In the midst of a blackout or “Rose-budding” of the DVDASA podcast, I did some looking around online and stumbled on this 2007 movie: We Are The Strange which happens to feature artist and DVDASA host David Choe doing the voice of the character Rain. We Are The Strange is an independent animated film directed by Mr. M Dot Strange. The movie combines a mixture of animation, computer generated graphics, and stop motion techniques to construct an eccentric world for the story of We Are …
Category: video
For the month of July until the end of the month (7/30/2014), PBS is streaming online the documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs by filmmaker Grace Lee (no relation). This documentary premiered recently at San Francisco’s CAAM Film Festival 2014 and is about the life and work of Grace Lee Boggs, a Chinese American philosopher, writer, and activist in Detroit, who along with her husband James Boggs (who was a well known black activist) devoted their lives to fighting for …
In terms of martial arts, when one thinks of Brazil, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) comes to mind (“Jiu-Jitsu” is an old western spelling/pronunciation for what is known in Japan as Judo). An influential figure in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from its early beginnings is Mitsuyo Maeda, a judōka (Judo expert) and a prizefighter in no holds barred competitions that traveled the world performing Judo demonstrations and fighting in various competitions. Maeda broke with Judo traditionalists, preferring combat sparing to cookie cutter kata forms, and he fought for …
If you’re still fiending for another documentary on Brazilian music check out Tropicália (2012), an in depth and intimate look at the Tropicália (aka Tropicalismo) movement of music, arts, poetry, theatre and film culture from the late 1960s. The Tropicália movement practice “cultural cannibalism,” a post-modern, remix approach to music, arts, poetry, theatre and film, taking from indigenous Afro-Brazilian music and culture, and mixing them with western styles, and the avant-garde. Tropicália artists played around with being on the fringe, but were not averse to being …
When you think of Brazilian music; Samba, and Bossa Nova may come to mind, but there are other sounds like candomblé, capoeira music, choro, MPB (Música popular brasileira), music of the Tropicalia movement, rock, psychedelic, funk, Afro-Reggae, mangue bit or beat, Brazilian Hip-Hop, Baile funk/Funk carioca, and axé to name a few from the plethora of genres that exist in Brazil. There, people take sports (Football) and music with equal levels of seriousness and passion. You can learn a lot about a country’s history …
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