K-Pop
South Korea is on the move, both economically and culturally. Most recently, the nation’s pop culture, k-pop, has conquered most of Asia and is now moving into Europe. This success has been created as a result of a meticulously planned national effort in commercial cultural industry – inspired by Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, which opened president Kim Young-Sam’s eyes to culture’s profit potential. Hallyu is enormously popular in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
CONSPIRATORIUM OVERLOAD OR THE 999th MOOD OF THRUSSELL
You think I’m just a drunken Russian gas-bag who can’t tell Neutral Milk Hotel’s album from Super Furry Animals’ EP… You’re right… But here’s an album which absolutely changed my life… After hearing this I went to hair-dressing saloon and lived there as a supertramp for the rest of my life… Well, I’d say it’s better than Dark Side on The Moon. I actually sold this CD for 500 roubles in 1999 because I was very poor and needed to take some girls to tequila bar! Yeah! I was rewarded with sexual healing, no shit!
ANGELO BADALAMENTI’S HAUNTING MUSIC
Music and film can be like the perfect marriage and when a specific director and composer are on the same page with a formula that works, there is no conceiveable reason for the two to break company. Look at Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Similar in relationship but vastly different in narrative scope are David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. Badalamenti’s moody compositions — with their almost introspective, otherworldly sounds — often times seem to be the key to lulling visitors into the world of Lynch’s imagination.
CARTOON SOVIET
While behind the Iron Curtain a renegade brood of Soviet Animators wasn’t in a magik position for portraiting Sex & Violence — two best-selling subjects of Western Culture. So they reveled in twisted postmodern Popped Art, mind-exploding Sci-Fi and rampant surrealism. These toons were burned like by Nero into my hairy psyche DVD-RW and thanks to the Tube of You, King Chronos, they’re here and undated, wild and most of all PAINFULLY STYLISH! If you have a nice rocket-like banana spliff or a bottle of liqueur, just fly, baby, fly…
GREATEST MOOD-SPOILERS
The good news – Clint is still hot! (If you’re into zombies). We meet him at some woman’s funeral. For the next 2 hours he walks around the neighborhood, breathing like Darth Vader who lost his armor and spitting out racist slurs in scary Gremlin voice. We learn that he hates absolutely everyone and everything except for the golden car that Nixon personally gave him. Especially Clinto hates those who are not very American in their blood and skin. Some flicks make me depresso and I’d like to know why. I probably don’t understand much in movies.
RODNEY DANGERFIELD JOKES
Rodney Dangerfield began writing jokes at the age of 15. At 19 he had two jobs: one as a comic who couldn’t make a living and the other as a singing waiter. After traveling the comedy circuit for ten years, the struggling Rodney quit show business in favor of selling aluminum siding. It wasn’t until the age of 40 that Dangerfield made the decision to relaunch his career as a performer and comedy writer. He spent his days in a business office and nights working in New York clubs.
ALEX GARLAND AS A BACKPACKER
Alex Garland, author of the harrowing novel and bestselling generational classic «The Beach», «The Tesseract», «The Coma», «Sunshine», etc., talks about the quest for mystery in a world that’s too well known: «I think it’s very, very easy to think that the place you live is the only place in the world. That there may be other places, but they don’t really exist — they’re on TV documentaries, or news footage, but they’re not real. Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherfucker in the valley.»
NINTENDO’S ERA OF CENSORSHIP
In today’s era of Xbox and Playstation it is often easy to forget that at one time the North American video game market was almost single-handedly dominated by one firm — Nintendo of America. For many years Nintendo enjoyed a privileged position in the video game market that at times seemed to be a borderline monopoly. Nintendo of America’s policies of strict video game «censorship» have become one of the infamous tactics of this period. While often overlooked back in the day, the rise of Japanese ROMs, have exposed many gamers to numerous examples of Nintendo censorship in practice.
A LIEUTENANT COLUMBO CHARACTER SKETCH
Peter Falk remains very proud of the fact that Columbo became an international hit. Distributed around the world, the sloppy lieutenant was a hero in several countries. «It’s a very good image for America around the world,» the actor said. «It’s a nonviolent show. There’s no cheap sex in it. It has a main character who does not rely on force, fighting, shooting and car chases. You’re not wiping out forty people a second, so death means nothing.» Columbo was described as «TV’s cult hero». He was a runaway hit in Russia.