Yulevid

[thuviaptarth]

People are currently brainstorming for an anonymous holiday rare fandom vidathon at yulevid.

These are fandoms I am thinking about:

Fringe (it is SO PRETTY, you guys! there should be vids)
Chuck
Life (I am not sure this counts)
Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (I am not sure this counts either? I am inclined to think not, alas)
Coffee Prince
Damo
Painter of the Wind (I haven't seen this but the picspams are pretty)
Capital Scandals (I haven't seen this but the picspams are pretty)

Omkara
Bright Star (only I am not sure if it can be ahemmed and it's not out on DVD yet)
Sleep Dealer
Bound
Blade Runner
Lust, Caution
Clueless
Heathers
The Revengers Tragedy
The Lady in [from] Shanghai (I haven't seen it but I own it, so hey)
Bringing Up Baby
The Lady Eve
The Cat People/The Curse of the Cat People

ETA:
Profit
Ultraviolet (tv)
Lilo & Stitch
Bleak House
Ginger Snaps trilogy

Comments

[thuviaptarth]

Yes. Um. In my defense, it would not occur to me to cast Rita Hayworth as someone from Shanghai.

[giandujakiss]

Don't forget, he also cast Charlton Heston as a Mexican in Touch of Evil.

Which isn't fair, actually, because I don't think that was his decision - it was the studio's. Still, because the plot hinged on Heston being Mexican, and because I found that literally impossible to grasp, the first time I saw the movie I was wildly confused about what was going on.

[vehemently]

She is from Shanghai the way that J. G. Ballard was from Shanghai. Actually, there's this whole pre-midcentury thing about single white women who have lived in Asia (and aren't missionaries): they're bold and urban and stylish and vaguely disreputable -- on the nightclub-singer-to-whore scale of reputability, plus bonus colonial/racist implications -- and can speak "exotic" languages.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941) has come to California via Asia as well. The female sidekick from Indiana Jones #2? Her. There's a whole noir movie that treats in that sex/colonial cathexys, called Macao (which Robert Mitchum consistently pronounces "ma-KY-yo"), which my grandfather remembered fondly from his young adulthood, and then saw again in his 70s (with me) and pronounced it ridiculous. Mostly I think because the movie makes no sense, but also because its attitudes are so shitty.

All of which is to say, actually, that unlike other Hollywood movies that refer to Asia of this era, The Lady from Shanghai features a chase sequence that stumbles into the real Chinatown of San Francisco, and into a theatre showing Real Chinese Actors performing a Chinese drama, in Chinese. The camera just stumbles past gawkily for a minute or two, but it was certainly neat to see it.