Current mood:

lethargic

Stuff I've been watching the past.... whatever
In case anyone has been curious as to what I have been watching and what I think.

Movies – I know that there are more, but mind is drawing a blank:
The Forbidden Kingdom – This movie was really good. Too bad it wasn’t made back in the day when Jackie Chan and Jet Li were more in form. The fights were pretty awesome, and when the story was lacking, there were enough action moves to keep me interested.

Red Eye – I don’t like Rachel McAdams much (although she wasn’t bad in this film), but Cillian Murphy is quite nice. For a thriller it wasn’t horrible although it wasn’t as tense as it could have been.


I am currently watching:
Rookies – I think it handles the delinquent issue much better than Gokusen. The guys actually look and act more like delinquents too. I also think that they do a much better job of changing, and thus the whole same thing over and over again issue doesn’t appear. I want to read the manga now and will probably start on it soon. I am also a sucker for baseball.

Watashitachi no Kyokasho – Kanno Miho is one of my favorite actresses. I’ve been a fan of hers for a while, and I wanted to watch this when it first aired. I don’t remember why I didn’t, but I’m watching it now. I am only on episode 3 so I can’t comment too much yet. It is really dark, but I think it gets closer to what really goes on in Japanese schools than things like Gokusen or Rookies. Not that my school has such shady things going on (as far as I know). There aren’t enough teachers though, for one thing. The other is that the English textbook magically changed. In the first episode it was New Horizon. But when the girl was being bullied it was another book.


Here are the three Japanese dramas I finished watching, for anyone interested:
Gokusen 3 - Overall I was very unimpressed. The story line was boring and repeated. As I said before I felt like I was watching the same thing over and over again. I can't believe that any group of delinquints would be OK with having their teacher save them. I also didn't like how YanKumi never tried to hide her identity, while in the first season I seem to recall that she did. Maybe I was just expecting too much?

Last Friends - As a drama it was pretty good. Ueno Juri was really convincing, and except for the voice I couldn’t tell that she was the same girl! I also like Eita and Mizukawa Asami, so that didn’t hurt. I thought it was a nice touch that the make-up on Nagasawa Masami was also really understated because it made it look more realistic (although it would have helped if they had put less on Juri as well). The violent scenes weren’t really scary or violent to me though. Maybe I am just used to things like giant group fights (I blame Gokusen and Rookies), but they were lacking. I couldn’t help but laugh because I always find it hard to take people in slippers seriously. Plus, Ryo is really skinny and half the time I was worried he would hurt himself. I think I should stop watching action movies.

Hanayome to Papa - I started watching it when it was on TV but I never finished it. I had no idea that Prime Minister Koizumi’s son was so good looking. He looked better in this drama than in Gokusen for sure. The story overall wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be although the premise and the ending were a bit contrived at times.