Fair warning: Rantiness ahead, but feel free to comment on non-ranty topics below!

Phew, for one who hadn’t intended to follow the Olympics to any close degree, I spent the early part of the week unintentionally watching almost everything (TV has been left on while I tune in and out, but inevitably I find myself watching most of the coverage). Then I got sick of wasting so much time listening to hyperbolic, jingoistic commentators blathering on about anything and everything to fill up air time and maxed out on my retarded-commentary quota.

For instance: saying that a gymnast’s last-minute injury was “like having a tear in your wedding dress before you walk down the aisle”? That is insulting to gymnasts and brides both. Oh yes, the elite gymnast who’d trained on an incredibly intense level for more than half her lifetime and was taken out of the Games at the last minute due to injury is really the same thing as a woman having a minor wardrobe mishap on her wedding day. How tragic. First off, you’re an idiot for making such a retarded comparison. Second, you’re an insulting idiot for perpetuating the stereotype that all women are frivolous, fashion-frenzied bridezillas who lose all sense of rational thought when it comes to her Day of Princessly Wedding Perfection. Some of us have never coveted a Vera Wang white dress, matchy-matchy flowers-to-cake-to-eyeshadow color coordination, or a $40,000 Big Waste of Money. Some of us are even capable of handling wedding days — or high-pressure moments — with self-control. I know! How novel! And here you thought all us women fret over a broken nail and simper over boys we like and cry when we’re frustrated.

Then we followed that bit of belittling commentary with the oh-so-clever quip following the women’s Cuba-U.S. beach volleyball match in which both teams came out sporting the same color beachwear. One team changed to alternate suits of a different color, but not without one correspondent remarking with relief over the suit change because showing up in the same outfit as another woman “is every woman’s worst nightmare.” Really? Because I have had a lot of nightmares in my life, and the color of my outfit matching the color of another woman’s outfit has never figured in any of them. Thanks for showing how thoughtful and elevated the discourse can be in women’s athletics.

Also getting on my nerves? The multiple anchors and commentators who describe the U.S. team athletes and coaches of Chinese descent as “returning home to their own country” for the Beijing Games (e.g., Shawn Johnson’s Chinese coach, the women’s volleyball coach). You know what? They’re fucking representing this country, they’ve devoted their livelihoods to furthering the sport for the U.S.’s teams, they’re contributing members of American society. So why are they all of a sudden chink-eyed foreigners “returning home”? I nearly threw my remote at my television set when one commentator essentially assured us, the American viewing public, that the U.S. volleyball coach Jenny Lang Ping (who’d formerly played for China and has since moved to the States) COULD BE TRUSTED not to compromise the U.S. team with divided loyalties to China. And what about Kevin Tan, U.S. men’s gymnast who happens to be Chinese-American. AMERICAN. Yet the commentators repeatedly had to blow smoke up their own asses about how amazing and progressive the U.S. is for having an Indian(-American), a Chinese(-American), and a Belarusian(-American) gymnast on the team.

Way to make it stunningly clear that you consider “true” Americans to be corn-fed, blue-eyed, blonde-haired white people, while the rest of us are merely The Foreign Other, no matter our citizenship or country of birth. We just happen to be benefiting from the U.S.’s benevolence and magnanimity in allowing us to live here, pay our taxes, and contribute to society, right?

Fuck you, NBC. Plz to be hiring some competent correspondents nxt time!

Suffice to say I’ve now got a heavy hand on the mute button and have switched to watching DVR-recorded broadcasts with most of the filler fast-forwarded. Because it’s stupid to give myself any aggravation over such a small thing (in my life) as the Olympics.

SONG OF THE DAY

Supergrass - “Run” [ Download ]

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Tags: ranty/ravey

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[Javabeans here. As I've mentioned several times in the past, I have a few issues with the otherwise charming SBS drama My Sweet Seoul, which has prevented me from enjoying the series as I probably ought. I expressed, in growing dissatisfaction, my initial disconnect with Choi Kang-hee's acting, a growing frustration with the Eun-soo character in Episode 7, and then an all-out rant after Episode 9.

I wanted to get the other side and bring a more balanced view, because god knows not everyone hates Eun-soo, otherwise this series would have no audience. So I invited Dahee Fanel, who has previously done me the honor of sharing her 2007 wrap-up review, to explain the other side. The result was an enlightening conversation, and despite the fact that I think Dahee and I pretty much disagree on most key points (LOL!), I had tons of fun debating the point with her. Hope you enjoy!]

SONG OF THE DAY

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (Btw, who calls oysters “er-sters”? Or pronounces after “off-ter”?) [ Download ]

Javabeans and Dahee Fanel’s point-counterpoint >>

Tags: Choi Kang-hee, guest bloggers, Lee Seon-kyun, My Sweet Seoul, ranty/ravey

Filed under: Drama Reactions & Reviews by Dahee_Fanel - 25 Comments →

Because it wasn’t enough to trot out fifteen-year-olds who can’t sing as sexually suggestive coquettes, now a nine-member “kiddie group” called Sweety is making its debut, with members ranging in age from 13 down to its 6-year-old “mascot.” (Btw, that’s eight girls, one boy. He be da pimp.)

They’re being touted as a group with singing skills “on par with adult groups.” If those adult groups mean the Wonder Girls, that’s not saying much. (Before you get offended: listen to this. Or this. Or this. Or this. My opinion is, if they put out such “professional” performances, they’re fair game to be called on it.)

I have nothing against the idea of a pop group aimed at a younger generation — heck, I grew up watching Kids Incorporated and Sesame Street, and my first music record (and nearly last, toy record players being pretty inferior products) was a Care Bears compilation. But it’s not the concept itself that has me feeling uneasy; it’s the tone and content of its marketing.

Singing aside, I’m disturbed at this trend for younger and younger teenage pre-teen poptarts, using the innocent “cute” defense to gloss over any suggestive implications that lie therein. Look, I’m not going call it pedophilic or accuse this group of being blatantly sexual, because I don’t think that’s true. But the point is that the slippery slope is getting slipperier with these mixed messages and crossed signals — tell me Sweety has nothing to do with the sex-peddling marketing strategies behind equally squicky Lolita-laden Wonder Girls or Girls Generation.

You can’t quite defend the choice of costuming as being innuendo-free when those short-short miniskirts are put on by adult stylists onto prepubescent girls — look at those two girls in the middle with their hands on their hips and their hips stuck out in their “Who, me?” faux-innocence poses. Is the coquetry a conscious gesture or has the image become so pervasive that these young girls have adopted it as the norm? Or are they being coached to act that way by their handlers? (ALL of those options seem creepy and unfortunate to me.) And do I see bare MIDRIFF with that cropped top? Even Wonder Girl Sohee admitted just this week that she used to shorten her skirts on her school uniforms. What, did she not have enough leg-baring and hip-swiveling in her day job?

Sweety’s first mini-album reportedly boasts “hip-hop rhythms” with “cute choreography,” and they’ve just filmed their first music video. That video had better be full of stuffed animals, dancing rabbits and animated birds, is all I’m sayin’. Leave the sexy stuff to the adults and let kids be kids, already.

Cable channel Mnet will start airing the group on July 22; a mini-album is set to go on sale soon.

Via No Cut News

SONG OF THE DAY

Lee Juck - “착시” (Optical illusion) ’cause I need some good ol’ “adult” music after this. [ Download ]

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I was thinking how I’ve been watching lots of first episodes of dramas these days, but haven’t found anything to dive into since the end of Who Are You? It’s starting to feel like going on a string of disappointing first dates — measuring up expectations versus performance, anticipation versus letdown, etc.

You know, there’s that date you’re really looking forward to, so you get dressed up and put on your heels and makeup and count down the hours, and he turns out to be a total dud. Or the date you agreed to because it was easier to give the guy your number than to try to invent an excuse not to because those excuses always come out embarrassingly half-assed — like you say you don’t have a phone and then it rings, or something — but then you end up having a good time.

I didn’t exactly intend to go off on an extended metaphor, but when I thought about all the recent dramas I’ve caught, they all seemed to fit (more or less).

SONG OF THE DAY

G.O.D. - “Falling” [ Download ]

First dates, by which I mean… >>

Tags: Bulhandang/Robbers, Coffee Prince, Hong Gil Dong, I Love You, Iljimae, La Dolce Vita, On Air, ranty/ravey, Rivals, Spotlight, stuff I dig, The Last Scandal of My Life, Tokyo Showers, Who Are You?, Why Did You Come To Our House, Yi San

Filed under: Drama Reactions & Reviews by javabeans - 101 Comments →

Um. I know it’s hardly accurate to judge a movie based on a 30-second trailer, much less a few photo stills. But, erm, based on these stills of the upcoming action flick G.I. Joe… it looks kinda lame.

Which is too bad, since, as usual, Korean fans are excited about the inclusion of another big-name star (this time actor Lee Byung Heon) in a Hollywood production. And G.I. Joe does boast some well-known Hollywood names, starting with director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, Van Helsing) and actors Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jonathan Pryce, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Marlon Wayans.

I was more optimistic about Lee’s chances being cast as Storm Shadow (a ninja assassin with dual loyalties to both Cobra Commander and G.I. Joe) than, say, Rain’s criticized performance in Speed Racer, because Lee Byung Heon has at least distinguished himself more as an actor than Rain. But Rain will get another chance to redeem himself, playing (sigh) a ninja assassin in the upcoming Wachowski brothers production of the same name. Yeah, I know Lee’s role was supposedly changed from Japanese to Korean, but that’s just something to appease the Koreans — to the rest of the world, a ninja is a ninja.

Well, fingers crossed for more successful Hollywood crossovers for Jeon Ji Hyun (Blood: The Last Vampire) as a vampire-hunting warrior and Jang Dong Gun (Laundry Warrior) as an “Asian warrior assassin.”

(Seriously, Hollywood? Are you running down the Asian Stereotype Checklist and all just happened to get stuck in the “warrior assassin” mode? What next? A slew of movies about nerdy Asian scientists who speak Kong-Ching-Japlish (hey, they all sound the same, right?) who decide to engage the world in a new Red Terror and revitalize communism with the help of their doll-faced, subservient women? While acing the SAT, running convenience stores and bemoaning their lesser-endowed sexy parts? ‘Cause… yeah, we are not impressed. And by “we” I mean “me,” but I’m pretty sure also “we.”)

Filming began in February in L.A., and G.I. Joe plans to release in Summer 2009.

Via Star News

SONG OF THE DAY

8eight - “물어봅니다” (I ask) [ Download ]

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Filed under: Chungmuro/Film by javabeans - 23 Comments →

Dance Dance Revolution! HA!

Anyone who’s watched The Colbert Report for a while now will probably, like me, have anticipated some kind of shenanigans to come of Stephen Colbert’s reported dance-off challenge with Rain in a battle to assert his kpop idol supremacy. After all, Colbert’s the guy who cultivated a mock rivalry with indie rockers The Decemberists and finally challenged them to a “Guitarmageddon” shred-off — at which point he took out a guitar, faked injury, and called in a “last-minute” replacement. Good thing Peter Frampton was on hand to step in, right?

So what better way to cheekily circumvent his own dance challenge — short of calling in Justin Timberlake to pinch-hit, er, pinch-dance (as I only half-joked about earlier) — than to conduct the challenge on Dance Dance Revolution consoles (with the refrain of his Rain parody song altered to sing, nonsensically, “He’s dancin’ in Korean…”)?

Rain did show off some dance moves before the Dance Dance Revolution portion, and although I don’t think he showed himself to his best advantage (he dances more impressively in his music videos, imo), he acquitted himself reasonably well. Perhaps in keeping with Rain’s self-consciousness about his English, the segment was pre-recorded without a live audience and his speaking was kept to a bare minimum (a mere, “I don’t think so” as he made his grand entrance). Plus, the burden of the humor (and the brunt of the joke) was borne by Colbert himself, who countered Rain’s flashy moves with his own laughably dorky ones (but performed with complete gravitas, of course).

Colbert was also the one who was “outmaneuvered” by Rain on the DDR console — which, if you watch The Colbert Report regularly, you’ll note is something of a rare concession, since Colbert never makes his character out to be the loser of anything. In fact, despite all the faux-trash-talking he’s done, I’ve been surprised (pleasantly, actually) at how deferential Colbert has been to Rain. I mean, he frequently makes his guests appear silly and does his best to push their buttons with his obnoxious, self-described “willful ignorance.” But then again, I also think Colbert only pushes his aggressive character as far as his opponent/guest can handle it, and Rain might still require some special handling. In any case, Colbert has always been careful not to place Rain at a disadvantage.

All in all, the segment was hilarious and Rain’s participation — despite barely talking — showed him in the best possible light, which was as an It-Getter who’s in on the joke and knows how to laugh at himself. (Which, I suppose, is helped when the joke is really about him laughing at someone else.) The appearance can only help.

SONG OF THE DAY

Rain - “태양을 피 하는 방법” (How to Escape the Sun). This version’s different from the version I posted earlier; this is the one in the music video, and is the song used as the basis for Colbert’s “Singin’ in Korean” spoof. [ Download ]

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Tags: Hollywood, kpop, Rain, ranty/ravey, singers, Stephen Colbert

Filed under: Kpop News by javabeans - 38 Comments →