Archive for June, 2010

A movie about online poker sites could be coming and none other than Leonardo DiCaprio might star in it.

The movie, which was recently optioned by Paramount Pictures, is about a South American casino operation. While details are slim, it’s said to feature online poker playing in some major way.

“I used to enjoy a little online gambling before it came illegal in the United States,” DiCaprio was recently quoted as saying. “It will be interesting to see this subject in a film.”

Though DiCaprio admits to enjoying an online game or two, he also says the concept is odd to him. “There’s something very strange about people trusting their money to a website that may or may not pay out,” he said.

It’s believed that Costa Rican online poker and online casinos are the focus of the movie and that the writes who wrote “Rounders” and “Oceans Thirteen” will head up the project.

Of course, because details are slim, it’s not known how online poker playing will be characterized. Poker opponents hope, of course, that it will be featured in a favorable light. It’s said that the featuring of the poker game Texas Hold’em in the movie “Rounders” was partly responsible for the incredible popularity that the game now has.

The great thing about Tokyo is that one can switch pace dra­mat­i­cally in the blink of an eye, or rather, a quick change of JR or Metro sta­tions. A few stops away from the peace and seren­ity of Yanaka — the ceme­ter­ies and the tem­ples and the shrines — and we are smack in the mid­dle of Tokyo’s favourite and most upscale shop­ping districts.

Wel­come to Ginza.

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1. Where Angels Love to Tread (or Shop, Rather) • Ch?? Dori, Ginza
It’s the week­end in Ginza, when the cen­tral Ch?? Dori is closed to traf­fic and the pedes­tri­ans are free to roam the streets.

And roam is exactly what we do, albeit as happy vis­i­tors with­out a spe­cific plan in mind as other week­enders either pad deter­minedly to their favourite upmar­ket brand store or sit down at small tables and chairs in the mid­dle of the roads and sip on very expen­sive coffee.

There is always a film crew around; always a TV show or a doc­u­men­tary or a movie to be shot. We have watched some Japan­ese tele­vi­sion at night, after a long day of trekking all over Tokyo, and are amused by a uni­ver­sal yet unique humour in a lan­guage we did not understand.

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Some of their vari­ety shows are highly edu­ca­tional as celebri­ties stay on for hours at end guess­ing what the reporters and some guest stars are up to, either on a fish­ing boat in the mid­dle of the Pacific Ocean, reel­ing in all sorts of weird and inde­scrib­able sea crea­tures or find­ing new ways to cook, serve and eat these sealife.

If we are not care­ful, we might end up in one of these Japan­ese TV doc­u­men­taries our­selves: “Guess where do these for­eign­ers come from?”

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2. The Aber­crom­bie & Fitch Guy • 6–9-10 Ginza, Ch??-ku, Tokyo
Ginza is one of the most lux­u­ri­ous shop­ping dis­tricts in the world. All the big-name fash­ion brands are here: Louis Vuit­ton. Prada. Gucci. Fer­rag­amo. Tiffany & Co. Chanel. Dior. Yet the one name that rises above the rest is an Amer­i­can casu­al­wear retailer: Aber­crom­bie & Fitch.

Why Aber­crom­bie & Fitch, you might won­der? After all, every other female Toky­oite that passes by is car­ry­ing one edi­tion of an LV bag or another — one would not mis­taken in assum­ing that the French brand has sur­passed its com­peti­tors in brand­name recog­ni­tion. Ah, but Louis Vuit­ton does not have the tallest build­ing in Ginza.

Aber­crom­bie & Fitch does.

Thir­teen storeys high, with the first eleven floors as retail space and the top two floors for the office and staff quar­ters. Build­ing space is always a pre­mium in Tokyo, but more so in Ginza, for which “over­crowded” is the norm. This flag­ship store is the first and only Aber­crom­bie & Fitch out­let in Asia and a lot of brouhaha went along with its open­ing in Ginza last Decem­ber, Satomi tells us.

The lines of eager shop­pers that went on for­ever, for blocks and blocks. The loud elec­tron­ica music in the store that is akin to a con­struc­tion site in terms of deci­bels. The ever-present spritz­ing of their house brand cologne all over the premises by the staff. And of course, the staff themselves.

Oh, let me tell you about the Aber­crom­bie & Fitch guys.

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Appar­ently, the A&F sales staff are mostly made up of vir­ile, young men in college-casualwear, denim and sneak­ers and always a bril­liant white smile. When the store first opened its doors, the ladies (and some happy gen­tle­men) flocked to have their pic­tures taken with these Aber­crom­bie & Fitch guys, in all their shirt­less splendour.

Satomi asks me, politely as usual (so charm­ing and dis­arm­ing — I wish every­one was as seri­ous about deco­rum as the Japan­ese), if I’d mind tak­ing a pho­to­graph of her and one of the A&F guys. No prob­lem, espe­cially since the A&F door­man already struck a pose the moment he saw me aim­ing my cam­era in his direc­tion. These boys are not shy of get­ting too much atten­tion, evidently.

Devil notices the look on my face and reminds me that they aren’t con­sid­ered camwhores if it’s their job to look good. That’s true. Why can’t I get a job like this? For that mat­ter, why can’t I be good-looking enough to get a job like this?

Darn.

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3. They Scream for Apples • Sayegusa Honkan, Ginza, Ch??-ku, Tokyo
They scream for apples
These men stuck to the giant clock
Or maybe just the lat­est iPad
One can’t really be sure
With scream­ing men stuck to giant clocks.

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4. Leo • 4–5-11 Ginza, Ch??, Tokyo
Iconic.

That’s the only word to describe this Ginza land­mark with its curved gran­ite façade and its Neo-Renaissance style archi­tec­ture. This used to be the Hat­tori Clock Tower, Satomi tells us, before the Great Kanto Earth­quake of 1923. Now it’s the Ginza Wako store, sell­ing watches and jewellery.

This is where we wait to cross the street.

Across from us, is a huge adver­tise­ment screen and Leonardo DiCaprio’s famous vis­age comes on after a series of ani­mated sweet pota­toes (don’t ask). I find amus­ing how many big-name Hol­ly­wood stars get drawn to Japan to film a quickie com­mer­cial ad that will never be seen in their home coun­try (aside from the usual YouTube cult following).

Think the Guber­na­tor. Think Brad Pitt. Even Tommy Lee Jones have his Boss Cof­fee, which is a big hit in Japan. This is a phe­nom­e­non well cap­tured by Bill Murray’s sad-faced comedic movie star in “Lost for Trans­la­tion”, yet it’s thrilling to be here, in Tokyo, right now, and dis­cover it’s all real.

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I have this alarm­ing vision of Leo lead­ing a gang of Ginza boys — all-American Aber­crom­bie & Fitch rejects, of course — and invad­ing Tokyo.

Silly me. What non­sense. Amer­ica invad­ing Japan. Look­ing at all the labels and the brands imported from the States around me, it’s obvi­ous they already did.

Ah. But. No one does Amer­ica the way Japan does. Japan has a way of absorb­ing all the influ­ences and trends from the West and transform/fuse them into some­thing quite dis­tinc­tive, some­thing quite their own. And then the West notices this, and starts copy­ing Japan in turn — through the movies, the anime, the music, the fash­ion — and the cycle starts all over again.

The light turns green and we cross the street, en masse.

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5. The Odour of Oden • Otakoh, 8–6-19 Ginza, Ch??, Tokyo
We chat for hours over freshly brewed cof­fee and mille crêpe with sea­sonal straw­ber­ries at Le Café Doutor. Satomi and I have a lot of catch­ing up to do after ten years since we last met. Careers and ambi­tions, hopes and dreams, all the usual stuff. It’s nice to be able to take one’s time to do this, rather than to exchange weekly life sto­ries over instant mes­sages when one haven’t the time to meet close friends.

Why don’t we do this more often, I wonder?

We walk around Ginza some more, pop into some of the depart­men­tal stores — Mat­suya, Mist­sukoshi, Muji — and when we pop out some time later, it’s already night. And rain­ing. Thank good­ness for those won­der­ful trans­par­ent umbrel­las Toky­oites carry around with them every­where. (And with good rea­son, in spring.)

It is cold and dark and wet. We needed some warm­ing up, and fast. But where and with what?

Satomi has the per­fect solu­tion: Oden.

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Tra­di­tion­ally, oden (???) is a Japan­ese win­ter dish, a steamy assort­ment of tofu, processed fish cakes, eggs, seafood, daikon radish and other veg­eta­bles stewed and sim­mered slowly in a light dashi broth. How­ever, it is also eaten all year round, and Satomi tells us you can find cheap and con­ve­nient ver­sions at most con­ve­nience stores like 7-Eleven dur­ing the colder sea­sons, served in those ubiq­ui­tous white poly­sterene containers.

For­tu­nately Satomi has found us a table at a proper sit-down restau­rant and we warm our­selves first with some hot sake. Clear, slightly sweet and it sure does the trick of warm­ing us up after the cold walk in the rain earlier.

Next we have some finely-sliced sashimi dipped in soy sauce flavoured with diced spring onions and radish. So sim­ple, yet oh so good. We fol­low this with some menchi boru, which is minced crab­meat shaped into balls and coated with bread­crumbs that is then deep-fried. We squeeze some lemon juice over them to add some tart­ness and tap it lightly on some of the salt pro­vided. Deli­cious. We could like this every­day, seriously.

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The pièce de résis­tance comes last and is well worth the wait. A hot, steam­ing pot of good­ness. Satomi does the hon­ours of serv­ing the oden into smaller, indi­vid­ual bowls for us. The broth is light-tasting, del­i­cate and not over­whelm­ing. Won­der­ful so the taste of the oden pieces come across nat­u­rally — a clean, nat­ural flavour with no hint of Chinese-style MSG overdosing.

We sup­per and we chat and we chew, we drink sake and we dream of the years that have passed and all the years to come. The odour of oden per­me­ates the room; it’s an odour of nos­tal­gia and mem­o­ries yet to be made.

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VITAL STATS
Born: November 11, 1974, at 2:47 AM in Los Angeles, CA
Sun Sign: Scorpio
Ascendant: Libra
Moon: Libra
Mercury: Libra
Venus: Scorpio
Mars: Scorpio

Love Style:

Leo is a man who lives up to his name, a master when it comes to the art of seduction and love. He knows how to sweet talk, play coy to charm whomever at will, and then turn into a tiger to pounce at precisely the right moment. He thrives in relationships, and he’s someone who believes in equality in them. However, he can be super intense, asking for a degree of devotion and attentiveness that only a mother can give, but in his eyes, he feels he gives as good as he wants to get. Loyalty is what he prizes and once he gets to that level with that special someone, he gives his all by revealing all the skeletons in his closet. The person he chooses as his special partner-in-crime is the one he’ll give the keys to everything in his body, mind and heart.

Sex Style:

Leo is a man of action and he enjoys sex as if it were his life force. He’s all for trying new things, exploring the darker sides of lust and being fearless in venturing into any bizarre way of getting off. His appetite for all things libidinous is large and intense. When he hits the sack, he wants to get lost in it but to make something beautiful. Even if you just met him, as the sign of extremes rules him, he will perform as if he is out to connect with you each and every time, as there is a need to have a bond in some way to truly hit his mark. Passion is a must and he wants it at high-octane levels and can do a good job of faking it even if he’s not 100 percent there. However, it is always easy for his hook-up partners to gauge what he feels, as he communicates his emotions through sex. Though he can often be too misleading with words and make things sound prettier than they are, through his body he can’t lie.

His Type:

Leo can’t resist a pretty face and it’s no shock that he only dates supermodels. He has a great appreciation for beauty and without it, his relationships cannot exist. However, once he’s been turned on superficially, that is only one hurdle. There are many more after that, as he does have a strange relationship with mind games and seeing how deep he can bestow his trust to the other. Sure, he’s generous to a fault to all whom he loves, but when it comes to getting close to him, he needs his lady to prove she can stand on her own and be someone he could rely on through thick and thin. Of course, the hardest part of loving him is enduring his moods, which are vast and can flip at the drop of a hat. This means she has to be somewhat of a mind reader and know when to give him space, because when it does some down to it, he is a loner at heart. While he thrives being with the ones he loves, at the core of it, he views his life to be more solitary than one would assume. To really wrangle him down, the lady who wants his ultimate affection should keep her reins on him loose, but available.

Astrosexologist Kiki T. is the author of the ultimate astral guide to woo, coo, do and even shoo any man in the universe, The Celestial Sexpot’s Handbook, and The Frisky’s Astrosexologist Extraordinaire. Check out her FriskyScopes every Monday and her advice column, Ask The Astrosexologist, once a week. Plus, to keep up with astro updates as they happen, follow Kiki on Twitter! Plus, if you want to know what’s in store for your sign in 2010, don’t forget to check out The Frisky’s Astro Guide 2010!

You can download a pdf or txt version here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/15671404/Leonardo-DiCaprio-Letter-Re-Jordan-Belfort

Enjoy!

It was a rowdy and A-list crowd at last night’s Spike TV Guys Choice Awards in LA. Sandra Bullock’s surprise appearance to accept the Troops Choice honors was one of the show’s highlights — watch her speech below — but there were more than a few other famous faces there to join in the party. George Clooney followed in Brad Pitt’s footsteps accepting his golden antlers while Charlize Theron was this year’s Decade of Hotness winner after Halle Berry in 2009. Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck also added new statues to their collections during the testosterone-fueled event. Of course, there had to be some beautiful women added into the mix and Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel fit the bill perfectly. Brooklyn Decker is becoming quite the movie star herself and was still sporting that Hawaii tan after shooting Just Go With It with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. George caught up with Kid Rock backstage where Jon Hamm posed with the A-Team’s Bradley Cooper. The show, which airs June 20 on Spike TV, is usually a pretty raucous event and it looks like everyone had a great time. We’ll be seeing a few of these faces again this evening at the MTV Movie Awards so stay tuned for our live coverage! View 100 Photos ›Photo 1Photo 2Photo 3Photo 4Photo 5 To see more photos of George, Leo and Bradley as well as video of Sandra’s acceptance just read more.

The Hollywood heartthrob worked at a hotel before he made it as an actor. He was thrilled when wealthy guests would reward him for his attentive service by leaving generous tips.

Now he is a celebrity himself and stays in top hotels when he is travelling the world to promote his movies, Bradley laughingly claims he saves handing out money by refusing to let anyone take his luggage up to his room.

“I used to be a doorman, I took people’s bags up to their rooms, opened doors for people. If someone threw a $20 at me that would be fantastic,” he said during an interview on the Kyle and Jackie O radio show. “I was a doorman for maybe five months and that happened only about twice, but you remember that!

“I always go to my room myself now, I don’t want to tip. I am like, ‘Don’t touch those bags, I will take them myself. Even if it takes two trips.’ People say to me, ‘Bradley you have to be down in a half hour,’ and I say I will need an hour just to get all my stuff up there.”

During his time working at a hotel, the 35-year-old showed a number of famous faces to their lavish suites. He admits finds it strange now when he comes face to face with people he used to look after.

“I took a lot of people up to their rooms, I took Leonardo DiCaprio once,” Bradley explained. “He was very nice, I remember he looked so young back then. I saw him recently and he looked like a giant.”