Results tagged “hongkong”

href="http://torontoist.com/2008/02/phototo_snowbal.php">photographing a big, organized snowball fight.

--PETA would say all whale watchers are terrorists.

This thing has been going around today that lumps Seattle in with New York, Boston, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris as members of the crappy waterfront club, and we're supposed to be shamed by it or something (it is the "Hall of Shame" anyway), but, for us, it's not really working. We kind of don't really mind getting lumped in with those other cities. Maybe none of us has the greatest waterfront, but so what? Show us a great waterfront, we'll show you a tourist town that's dead inside. These are world-class cities that Seattle is listed with here. These are all cities with proud port histories (except maybe Paris--at least we've never really thought of it as a port). They have waterfronts that reflect those histories. Sure, the business of shipping containers back and forth across the oceans has more or less been shuttled aside by now in all of these places, but once upon a time these cities floated boatloads of crap back and forth to each other's waterfronts. Receiving that crap and loading it onto trains was the reason the cities existed in the first place. And now they bear the scars of that past. Sometimes it isn't pretty in a "Let's go for a promenade in the park before tea" type of way, but it can be beautiful in a urban what-hath-man-wrought-upon-the-earth type of way. We're partial to voting No and Hell No for other reasons (although we haven't postmarked our ballet), but we want to make it clear that we're not going to be shamed into submission by The Project for Public Spaces and their Worst Waterfronts list.

Following the advice of one of Seattlest’s faithful readers (and proving we value the comments!), we continued the craze of eating on the Eastside, where we think the best Chinese restaurants are located (our favorite is Szechuan Chef, followed by Yea’s Wok). This time our destination was Café Ori, a Hong Kong-style eatery with a side order of Taiwan-style drinks.

Given Martin Scorsese’s gritty, wise guy oeuvre and a mega-talented cast fronted by fellow AFI Lifetime Achievement Award winner Jack Nicholson, we just couldn’t miss Scorsese’s retelling of the 2002 Hong Kong flick Infernal Affairs. (See the ad in the top right corner of the page? Don’t those faces, those colors and that “R” promise profanity, violence, and maybe even some sex? Hey!) So last Friday night—yeah, we’re a bit behind—we beat the devil to Ballard’s Majestic Bay half an hour early for the eight o’clock show … to find a hundred other people had beat us there. Good for Warner Bros. accountants, bad for our necks.

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place.

As a wise man once said: "Ohhhh, we're half-way there / Ohhh-oh, living on a prayer." On Wednesday, SIFF officially reached the half-way mark. But it's by no means all downhill from here. There's still tons more great films to see before the fest is through.

One week of SIFF down, only three more to go. Starting yesterday, the fest moved on up, to the Eastside. Now through next Wednesday, films will be shown in Bellevue at the Lincoln Square Cinemas. From the looks of it, they've got a strong Friday lined up, with the final screenings of The Giant Buddhas, Prairie Home Companion, and Conversations with Other Women.

Thirty-five journos and Guinness officials (plus two air crews) are loaded into a Boeing 777 that began an attempt at the record books this morning. The flight is trying for the record for the longest continuous commercial flight and will be in the air for nearly twenty three hours as it circles the globe from Hong Kong to London.

Twenty-five days and 348 films later, the 31st Annual Seattle International Film Festival came to a close yesterday. This was a big SIFF---over 150 actors/filmmakers were brought to town for the fest (we do so love the Q&A), and organizers are reporting an approximate 5% increase in ticket sales from 2004's record year. Additionally, Sunday's live movie poster auction raised nearly $7000 for the SIFF Group.

It's difficult enough to make a film that entertains people once. It's almost impossible to make a film -- even a short one -- that stands up to thirty or forty viewings over three and a half weeks. So Seattlest congratulates local ad agency Wongdoody for producing the most entertaining promotional trailers we've seen at the Seattle International Film Festival.

At long last, Central Cinema is now open. Though they've hosted some pre-grand opening events last month, Wednesday was their official opening night. And while Seattlest was not in attendance, we are certainly planning on going there sometime soon, especially after taking a gander at their menu. Mmmm...we're thinking that popcorn and roasted asparagus and a salmon burger and the quattro formaggi or sienna or pescara pizza, followed by some crème brulee and a nice nip of tawny port sounds delightful.