So, Just How Japanese is the USA These Days?

All around Asian culture fan and writer for among other publications the Guardian, Animerica (much missed) and Otaku USA, Patrick Macias wonders if the US realizes just how Japanese its pop culture is becoming:

Japan has since become a secret sauce, an inspiration, a font of ideas for studio heads and scriptwriters who don’t have to come up with ideas of their own. “The Magnificent Seven,”“Power Rangers,”“The Ring,”“Dragon Ball”- all have passed through the Hollywood meat grinder with varying degrees of success.

I suppose it is only fitting then that a new “Godzilla” film appears to be leading yet another wave that includes the likes of “Edge of Tomorrow” (based on a Japanese SF novel), a new “Power Rangers” reboot and lord knows what else is in development hell.

In a climate where geek culture potentially equals big business, but most of the major geek properties – like “Star Wars,”“Harry Potter,” and every dorky superhero from your childhood are locked up already – Japan takes on the appearance of an untapped reserve of pop culture, ripe for the plucking. I’ve had the weird meetings and can confirm: TV and movie people are now in the process of some serious plucking.

For anyone remotely interested in the America’s on-again, off-again love affair with Japan, Macias’s article for MTV makes for a decent read.

The Bizarre Rise and Fall of the Tiki Bar

Sven A. Kristen, author of the much beloved and sadly out of print The Book of Tiki published by Taschen (used copies of which are currently selling above $130), has a new book out! It’s called Tiki Pop: America imagines its own Polynesian Paradise and it looks like another good one.

Over at Wired, Joseph Flaherty has an article on both Kristen’s new book and tiki culture in general worth reading:

In the 1950s and ’60s, an epidemic of island fever swept the United States. Tiki-themed structures spread like jungle vines, taking the form of garden-style apartments in Redondo Beach, California and Polynesia-inspired motor lodges in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. Amway, the quintessential midwestern enterprise, sold jade-green tiki soaps in the shape of Moai. Barely a decade after the Bataan Death March, Americans couldn’t get enough rattan furniture for their living rooms basement bars. For some rum-soaked reason, millions of American adults wanted their lives to feel like a never-ending trip to the Rainforest Cafe.

For the rest of “The Bizarre Rise and Fall of the Tiki Bar”, click here.

 

60 Cycles

Jean-Claude Labrecque shot 60 Cycles in 1965 using a 1000mm lenses lent by NASA, documenting the Tour de St. Laurent, a long-distance bike race set in Quebec featuring international riders. At 16 minutes, 60 Cycles is an amazing documentary that feels both very Canadian (given the Quebec setting) and European (aside from road cycling being more of a European pursuit, many of the racers are in fact European). Watch it for the old-school Merino cycling jerseys, the vintage shots of the Quebec countryside or the sheer beauty of distance cycling. Note that the film also has a great surf rock soundtrack that will satisfy any fans of Ventures, Dick Dale or the Phantom Surfers.

 

You can watch the whole film here.

Yma Sumac – Live in Moscow (1960)

It is April 9, 2013, and it would appear that spring is finally here.

In celebration, here is a video of the incomparable Yma Sumac, the Peruvian goddess with a vocal range in excess of four octaves, singing live in Moscow. Enjoy.

Gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura / Cold Eyes of Fear (1974)

 

 

Sylvia Kristel Interview

This 2007 interview between Emmanuelle star Sylvia Kristel (five years before her death in 2012) and Telegraph writer Mick Brown is surprisingly insightful, covering a range of material from 70s decadence to Harry Nilsson to Jean Arcelin, CEO of Chrysler Jeep Dodge in France and the co-writer of Kristel’s memoir. It is worth reading in full:

The more Kristel talks, the more you find yourself warming to her. She is winningly candid and unapologetic about herself, devoid of any airs or pretensions – someone who has come to regard the switchback journey that life has taken her on with a droll sense of humour and, more importantly, a sense of proportion. While it is true that as an actress she was never able to escape the blessing and curse that was Emmanuelle, she was able to make a career of sorts. ‘There was one director who said I was the type of actress who loses interest after three weeks, and that’s true,’ she admits. ‘It’s very boring to sit on a set and wait until it’s finally your turn. But I know now that no film could have beaten Emmanuelle, box-office wise or in its impact. I got a lot of letters from people – “You saved our marriage” – and so…’

For the rest of the interview, click here.

Above pic from photo blog If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger.

Kingston Road Motels

For BlogTO, Derek Flack has uncovered several impressive pics of old-school Scarborough motels from the archives, all that used to occupy space on Kingston Road. Here’s a link to the post in question and what follows are some of the pics.

 

 

Atlantic Article on David Lynch’s Dune

As a teenager, when I first saw David Lynch’s Dune, I thought it was brilliant. I loved its uber-complex mythology, its bizarre costuming, and its archetypal plot. Like a typical SF nerd, I would passionately quote, “He who controls the Spice controls the universe!” Having a soft spot for the film, I always bristled at the near universal criticism it faced.

I think this article, by Daniel D. Snyder, writing for the Atlantic, excellently captures the movie’s unique charms:

Dune was like the anti-Star Wars, undoing everything Lucas’s trilogy did to make sci-fi a friendly place. A New Hope took audiences to far away galaxies, sure, but it smoothed the transition into the fantastical with a simple, recognizable tale: A gentle farmhand meets a wise old man and a cowboy, gets himself a sword (of sorts), and goes adventuring. It’s almost baffling, in retrospect, that producer Dino de Laurentiis, who bought the rights to the notoriously obtuse Dune project in 1978, one year after Star Wars became a hit, could look at Herbert’s novel and think that something as warm, friendly, and accessible could be squeezed from its pages.

Herbert’s book offered a meticulously detailed saga of a dark future where royal houses war for control of the desert planet Arrakis and its precious resource, the spice melange. Fitting all of that tale into movie length proved comically impossible for Jodorowsky. Lynch’s film palpably suffers from numerous cuts and recuts to the final edit, which clocks in at two hours and 17 minutes. So instead of showing not telling the story, the movie relies on a flurry of voiceover and breathy exposition.

For the rest of the “The Messy, Misunderstood Glory of David Lynch’s Dune”, click here.

New Worlds Cover Gallery

For many decades the voice of British science fiction, New Worlds varied from being a fan-zine to a professional periodical to a series of paperbacks. It is perhaps most famous today for being the main publication for the British “new wave” of writers: J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss, etc.

Published from 1946 through 1979 (re-emerging for sporadic public in the 1990s), New Worlds provides a fascinating source for cover artwork. All the following images come from The Visual Index of Science Fiction Cover art, which hosts a variety of exciting SF artwork. Their New Worlds page is here and their main page is here. Enjoy.

 

 

Eric Ambler and Post-Modernism

For my money, Eric Ambler was one of best practitioners of the classic British spy thriller. Intelligent, droll and brisk, his prose rewards readers looking for a literary escape. Anyway, found this interesting essay by Sarah Weinman on Ambler’s classic A Coffin for Dimitrios over at the Wall Street Journal:

Though Ambler’s style sometimes veered more into comedy (his 1962 “The Light of Day” became the basis of Jules Dassin’s classic caper film “Topkapi” two years later) and he stayed neutral on the Cold War, he remained true to the style of spy fiction that made him famous, influencing the likes of Ian Fleming, John Le Carré and Len Deighton. More than any of his other novels, “A Coffin For Dimitrios” stands out as a classic example of what Ambler termed “the ape beneath the velvet”—the furious, pulsating violence beating beneath a smooth and placid façade.

For the rest of the essay, follow this link. (art by Ryan Inzana)