VCinema Goodness!

Hello all. Happy New Year! I am once more back in the GTA, refreshed and ready to get a start on 2011. This year will hopefully bring about a few more posts and reviews here as well as other projects and pursuits elsewhere.

Speaking of, there are a few interesting things going on over at the website for the VCinema Podcast and Blog, which specializes in news, reviews and podcast episodes on Asian cinema. Recently, they posted a series of three articles in which a variety of writers, scholars and all-around Asian cinema fans spoke up about their favorite Asian film experiences in 2010, revealing a broad variety of tastes and experiences. I was one of those contributors, as was my editor and compadre John Berra, who was a guest on Episode 13 of the podcast and regularly writes reviews for VCinema. You can check out our entries here; the other two articles in the series can be found here and here.

The VCinema podcast will soon be celebrating its first anniversary on January 31st, 2011. In order to celebrate the special event, they are currently holding a special contest that I'm sure will be worth taking part in - if your knowledge of Asian cinema is up to snuff. Here is editor and producer Coffin Jon's blurb on the contest:

Episode 22 of our podcast, scheduled for release on January 31st, 2011, will mark the VCinema podcast’s first anniversary. Can you believe it?! We can’t either. Anyway, in this episode, we will have our first discussion of an entire film trilogy (we normally only discuss one film per episode) and this is where the contest comes in. Email us at vcinema@variedcelluloid.net with the name of the director whose trilogy we will discuss and you will earn a chance to win a prize, the winner of which we will determined by random draw during episode 22.


Now, that’s leaving you all sort of high and dry because there must be a million Asian directors who have directed a million film trilogies, so how would you know which we chose unless you could read our minds (and you can’t, CAN YOU?!) Well, here’s a hint:


This director, who shares the last name with another famous Japanese director, got his start in Japanese pinku and direct-to-video yakuza films before later becoming popular during the “J-Horror” film boom in the late ’90s to mid 2000′s.


OK, got it?! Only one entry per person and all entries must be in by Sunday, January 16th at midnight PST to be considered for the prize, so get your entry in as soon as possible.


Also, be sure to listen to episode 21, out on January 17, 2011, for a second chance at an entry into this contest!


*VCinema will not use your email address for marketing or spam. We will only contact you if you are the winner or you have a question about the contest.

There ya have it. Be sure to bookmark the VCinema website and check it regularly for your fill of everything Asian cinema.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that Jon was recently interviewed by the San Francisco-based website SF360 regarding the history of the VCinema podcast and what he and his co-hosts (Josh Samford of Varied Celluloid and Rufus de Rham of CineAWESOME!) hope to accomplish with their discussions of Asian films and filmmakers. Check it out here!