Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 7)

Okay, for reasons I shall explain soon, I need to find a new home for my two cats, Miroo and Jiroo. I have been posting all over the place, in English and Korean websites, but so far come up empty*. And now that I am days away from moving, I thought I would try posting about my cats on my blog.

Miroo is 8 years old male (neutered), slightly overweight, and quite nice, without being clingy. When he was young, he took a bad fall outside and broke both of his front legs. It took a lot of surgery and care to nurse him back to strength, but today, he is healthy and fine (although he walks with a slight limp). But he does like to sit with people, especially when it is cold out.

Jiroo is just 4 years old and female (spayed). She is less cuddly than Miroo (definitely not a fan of being picked up), but she quite likes to play, with strings or toys like that.

Both are quite independent of people but close to each other, so they are fairly undemanding pets. Nice company, without being overbearing.

If you are interested, please drop me an email. I am based in Seoul, close to Shinchon (at least for now).

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*Okay, not totally empty. A couple of nice people queried, but decided to get other cats. And several really freaky people called who I would never, ever want taking care of any living thing, especially not my cats.

For example, the one guy who likes to keep cats on leashes all day, when he is out at work. He asked “Do you have a bag I can carry them in, or do I need my own?” Then he adds that he has had several cats over the years, but they keep running away. Yikes. Serious freak.

Just a fast rundown of the boxoffice this week. I am out of the country at the moment, so not much time. Sorry about this.

Rank – Title — 3-day Gross / Total Gross (won)- Screen

1. Red Cliff 2 — 2,672,370,000 / 12,900,080,000 — 464
2. Valkyrie — 1,719,815,000 / 9,247,254,500 — 393
3. Inkheart — 1,389,766,500 / 1,692,005,000 — 301
4. Scandal Makers (Korean) — 1,410,811,500 / 48,986,343,900 — 326
5. City of Damnation (Korean) — 1,376,723,500 / 8,281,765,500 — 401
6. Changeling — 510,605,500 / 2,063,340,500 — 217
7. A Frozen Flower (Korean) — 503,269,000 / 24,528,820,400 — 312
8. Madagascar2 — 356,815,000 / 7,233,141,500 — 215
9. Alpha Dog — 288,798,500 / 415,375,500 — 207
10. Old Partner (Korean) — 235,352,600 / 602,229,800 — 58

All data courtesy of KOFIC.

Sorry for not updating. Crazy week. Hopefully I will have more time tomorrow evening to do the box office and make a couple of comments.

But if you must know, THE DIVINE WEAPON and MAMMA MIA are once again neck-and-neck at the box office. Both are doing quite well.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

IRON MAN kicked some pretty serious tail in Korea. Paramount claimed $7.5 million, but KOBIS says closer to $8.0 million. Either way, it was one of the strongest openings in ages. Since D-WAR, maybe?

The official English name of BEASTIE BOYS is actually MOONLIGHT IN SEOUL. But I hate the thought of giving an English name to a movie that already has an English name, so I am calling it BEASTIE BOYS. At any rate, this is the latest film by Yoon Jong-bin, the guy who made UNFORGIVEN a couple of years ago.

Pretty cool to see DETECTIVE CONAN do so well. Considering it was a six-year-old film and was on just 25 screens (the KOBIS report I use tends to overestimate screen counts), $210,000 was not bad.

Korean films are now down to 47.8 percent of the year’s box office, by the way. The big question is, how low will they go over the next couple of months? Some people think below 30 percent is possible. I think that is overly negative, but things will almost definitely not be pretty.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Kind of a miserable weekend at the box office, with only one movie topping $1 million, TAKEN. Everything else is mostly sputtering, waiting for the summer movie madness to begin.

(FYI, this year, summer begins April 30, with the release of IRON MAN).

Not a good weekend for Korean movies, either, with only two films in the top 10 — THE GUARD POST at No. 5 and THE CHASER down in ninth.

If it makes you feel any better, it was not even a good weekend for Hollywood. Most of the foreign films on the chart this week were from other parts — TAKEN is French (from Luc Besson’s crew), THREE KINGDOMS and EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS are from Hong Kong.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

For those keeping track at home, the current overall standings are:
– Korea at 52.2 percent of the year’s box office
– United States at 36.6 percent
– Europe at 6.6 percent
– China and Hong Kong at 4.1 percent
– Japan at 1.2 percent

Some strange goings-on with the top-10 this week. When KOBIS published the weekend numbers on Monday morning, they were obviously really low. I AM LEGEND, for example, was listed as doing about half of what its true business was. Turns out that there were some computer problems and a bunch of theaters had not reported their weekend business.

Apparently the Monday KOBIS numbers are always preliminary, and final figures are not confirmed until Tuesday. I did not know that. I hope I have not posted any wrong box office figures here in past weeks.

Anyhow, big weekend for Will Smith’s I AM LEGEND. Kind of funny, considering how no one I know who saw the film liked it. Score one for Warner Bros’ marketing team. LEGEND had $6.5 million, including its early Wednesday opening (true weekend numbers were closer to $5 million).

I was surprised LEGEND outperformed both SEX IS ZERO 2 and THE FIGHT. Was sure at least one of those would be a breakout hit. As it turns out, SEX IS ZERO 2 was the big Korean film over the weekend… a fact I find endlessly distressing. No, I have not seen it yet, but the original SEX IS ZERO was such a miserable film, I am disappointed people went back for more punishment.

THE FIGHT opened only in fourth, which had to have been disappointing to its distributor. It felt like I have seen ads for this film every five minutes on TV here. (SEX IS ZERO 2, on the other hand, was pretty much invisible, at least on the channels I watch).

Kind of cool to see KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE in the top ten, especially since that movie was released a few weeks ago. Are all of Hayao Miyazaki’s old films going to be periodically rereleased in Korean theaters, like Disney’s film used to be when I was growing up? It would be cool is young people had the opportunity to see his films in the theater.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Busy getting ready for the Pusan International Film Festival, so no time for comments this week. Besides, it was a pretty uneventful weekend at the box office.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 94% of nationwide box office)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/movies/05mcgr.html

Kind of a funny couple of days for CJ Entertainment, the local distributor of SHREK 3. On