bmwracer wrote:

Uh, that shoulda been in the Movies thread in the GD forum.

what-ever.
I got lazy and could not find the appropriate thread.

Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

January 24, 2007

Kikuchi Rinko (26) has made it onto the Oscar shortlist. Yesterday, she became just the fifth Japanese actor to be nominated for an Academy Award, for her role in "Babel". She plays a deaf high school girl struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother and her own awakening sexuality. She was also among the nominess for a Golden Globe, though the award went to Jennifer Hudson for "Dreamgirls". Among Kikuchi's other rivals for the Oscar will be her Babel co-star Adriana Barraza. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is also up for an award. Babel was nominated in a total of six categories, including the one for best picture, in which it's up against Clint Eastwood's Japanese language WWII drama "Letters From Iwo Jima". That movie in turn stars Watanabe Ken (47), who was the last Japanese actor to receive an Oscar nomination in 2004 for "The Last Samurai". "Letters..." didn't get any acting nominations but it's in the running for best original screenplay and sound editing, and Eastwood was nominated for best director.

• Actress Uchida Yuki (31) is to make her first movie appearance in nine years. She will star in "Quiet Room ni Youkoso", written and directed by Matsuo Suzuki (44). Based on his Akutagawa Prize-winning novel, it is the story of a divorcee writer who one day finds herself confined in a hospital isolation ward. Uchida is herself a divorcee, having split from actor Yoshioka Hidetaka (36) in 2005. She returned to TV drama last year after a 4-year absence from the small screen.

• Talento Ishikawa Asami (29) and musician Ryoji (32) are the proud parents of a baby boy. The couple married in July of last year after meeting at a gig by Ryoji's popular group Ketsumeishi.

• Just days after his 10-year-old daughter was killed by a truck, talento Kazami Shingo (44) made tearful return to work. He turned up at the Meijiza Theater yesterday for rehearsals of a theatrical production scheduled for next month. In a quintessentially Japanese form of politeness, he apologized to fellow cast members for the "meiwaku" (inconvenience) and thanked them for attending his daughter's funeral.
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littlemissfab wrote:

what-ever. I got lazy and could not find the appropriate thread.

For shame.

If I didn't think you'd like it, I'd give you a spanking.

bmwracer wrote:

For shame. If I didn't think you'd like it, I'd give you a spanking.

*runs to Zeb*

littlemissfab wrote:

*runs to Zeb*

Nuts.

Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

January 26, 2007

Watanabe Ken (47) is finally a star! This week he was named as best actor at the 49th Blue Ribbon Awards for his role in last year's "Ashita no Kioku" (Memories of Tomorrow). His career in Japan is long and distinguished, so much so that he was able to make a successful move to Hollywood. But the surprising thing is that this was his first starring role. The movie, about an aggressive advertising executive who is beset with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, was very much Watanabe's project. He was also executive producer and had been wanting to make the film for some time. Last year he also starred in Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima", which has been nominated for this year's Oscars. The best actress Blue Ribbon went to Aoi Yu (21) for "Hula Girl" and "Hachimitsu to Kuroba" (Honey & Clover). Hula Girl was also chosen as best picture. The best newcomer awards were given to comedian Tsukaji Muga (35), one half of the duo Drunk Dragon, for his movie debut in "Mamiya Kyodai"; and former Takarazuka star Dan Rei (35) for her role in Yamada Yoji's samurai flick "Bushi no Ichibun". SMAP heart throb Kimura Takuya (34) was nominated for his leading role in that movie, but declined as per the policy of his agency, Johnny's Jimusho.
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Congrats to Watanabe-san.

MissMonika wrote:

Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture: January 26, 2007 Last year he also starred in Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima", which has been nominated for this year's Oscars.

Man, I really gotta find a theatre that is showing this movie.
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Wanna trade? My Drama List (UPDATED: July, 2013)

bmwracer wrote:

Nuts.

no, thanks. I've had my fill

littlemissfab wrote:

no, thanks. I've had my fill

You kiss your man with that mouth?

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Wanna trade? My Drama List (UPDATED: July, 2013)

Wynter wrote:

You kiss your man with that mouth?

HAHAHAHAHA.. makes me remember that scene from Analayze This. Where Robert De Niro's character's excuse for having a mistress was because his wife kisses his kids with 'that mouth'

Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

January 27, 2007

You may think the craze for Korean actor Bae Yong Joon (35) has faded in Japan, but he's still raking in the cash. Looking at the latest tax records, he is the biggest showbiz taxpayer in his home country. But 90% of his earnings originated in Japan, from "Yon-sama" goods, TV commercials and other media tie-ups. It was revealed this week that in the 2005 tax year he made about \4.2 billion. Last year he didn't appear in any TV dramas or movies, but even in 2005 the popular movie "Shigatsu no Yuki" (April Snow) and commercials accounted for only about 20% of his earnings. The other 80% came from merchandising. The whole Yon-sama boom was started by the 2004 TV series "Fuyu no Sonata" (Winter Sonata), with huge crowds of mostly middle-aged women becoming fanatical about him. And in those three years he has milked that popularity to the tune of almost \8.5 billion. The flame may be reignited later this year, with a new drama series due to air on TV from the spring. Though "Taio Shishinki" is likely to be hugely successful here, his management say they don't want to focus too much on Japan at the expense of his fans in Korea and China. Meanwhile Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, have agreed to start licensing Yon-sama goods. Details of the agreement with media contents company Key East have not been announced, but are thought to include an original "Joon Bear" character - designed by Yamaguchi Yuko, the women behind Kitty - as well as a host of products featuring his likeness.

• Singer Hitoto Yo (30) is having an afair with producer Kobayashi Takeshi (47), according to the latest issue of weekly magazine "Friday". Hitoto is best known for the 2002 hit "Morai Naki", while Kobayashi has worked with such major stars as Mr. Children and Southern All Stars. He has been married to former My Little Lover vocalist Akko (34) since 1996 and they have two children.

• Comedian Matsumoto Hitoshi (43) is to make his debut as a movie director. He appeared this week at a PR event for "Dainipponjin", due to hit theaters in June, at the Tokyo Prince Hotel Park Tower. The more intellectual half of the hugely popular duo Downtown, he has also been a successful writer. He has set his sights on outdoing fellow comedian turned director Kitano "Beat" Takeshi (60), though he says his movie will be completely different to Kitano's vibrant but often violent style. Other than saying that the movie will be basically an extension of what he's been doing on TV for years, he didn't elaborate on what the movie is about.
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Wynter wrote:

Man, I really gotta find a theatre that is showing this movie.

and i gotta find it in the B-market.

*goes for weekend shopping*
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Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

January 29, 2007
Morning Musume celebrated their tenth anniversary yesterday with a concert at Yokohama Arena, bringing an end to the Hello! Project spring tour. The weekend was marred by an accident on Saturday, when a 35-year-old male fan fell from a 3rd-tier balcony and had to undergo emergency surgery. But the mood was upbeat on Sunday, as former Momus member Konno Asami (19, photo left) made her first appearance on the tour. She is entering the prestigious Keio University this year. The show also marked the first on-stage look at new member Mitsui Aika (14) and the graduation of Country Musume members Asami (22, photo center) and Miuna (19, photo right). Mitsui introduced herself as the first member from Shiga Prefecture and her arrival brings the lineup to sixteen members, though leader Yoshizawa Hitomi (21) is graduating in April. The group performed their new single, "Eigao Yes Nude", due for release on February 14.

• The Stardust Promotion agency represents some of Japan's top actresses, including Tokiwa Takako (34), Nakatani Miki (31), Shibasaki Kou (25) and Takeuchi Yuko (26). But it is promoting its young male talent in a new "mook" (magazine/book), the first time a geino management agency has published its own magazine. The 112-page, full-color "Real G - vol.1" features photos and interviews with up and coming actors like Ichihara Hayato (19) and Takaoka Sousuke (24) and singer K (23). Stardust plans to publish future magazines featuring their young idols and popular actresses.

• The fake data scandal that brought an end to the popular "Hakkutsu! Aru Aru Daijiten II" show goes back further than the recent episode on natto. It seems that there was a similar show back in 1998 that used made up data and misrepresented comments by a university professor to promote the health benefits of eating lettuce. The show claimed that eating it before bedtime helped people sleep. The Kansai TV show has already been cancelled due to the scandal, but more revelations of this kind can only hurt the credibility of TV in general. KTV president Chigusa Soichiro (62) appeared on the network yesterday to apologize again.

• Actor Sakai Masato (33) and actress Tomita Yasuko (37) have split up, according to the Sports Hochi newspaper. Their romance was first revealed by a weekly magazine in 2001 and acknowledged by their respective management agencies, meaning it was serious. Though they were thought to be on the road to marriage, a source says they broke up in the spring of last year.
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MissMonika wrote:

• The Stardust Promotion agency represents some of Japan's top actresses, including Tokiwa Takako (34), Nakatani Miki (31), Shibasaki Kou (25) and Takeuchi Yuko (26). But it is promoting its young male talent in a new "mook" (magazine/book), the first time a geino management agency has published its own magazine. The 112-page, full-color "Real G - vol.1" features photos and interviews with up and coming actors like Ichihara Hayato (19) and Takaoka Sousuke (24) and singer K (23). Stardust plans to publish future magazines featuring their young idols and popular actresses.

nice move Stardust! Give Johny's Ent a run for their money!!!!!!!

Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

January 30, 2007

Amuro Namie (29) is the first female artist to have a Top 10 hit on the Oricon singles chart every year for 13 consecutive years. With her latest single, "Baby Don't Cry", released January 24 and entering the chart this week at No.3, she has overtaken Koizumi Kyoko (40) and Kudo Shizuka (36). Two of the top idols of the 1980s and early 90s, they're well past their prime as singers and ended their 12-year runs on the chart back in the mid to late 90s. Amuro had the limelight to herself back in the 90s, starting with her first Top 10 hit "Taiyo no Season" in 1995. Tribes of young female stars copied her dark-skinned look and called themselves "Amuraa". She was the youngest ever winner of the Nihon Record Taisho award for 1997's "Don't Wanna Cry" and is still the female record holder for million-selling singles, with five. Her position as the Queen of J-Pop may have been usurped by the likes of Utada Hikaru, Hamasaki Ayumi and Koda Kumi, but even marriage, motherhood and divorce have failed to put an end to her career. She has developed a large fan base elsewhere in Asia, where she remains one of the most popular Japanese artists. (Among male artists, the record of 17 consecutive years of Top 10 hits is shared by B'z (1990-2006) and SMAP (1991-2007))
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Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

January 31, 2007

Kano Mika (39), the younger half of the "Gorgeous Kano Sisters" had the best-selling talento photo book of last year. Her "Sweet Goddess", with photos taken by her elder sister Kyoko (44), outsold Kimura Takuya's "% (Percentage)" and several others featuring Johnny's Jimusho male stars. In the No.3 spot was American model Leah Dizon (photo, 20), whose self-promotional savvy has worked particularly well in Japan. The half French-American, half Chinese-Philippina model was born in Las Vegas and raised in Los Angeles. She built up her name on the Web, gaining new fans here with her loose socks and Japanese schoolgirl outfits, not to mention the more scantily-clad photos. She first came to Japan in the spring of 2006, though she had learned enough Japanese to be able to sing the Amuro Namie song "I Will" in her self-made promo video. She lists several Japanese artists among her favorite musicians, thought to be the influence of her half-Japanese cousin. She has just the right look for today's young Japanese female market and isn't afraid to turn on the sex appeal for male fans. A big name in the making?

• Domestic movies beat Hollywood imports at the box office last year for the first time in 21 years. The biggest hits of the year were the latest Harry Potter movie (\11 billion), the second in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" series (\10 billion), and "The Da Vinci Code" (\9 billion). But six local hits, including Studio Ghibli's latest anime feature "Gedo Senki" (Tales From Earthsea, \7.65 billion) and the sequel "Limit of Love Umizaru" (\7.1 billion) were over the \5-billion mark, and of the 50 movies that made more than \1 billion, 28 were Japanese. Domestic productions brought in almost \108 billion in total, while foreign films made \94.8 billion. Altogether, 821 new movies were screened in 2006, up 90 from the year before. The number of screens nationwide has also been increasing annually since the first cinema complex opened in 1994. The current total is 3,062, a return to the level last seen in the early 1970s.

• Actress Inoue Harumi (32) is pregnant with her first child. She is expecting the baby at the end of May. She met her Canadian husband, named only as Reuben, while studying in Canada in 2005. Inoue started out as an idol singer in 1991, and was later credited with starting the boom in busty pin-up girls.
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Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

February 1, 2007

Comedian Monkekee (38) is engaged to talento Yamakawa Erika (24). Management agencies for the couple made the announcement to the media yesterday, saying they will give a press conference at a Tokyo hotel on February 2. The pair had worked together many times on variety shows, but romance started when they both took part in a group vacation to Guam in April of last year. Monkekee, real name Omori Akira, was formerly known as Osaru (Monkey) and was one half of a comedy duo with Koala. They split in 2000 after Koala married idol singer Miura Junko and moved to her agency. Monkekee changed his stage name in 2004 following the advice of hugely popular fortune teller Hosoki Kazuko. Yamakawa, who can be seen in TV commercials for cosmetics maker DHC, was previously linked with Ungirls member Yamane Yoshiaki.

• Kuwata Masumi (38) is doing a new kind of pitching. The former Yomiuri Giants ace has his first job as a narrator in the TV commercial for Kevin Costner's latest movie. "Shugoshin" (The Guardian) features Costner as an aging rescue swimmer, and Kuwata's decision to take on one last challange in his career by joining the Pittsburg Pirates was thought to have parallels in the movie. The CM will also feature singer Wada Akiko and comedian Amano Hiroyuki. It airs from February 3 to 9 and the movie opens here on February 10.
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Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture:

February 2, 2007

Pop duo Dreams Come True are to be just the second act to perform a solo concert at the National Stadium. The only other group deemed big or important enough to play the 60,000 venue was SMAP in 2005 and 2006. The stadium is used for field sports, such as national soccer games, and athletics meets and has very strict conditions for holding non-sporting events. DCT's management were in negotiations with stadium managers for about 18 months. The two shows, on September 22 and 23, will be the last in their 10-show "DoriCamu Wonderland 2007" tour that will also include the Sapporo, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Osaka Domes. They do the tour only every four years, and this will be the fifth in an 18-year career during which they have played to over 4 million fans. The tour starts on August 4 in Sapporo. Formerly a trio, DCT is now made up of vocalist Yoshida Miwa (41) and Nakamura Masato (48).

February 3, 2007

Director Suo Masayuki (50) expressed his anger at the Japanese legal system to the foreign media this week. Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club in downtown Tokyo, the man best known for the 1995 hit romantic comedy "Shall We Dance?" talked about his first movie in 11 years, "Soredemo Boku Wa Yattenai" (I Just Didn't Do It). Starring Kase Ryo (32), who was also at the luncheon event, it's a far more serious movie, telling the story of a young man, Kaneko Teppei, who is arrested and tried for groping a schoolgirl on a crowded train. A common story in recent years, the catch is that Kaneko is innocent. This fact is lost in the standard police procedure of coercing a detainee to sign a written confession in return for leniency, a process supported by not a few Japanese judges. Kaneko refuses and becomes a victim of a legal system where over 90% of cases result in a guilty verdict. As Suo has said before on the media, the number is an anomaly by international standards. He said: "Normally the ideas for my films come to me as wonderful discoveries of life; things that take me by surprise, that delight and inspire. This time, what I discovered was a sense of outrage within myself. What resulted is not so much a movie I wanted to make as a movie I simply had to make."

February 4, 2007

NTV announcer Ohsugi Kimie jumped to her death from the balcony of her 8-storey Tokyo apartment on Friday, less than four months after becoming a mother. Married twice, the first time from 1996 to 2001 and again in 2002, she became the oldest TV announcer to have a baby at the age of 43 and had been on maternity leave. Her second husband, ten years younger, is an employee of a major advertising firm. Ohsugi was said to be suffering from fibromyalgia - a chronic painful condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue - since having her baby boy. The condition had been worsening to the point where she often couldn't write or hold a telephone, though she did leave a suicide note. She had a hospital appointment on the morning of her suicide and had earlier expressed her intention to return to work in the spring.

• Celebrities were out in force over the weekend to help celebrate setsubun, the annual ceremony that marks the coming of spring. In the "mamemaki" ritual, people throw roasted soybeans to expel demons and welcome in good luck for the coming year. Most of the country's major shrines held events, with many inviting famous names to help draw the crowds.
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MissMonika wrote:

Entertainment news from Japan-zone.com-Your Guide to Japan and Japanese Culture: February 4, 2007 NTV announcer Ohsugi Kimie jumped to her death from the balcony of her 8-storey Tokyo apartment on Friday, less than four months after becoming a mother. Married twice, the first time from 1996 to 2001 and again in 2002, she became the oldest TV announcer to have a baby at the age of 43 and had been on maternity leave. Her second husband, ten years younger, is an employee of a major advertising firm. Ohsugi was said to be suffering from fibromyalgia - a chronic painful condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue - since having her baby boy. The condition had been worsening to the point where she often couldn't write or hold a telephone, though she did leave a suicide note. She had a hospital appointment on the morning of her suicide and had earlier expressed her intention to return to work in the spring.

no hospital can do something with it?
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