NYAFF 2010 Coverage begins!
Coverage begins over at our sister site. Click the Picture to Beam Over.
Coverage begins over at our sister site. Click the Picture to Beam Over.
So you, loyal papernauts, may have noticed things have been a little bit slow these past couple of weeks. Well there has been a lot of goings ons behind the scenes including new jobs for some of our writers and even a surgery for yours truly (don’t worry I’m fine). Anyway the biggest change is that we are splitting the site in two. Paper Spaceships was begun with the goal of blogging about genre books and news with forays into comics and general nerddom as we saw fit.
It has become a rather crazy at the moment. So in order to streamline and focus we have created a new site for film. That way nerdy book stuff goes here nerdy film stuff goes there. Cineawesome! is the name of the site. Go there. Bookmark it. Spread the news.
In other news we are in the process of getting some new crew for our interstellar journey so keep an eye out as they are going to be introduced within the next couple of weeks.
As always thanks for reading and keep telling people about us!
Allison posted her reaction to Rick Riordan’s The Red Pyramid here. I just finished it and wanted to let everyone know what I thought. Short version I really enjoyed it. Slightly Longer Version to be completed after the break. … Continue Reading
No my room does not look like this...
Here we are with another Top 7 Tuesday for you, our loyal papernauts. This Tuesday we will be covering manga. I am by no means an Otaku (in fact I shudder at that word and it makes me think of crazy fanboys/girls who put a lot of people off of it in the first place) but I do enjoy storytelling by many means. One of which is in comic form. Once upon a time (back in college while helping to run Otakuden a now defunct anime/kungfu store in Manhattan) I would try pretty much anything a customer told me to try. I ended up reading a lot of crap, but every once in a while something would shine through. I soon started to stay away from the long running series (with one exception that is on my list) and gave up on the perennial fan favorites Naruto and Bleach because I got bored. Not to say I hate them, in fact I really enjoyed them, its just that well time is short and I can’t play catch up when there are better things to read. So without further ado THE LIST! … Continue Reading
I have covered the idea of the division culture in Korean film in this very column (and probably will cover again given the prevalence of it in the culture) before focusing on the economic, technological, and social divide in both Shiri and Repatriation. I’ve also explored it within the family. However, these definitions of historical and cultural division do not singularly define the idea of Korean national division. In this article I will explore the division of mind and body in Choi In-hoon’s The Square and Kim Ki-duk’s Bad Guy (Nappeun Namja, 2002) and how they relate to the historical division and economic division respectively. Choi In-hoon’s protagonist, Lee Myong-jun, is the intellect divided from the body. He attempts to fix this trauma, and cure his loneliness through doomed relationships with two women and two nations. Kim Ki-duk’s protagonist, Han-gi (Cho Jae-hyeon), is the physical divided from the intellect. He attempts to overcome this trauma through the misogynistic male fantasy of turning a woman into a prostitute. I will attempt to illuminate these sexual divisions, and how they illustrate the re-imagining of division in Korea as an exclusively masculine enterprise. I will also show how the protagonists of both The Square and Bad Guy are drawn inevitably towards death because their lack (be it corporeal or psychic) does not allow them to function in a divided society. … Continue Reading
Barely playable now, but back then the loop de loop was rad.
As promised last week this week’s Top 7 Tuesdays is for the Top 7 Genesis games. I owned a Genesis and it was awesome and I fell squarely into the “Sega does what Nintendon’t” camp. Looking back with my current distaste of fanboyism I shake my head. But hey I was just a wee one back then and Sega had Sonic as well as bad ass games like Streets of Rage. Also Hard Drivin’ had a stunt track. In First Person. In 3D. Yeah. Anyway lets get on with the show. … Continue Reading
North/South division deeply affects families as well.
If Shiri is the ultimate example of right-thinking propaganda cinema (as blockbusters are usually conservative to allow them to gain the maximum audience), Kim Dong-won’s documentary Repatriation is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Kim is essentially the father of modern Korean documentary film having been a part of the democratization movements of the 70s and 80s his humanistic style of documentary is an extension of the political beliefs and activism he practices in daily life. I plan on writing more about him and his work in this column so keep tuned. He is one of my film heroes and a genuinely pleasant man as well. This week was the 30th anniversary of the Kwangju Massacre and I felt I needed to write about something that was political and in the spirit of the Minjung movement that worked so hard for democracy in Korea. Kim Dong-won is both of those things and his Repatriation in which he spent 12 years chronicling his relationship with North Koreans trying to get back home after being released from jail is just that. … Continue Reading
No. Also Shaq? You don't have The Glow.
Hello there space cowboys. Indeed it is another Tuesday. Our Top 7 NES lists were so popular that we decided to take it back to some other systems. This weeks list is for the Super Nintendo. Now back in the day you were one of two camps Sega or Nintendo. I fell into the Sega category and never actually owned a Super Nintendo. However one of my best friends Peter did (and still does most likely) and we spent many hours playing in his living room. Years later (and thanks to a hacked Dreamcast…shh….) I managed to get a hold of every Super Nintendo game ever released. Here are my favorites. … Continue Reading
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
-Buddha
I sat on the roof watching the night fall asleep at dawn, and a different Shinchon waking an hour later. I look over at my friend and smile. We need no words we both just know. There is a pulse in Seoul. In its winding streets that grow and change in a weeks time. In the ajummas that get up to do their morning exercises already dressed in their floral shirts and visors. In the Pakistanis that wearily drag themselves back to the factories, far from home. Somewhere a taxi driver takes a nap in an alleyway before his next shift. The neon is turned off, and the streets are swept.
This is my Korea. These odd hours when you meet models with deformed fingers, and people who just let themselves out of the hospital for a quick drink at the bar. These are the hours where identity is elastic. Pushing against the bounds of reason with every shot of soju or bite of kalbi. Our conversations are in Korean and English or bastard sons of both. Seoul and I don’t always understand each other but at these hours words are liquid. … Continue Reading
A tale of separation and friendship on the DMZ.
Park Chan-Wook’s 2000 film Joint Security Area begins with a murder mystery in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas. Two North Korean soldiers are dead and one soldier from both sides is injured as a result of a shooting on the North Korean side of the demarcation line. Both countries stand by their soldier’s depositions despite the conflicting truths of the reports. The North Korean soldier Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil (Song Kang-ho) claims that Sergeant Lee Soo-Hyuk (the injured South Korean soldier played by Lee Byung-hun) attacked them, while the South claims that the North Korean guards kidnapped Sergeant Lee. In the end it is up to a Swiss military officer from the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, Major Sophie E. Jean (Lee Young-ae), to find out what really happened. She is pressured from both nations to declare both depositions true to diffuse a politically volatile situation. Slowly she discovers the truth that the North Korean guards and South Korean guards were friends who were caught in this treasonous act by an inspecting North Korean lieutenant.
She is removed from the case after inciting tensions between the two sides with her adamant quest for the truth. She confronts Sergeant Lee in the end of the film with a choice. He can tell her the truth (about who shot first in the North Korean guardhouse) and she will not leave the incriminating evidence of the friendship for her replacement, or he can refuse and she’ll leave the evidence. By telling the truth he will also protect his friend and fellow South Korean soldier. This is where game theory can be used to show the rational progression of the choices in the film. What follows is heavily dependent on spoilers so do not continue if you want to see this film untainted. … Continue Reading
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