AccentedCinema

[Weekly Update] January 10, 2022

Added 2022-01-10 08:58:11 +0000 UTC

Happy New Year, everyone!

Sorry I didn't post an update last week. I got no excuse. I think I was too caught up watching clips with terrible Chinese that I forgot it was even Sunday. Time kinda loses all meaning around here, as Quebec is entering another lockdown.

CHANNEL UPDATE

Hope you enjoy our video on crappy Chinese dialogues. This is something I think a lot of people around the world can relate, but rarely discussed, since it's assumed to be prevalent around the world.
From experience, while Chinese and Japanese cinema does have a problem with mixing up accents, it is rarely so egregious. At least the actors often speak the language the dialogues are in, even if they speak it with a thick non-native accent.
No, the way with how East-Asian cinema treats English presents a whole different set of problems with a lot of hostile political undertones. But that's a story for another time.
Up next, we have one of the worst martial arts movie ever made: Fatal Deviation. And we are going to see what we can learn from this movie, and try to fix the problem with its fight scenes. Sometimes, it's just more efficient to learn from bad examples.
For February, I'm still not sure what I'll do. Maybe I'll talk about some more Chinese food movies. Seems fitting for Chinese New Year.
As for the short film, due to the pandemic lockdown, our rehearsal has to be postponed. Hopefully things can resume soon!

MEDIA TALK

Due to our film production being delayed, I started writing a rom-com on my own time. Yes, a rom-com.
I don't know why, but I feel like it's one of the genre I'm actually good at.
So, for research, I watched a whole bunch of rom-com movies.
While I was watching Pretty Woman with my long time collaborator, she commented how the film is instantly likeable, and she hates it. The film seems like such a struggle to her, as she explains, because conventional expectations tend to look down on rom-coms.
But Pretty Woman is an Academy Award winning film. It's such a clash to our normal societal expectations.
I'm not sure why rom-com got such a bad rep. It was a very popular genre back in the late 80s and 90s, with movies like Sleepless In Seattle, Ghost, When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail. All of these movies are influential, and all of these movies are critically acclaimed as far as I can remember.
And indeed, rom-coms has come a long way. Recent indie efforts like 500 Days of Summer, The Big Sick, Always Be My Maybe are all terrific movies.
My guess is that the genre is flooded with too many low effort movies. Looking at you, Hallmark. And you, too, Adam Sandler.
But of course, there is also the misogyny surrounding the genre. The perception that it is "for woman" and thus, not serious.
While there are certainly other genre that are often considered "non-serious", from Horror, to even Superheroes, nothing is quite despised like rom-com. Which is just kinda sad.
There are so many good and personal stories in these movies about intimate personal relationships. They don't have spectacles, just people's daily struggles. It reminds me why I love about cinema and storytelling. It's refreshing to watch after seeing another blockbuster spectacle.
But then I watched Why Him, and the cringe humor was so cringe-y, all the inspirations brought to me by previous movies are wiped from my brain. The film's not bad, certainly a hit or miss depending on your taste in humour. But my god, it definitely takes over my brain in ways that I do not think I would consent to.