Jueves 22 de octubre del 2009.- Disney Channel, Disney XD y Playhouse Disney dieron a conocer sus nuevas propuestas…y como siempre PINK CARPET MAGAZINE estuvo ahí para contarte lo que podrás disfrutar en lo que queda del 2009 y el comienzo del 2010 en nuevas producciones originales, series y las mejores películas.

Disney Channel

- Trae para ti nuevos episodios y temporadas de las series preferidas por todos: JONAS; Sunny, entre estrellas; Hannah Montana; Los Hechiceros de Waverly Place; Zack y Cody: Gemelos a bordo; Phineas y Ferb; Jake y Blake

- Entre las películas estreno de Disney Channel se destacan: Los Hechiceros de Waverly Place: La película, Regreso a Halloweentown, Ratatouille. La familia del futuro, Supercan, Blanca Nieves y los siete enanos.

- En cuanto a producciones originales, Disney Channel continúa presentando: Art Attack (producido por primera vez localmente), Zapping Zone, La nueva casa de Playhouse Disney.

- La nueva edición de la Copa Disney, el torneo internacional de fútbol infantil para chicos de entre 10 y 12 años.

Disney XD

- La acción y aventura vendrán de la mano de nuevos episodios y temporadas de las series favoritas de la audiencia: Zeke y Luther, Kid vs. Kat, Isla de mutantes, Liga de Súper Malvados, Club Caza Monstruos.

- Además, llegan a Disney XD nuevas series animadas y no animadas: Iron Man: Aventuras de hierro, Estoy en la banda, Shreducation, Power Rangers RPM.

- El canal tiene previsto el estreno de las siguientes películas: Piratas del Caribe: En el fin del mundo, Súper-Escuela de Héroes, Asterix y Obelix: Misión Cleopatra, Una casa patas arriba, Chicos Motorizados, Corredor de Kart, Karate Kid II, Karate Kid 4: La nueva aventura, Máximo Riesgo, Skyrunners.

- Disney XD también continúa presentando sus producciones originales: DXD XTRA, Copa Disney.

Playhouse Disney Channel

- El canal para niños en edad preescolar presenta nuevos episodios y temporadas de las series favoritas de los más pequeños: La casa de Mickey Mouse, Los imaginadores, Manny a la obra, ¡Yo Gabba Gabba!, Oso: Agente Especial, La calle del zoológico 64, Ozie Boo, Chuggington.

- Además, llegan a Playhouse Disney Channel nuevas series para aprender jugando y divirtiéndose: The Wiggles, Jungla sobre ruedas, Carebears: Adventures in Care -A- Lot, PoppetsTown, Adivina qué es con Jess.

- El canal tiene previsto el estreno de las siguientes películas para disfrutar en familia: Pinocho, La Sirenita 3: Los comienzos de Ariel, Elias y el yate Real, Cars: Una aventura sobre ruedas.

Te dejamos estas imágenes para darte una probadita y antojarte un poco más todo lo nuevo que Disney trae para ti.

“Japanese people are so weird”
-Ayaka, my (Japanese) roommate, while watching Karate Kid II last night

The weekend before my 33rd birthday my mother went to see a psychic who told her that I would meet the man of my dreams in May 2010.  Of course, the woman had to ask my mother a number of leading questions to determine that I was single.  What she failed to ask her was my age, if she had she would not have bothered to raise my mother’s hopes; instead, she would have felt it in her best interest to offer a more probable prediction that I would remain single for the rest of my life or at least until after menopause when I would meet a lonely widower in my bookclub for retirees at the local coffee shop. 

See?  This charlatan isn’t going to offer a prediction that isn’t likely, and she certainly isn’t going to predict something that we don’t want to hear.  She must have decided that all women want to hear that they will find true love.  She told my 78-year-old grandmother that she would marry again at 82.  My grandmother knows a lot of people her age because she’s a bartender, but she is not the marrying type–after two divorces and eight children, she has learned her lesson.  Sure, the psychic probably went a bit too far with that one, but notice that she gave my grandmother four years and me ten months.  She gave herself just enough time for us to have forgotten her predictions by the time they didn’t happen, and she allowed for more time with the one that was least likely.  Now this is not to say that I think it is likely that I will meet the man of my dreams by next May because I am also saying that my grandmother won’t remarry.  First of all, it’s just not that easy.  The perfect guy just doesn’t appear on cue.  In fact he has probably already been here and left, and by here I don’t mean Louisville, Kentucky.   That’s the second problem with the psychic’s prediction:  the man of my dreams doesn’t live here.  He never has.  I have mistaken a few dreamers for him from time to time, but I soon left them on the wrong side of one of my many burned bridges.  However, I have seen this man in other places.  He has had a few faces, but geography always pulls us apart.  He leaves me standing in a foreign land to go back to where he came from.   I have nothing left to me but to go home too and to wonder where I will see him next. 

The problem is that I am looking for a permanent job in Louisville.  I don’t know if I will ever live anywhere else again, and I’m not sure that I am happy about that.  One the one hand, having lived the adventure, I find it hard to return to the mediocrity of stasis.  It’s like Buzz Aldrin, who felt that there was nothing left for him after his trip to the moon.  All the planning was through, the mission was complete, and he was left to carve a normal life for himself.  I’m not trying to compare my life to stepping on the moon, but I can understand his emptiness after the high.  I feel like I have to do it again to prove myself.   But on the other hand, I want to be home where I have a past, roots, and a community that knows me.   I was tired of being different and having no one nearby who loved me unconditionally.   One thing Mr. Right taught me when I knew him in a foreign country was how good it felt to be close to someone who comes from a similar place.  And there’s the rub:  it’s a similar place that is interesting because it’s not the same place that we know too well.  So he can’t be from Louisville, or at least my part of Louisville, and how specific should that be? just not the house with the orange brick and brown shudders with the chimney in the front that stands next door to a house where a mother and daughter live who never come out of their house except in their bathrobes when the power is out in the neighbourhood? Well, that just excludes my brother, and he’s married anyway. Perhaps everyone else is fair game; and, if that’s the case, then perhaps my chances aren’t that bad afterall.

So I just want to say to the man of my dreams, my knight in shining armor, wherever he is polishing his sword and gilding my foil ring, that I am still single and don’t give up. I may be tucked away in my mother’s house in the armpit of suburbia and spending my Saturday night writing this blog with my dog at my feet and my cat lying on the mousepad, but with a PhD I won’t be unemployed for long and I should be living in my own flat by Derby.

“Why does he act like that?”

Cetera Serenades Your Pants Off

About a year ago I re-watched The Karate Kid (TKK) and The Karate Kid Part II (TKKPII), two beloved films from my flowery youth. Here are my most magical thoughts.

THE KARATE KID (1984)

TKK is a legitimately good film, not just a good brawler or just a good teen flick or whatever. It’s a good movie. In fact, it’s terrible if you’re hoping to see a fighting movie or a teen movie. The film is directed by John G. Avildsen, who also directed Rocky (1976). In many ways it seems that TKK is a remake of ol’ Rocky. We have an underdog asshole training to fight and attempting to woo some chick while taking sage advice from a weird old man. However, I have to say that TKK is an overall more enjoyable film than Rocky. The damn thing is a time capsule of 1984, with bad 1984 clothes, bad 1984 music, kids playing in arcades, blah blah. It comes across as the opposite of a John Hughes movie. The fighting is also very realistic. There are no backflips and flying around on wires. Most of the fighting is rather slow like in real life. And on another topic, the good guys are not magical angels and the bad guys are not pure evil. It becomes clear that the mean kids act the way they do because they have a really bad egg for a mentor and by the end of the film they clearly begin to question him in a realistic, convincing manner. You should see it!

THE KARATE KID PART II (1986)

TKKPII has the same director, writer, composer and stars as TKK. So what the fuck went wrong? There actually is one good scene – the opening scene that was actually filmed in 1984 to be the closing scene of TKK but cut in the final edit. This scene further displays the plausible complexity of the ‘bad kids’ from TKK. And then the scene ends and the screen says “SIX MONTHS LATER”. As if by magic, everything has changed since the first movie. First, we learn that the girlfriend, who was incredibly supportive of ol’ Karate Kid and also better looking than he could ever hope to find in another woman, has left our hero for “a football player”. Oh, thank God! She was just a typical stupid flighty woman after all (PS – I hate commas now). So apparently, Da Karate Kid has to have a different girlfriend in every movie, like James Bond and Indiana Jonez. ANYWAY, to make a dumb story short, our heroes end up in Japan where, as it turns out, everything is really boring. Seriously, really boring. Apparently, everyone in Japan still dresses like it’s the 1950s and even hold sockhops in the middle of the day. This time around the villians is just plain bad with no sophistication. Oh, wait, except one of them becomes good because it rained hard. But the other one stayed bad. And then Daniel gets a new girlfriend who does stupid shit like make him watch her do boring tea ceremonies. Then, when they’re about to kiss, the aforementioned hard raining begins. Finally, the bad guy that stayed bad puts on a fucking awesome gi and fights The Karate Kid. Do you remember when the 1960s Green Hornet and Batman shows had a crossover and fucking Robin, played by Casey Casem, fought Kato, played by fucking Bruce Lee, to a standstill? How laughable is that? Well, that’s basically how laughable The Karate Kid fighting this bad guy with a cool gi is. The bad guy is clearly twice as strong, twice as fast, twice as smart, twice as Asian, and twice as determined. Don’t worry, Daniel does a lame gimmicky move and the movie ends.

After that I decided not to re-watch The Karate Kid Part III.

kicknz

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• Movie Party: The Rocky Series
• movie challenge 2005: chapter 9
• Things That Really Matter #12: A Really Long Game Boy entry in several parts