Book Review: Yakuza Moon

Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter was advertised as offering a rare female glimpse into the world of Japanese organized crime. I thought it would make a good follow up to Tokyo Vice, which I read and wrote about earlier this month. Whereas Tokyo Vice offered a male outsider perspective on the yakuza, I was hoping Yakuza Moon would present a female insider take on the whole thing. You can probably tell by the way I'm phrasing all this that Yakuza Moon didn't quite live up to my expectations.

It's not that Yakuza Moon turned out to be an awful book. It's got plenty of good stuff going for it like a fast-paced plot, readability, and enough seedy situations and sleazy characters to fill a novel twice its size. So the problem's not so much the book itself (which was alright) so much that it's falsely advertised. True, the author's dad was a yakuza, as are many of the men she goes on to date or become involved with, but it's much less about yakuza and much more about the author's personal struggles.

And there are many struggles to be had! At times this book reads like a bad after school special as the author, Shoko Tendo, struggles with everything from speed addiction to domestic abuse. Tendo's memoir was initially written for a Japanese audience and this is evident in her sparse descriptions of her native culture. Whereas I felt that the descriptions of Japan were some of the best parts of Tokyo Vice, I felt that Yakuza Moon suffered from a poorly drawn setting.

In Tendo's defense I understand that this book was probably just as much of a therapeutic exercise for her to work through her previous trauma as it was a labor of creative love. In the intro to the paperback edition Tendo writes about letters she has received from readers who related to her struggles. This edition of the book also includes an afterword from another author/yakuza child who writes about how much her related to Tendo's struggles. So there's definitely an audience for this book and if you're a part of that audience then more power to you. However, I have a feeling that most average Joes/Janes would be better served elsewhere.

Air Guitar Nation: Long Live C-Diddy!

Air Guitar Nation is a 2006 documentary about the 2003 Air Guitar Championships in Finland. Uh, yeah. I discovered this one whilst browsing Netflix and the absurdity and stupidity of its premise intrigued me. I mean, what the hell is wrong with people that watching someone fake play an instrument is considered a legit form of entertainment?! Thus I got suckered into watching the movie just to see for myself what was going on.

And you know what? After watching the movie I totally get it. The air guitar competitions in the film are hardly serious events, but could more accurately be described as comedy routines that mix together elements of dance and acting. The people who get far in the competitions know how to work the crowds by creating recognizable and absurd stage personas.

The film mainly follows two American air guitarists in their attempts to best the competition and make it to the championships in Finland. These two champs are Björn Türoque and C-Diddy (yeah, stage names are part of the whole "recognizable and absurd stage personas" thing that I described earlier). Björn Türoque, despite his awesome stage name, had a dry, ironic hipster sensibility that wore on my nerves as the film progressed. C-Diddy, however, utilized a goofier and more outlandish style in competitions. His trademark was wearing a Hello Kitty backpack in place of a shirt...how is that not awesome?! To be fair though, C-Diddy had also gone to college for acting and described himself as a professional actor/comedian so he definitely had an advantage over the other competitors in that he was experienced in performing in front of people.

C-Diddy was also one of the few characters in the film whose background is fleshed out. We get to meet his conservative Korean parents, who admit that they would have preferred their son become a doctor or lawyer rather than an actor. Including this family stuff in the film helped to give a bit of depth and heart to what would otherwise be a funny, but shallow experience. Don't get me wrong, this film is still in no way emotionally deep or insightful, but giving the viewer some background info on the characters makes them seem more like three-dimensional people rather than simply cartoonish stage characters.

While I could've done with more characterization, I liked that this movie mostly stayed away from drawing profound insights from the competition. After all, it's a movie about people flailing away on a stage whilst wearing brightly colored costumes. The film, and the air guitar competitions themselves, seem to be the opposite of intellectual experiences. Instead they seemed to be celebrations of pure emotion and silliness. To be fair, 80-some minutes of pure silliness can get a bit wearing, but I'd be lying if I didn't say there were moments of this movie that I loved. So while I'm not going to recommend that you drop everything to see Air Guitar Nation, it's not a bad way to kill some time by any means.

Three Reasons To Watch Zombie

In the history of zombie movies there are a few landmark films that stand out as being particularly influential to the development of the genre. Films like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, in particular, were hugely influential in shaping the mainstream concept of what zombie movies are. These films also spawned a horde of imitators, the vast majority of which would never gain the mainstream recognition of the Romero fare. Zombie (aka Zombi 2) is one of these imitators. Zombie was released in 1979, just one year after Dawn of the Dead. Zombie was created in attempt to piggyback on the success of Dawn (in Italy Dawn of the Dead was released as Zombi, hence Zombie's Italian release was titled Zombi 2 to capitalize on the existing brand, though it is in no way a sequel to Dawn). According to what I've read, Zombie did well during its Italian theatrical run, earning back its budget and then some. In the modern day US of A the film still maintains a healthy cult following. Still the film's not exactly Avatar in terms of popularity and, while I acknowledge that any film involving a prolonged scene of eye trauma inherently appeals to a niche demographic, I'd love it if more people took a chance on Zombie. Thus I have composed this list of three reasons you should watch Zombie. Please enjoy.

1) The Gore!
Hands down the number one reason to watch Zombie is its spectacular gore. And I don't say that simply because there's a lot of it. No, it's easy and commonplace to just splash a bunch of fake blood on the screen and call it a day, but it's a whole 'nother thing to find a film that takes gore to the stunning and depraved heights (or depths?) that Zombie does. Perhaps the most notable gore showcase in Zombie is the (in)famous splinter in the eyeball scene, in which a zombie grabs a victim by the hair and pulls her toward a giant wooden splinter, eventually lodging the splinter into her eyeball. This moment is notable for its agonizingly slow buildup followed by its unflinching and gloriously gory conclusion. No, it's not for the faint-hearted, but that's precisely what makes it so great.

2) The Shark vs. Zombie Fight
OK, so as far as I'm aware Zombie is the only film ever to feature a scene in which an zombie goes head to head with a live shark. I am pretty confident that I don't have to explain why that is awesome.

3) The Sheer Unrivaled Fun of It All!
No joke, Zombie is probably one of the most entertaining movies I have ever seen. Yes the plot's paper thin, but who cares? Zombie's not about the plot, but rather it's a feast for the senses with its stunning gore, great setting (the lush tropical island of Matul), and awesomely moody and retro soundtrack. At around just one hour and thirty minutes it's also perfectly paced and careful not to overstay its welcome.

Book Review: Tokyo Vice

I'm going to be honest, I picked up Tokyo Vice mainly because of the title. Though I hate to admit it, if there's anything I have in common with greasy 14-year-olds who watch anime it's that we both think Japan is, like, super-cool. So when I saw a copy of Tokyo Vice laying on a table at a bookstore it was the "Tokyo" half of the title that initially caught my eye.

Let me back up a bit and explain what Tokyo Vice is, exactly. While it's being sold, more or less, as the story of an American who travels to Japan and hangs out with yakuza, the yakuza stuff is really only part of the story. Basically the book follows the (mis)adventures of an American crime reporter (author Jake Adelstein) writing for the biggest newspaper in Japan. The book is non-fiction, but beyond that its genre is a bit hard to pin down. The best way I am able to describe it is that it's one-third memoir, one-third travel writing, and one-third true crime.

While the crime elements lend the story excitement, the aspect of the book that I found most interesting were the author's observations about Japanese culture. The little details, such as the importance and prominence of business cards in Japan, fleshed the story out and explained to me things that I would otherwise be oblivious to. It's a cliche to say this, but Adelstein's descriptions of Japanese culture helped transform the setting into one of the most prominent and interesting characters in the book.

OK, now for the bad stuff. First let me say that I don't think that any of the following criticisms are deal breakers. If you're even slightly interested in Japan or yakuza then you're gonna enjoy this book on some level so don't let what I'm about to say deter you. Alright, with that out of the way let me say that the writing in Tokyo Vice occasionally leaves a bit to be desired. While many critics have described Adelstein's writing as "hardboiled", I think this is kind of a nice way of saying that his writing is generally a bit sparse and lacking in a distinctive style. Don't get me wrong, the majority of time Adelstein's writing gets the job done and is very easy to read. Just don't expect poetic musings. On a similar note, the dialogue occasionally felt stilted to me and many of the characters lacked distinctive speaking patterns. I've gotta give this second criticism a pass, however, as presumably most of the conversations were originally conducted in Japanese.

All that aside, Tokyo Vice was an easy, informative, and entertaining read. Throughout the book Adelstein makes a few questionable choices and occasionally puts his family at great risk, but it's hard not to sympathize with him and the crazy cast of characters he interacts with. I genuinely liked many of the characters in this book and loved spending time with them in the crazy place that is Japan.

Ressurection and Revamp

Apparently it's been a year since my last post. Sorry 'bout that. I had other important stuff going on in my life.

...Okay that's a lie. In reality I just got lazy and was writing too much for school to want to write anything in my off time. But school's over now and while it was fun to spend a week doing absolutely nothing, nothingness gets old pretty fast. In my fits of boredom I would surf the Internet in search of entertainment, only to realize that a lot of Internet writing (on blogs and the like) pretty much sucks. I thought, "I could be more interesting than this."

And here I am.

That said, now that I'm back I want to make one major change to this blog: it's no longer going to be about monster movies exclusively. I'll probably write about monster movies here and there, but this blog isn't going to be dedicated to them alone. Instead I want this blog to be about nothing in particular, but rather about anything that interests me at any given moment. That said, I think it's pretty safe to say that this blog will rarely stray far from posts about pop culture. Why? Because (a) that's what interests me and (b) it's fun to write about.

So that's pretty much it, aside from one last thing: despite the fact that the monster theme has been dropped I'm keeping the name. I think it's catchy. Plus, zombie babies...how can you not love them?