Watch. And know that it's Hong Sangsoo.

http://www.cinemaguild.com/dayhearrives/

...even Jean-Luc Godard's fiction: apparently the Costa Concordia, the ship which ran aground off the coast of Tuscany a few days ago, is the very same ship on which Godard filmed part of his 2010 "movie" (it's Godard, after all) Filme Socialisme: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/15/costa-concordia-jean-luc-godard

Okay, I may break down and see it. Or at least look at the images going by; as I mentioned, it's Godard after all.

Remember Julie & Julia? The story (at least partially) of how Julia Child worked herself into becoming Julia Child, and Julie Powell worked herself from a blog into a career?

Most people know that that story started when Powell decided to make all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days.

Well, now there's Lawrence Dai and the The Lawrence/Julie & Julia Project. Lawrence takes it one step further, deciding to watch Julie and Julia every day for a year and blog about *that*.

He's currently at Day 97. And yeah, it's going about as well as you might think at this point:

Day 1: I promise to dedicate as much of my attention as I can to this incredible, generation-defining film and the blog entries that accompany it.

Day 95: Wake up, Julie Powell. You don't get points for doing something completely derivative of someone else's life's work. - above a picture of him in the same pose at his keyboard as Julie Powell is at her keyboard and Julia Child is at her typewriter. Un-hunh.

Japanese actress Takamine Hideko passed away on Tuesday at the age of 86.

I haven't seen many of her films, but I definitely saw the very memorable When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki, 1960) a couple years back. The movie was about a bar hostess who is stuck in her job, faced with some decisions, basically acts as everyone else's support, and has society's expectation leaning against her, but needs to find a way to the things that will make her own life more meaningful. This being basically a 1950s Japanese film, that's a little easier said than done.

Highly recommended film.

According to a couple of online sources I scanned, the West is mostly familiar with her work with director Naruse Mikio (which includes When a Woman Ascends the Stairs); but in Japan she was originally a child star, her work familiar with the public before she started collaborating with Naruse.

Even with the limited exposure and 30+ years since her last film, it's sad to see her go. (And I should have a slightly happier post in the near future.)

Some sad news: Manish Acharya, one of the shadow puppet narrators from the movie Sita Sings the Blues (among other things), died in a riding accident a few weeks back.

I never wrote up Sita, but I did give out copies of the movie with last year's Xmas cards. If you haven't seen it, I strongly suggest you read up on it, visit the website, and dowload and watch it. (All legally.) Also find out about Nina Paley's activism around copyright law.

That's a much better way of understanding what a loss this is than I can explain.

International poster art for Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, right 'chere for you.

( Cut for your viewing pleasure... )

And the article about them. No attributes, though - and the comments section thinks I'm spam when I ask about it.

The film is about a ballerina (Natalie Portman), about to be called upon to take over a major role from the prima ballerina of her company - and then a rival appears (Mila Kunis). A *really* odd rival. I've heard shades of All About Eve and Perfect Blue; and done right, this could be good.

Now I'm intrigued - might have to go see this. Or at least hope these become available at some point, à la the Antichrist poster I picked up last February (though you might not be happy you clicked on that).

Happy birthday, John Winston Ono Lennon.

And thank you.

An inauspicious start: a rainy day and a delayed train meant I was late to my first movie at the 2010 New York Film Festival. Fortunately the short, All Flowers in Time, was still playing; unfortunately, missing the first few minutes was like missing the first few minutes of The Last of Sheila - when, well, Sheila shows up, is murdered, and never appears again. It looked good but I had *no* idea what was going on, except it was really, really trippy. Really trippy. A-woman-and-a-boy-shapeshifting-for-fun trippy. And it went on and on, until I really started wondering if I'd wandered into the wrong place... but I'm getting off track. Soon enough the short ended, the feature began, and I knew I was definitely in the right place.

( And of course it's Korean... Review: Oki's Movie )

And Tony Curtis exits the world, at the age of 85.

Thank you for the many hours of laughs, starting with The 4:30 Movie as a kid, and even recently with the German "original" of Some Like It Hot, Fanfaren der Liebe... You were more a part of growing up, rather than just an actor.

( Review: Spring Fever )