evacuatewithstyle » raving like mad

Inception

Amy — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 06:23:45 +0000

I’m gonna be thinking about this movie for ages to come.

I know that some movie watchers don’t like reading people’s reactions to films because it changes their perception of a movie before they go watch it, so skip this post if you’re one of those people!

I won’t be discussing plot points at all, but just my general reaction to the film.

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Read the rest of Inception (127 words)

Song of the day

Amy — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:07:06 +0000

IU – 바라보기

IU’s “Growing Up” is a good album. She has a lot of talent that is completely wasted in the biz. She actually knows music, which is a rarity within the pool of brainkilling idols that she’s always up against. It’s a losing battle because she’ll never shine where it matters. I don’t know why her management dumbs her down to make her more acceptable to the mainstream, because it’s not gaining her any more fans than when she performed music with artistic merit. “Marshmallow” is an insult to her intelligence, especially because she’s capable of something like this:

This:

And this:

Give this performance something on the grand scale of Big Bang’s “Lies” from the 2007 MKMFs and it’d make for an amazing concert performance.

This is an acoustic version from the album:

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© Amy for evacuatewithstyle, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: IU, Korean pop, Song of the day

Viktor & Rolf greatness

Amy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:29:58 +0000

Just saw this image from an upcoming campaign for Viktor & Rolf fragrances:

Gotta say, what a disappointment. My past favorite men’s and women’s fragrance campaigns came from V&R. For womens’, Flowerbomb, and for mens’, Antidote.

See what I mean by step down? The trashiness of Raquel Zimmerman mooning an entire city is very sad-face inducing :(

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A bit on fanfiction

Amy — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:15:01 +0000

I used to read fanfiction. It’s interesting to see that the word “fanfiction” is still not actually a dictionary word — it still has the red squiggle under it if you type it out — and how there’s some sort of stigma attached to people who write fanfic — like they’re geek nerds who write about Kirk and Spock getting together or are crazy people who need to stop picking up tiny canon details and then pairing people like Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood together. And to those responses, I say: FACEPALMMMM!

In light of being really impressed with Tom Felton’s performance in the sixth Harry Potter movie (if I have to be picky, I’d say he was the only thing that was memorable and left an impression on me), I’ve been scouring for good Draco-centric pieces. Came across this piece (D/Hr) called “The Universe is a Great and Beautiful Thing,” and here are some passages I really liked. (Just because it’s my habit, here’s also a song to listen to while you read the passages.)

In his dreams, he wakes up to different images and different sounds. On Thursday he wakes up to the image of bees pollinating from flower to flower and hears blurry, jingly Indian music, as if his neighbors had turned their music up so loud that it had crept through the cracks and bled through the crevices – like a leak – into his apartment. The span of time varies for how long he sees them – sometimes they come in quick flashes, like lightning in the country, or a slap a mother gives to a misbehaving boy in public. Other times they play and play, like a haunted tape that never runs out – until it finally does, and he is left in darkness.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

He misses the big things – like the sky, and the people, and the sun. But he also misses the little things, like the sound of rain against the pavement, and the moisture rings from cold drinks.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

This – this was his funeral. Except sadder. Because he wasn’t dead, except he kept wishing he was, though he had no way of possibly hinting that to anyone around him. He thought about death all the time, and every time he kept imagining how it would be. A beatnik party. A sauna with a broken dial. A rodeo with monsters and whores and thieves. Or maybe – and this was his favorite one – a strange little club, almost like AA, where people are doomed to always meet and talk about their feelings and their internal afflictions and even hug. Except, maybe, instead of the neat donuts and treats there would be stale crackers and veggie platters.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

These days, any bit of distraction is good, no matter what it is. For example: the other day a fly was trapped inside his room, and, seeing the light coming from outside the window, it had spent a good amount of time trying to find its way out. And he’d watched it. It reminded him a little of himself, really. Sad little fly, stupid as hell.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

It reminds him of ingredients to certain exotic dishes that when someone reads out loud, it doesn’t make sense. Nor does it make sense on paper. But when you finally put it all together, it oddly does come together – even in a strange, uncoordinated and unexpected way.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

There are millions of microscopic trembles inside his body – not from pain, not even from the desire of pain, but from something he doesn’t really recognize.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

One day she’ll tell him about how her father proposed to her mother, and why her mother had first told him No. Another day she’ll tell him about what her favorite book is, and how she uses her least favorite book as a coaster. And maybe another day she might tell him about her sleepwalking neighbor who had gone missing one night, or about how her cat had died a few years ago from eating a dead mouse that had been killed with poison.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

You could retrace your steps and relive your life and try to distinguish the bad choices from the good ones – and in the end, you come to find out that it doesn’t really matter. Because you end up where you end up, and it’s hard to imagine anything else.

– Read “The Universe is a Great and Beautiful Thing.”

WHOOPS. I got really carried away. But I love it when an author’s writing is so good that you’re just astounded at how an author managed to think those things and then found the right words, and then put the right words into the right order to form those just right sentences.

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Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

Clichés

Amy — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:59:44 +0000

…but the concert was really unforgettable. And this is my fave photo I took:

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DBSK on Music Station

Amy — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:15:49 +0000

Watch » here

Junsu’s singing voice takes me to a happy place. The moment after he sang the first line of the song, I want to listen to it again, and again and again. And that’s the thing too — I’m always newly impressed with Junsu’s voice, like each time I watch and listen to him sing is the first time I’ve ever done so. That’s skill.

I don’t think “Survivor” has very impressive choreography but it’s got a really great beat and is insanely addicting to listen to. And as lame as this sounds, I’m very proud of them for this performance. In my opinion, it’s easily their best Japanese performance in a while. I was really afraid somebody would slip up and mess up a note or something, and the competitiveness in me wanted them to do perfectly for their first Music Station appearance, but I am really relieved to say that I have no complaints about the performance as a whole. Phew!

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Good music is important

Amy — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:12:19 +0000

This is a scene from “The Moonlight of Seoul,” (aka “Beastie Boys”) starring Yoon Kye Sang and Ha Jeong Woo. I hate this movie too much to go into a review, but I also loved this one minute enough to cut the scene out myself and up it to share, heh.

Nothing happens in the scene, but the music that’s used is mesmerizing. I have no idea what kind of genre the piece even is — ambiance? — but I feel submerged in calm. It goes perfectly with the idea of driving at night in a well-lit city.

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Music from 2008

Amy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:23:19 +0000

The majority of 2008′s new music has come off as kind of dead and dull to me. Not a whole lot of good new stuff from the artists I keep up with / artists I randomly keep up with. But, I did inadvertently open myself up to a much larger ground in the music terrain. I discovered some old music that I happened to really fall in love with. Okay, so saying that I fell “in love” with the music puts a lot of stress on the poor songs, but I just meant that it was refreshing to listen to and made some kind of impact on me, sentimentally-speaking.

Favorite albums of the year,

Favorite songs of the year,

王力宏 – 你是我心内的一首歌 If I had to narrow this list down to only three songs, this song would come first. The music of this song isn’t very challenging or groundbreaking, but it evokes some sort of familiarity for me. Of course, Leehom was going for that note of sentimentality with the song. (It’s very Shanghai-tan-esque, no?) The song reminds me of spring and spring is a good time of the year.

方大同 – Love Song In orderly fashion, this song would come second. I love this song for its melody and for its lyrics. The lyrics are a “fuck you” to what Khalil perceives to be the typical love song. Khalil’s a very articulate guy and you can tell from his lyrics that he thinks a lot about life and music, which is the kind of thing you want in an artist. He makes his peers seem silly. If I had to recommend one artist from the Chinese pop scene (which encompasses a lot of ground), I’d recommend this guy, and this song. Listen to the song here.

동방신기 – Purple Line This seems like an eon ago, but I really did love this song and all the hype around it. This was the first dance hit that I anticipated the release of after I became a fan of the group, and compared to their previous dance hits — The Way U Are, Tri-Angle, Rising Sun, O-Jung.Ban.Hap — this one wasn’t shabby. It’s got GREAT use of bass and it feels very strong and relentless. Purple Line is the sort of song that I feel makes a statement and leads somewhere. Minus the most embarrassing use of an English line in all the history of non-English songs, this is the one song I would recommend for the ballad haters and the DBSK doubters. F’real.

张力尹 – One More Try I can probably sing this song in my sleep. Of all the music fandoms I dabble in, this song is the only thing that inspired me to actually contribute to fandom in non-graphical ways, in the form of lyric translations…which is not a lot at all, but my translation of this song coincided with my official decision to major in East Asian Studies, so it means a lot to me. This is also the best song off Zhang Li Yin’s resume and a very inspiration song that symbolizes the return of a girl who I’m really rooting for.

Ibadi – 오후가 흐르는 숲 Song three of the “if I had to narrow this list down to three songs” train of thought. This song is mind-bogglingly beautiful. The entire song just evokes such a sense of tranquility and peace that I will never be able to properly articulate it for you to feel, unless you were me.

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Read the rest of Music from 2008 (519 words)

© Amy for evacuatewithstyle, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chinese pop, Japanese pop, Korean pop

New York Times’ “Year in Pictures”

Amy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:37:26 +0000

GO GO GO!

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© Amy for evacuatewithstyle, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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DBSK on Inkigayo

Amy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:28:23 +0000

I love the outfits a little bit too much, it makes me want to cry of joy at how slick they look. The shirt pattern, the pattern color, matched with the tie color, matched with the GOLD CUFF BUTTONS, and the hair! I love the maroon/navy blue/gold/black combo on anybody. The only problem I have with the gold buttons is that maybe the four front jacket enclosures makes the coat look too much like a peacoat but it’s not too big a deal.

Perrrrrrfection.

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© Amy for evacuatewithstyle, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dong Bang Shin Ki, Korean pop