HYPERTEXT WONDERLAND

In a recent post I mentioned a Korean movie I'd once seen called A Girl at My Door . It’s just as well I did because the lead actress in that film is Bae Doona and she also stars in this one,  Linda Linda Linda .  I watched it last night and am very content describing as like a real life version of K-On. The film follows four schoolgirls who put together a cover band for the high school cultural festival. We see them begin with minimal music knowledge before transforming into a unit strong enough to plat the three chord structure necessary to cover songs by Japanese punk band,  The Blue Hearts . The story involves other bits and bobs about high school life, including secret crushes, ex-boyfriends moving to Tokyo, and a not-so-mutual crush between two of the school’s exchange students. Overall it's sweet and likable. The pace is a bit slow but this could be me being picky because I seem to have no attention span these days. It's also nice to see a huge nod to the g...

E3 started on Sunday so I've been gleefully glued to my laptop these past two nights partaking in viewership of what is the most extravagant sales pitch in videogame history. Unfortunately not much has grabbed my eye so far. Bethesda continue to disappoint in all ways possible. The big exception is  12 Minutes - an intriguing thriller about time loops. Not much is known about the game so far except that it's being designed by Luis Antonio, the art director behind The Witness, a game I've been meaning play for the past three years now... Naturally though the art direction is amazing. I love the top-down style and I hope it stays true to its name by giving us twelve minutes to figure out whatever the fuck is happening. The Shining reference could go either way, pointless or purposeful. I particularly love the idea of playing as some regular old dude caught up in circumstances that go well beyond his control. Violence, mystery and a tiny flat. It's just like my lif...

One of of the things I love about YouTube is finding random movies long forgotten by their original distributors. This is the fate of a little-known Japanese movie I came across this evening called Blue . I'd never heard of it before but it's lovely and heartwarming. The titular colour describes the melancholic aura that surrounds the film's main character, the bob sporting and little-bit masculine, Kirishima. She’s sad not only because she lives in a sleepy seaside town and doesn't know what to do with her life after high school, but also because she's fallen in love with another girl, Endo, who won't commit to her feelings. The film reminds me of a Korean movie I saw some years ago called A Girl at My Door .  Both focus on female characters, mixing personal story with problems involving sexual preference. Both are also very effective in offering us a sympathetic portrait of people living in rural settings. Overall it's very good. I thoroughly re...