Just added this sheet of stamps to my Ozu pages.
Ozu commemorative stamps
Helping Jarmusch remember Ozu
It’s only the tiniest of images, but I do believe it qualifies as the first time an image of mine has been published in a publication that actually costs money to buy. The above (click on it for a larger version) is from the October issue of Artforum magazine, and shows my photo of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu’s grave stone (original here) at the start of a piece on Ozu by Jim Jarmusch. (I realize it’s a bit teeny-bopperish, but I admit feeling a tinge of excitement when I got the issue and saw this placement, my photo next to Jim Jarmusch’s byline. The headline of this post is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, in case that wasn’t obvious.) The magazine had come across my small site about Ozu via a search and requested some images of his grave, along with some other Ozu paraphernalia.
A dead horse beaten by Kitano’s shtick
I just got through twiddling my thumbs through Takeshi “Beat” Kitano’s film Dolls, the most excruciatingly slow and painful film I’ve seen since…uh…let me see…uh…Brother, directed by…oh wait, that was also a Kitano film. Hmmn, notice a pattern here? I don’t know, I keep giving this guy a chance, and I thought for some reason this one might be different, especially seeing as how the blank-stare acting shtick of Kitano wouldn’t be making an appearance, and just like I thought a film by Kitano set in gangland Los Angeles would be different, but no more. No more chances. I’ve been bitten one too many times. I can see the comments already: oh but wait, Zatoichi will be different. You know what? I don’t care. There are only so many hours in the day and I have none left to give Kitano in the hopes that he might surprise me.
Just had to get that off my chest.