densha_otoko
Sep. 16th, 2006 02:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedHanai-sensei: By the way, if you guys are interested CJS is screening a film tomorrow at seven. It's called Train Man, it was a huge hit in Japan last year....?
Ujihara-sensei: Yes, it was last year.
Hanai-sensei: Right. A very popular movie. It's a romance, but also a comedy...
Ujihara-sensei: A romantic comedy.
Hanai-sensei: Right! A popular romantic comedy.
YEAH.
(densha_otoko is the story of a 22-year old anime and manga geek who has never had a girlfriend, and the woman he meets on the train, and how he overcomes his severe social phobia to date her thanks to the support of his friends on 2chan. BASED ON A TRUE STORY <-- yeah right. Anyway, it's a romance and a comedy -- a very funny comedy -- and I'm sure it was popular. But not the movie I was expecting, based on the term "popular romantic comedy".
Points:
1. Doesn't do the thing where you can TOTALLY TELL a normal, confident person is only pretending to be socially maladjusted. Does do the thing where the geek is TOTALLY HOT without his glasses on.
2. There's text (with smileys!) integrated into every other shot, very cool. And there are subplots starring the folks from 2chan, also very cool.
3. Gets a little too "inspirational message" toward the end. You! Too! Can leave your room! And meet girls!
4. But awwww, that was cute. (Totally generic except for the 2chan angle, but cute.)
The professor who introduced the movie used to work with the Japanese committee for the Hawaiian Film Festival. In the eighties, apparently, this was the film festival to go to for What's New in Asian Cinema, and every year scores of producers and directors and CEOs, etc, would descend on the island and, based on what they saw there, decide which titles to bring to the U.S. the next year. But the thing is that there were only three people deciding which Japanese films to show. The way it worked was:
A month before the festival, one of them would be sent abroad to Japan. For a week he'd watch as many movies as possible. Then he'd send back a few dozen, and the other two members would decide which to screen. And this was the US film industry's view of Japanese cinema.
...yeah. The professor went on to say that things are different now, THANKS TO THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. When he started in on fansubbers, I swear a significant portion of the audience sniggered.
***
Also today, I went to an exhibit by this guy. His sculptures are SO MUCH COOLER in person, omg. The description used on his website is "three-dimensional flip-book," but really it's more like watching a hologram. (A weird, trippy, dream-sequency hologram.)
Ujihara-sensei: Yes, it was last year.
Hanai-sensei: Right. A very popular movie. It's a romance, but also a comedy...
Ujihara-sensei: A romantic comedy.
Hanai-sensei: Right! A popular romantic comedy.
YEAH.
(densha_otoko is the story of a 22-year old anime and manga geek who has never had a girlfriend, and the woman he meets on the train, and how he overcomes his severe social phobia to date her thanks to the support of his friends on 2chan. BASED ON A TRUE STORY <-- yeah right. Anyway, it's a romance and a comedy -- a very funny comedy -- and I'm sure it was popular. But not the movie I was expecting, based on the term "popular romantic comedy".
Points:
1. Doesn't do the thing where you can TOTALLY TELL a normal, confident person is only pretending to be socially maladjusted. Does do the thing where the geek is TOTALLY HOT without his glasses on.
2. There's text (with smileys!) integrated into every other shot, very cool. And there are subplots starring the folks from 2chan, also very cool.
3. Gets a little too "inspirational message" toward the end. You! Too! Can leave your room! And meet girls!
4. But awwww, that was cute. (Totally generic except for the 2chan angle, but cute.)
The professor who introduced the movie used to work with the Japanese committee for the Hawaiian Film Festival. In the eighties, apparently, this was the film festival to go to for What's New in Asian Cinema, and every year scores of producers and directors and CEOs, etc, would descend on the island and, based on what they saw there, decide which titles to bring to the U.S. the next year. But the thing is that there were only three people deciding which Japanese films to show. The way it worked was:
A month before the festival, one of them would be sent abroad to Japan. For a week he'd watch as many movies as possible. Then he'd send back a few dozen, and the other two members would decide which to screen. And this was the US film industry's view of Japanese cinema.
...yeah. The professor went on to say that things are different now, THANKS TO THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. When he started in on fansubbers, I swear a significant portion of the audience sniggered.
***
Also today, I went to an exhibit by this guy. His sculptures are SO MUCH COOLER in person, omg. The description used on his website is "three-dimensional flip-book," but really it's more like watching a hologram. (A weird, trippy, dream-sequency hologram.)