Tag: cinema

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Zapf Punkt Spring Equinox 2023

Zapf.Punkt number seventeen, a sucker punch in the wrong galaxy. Zapf.punkt 17 (Spring Equinox)Download from Diamond Bay Press Raw-fisted and red-eyed we’ve somehow slugged our way through an endless

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Zapf Punkt Winter Solstice 2022

Zapf.Punkt number sixteen, arrivederci, Monica Vitti. Zapf.punkt 16 (Winter Solstice)Download from Diamond Bay Press What can we do when the living nightmare that we wake up to is also the golden daw

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Zapf Punkt Autumn Equinox 2021

The eleventh issue of Zapf.Punkt looks into the late 1960s science fiction and music scene of Japan. Zapf.punkt 11 (Autumn Equinox)Download from Diamond Bay Press In this issue, we investigate the ra

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Zapf Punkt Winter Solstice 2020

Join us for the lucky eigth issue of Zapf.Punkt. Download your free copy from Diamond Bay Press: Zapf.punkt 8 (Winter Solstice)Download from Diamond Bay Press Face facts, the Republican Party is a fl

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Ovid TV Enters From Left Field

The reason I wanted to check out Ovid.tv was to watch the documentary about a small town in Southwest China, called Ghost Town. There was a showing of it several years ago that I missed and I was su

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Zapf Punkt Spring Equinox 2020

It’s a global pandemic, time for the fifth issue of Zapf.Punkt. Download your free copy from Diamond Bay Press: Zapf.punkt 5 (Spring Equinox 2020)Download from Diamond Bay Press There are just so man

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Cinemois by Jean Pierre Melville

Out of curiosity, I bid on issue No. 75 of Cinema 63 that was up for auction on eBay in France. The magazine arrived promptly, fairly reeking of mildew and with pages cracking off the spine, but de

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Judge Dee Burns Up the Screen

Went to see the new Tsui Hark film “Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame“ [狄仁杰之通天帝国] at one of the downtown shopping centers in Taipei and loved it! Apparently, the only showing in America so far has been at the Toronto Film Festival in September where it was reviewed as a return to fun for Hark.  I certainly thought it was fun myself, harking back to the crazy wuxia themes that played so well in Chinese Ghost Story [倩女幽魂] __and Green Snake [青蛇]. For those of us who also loved the series of novels fashioned on Judge Dee by Van Gulik, this movie seems to distort the character into a much-larger than life action hero.  Nonetheless, the cinematic style and lavish attention to sets create a fantasy epic very much worth seeing.  The underworld scenery and throwaway characters reminded me of the similar backdrops used in Hellboy II and Pirates of the Caribbean At World’s End Singapore sets, suggesting that Tsui Hark has made a close study of those design ideas and paid homage to them.