I’m sad that I missed the two screenings of Yokohama Mary. The trailer looked interesting and almost everybody that came out of the Friday screening said it was great. Out of the submissions, my favorites were: Diary of the DOROBO and CannibAlien.

Sky Crawlers: Visuals were great, storyline slow. I read a review about it afterwards to try to understand the movie better (warning spoilers-don’t click). May watch again to see if it makes sense.

Mushi-shi: Storyline slow, I thought it was going to be more exciting, fantasy type movie, I was wrong. Missed the last 10-15 minutes, so not sure how it ends.

ICHI: Story was good, only problem was the fighting scenes. Could have been more exciting. I would recommend watching it though.

SEX is no Laughing Matter: Started off strong but fizzled in the end. Yu Aoi is one of my favorite actresses, I like watching her on screen.

The Battery: Great! I really liked this movie, a “Must See”.

252: Signal of Life: It was better than I expected. I heard so many bad reviews, it probably was a little over the top, but I still enjoyed it. Ito Hideaki was OK in this. Not enough bare chested scenes like in Umizaru.

Always-Sunset on Third Street 2: Good continuation of the first movie. Should watch the first one before this to understand what’s going on.

A Long Walk: Sad, Alysa didn’t like the ending. Too open ended for her. Ken Ogata was great and so was the little girl, Hana Sugiura.

Vacation: A sad movie about a prison guard, his new family and an execution. If you think the U.S. Death Penalty is cruel, I think Japan’s is so much worse.

FUNUKE Show Some Love, You Losers: Hilarious, dark comedy about a dysfunctional family. Makes my family seem so normal.

I was going to add pictures and write about more of the films, but life kinda got in the way. So I’ll end this here. If I think of anything more, I’ll post again. Sorry it took me so long to write and post. The last JFFLA09 meeting and Wrap-up Party is scheduled for this Saturday, May 9th. Should be interesting to hear the outcome of this year’s festival.

Mr. Kiyoshi Kurosawa JFFLA Symposium

I met Mr. Kiyoshi Kurosawa at the JFFLA Symposium (that’s my postcard, was given 1 day to work on it) on March 10th. But I was working the registration table and didn’t get to listen to him talk. He seemed like a nice man, he posed for pictures with students afterwards. His handlers were trying to get him out of there, but he still stopped to talk and take the photos. The turnout could have been better. I think the date and time was bad, 5pm on a Tuesday. But I guess that was the only time he had available. He had a busy schedule that week. He was at LACMA the night before with his screening of Tokyo Sonata and Q&A. Then, Tuesday, UCLA Symposium at 5pm and USC screening and Q&A at 7pm. The next day he had an interview with Eric Nakamura, Giant Robot in San Francisco and then at SFIAAFF the rest of the week.  That’s one crazy schedule. Not sure what he did the week before or after.

JFFLA at the Royal/T Cafe

On Saturday, March 14th, I was helping out at the Short Film Screening (that’s Kio’s flyer) at the Royal/T Cafe. OMG, their burger sliders are so good. YUM! Standing room only, lots of people showed up. The audience voted for “The Diary of Dorobo”, we’ll be showing it at the Festival. That was one of my favorites. And I met the writer and director of The 8th Samurai, Justin Ambrosino. Nice guy.

We got quite a few submissions. There was one about Cannibals, hilarious but kinda gross. I think we’re going to try to show that one late at night. It’s pretty good. We finally got to watch the rest of the submissions last Friday, these were the full-length ones. That was a 6-hour marathon and I just couldn’t stay any longer, got home around 2am. I’m so exhausted.

So that’s what I’ve been doing lately. A couple more weeks of promoting and then the actual festival. Don’t forget to come, you’ll be able to see my “Boyfriend” on the big screen. Now I just need to figure out how to bring him home. Any suggestions?

Taste the Rainbow

Last year I started volunteering my time to the Japan Film Festival-Los Angeles, this year I’m helping with PR. In the past couple of months I’ve learned so much about web sites, blogs and social media. There’s so much out there and I’ve only just begun. Today I signed up for Twitter. Have no idea what I’m going to do with a Twitter account, but I’m using JFFLA as my excuse.

Anyways, I was researching Twitter this morning and came across this article, Why Skittles Killed It’s Web Site. Skittles got rid of their corporate web site and started using Twitter. Then they dumped Twitter and are now on Facebook. Seems their Twitter page was getting the wrong kind of attention. And that’s the thing, they got the attention.  Marketing genius or plain ass stupidity?

I hope you’re all happy now. I’m not doing it because of you. It’s for the Japan Film Festival, to help promote it. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Now will you leave me alone?