cash, and movies, movies , movies.  After a week long feast of new films, Kevin and I talk about the latest holiday features from Hong Kong.  [Also in a bit of domain grabbing news, I managed to get ahold of www.kongcast.com so if you have a particular hatred of the hyphen, you no longer need fear visiting the site.  We can also be accessed via www.kongcast.net just in case you have a thing against .coms ;-) ]

NEWS:

CHINESE NEW YEAR FILMS:

iTunes Page  

Running Time (01:03:43)

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East Screen / West Screen #18 – Confucius says, ‘Watch my movie!’

Well, we are back.  Having survived mixer madness and found a more stable solution, the ES/WS podcast lives again.  While the month long break has likely meant that any regular listeners have scattered to the infinite winds of alternative online media, Kevin and I hope to once again produce the show on a regular basis.  This week as I work out the production kinks and settings of the new mixer (Mackie Profx8) we keep the show short with a discussion of Chow Yun Fat’s Confucius.  We also spend a few moments giving some video recommendations to help get into the Chinese New Year spirit.

East Screen:

Confucius (HK/China – 2010)

Chinese New Year recommendations:

All’s Well, Ends Well (HK – 1992)

Fat Choi Spirit (HK – 2002)

iTunes Page

Running Time (00:33:47)

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No mixer, no talk…

Well, another week has passed and the mixer drama is still in full swing.  Early last week the shop I originally purchased it at sent it to the local distributor which they found was in fact no longer in operation, so then they sent it to another distributor who said they won’t check it without paying HK$500  because the warranty has passed (by two months).  The shop owner who seems sympathetic to my cause is going to press them to check and repair it anyway and hopefully I should know something in the next two days.    

I am not holding my breath however because we seem to live in an age where the concept of ‘check’ and ‘repair’ are no longer services.  The economies of scale involved in our plastic commercial culture has forced out the repair shops of old, and more and more I encounter things that have a life span that does not stretch far beyond a limited warranty.  We live in a cycle of replacement.  TVs, appliances, what have you, if it does not break it becomes ‘out of date’ almost as rapidly.  We are often asked at checkout to buy an ‘extended warranty’ which is often expensive, and then should you need to use it the service is (in my experience) is quite poor.

Though I hate the downtime, it does give me a chance to catch up on some work before the start of the new semester in two weeks.  All Kozo from LHKF is back in town and will be starting up his film award nominations, which means I have some 2009 films to catch up on as well.  As mentioned previously, my goal is to have ES/WS back up by CNY.  Also, I am currently in the preproduction mode for a second podcast to be hosted on the site as well which I hope to start up sometime in March.  More details on that to follow later.  So for now, until my mixer mix-up gets resolved, good viewing folks.

ES/WS down, but not out…

Well, 2010 is starting off rather rough.  While Kevin was off in Japan last week getting his sushi and saki fix, we were all set up to record an episode of ESWS.  Suddenly the core of the show (a little Alesis firewire 8 mixer) decided that it was going to stop working.

To be honest the thing never really worked correctly since I started using it back in 2009, despite all my attempts at updating the drivers, the bios and the interface software.  I even moved the thing over from a PC to a Mac.  Sometimes it played nice and sometimes it wouldn’t.  In this respect it was allot like my mom’s cat.

In recording previous episodes, there have been several nights in which Kevin was waiting patiently on SKYPE while I worked through restarts and configurations that I had read about on forums.  Nothing has consistently worked.  And like being in any bad relationship, it was easy to keep thinking it was something wrong with me, something that I was doing wrong.

Finally on Thrusday evening of last week, as Kevin rested up in his Japanese hotel room from his fugu binge that day, we were going over the notes, I hit the record button and nothing.  An hour later and still nothing, no repsonse from the mixer.

At some point you can only bang your head against the table so many times before you have to call it a day, so I did.  I have returned the mixer to the store I purchased it at (a small audio shop on Apliu Street the Shum Shui Po disctrict) and they in turn are going to send it in to be checked by the local ditributor.  I am not sure how long all this will take, but it is my goal to have ES/WS up and running again by Chinese New Year even if it means I have shell out some more ca$h for another mixer.  In the meantime, I hope you will bear with us as we undergo this bumpy start to the new year.

East Screen / West Screen #17 – Holidaze

the-storm-warriors simple_noodle_story Twilight New Moon

Back after a whirlwind holiday in the US, it’s time to catch up on a bunch of the films that Kevin and I have been viewing over the holiday.  With this being the last episode of 2009, we have an extra long show to look at the biggest holiday films in both Hong Kong and Hollywood.

EAST SCREEN:

Storm Warriors (HK 2009)


Bodyguards and Assassins (HK/China 2009)


A Simple Noodle Story (China 2009)


WEST SCREEN:

Twilight: New Moon (US 2009)


Avatar (US 2009)


Sherlock Holmes (UK/US 2009)

iTunes Page

Running Time (01:24:41)

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A Holiday Update…

santaHope everyone is having a great holiday.  I am currently on my last day in (extremely hot) Florida and will be heading back to Hong Kong on Sunday.  This vacation has gone by much too quickly but I passed the time watching a boatload of movies and DVDs as well as burning through a few rented Xbox games.  Needless to say I have a ton of Hong Kong films to catch up on when I get back as well as a pile of work waiting for me.  Of the films I have seen while here,

The Road – tense, dour and a bit depressing

The Princess and the Frog – Great music and good re-take on a classic story.

Twilight: New Moon – Bella was a drag on the story, definitely belong to camp Jacob…go wolves!

Avatar – Incredible visuals, lackluster narrative.

As mentioned a few weeks ago, there was a special Storm Riders II (Storm Warriors) podcast set to be released for episode 17.  Unfortunately, the remote recording did not work as well as I had hoped and as such the audio quality is not very good.  I am debating whether to release it on its own or incorporate it into the next recording.  Once I am back and have a chance to clear my head of jet-lag, I will have a new recording schedule up.  In the meantime, happy viewing all.

East Screen / West Screen #16 – Jump the Dragon

jumpmulan9

NEWS:

A Better Tomorrow remake (Screen Daily)

EAST SCREEN:

Jump (HK/China 2009)

Mulan (China 2009)

WEST SCREEN:

9 (US 2009)

FLYING BUDDHA (賣飛佛):

SPECIAL: Storm Riders

iTunes Page

Running Time (01:10:18)

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