Aino Minako-chan

But first, a quick snippet from an email from my Dad:

I've been dealing on the phone for the last week with Bob Bobson [real name changed to protect the innocent], a young civil servant who is processing my pension application. [...] Anyway, I'll have to walk him through this slowly just like I did about 15 years ago with a young IRS officer who audited me. In that case, she finally asked me if I would mind writing her report. Will be a learning experience for both of us.

Only my dad would write his own audit. ^_^

In other news, I'm getting all rared up for movie fun this summer, so here's some quick rants:

( And now for Movie News! )

I realized suddenly that I haven't spend nearly enough time talking about the most exciting thing of the new millenium. Yes, I'm talking about Final Fantasy X. It's coming out rather soon, less than a month in Japan, and let me tell you one thing about FFX... it's beautiful. The commercials are really short but all over TV. The thing is that in most EVERY store, they've got their Playstation looping their rather long demo CGs of FFX. And wherever you go, there's always a crowd of Japanese people, men and women, young and older, just staring at this thing with their jaws dropped somewhere around their knees. It's... it's beautiful. It's honestly really really really gorgeous. It's got amazing sweeping scenes, the most BEAUTIFUL CG work I've ever seen, and lots of use of their rainbow effects. It's... it's amazing. I've spent many a minute simply standing in front of this thing and staring. No one knows what it's about but, hell with graphics like that, it don't really matter.

Today, I also finally broke down and got myself the "Moulin Rouge" CD soundtrack. I've been having major MAJOR Ewan withdrawl, and listening to "Velvet Goldmine" on repeat or watching "Star Wars" in Japanese just doesn't seem to help things when Mommy keeps sending me articles about "Moulin Rouge" from the newspaper. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the soundtrack, just as I don't know what to expect from the movie. I've heard many things about both the movie and the music, everything ranging from singing praise to "it sucks." (Which frankly only wants me to see it more ^_^) I'd heard many times that Nicole Kidman was a crappy singer, so I wasn't quite sure if her songs would end up being dogs wailing into the night or not. But then again, I figured, I also heard one person say that Ewan was a crappy singer, and as that's obviously a load of shit, people could be wrong about Nicole Kidman, too. As it turned out, I needed not be afraid. The soundtrack is great, Nicole Kidman actually sounds darned good, and Ewan is, well, he's Ewan. [sigh~!] God I love him. Plus it was too damned cute. Think about it: Ewan's really Scottish; Kidman's really Australian; the accents they got on some of these songs were hysterical. I was giggling helplessly. It was too adorable. About half of the songs were by Kidman/McGregor, the other half were artists like Beck, David Bowie, Bono, Fatboy Slim, and the Lady Marmalade crowd. (Thanks to Ewan McGregor movie soundtracks, BTW, I have more David Bowie than I ever thought I'd attain.) My personal favorite of the "real singer" songs had to be Beck performing "Diamond Dogs," a Davie Bowie song. It was too damned cool. I mean, it's BECK. On DAVID BOWIE. It was too much fun. ^_^ The cast songs were a blast, too. The mixes and arrangements they had on the stuff was awesome, and sometimes the mix of songs themselves just got amusing. Only three songs came out whole: one for Kidman, one for Ewan, and a duet. But the thing was... Ewan's solo was "Your Song." Yes, the Elton John. I -LOVE- Elton John (with a possible exception of the Lion King songs written for the musical...), and "Your Song" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. And what do you get when you combine Elton John, Ewan McGregor, a children's chorus, and an amazing opera tenor? @_@ It was good. It was very very veeeeeery good. The titles of the mix songs were almost better than the mixes themselves: "Sparkling Diamonds" and "Hindi Sad Diamonds" were both Nicole Kidman songs based around "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." "Sparkling Diamonds" was the more normal cabaret song combined with, what else, "Material Girl." Easy mix. "Hindi Sad Diamonds" was an awesome arrangement combining the song with "Chamma Chamma" for an amazing techno Indian arrangement. It's simply too damned cool for words. It's simply amazing. I've never been so amazed. Another song was entitled, "Elephant Love Medley." Seriously. That's an Ewan/Kidman duet that combines many many many songs that comes out, not as a medley, but a full dialogue. It's really pretty cool, and playing the song does neat things to freak out my computer speakers. ("They're loud~! Ack, they're really really loud~! [buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]") If you want to know, the list of songs in this "medley" are: [deep breath] All You Need Is Love, I Was Made For Lovin' You, One More Night, Pride (In The Name of Love), Don't Leave Me This Way, Silly Love Songs, Up Where We Belong, Heroes, I Will Always Love You, and Your Song. WHEW~! Frankly, when Ewan broke into "I Will Always..." I nearly started laughing, but the rest of it was surprisingly good. Could have been worse. They could have used Titanic. ^_^ The last of the great mixes was "El Tango De Roxanne." It combined, of all things, "Roxanne" with an original tango. I spent the longest time staring at it and waiting in dread. Know what the weird part is? "Roxanne" does REALLY well as a tango. It was an AWESOME song. It was sung partly by Ewan and some other guy who I'm assuming plays a baddie in the movie. It was... well it was frankly amazing. I'd never have expected it. So, final analysis: Awesome awesome awesome soundtrack. And Ewan kicks ass. O_o He's.... a really good singer. Plus, between Moulin Rouga and Star Wars, he spent like months of his life in the exact same sound stage in Australia, so you have to give him kudos for that, right? Right~! U-fu~!

P.S. Here's the fun fact for the "Moulin Rouge" CD: The London Orchestra Leader was Gavyn Wright. I'm dead serious when I say that he's been the leader for at least two other Japanese pop CDs I own. Man, it's scary when you start recognizing orchestra leaders...

I've been awfully serious lately, so I decided to completely dumb up my livejournal for a bit. About a week ago, I got a newspaper article (I love you Mom~!) from the local newspaper that listed all of the movies coming out this summer. I now know like 3 lines of type about every movie, BUT based on that, I'm going to give you my top movies that I want to see this summer... And hold onto your hats since I've been movie depraved...

The "Must See" Movies: These are the movies that I'm absolutely dying to see, even though I'm getting back to the states at the END of the summer, which means I'll probably miss them and then cry.
--Moulin Rouge: It's Ewan. Singing. Ewan in a musical. @_@ In case you haven't noticed, Ewan McGregor is my favorite actor of all time. Not only that, but he's a damned good singer. Moulin Rouge is my heaven. Not only that, but I love artsy, quirky movies and have a soft spot for musicals, too. And if there's anything agreed about Moulin Rouge, it's a musical, it's quirky, and it's got Ewan. Hellooooooo Moulin Rouge~~~!!!
--Final Fantasy: I love the computer game series, I love intelligent animation, I've been looking forward to this movie for years. The things that they're doing look simply spectacular, and I just can't wait to get back to the States and see this one.
--The King is Alive: I can't believe this one. Simply because it's been out in Japan for months, so I thought it had probably already come and gone in the States. The basic idea is that a bunch of tourists get stranded in the African desert. But instead of disparing, one the tourists, an old Shakespearian actor, leads the other in staging King Lear. It sounds great, so I can't wait to see it. Maybe I should just break down and see it here, actually...

The "Movies that I don't want to see but will probably end up seeing just because everyone else is" Movies: I think the category title says it all. I've discovered over the years that if the majority of the American population is paying big bucks to see it, I'll probably find it only mildly entertainting.
--Pearl Harbor: I have no desire to see this movie. None at all. Dead serious. I don't particularly like war movies, I've heard that the movie has been bad reviews, and I've heard that it's been getting flack for twisting history. How does one twist Pearl Harbor? The Japanese blow up Hawaii and win the war?
--Jurassic Park III: It's the Jurassic Park trilogy. Of course I have to see it. One can only go so many years without having Raptor nightmares. I just don't want to see it. Such is life.

The "Movies I know nothing about but the cast looks good" Movies: Hey, I can be superficial too, okay?
--A.I.: Not quite the same, but that's okay. I know little about it, so I suppose that counts. I don't really want to see this movie, even though I don't really know quite why. I just don't. But, it's Steven Spielberg and Haley Joel Osment is the star, and I think he's cute as a bunny. So I'll probably end up seeing it just for that.
--The Man Who Cried: Supposed to be 4 people meeting in Paris right before WWII. That's about all I know. But the 4 people are Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, and Johnny Depp. Yeah, I'll see it.
--Anniversary Party: It's one of those giant cast movies, meaning that like 90% of the review is spent trying to list a third of the people, but it's got some good names at least.
--Hedwig and the Angry Inch: This is a bit different, since I don't know the cast either. But it's a "punk rock neo-glam musical odyssey" based on the off-Broadway play about a man who got a sex-change operation to escape from behind the Iron Curtain and formed a rock band in America. It sounds awfully fun, if nothing else.
--Captain Corelli's Mandolin: What the hell is with the title, that's all I want to know. But it's got a great cast. Christian Bale~! Nicolas Cage~! Christian Bale~! John Hurt~! Christian Bale~! I think you can all guess why I want to see the movie.