Where The Hell Am I?

Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Foot Fist Way

This film probably isn't going to make it to Korea, but when has that stopped anyone in Korea from watching a film?

The Foot Fist Way Trailer

Conan Appearance for Foot Fist Way

Thanks to Johnny for blogging the videos.

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Repost - Vanity Fair. Vicky Ward: John Cusack's Viral Success Story

Nice article on War, Inc.'s success so far and viral marketing ;) Since I had a wee part to play in it, I've got to say I'm happy to here that people back home are going to see the movie.

Keep going folks.

May 30, 2008

Culture | Movies

Vicky Ward: John Cusack's Viral Success Story

Critics in the mainstream media scoffed, for the most part, at John Cusack’s low-budget didactic satire, War Inc., calling it heavy-handed and five years too late. The film struggled to get into festivals, finally making it into Tribeca this year. But on the Web, voices sang a different tune, calling War Inc. “prescient” and groundbreaking for its strange tonal shifts and for highlighting the morbid absurdity and immorality of the war in Iraq and those who profit off it. Writers such as Arianna Huffington, The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill, and even British artist Damien Hirst all gave blurbs for the movie’s Web site and Cusack’s MySpace page. Juno writer Diablo Cody interviewed Cusack about it for MySpaceTV, Vanity Fair quizzed him in print and online, and I talked with him on CNBC.

Despite the negative reviews, I found War Inc. innovative and subversively ironic. And it appears that early audiences are responding to it, too. Last weekend, the film opened in two theaters—one in New York, the other in Los Angeles—and grossed $50,714 after four days. Per seat, according to Cusack, who spoke to me a few days ago, its performance was second only to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The encouraging results may be proof of the power of viral marketing, an instance when the subculture becomes the culture. Today, looking bleary-eyed from London, where he is filming Shanghai for the Weinstein Company, Cusack used MySpace to talk about the success of his film and to ask people to go see it this weekend. If the figures are good enough, he said, the film will go national.

And if that happens, it won’t just be the anti-war message of the movie that is groundbreaking; War Inc. could become a model for a new, grass-roots type of marketing, in which a film’s potential audience (with a little help from the director) may be better able to advertise it than the so-called experts are. To me, that’s exciting. Just as the war’s main orchestrator in the movie, a capitalist played by Ben Kingsley, meets a gruesome end after running from an angry crowd, so too, if the drum roll is loud enough, can the views of critics be overruled by people who will see what they want to see, no matter who tells them not to.

Vicky Ward is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. Visit her Web site at vickyward.com.

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Sharon Stone's comment...

I know that Sharon Stone is getting flogged for the comment she made at the Cannes Film Festival about the earthquakes in China being caused by bad karma.

The thing is recently I heard a similar comment made when I was spending time with girlfriends here in Seoul.

My reply was if all these people in China suffered and died because of the actions of the Chinese government that the same can be said when bad things befall Americans.

I just think it's flawed logic, if you can even call it logic, to tie the cause of natural disasters to government policies.

So to Sharon and others, please think a bit more before making those sorts of comments. There is definitely cause and effect. I've got my issues with China on quite a few issues. However, I also love many things about the country. I am in awe of its culture, its history, and its recent economic development.

However, do you really believe that people are made to suffer in a strict karmic balancing act due to the action or inaction of their respective governments?*

If so, think a bit more critically about your beliefs.

More links:
China responds to Stone comments
Sharon Stone: Was China quake "bad karma?"

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*That's not to say that governments don't impact the lives for better or for worse of their citizens. Of course they do. However, I don't think massive natural disasters apply. A governments response or lack thereof to a natural disaster, yes. But the natural disaster itself? That's lunacy.

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Beef Protests? um, okay...

Now that I finally have CNN on TV again* I'm back to my habit of keeping the news on while I'm at home.

While eating dinner CNN aired a report by Sohn Jie-ae, their Seoul Bureau Chief, which was about the beef protests going on here in Seoul.

I heard about this from a friend who teaches in a Korean high school here. He was telling me that teachers have been stirring up their students to go out and protest. Back home parents would be irate to have their kids being stirred into a frenzy like that. However, here, this has been very successful and you can read about it in more detail at Korea Beat.

This past Monday, I revisited my old route home from Ewha Womans University's back gate to my apartment. This route takes me through protest-central in Seoul. It's protest-central because it's in the Gwanghwamun area of the city which has the US Embassy, many government offices, Seoul City Hall and it's near the Blue House which is the South Korean president's residence. When I passed through the area it was packed with riot police, so I knew something was up. I just didn't know it was over beef imports.

Sohn Jie-ae reported that Korean students here are protesting because some believe that their family and friends will "die eating US beef."

The pending resumption of U.S. beef imports hasn't been without political costs for President Lee Myung-bak. He apologized to the nation last week for failing to fully understand concerns about mad cow disease.

In downtown Seoul, thousands of people have regularly staged protests, chanting "We don't want crazy cows," since the deal to revive beef imports was announced.

In addition, Sohn's report as mentioned that instead of serving ox intestines these days restaurants here are serving pig intestines instead.**

I just think it's interesting because it's a topic I got to study my last term at Ewha's GSIS. I won't get into the details of it, but it's interesting to see it played out as both governments take steps to try to get closer to implementing free trade agreement negotiated between South Korea and the US last year.

More links:
S. Korea leader 'baffled' by mad cow fears
Hundreds in Seoul protest U.S. beef

*My cable provider, Yongsan Cable,. switched to digital cable a few weeks ago. However, I've not been home a lot lately, so getting the new digital cable box has been impossible until they happened to catch me at home this past Saturday afternoon (yeah!!!)

**Now you might be grossed out by that, but Soul food and southern cuisine has chitterlings, which is cooked intestines, so it doesn't freak me out at all. So, it's interesting and both funny to be that there is a Korean variation of Soul food here in Seoul ;)

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