The reviews for Memoirs of a Geisha are rolling in. The movie seems to be visually stunning, but devoid of any soul due to Hollywood's narrow world view and stereotypes of Asians in general. And then I find this load of Geisha crap. Talk about milking the Japanese cow for all that it is worth (and to no benefit of the Japanese farmers no less).

Of course, we'll most likeley see the movie. It was one of Hongyun's first English language books that she's read (twice now I think). I also have read and enjoyed the book, but now, I only fear the worst since the original story has been treated with such little respect by the Hollywood machine eager to make a buck in light of their profits sagging a couple percent lower (the industry is still a multi-billion dollar one so I'm not sure what they're crying about).

Last night, Hongyun and I went to dinner in Mountain View. We had some overpriced but pretty good sushi at Tomi Sushi. Before dinner however, we walked around town and looked at some books. We noticed there was a book showing scenes and behind the scenes for the new Memoirs of a Geisha movie coming in December. We were going to get the book, but it was something like $40! Outrageous. Hongyun wants it for reference for her artwork so we turn to our old buddy Amazon.com which has it for $26 with free shipping and of course no sales tax.

I'm sort of looking forward to the movie because Gong Li is going to be in it as well as Hatsumono (perfect for her), but I always end up back to original point. Regardless of how I feel about the ethics behind the casting, I know the story is good and I hope the execution and acting lives up to Golden's classic.

My adventures with the Open Media Network have so far been quite fruitful. I've stumbled upon a vlog out of France that posts self-filmed and edited short films. They rock a new video about once a week and have created quite a backlog. The films themselves are very slick and quite well done, but for me the point is the quote on the site:

"The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thirlling adventure...it will be enjoyable because it will be true and new...the film of tomorrow will be an act of love." -Francois Truffaut

See for Yourself.