Samurai Sith!

As others have pointed out before, Darth Vader's helmet has a very Samurai-ish feel to it. For example, the venerable Star Wars website had a complete article on it a few years back.










Check out this article on Darth about the man behind the mask which also has a letter printed by fellow Empire blogger, John Rozum. Here's a peek at a more David Prowse-ian head behind this spinning head thingamajig.















Let's match his helmet with some actual Samurai throughout Japanese history. Hmmm. Let's see, I have a couple of Kurosawa's 7 Samurai, but they're not even wearing helmets.







Oh darn, neither are these half a dirty dozen.







Nor is this guy...



Okay, we're getting closer...






Let's doublecheck a few of the Darth pillows I own. Nope, not quite.







Well what do ya know. Sendai's own
伊達 政宗 (Date Masamune) has a similar headpiece, if you take off the banana, substitute a masked inhaler for an eyepatch and we may have ourselves a winner!

Happy AK Day!

Today is the 100th Anniversary of Akira Kurosawa's birthday. Too bad our beloved director isn't alive to reach his Centenary, but his memory lives on. One of my favourite posts is about Ran and just the other day I saw a Martin Ritt movie called The Outrage with Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson and the priest does a great William Shatner impersonation (click for a link to Talk Like William Shatner Day.) When I was watching this movie, I thought to myself, "Gee, this reminds me an awful lot of Rashomon." Sure enough, yet another AK remake.




Another fan fave has to be 七人の侍 which we all know as the predecessor to The Magnificent Seven (quick, can you name all Seven? Let's see, McQueen, Brynner, Bronson, Vaughn, Coburn, Buchholz...damn, I had to look up Brad Dexter as the kid. Eli Wallach makes a magnificent villain though.
I wish I had purchased all of these figures, but after I got the Director, I stopped buying them. I did manage to get Samurais 4 and 5.











Happy 100th Birthday, Akira! I can't wait for the next remake of Seven Samurai with Clooney!

Got Nailed.

Last year, I did quite well with my predictions, nailing more than naught. Alas I was not so much Nostradamus as Nostromo (and we all know what happened to that Alien ship!) (I'm embarrassed to see that my last year's post of winners has the same title as yesterday's post. I gotta check these more carefully.) Anywho...I'm not going to bother a tally of all my efforts, only those I wanted to win or predicted would win. Here goes:
(Before I begin a brief aside: While I'm writing about the celebration of Movie's best, I'm watching a devastation of its worst...Mr. Bean's Holiday! UPDATE: I turned it off!)

My prediction for what won will be in BOLD, for what I wanted will be ITALICIZED and if they coincide, it'll be BOTH.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire --Christian Colson
Best Foreign Language Film: Departures - Japan --Yojiro Takita
Best Documentary Feature: Man on Wire --Simon Chinn
Best Animated Feature: WALL·E --Andrew Stanton
Best Director: Danny Boyle --Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Sean Penn --Milk
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Kate Winslet --The Reader
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger --The Dark Knight
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Penélope Cruz --Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Writing - Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black --Milk
Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy --Slumdog Millionaire

Documentary Short (Missed it!)
Film Editing (Missed it!)
Makeup (Missed it!)
Music (Score) (Missed it!)
Music (Song) Nailed it! Jai Ho
Short Film (Live Action) Toyland (Guessed it!)
Sound Editing (Missed it!)
Sound Mixing (Missed it!)
Visual Effects (Missed it!)

Holy Crap, Batman! All my desired picks went to either Benjamin Button or Slumdog! TDK, Hellboy and Iron Man got snubbed for everything!! (Okay, not Heath, but you know what I mean.)

As pointed out by the Japan Times, two big winners were Japanese. (Any Canadian Content anyone??) Similarly, Alex pointed out in my comments that
Departure is a pretty good pic. He was surprised to learn that there has never been a Japanese Best Foreign Film winner and further amazed that Kurosawa had never won. Actually it's the first win since 1954's 地獄門 (Jigokumon) or Gate of Hell, Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa but that was before the BFF Category was invented and prior to that it was only an Honourary Category.

As for Kurosawa, his only film to have ever received the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar was for Dersu Uzala (1975)...his only film not done in Japanese (it was in Russian). His movie, Ran, was not nominated as a Foreign Film nor as Best Picture but Akira himself was nominated as Best Director!

I can be forgiven for not choosing the Best Short Film (Animated) for with a title like La Maison en Petits Cubes who knew that it'd be a Japanese entry directed by Kunio Kato?

In summation, I nailed a lot of the obvious ones and missed out on the ones I liked.

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Jerry Lewis --Comedic film and humanitarian work. He's a goof in real life, but I did like some of his early work...and I'm not even French!

Dead Guys tribute: apparently they neglected to mention Eartha Kitt (Hissss!) or George Carlin
(%$&#$%)!

I hope buddy Bob taped it for me. It sounds like Wolverine did a great job!

Come Not Between The Dragon and His Wrath. (King Lear, Act 1 Scene1.)

The great director, 黒澤 明 (Akira Kurosawa) made 乱 (Ran=War/Chaos) in 1985. I'm not sure where I picked up this book, but it includes the original screenplay and storyboards of the Academy Award-winning film. I won't go into great detail here, you can always check out this essay or the Wiki entry. Most people know that it is based on Shakespeare's King Lear though I have yet to read it in that form (but you can if you click the link.)






So let's take a pictorial trip through Akira Kurosawa's illustrations for Ran! (Check out this cool figure of Kurosawa that I got in a Seven Samurai set.)










"The Samurai in the lead, old but tough, draws his bow, aiming a the prey. His long white hair and beard billow in the wind; his hawkish eyes shine in his sun-tanned face--the magnificent vision of a great warrior who has survived hundreds of battles. This is the Great Lord, Hidetora Ichimonji." (Tatsuya Nakadai)





Nobohiro Fujimaki played by Hitoshi Ueki.













Seiji Ayabe played by Jun Tazaki.













父と子 (chichi to kodomo or Father & Sons.)










姫路かえで or Princess Kaede. I must say the actress, Mieko Harada, looks better than this drawing.












Kyoami is played by "Peter", a famous celebrity cross-dresser who goes by the stage name of 池畑 慎之介, Ikehata Shinnosuke.












One heck of an archer.











One heck of a pincushion.











Is this a dagger I see before me? (Oops, sorry wrong play.) Check out Kurosawa's version of the Scottish play, Throne of Blood. (蜘蛛巣城 or Kumonosu Jo which is literally "Spiderweb Castle".)






No, he's not a zombie, but he is 'armless.











Hidetoro has gone Kuru. At this point Lord Ichimonji has gone a bit mad.












"Hidetora staggering over the fild scattered with autumn flowers in the moonlight, as if running from something fearful."








Saburo Naotora (Daisuke Ryu) and Seiji Ayabe (Jun Tazaki.)









"On top of the steep stone wall, Tsurumaru is at a loss. The evening glow is no in its final stages. The last light of day will soon fade, and darkness will reign over the realm."










"Against the background of the last glow of evening, the small figure of Tsurumaru is standing alone on the lofty stone wall in the remains of the castle.
Wretchedness!"





If you're interesting in your own copy, try this Amazon link.

Finally, here's a few minutes of the movie for your YouTubing pleasure.

I Gotta Rash, oh Mon!

(That's a terrible heading, sorry.) The main reason I'm posting 羅生門 (Rashomon) is because I have never seen it and I can watch it at work tomorrow at my desk. Google rules for videos of a greater length than 20 min. but sometimes, one must pay the piper.

The novel, "Yabu No Naka" by Rymosuke Akutagawa, is creatively depicted on the screen in this Kurosawa film. It focuses on the principal characters who narrate conflicting versions of a single incident coloured by their individual perceptions and personalities. (You can read a translation of the story here.)














I can finally find out what Marge and Homer were talking about in this sequence from 30 Minutes over Tokyo:
Marge: "You liked Rashomon."
Homer: "That's not how I remember it."