my rating: Three out of four dimensions.

what possessed me: I can’t seem to resist this recent wave of 3D movies (pun oh so very intended), and the Twink can’t resist sea creatures.

what i learned: For over fifteen bucks, forty-five minutes seems a little on the short side, but the IMAX bigness and 3D that’s all up in your grill go a long way to make up for it. Sadly, G-Rated animal documentaries disappoint in the bloodletting department, and I really wanted to see one of those mongoloid-of-the-ocean sea lions get taken down by a great white. Also, it turns out that I’m the kind of unfortunate jackass who will paw at the air in front of me as if I can actually touch things on the screen just because of the 3D effect. Somebody buy me a helmet.

you may also enjoy: Planet Earth, Deep Sea, squishy things.

tangential thought: I wish I had the pigment-altering powers of the mystifying cuttlefish. It’s like they have astounding animated tattoos. But I’d probably just end up showing stupid YouTube videos on myself all day.

my rating: One gender-ambiguous idol out of several thousand hopefuls.

what possessed me: Culture-minded Pinyacchan pointed this out to me a couple weeks ago as potentially interesting and I wanted to see what was going on in China these days, as well as investigate the humble beginnings of former Super Girl Contest top 50 finalist and current Morning Musume resident panda, JunJun (pictured above left because it’s my site, despite not appearing in the movie at all).

what i learned: Movies like this are tricky to see alone, when you want to go out immediately afterward and sit around talking about the pitfalls of capitalism and democracy, the nebulousness of sexual orientation and gender identity, the abuses of censorship and power in modern media and the benefits of family dependency and filial piety. Sitting alone with a mixed sandwich thinking about the ridiculousness of Chinese hip-hop is a lackluster substitute.

you may also enjoy: Please Vote for Me and other stuff about modern Chinese culture of which I’m hopelessly ignorant.

tangential thought: I love JunJun and while I don’t find her to be particularly androgynous, her face reminds me of Jackie Chan. This kind of unsettles me not because Jackie’s a man, but because he’s not a pretty man.