cranberrysheep

Currently Watching

Asian Dramas

• IRIS - Love, guns, and spies!
• Liar Game 2 - Nao and Akiyama are back with even more neon lighting than before!
• Smile, You - The younger couples are the only thing keeping me going. I really wish it hadn't been extended.
• Something Happened in Bali - As part of a drama exchange with dangermousie. I'm enjoying it a surprising amount, but I fear what is to come.

Western TV

• Better off Ted - Continually hilarious, especially Portia de Rossi
• Community - The comedy EVERYONE should be watching.
• FlashForward - Hiatus. Hopefully when it returns it'll be better.
• Glee - Hiatus.
• Leverage - Very fun
• Scrubs - Still makes me laugh, but needs to be taken out of its misery
• V - HIATUS! D:
• Vampire Diaries - Hiatus D:

MY DRAMA LIST:( What I watched, what I am watching, and what I thought about it all )

MY WESTERN TV LIST: ( Just a plain ol' list )

REMINDER: Vote now in the Drama Boyfriend Playoffs. I'll leave the Conference Championships up through Friday.



I watched the first episode of Wallflower/Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge/Perfect Girl Evolution/WHATEVER (I'm going to stick with Wallflower since that's how the majority of my flist refer to it) and I think I might have hated it. It was pretty insane. Now, I don't mind insane. I adored Hana Kimi after all. But this just felt like a giant mess.

The entire episode was just so manic. I felt like they were cutting to different camera shots and scenes every 5 minutes. They never let your eyes just rest and follow a scene through. It was like a kid who'd had too much soda. The drama was bouncing off the walls. I'll give it one more episode and put it aside, I have other things I want to watch.

Of course, I could just be hyper sensitive given the other drama I'm watching is Something Happened in Bali which is about as polar opposite a drama as you could get. Maybe I'm experiencing drama hypothermia.

Speaking of Bali, MAN is it depressing. It makes you kind of lose faith in humanity. Everyone is either evil or irrevocably damaged. Not exactly an uplifting story. No wonder I don't watch that many melodramas (or really any at all). This is getting really tough for me to trudge through and I know it's only going to get worse. D:

Smile, You made me cry again. I'm very grateful that Jung In's father has finally grown up. I like how they've dealt with it though, he's still very much the same man, he just finally feels some responsibility for his actions and his family. I'm very concerned, however, at what Hyun Soo's mother is cooking up.

VAMPIRE DIARIES is back tonight. I'm not at all ashamed at how excited this makes me.

ETA: OH, but to prove I don't rot my brain all the time, I am reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (he also wrote The Kite Runner) and it's wonderfully written but completely heartbreaking.

REMINDER: Drama Boyfriend Playoffs - Conference Championship voting is still open HERE. Vote now!

I saw Avatar this weekend. If you have any desire to see this film do so while it is still in theaters. I saw it in IMAX and it was so worth the price of admission. The second time I saw the new Star Trek it was in IMAX and has since ruined all smaller theaters for me.

Visually this movie is pretty much stunning. It's just consistently beautiful. The 3-D was pretty cool, but it gave my eyes a work-out.

Plot-wise? ... not so much with the stunning. Having watched it (or even having read the description) left me feeling like I'd seen this before only with less blue people. I think it was called Dances With Wolves. Or was it Last Samurai? Pocahontas? ...FERN GULLY??! ( Quick thoughts on racefail complete with spoilers )

Poll #1513225 Drama Boyfriend Playoffs - Conference Championship
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

Kimchi Conference

Sushi Conference

Poll #1511983 Drama Boyfriend Playoffs - DIVISIONALS
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

Kimchi Conference - Game One

Kimchi Conference - Game Two

Sushi Conference - Game One

Sushi Conference - Game Two

Well, we had another tie for the last round. As a result, two very nice boys must now FIGHT TO THE DEATH. Which one will you choose?

SATONAKA HALU	VS.	OH DAL GUN

Poll #1511744 Drama Boyfriend Playoffs - SUDDEN DEATH
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

Div 5 - Hard Shell, Gooey Center

One of the matchups from Wild Card Round 1 ended in a tie, so I'm reposting. I'll keep it open through tomorrow morning (8am EST) and hopefully we'll have a winner. If not, I'll figure something else out:

KANG HYUN SOO	VS.	YUUKI KAI

Poll #1510828 SUDDEN DEATH
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

Div 4 - Guy Next Door

Good morning flisties! (If you are in the western hemisphere, of course)

This is just a quick reminder to go vote for the first wild card round in the Drama Boyfriend Playoffs. All the cool kids are doing it!

The two different polls are here and here.

I believe there is currently one tie that needs to be broken. I'll leave the voting open until 6 pm EST tonight. And then reevaluate. Hopefully there won't be any ties then.

In other news...

I watched episodes 30 and 31 of Smile, You last night. I really started showing viewer fatigue during 30. I SO wish this hadn't been extended 16 episodes. I think it could have been a really excellent (the younger generation storylines of course, the parents generation will ALWAYS be dull) 30 episode drama. Things are wearing a little thin and getting pretty repetative.

Then I watched ep 31 and cried... TWICE. What the hell, show? ;_;

Wild Card Round Voting continued from here

( VOTE NOW!!! )

The time has come! The first round of voting for our Drama Boyfriend Playoffs! There are going to be two Wild Card Rounds, a Divisional Round, a Conference Championship, and then our Drama Boyfriend Super Bowl.

Here are our Divisions:

Division 1- All Grown Up 1. Takano Seiichi (Hotaru no Hikari) 2. Hwal (Triple) 3. Dam Duk (Legend) 4. Togami (Ryusei no Kizuna)	Division 2 - Cool as a Cucumber 1. Tae Bong (Dal Ja's Spring) 2. Gil Dong (Hong Gil Dong) 3. Ah Ken (Love Contract) 4. Eiji (Bara no nai Hanaya)
Division 3 - Good With His Hands 1. Taek Gi (The Vineyard Man) 2. Hiroto (Tatta Hitotsu no Koi) 3. Dr. Min (Thank You) 4. Minakata Jin (JIN)	Division 4 - Guy Next Door 1. Gong Chan (My Girl) 2. Hyun Soo (Smile, You) 3. Yuuki Kai (Orange Days) 4. Qin Lang (Corner with Love)
Division 5 - Hard Shell, Gooey Center 1. Halu (Pride) 2. Dal Gun (Bad Family) 3. Tian Qi (My Lucky Star) 4. Jiang Meng (Devil Beside You)	Division 6 - Not-So-Secret Dork 1. Jeremy (You're Beautiful) 2. Nakatsu (Hana Kimi JP) 3. Akira (Nobuta wo Produce) 4. Mine (Nodame Cantabile)
Division 7 - Reformed Woobie 1. Han Kyul (Coffee Prince) 2. Ojiro (Love Shuffle) 3. Woo Wan (Capital Scandal) 4. Hwan (Brilliant Legacy)	Division 8 - Teddy Bear 1. Jae Ha (Spring Waltz) 2. Quan (Hana Kimi TW) 3. Asami (Long Love Letter) 4. Poong Ho (Triple)

AND NOW FOR THE VOTING

Match-ups were determined by the ranking each boyfriend had after the nominations round. First seed goes up against the fourth seed, 2nd against 3rd. Make sense? Here is an example (the number in parentheses is their original ranking number). Buchou had the highest ranking (2) so he is the number one seed. Togami had the lowest (24) so he is the fourth seed and therefor goes up against Buchou:

Note: The next 8 match-ups will go in my next post because LJ is being a giant bitch about having two polls in one post. I've remade them about 5 times and I'm going to lose my mind.

( VOTE NOW!!!!! )

First, if you haven't voted here, go now! I need help classifying all our great drama boyfriends.

I saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie this weekend and it was very fun. Granted, the extent of what I know about Holmes canon can be summed up here. But I did see it with csense_ilinmn who has been reading the stories since we were in diapers and she loved it too. There are hints of the original, she told me, but it is very much a Hollywood take on the whole thing.

The actual 'mystery' was pretty lacking, but the effects were great. I'm really glad I saw it on the big screen. Having said all that, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law were fantastic. They MADE the movie.

Finally had some time to clean the house today. I feel a lot better. One of the many things I hate about winter is not being able to open the windows. Everything feels so stale. Yuck.

Up through episode 8 of What Happened in Bali and am really enjoying it (and dreading what is to come, of course). But really, Korea, isn't it a little early to start busting about the flashbacks? Especially for stuff that happened about two scenes ago.

Also, none of So Ji Sub's suits are tailored properly and it's driving me crazy. He constantly looks like a little kid trying on daddy's clothes.

Alright, the floor is closed for nominations, the calculations have been... calculated... and we have our TOP 32 Drama Boyfriends! They are as follows: ( The moment you have been waiting for... )

As I've mentioned before (if you actually read my ramblings) those top eight nominees are the #1 seed of their respective divisions. Now we need the rest of the divisions!

I've come up with eight division categories that I think are sufficiently vague enough where a single guy could fall under several. That will make things a lot easier in the long run. I think I stretched a little with the Jae Ha one, but I wanted that option for some of the guys further down the list. Anyway!

Here are our 8 Drama Boyfriend Divisions: ( Split 'em up! )

Now I need your opinions! As I'm not familiar with several of these faces, I don't really know which division they belong in - that's where you come in. Just fill out the poll below (there are actually two since LJ has a length restriction).

Remember, each division only needs an additional three men, so spread your votes around to all the divisions. Thanks and happy voting! ( Vote now or forever hold your peace )

Did you make it to the end? AWESOME. Your reward is some statistics that may only interest me:

Dramas with the most nominees:

Three Nominees

• Boys Over Flowers - Ji Hoo, Jun Pyo, and Woo Bin


• Triple - Hwal, Hae Yoon, and Poong Ho

Two Nominees

• Coffee Prince - Han Kyul & Han Sung


• JIN - Minakata Jin & Sakamoto Ryoma


• Legend - Dam Duk & Churo


• Nobuta wo Produce - Akira & Shuuji

Actors with the most nominated characters

Three Characters

• Mike He - Jiang Meng (Devil Beside You), Ah Ken (Love Contract), and Huo Da (Why Why Love)


• Vic Zhou - Zai Tian (Black & White), Ling (Mars), and Xu Le (Wish to See You Again)

Two Characters

• Fujiki Naohito - Takana Seiichi (Hotaru no Hikari) & Suga Eiichiro (Love Revolution)


• Gong Yoo - Han Kyul (Coffee Prince) & Tae In (Hello My Teacher)


• Hyun Bin - Deuk Gu (Snow Queen) & Jung Ji Oh (World Within)


• Kamenashi Kazuya - Shuuji (Nobuta wo Produce) & Hiroto (Tatta Hitotsu no Koi)


• Kang Ji Hwan - Woo Wan (Capital Scandal) & Gil Dong (Hong Gil Dong)


• Kimura Takuya - Jiro (Engine) & Halu (Pride)


• Lee Dong Wook - Gong Chan (My Girl) & Tae Jo (Partner)


• Lee Min Ki - Tae Bong (Dal Ja's Spring) & Nam Bong Ki (I Really Really Like You)


• Lee Sun Gyun - Han Sung (Coffee Prince) & Hae Yoon (Triple)


• Nagase Tomoya - Sakuraba Yuichiro (Mukodono) & Taro (Utahime)


• Sorimachi Takashi - Onizuka (GTO) & Kaede Soichiro (Over Time)


• Tsutsumi Shinichi - Nabeshime Kenichiro (Lunch Queen) & Sakuma (Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu)


• Yamashita Tomohisa - Naoki (Buzzer Beat) & Akira (Nobuta wo Produce)

DRAMA BOYFRIEND PLAYOFFS

SO, I figured I should get a handle on this thing and make some deadlines. Everyone has until I get home from work today (6pm EST) to submit their Top 12 Drama Boyfriends (or top whatever number if it's too hard to come up with 12). After that, I'm pretty sure we're going to need to have a tiebreaker vote for the last couple of spots. That vote will go up after 6.

Every vote counts! Just the last two lists submitted shuffled around our top 10. Look at see:

1. Han Kyul (Coffee Prince)
2. Takano Seiichi (Hotaru no Hikari)
3. Taek Gi (The Vineyard Man)
4. Tae Bong (Dal Ja's Spring)
5. Jae Ha (Spring Waltz)
6. Dal Gun (Bad Family)
7. Hwal (Triple)
8. Halu (Pride)
9. Dr. Min (Thank You)
10. Quan (Hana Kimi TW)

Post those lists! (I'm looking at YOU dangermousie)

I've been pondering how I want to go about the voting once all the nominations come in (speaking of which, if you'd like to point your flist over, the more the merrier). What I have in mind may be more trouble than it is worth, but why not try it. I know I want 8 divisions (like the NFL). The top 8 ranked nominees will be the number one seed in each division. Then we will take the remaining 24 teams and split them up. That's the easy part.

The hard part is I'd like each division to group together similar characters based on the number 1 seed. My problem is I don't know all these characters and could use everyone's creativity. Here are the current top seeds:

1. Han Kyul (Coffee Prince)
2. Takano Seiichi (Hotaru no Hikari)
3. Taek Gi (The Vineyard Man)
4. Hwal (Triple)
5. Halu (Pride)
6. Dr. Min (Thank You)
7. Jae Ha (Spring Waltz)
8. Tae Bong (Dal Ja's Spring)

So, given those (if they don't change of course, but I'm not really expecting that many more voters to pop in), what should our divisions be? I had been thinking something along the lines of:

Div 1: Reformed Woobie (Han Kyul)
Div 2: Successful and Sexy (Takano Seiichi)
Div 3: Guy Next Door (Taek Gi)
Div 4: Icy on the Outside (Hwal)
Div 5: Wanabe Playboy (Halu)

Aaaand, I don't know the other guys. So suggestions are very much welcome. And even what I have so far isn't set in stone at all.

For those interested, here are the rankings as they currently stand: ( TOP DRAMA BOYFRIENDS... )

Yesterday, I made a deal with the devil dangermousie (along with several others). If I agreed to watch Something Happened in Bali she would watch any drama of my choosing. I hemmed and hawed and eventually jumped in despite the staggering number of dramas I already want to watch and my instinctive nature to stay away from dramas that I know are going to stab me in the gut. But it was too good an opportunity to ignore, because now I can make her watch Vineyard Man which, for all its flaws, I adore a ridiculous amount. The story is hackneyed and the production values are non-existant, but that just makes me love it MORE. I don't think I've ever inhaled a drama like I did Vineyard Man. The love story between Taek Gi and Ji Hyun is simply delightful. It makes my heart go all doki-doki.

ANYWAY, dangermousie has stayed away from it because the male lead is less than a super model. This is very true, but Oh Man Suk was able to infuse Taek Gi with so much country charm by the end of the series you want to marry him. He's pretty much my ultimate drama boyfriend. But that begged the question - who would everyone else choose? I know darkeyedwolf is partial to Taek Gi herself and sailorgaia would choose Oh Dal Gun from Bad Family in a heartbeat, but what about the rest of the flist (that watches dramas, of course)?

To ease my curiosity (and waste some time) I decided to put together the Drama Boyfriends Playoffs (in honor of the upcoming NFL playoffs - GO COLTS!). I'm not sure how I'm going to split everyone up (Jdrama conference? I dunno), but I know I want to use some kind of seeded selection so I need votes!

Comment with your TOP 12 drama boyfriends ranked from favorite to not-quite-as-favorite in the comments. Hopefully that will give me enough overlap to have something to go on.

My Example:

1. Taek Gi (The Vineyard Man)
2. Taro (Utahime) 
3. Han Kyul (Coffee Prince)
4. Mars (ToGetHer) 
5. Woo Wan (Capital Scandal)
6. Hyun Soo (Smile, You)
7. Halu (Pride)
8. Eiji (Bara no nai Hanaya)
9. Dal Gun (Bad Family)
10. Gil Dong (Hong Gil Dong)
11. Buchou (Hotaru no Hikari)
12. Hwal (Triple)

Doctor Who: The End of Time I & II... What did I just watch? Seriously, that's what RTD is going out on? Lame. Then again, I haven't been impressed with any of the specials this year. I thought Tennant did a good job, but it's probably a good thing they are shaking everything up.

I hope this new kid is good. I'll be reserving judgement.

Watched a couple more episode of Shokojo Seira this week and I'm happy to report it's picking up the pace. I initially only stuck with it because I so enjoyed "A Little Princess" when I was younger and I wanted to see what they did with it. It's a little difficult setting it in the present given the child labor laws I can only assume Japan has. It's a little distracting when all I can think is "Shouldn't she be put in foster care? WHAT THE HELL?"

You just can't let that bother you and go with the flow. They obviously aren't concerned with details like that, and once you realize they are going to just gloss over silly little issues like that the better. It's a nice, simple little drama about a young girl and her quiet strength. The principal isn't nearly so deviously evil as the original, instead you get glances into her past and how it has shaped her.

Shokojo Seira may not be true to life or life changing, but it does offer some genuinely funny moments and is quite sweet. Also, Shida Mirai is a teeny, tiny person:

Howdy folks and welcome to my 2009 Drama Year in Review. I was inspired to do this when scanky_chops put up her 2009 Jdrama poll and I realized that I really didn't like much of what came out this year. Yet, I remembered really liking other things. A lot of what I enjoyed happened to have aired during previous years, but since I watched it during the course of 2009 those are included in this personal countdown from WORST to BEST.

I haven't included the dramas I dropped (MY FAIR LADY, ugh) or those that I haven't finished (Liar Game 2, IRIS, Smile You, and Shokojo Seira) despite how much I might like them. Nor have I included movies. I have included two SPs since they allowed me the nice number of 25 total dramas watched. Without further ado, my 2009 Drama Countdown.( FROM WORST TO BEST... )

The Naked Kitchen has been sitting on my harddrive for quite some time now, and for whatever reason I was on a Joo Ji Hoon kick yesterday. I would have watched some of my favorite scenes from Goong, but that would have taken effort, so I just watched this movie instead. I can't really recommend it, as I found it painfully boring, but JJH was a definite bright spot in the entire dull affair.

The story centers around Mo-rae a young woman just celebrating her one-year anniversary. She loves her husband, whom she had known her entire life, but there is one problem: her husband isn't played by Joo Ji Hoon. The stranger she runs in to when she sneaks into a ceramics exhibit is.

I am not sure what I was expecting with this movie as I had heard that it wasn't that great. I didn't expect it to be so painfully vanilla. When you are dealing with an infidelity plot you expect it to at least have a little drama. Every character seemed like a perfectly nice, but completely irrelevant piece of the scenery. JJH's character was the only one when any minimal spark of life, but even that was hardly allowed by the yawn-inducing script. In a movie that focuses solely on the relationships between three characters you want to actually CARE about those relationships. It was hard to tell if Mo-rae even really liked either of the two men in her life as she just seemed to float through the movie not really interacting with anything.

Exibitions of real emotion or passion were few and far between in this movie, but the initial hook-up between Mo-rae and Du-re in the art gallery was hot and very prettily shot. If only we got kisses like this in our kdramas (I didn't include any NSFW caps. There isn't any nudity in the movie, but there is a bra sighting and some skirt hiking). It's such a rare sight, I thought it was worthy of a picspam for drama_hunt:


( The sun was in my eyes... )

Doctor Who: The End of Time Part 1 - What did I just watch? Seriously, does RTD have some kind of magnet poetry set that he used to create this plot? Highlight for not so much spoilers as a list of some of the random ass stuff from the episode: Ood Kumbaya Circles, Emperor Palpatine Master, a father and daughter relationship with a rather creepy vibe, and random cactus people? I don't even know what to think. Though at the end of the episode all I could think of was "That's like dali_lamb's idea of a perfect world"