If you can't tell already, Hyphen loooves Asian American films. What that means for you, is free tickets!
Get a quick Silk Screen tutorial with the Comcast Newsmakers Interview with Festival Director, Harish Saluja.
Continue reading "3 Pairs of Tickets for Silk Screen, Pittsburgh"
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UPDATE: The pass has been given to B. Lam with the correct answer. The Los Angeles Pacific Film Festival was formerly known as the VC Film Fest. Congratulations and enjoy!
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To kick things off, what's better than the 24th Annual Los Angeles Pacific Film Festival (formerly known as the VC FilmFest) for all you hip Los Angelenos?
Continue reading "The 24th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival"
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"Harold & Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay" opens today and it's my most anticipated movie of the year now that the new "Star Trek" has been pushed back to 2009. I know I'm not the only one who's been waiting to see "Harold & Kumar."Continue reading "'Harold & Kumar' Opens Today"
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Continue reading "Turner Classic Movies to Air Series on Asian Images in Film"
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"Zombie Strippers," starring porn queen Jenna Jameson and horror icon Robert Englund (a k a Freddy Krueger) opened this weekend in a limited platform release.
At Rhinos, a strip club in BF, Idaho -- Sartre, Nebraska, to be exact -- run by proprietor Ian Essko (Robert Englund), the horny clientele can only get in with a membership card. That's because George W. Bush, now in his fourth term, has banned public nudity, turning stripping into a speakeasy tea. The star pole-vaulter, Kat (Jenna Jameson), dominates the show. When a commando-turned-zombie seeks refuge in the club following a botched zombie extermination attempt at a nearby government laboratory, who does he want to munch down on? Kat, of course, but straddling life and death as a zombie oddly makes her better at her job. The guys are going bananas! Soon all the girls want in, and what follows is a zombie situation out of control.
Fascinated by the film's supposed political dimension, as well as the "Existential Philosophy Primer 101" that I received in the press packet (who does that?) which outlines its relationship to Eugene Ionesco's absurdist play "The Rhinoceros," I had to find out just what the hell was up with this highbrow-lowbrow stew of grindhouse-meets-French-intellectual-nutball. Just before the Saturday night screenings in San Francisco, I caught up with director, writer and cinematographer Jay Lee at an Italian restaurant around the corner from the theater.
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Continue reading "Arthur Dong's Hollywood Chinese"
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Good news for director Benson Lee. According to IndieWire, his documentary Planet B-Boy (recently shown at SFIAAFF to sold-out audiences) has made $140,860 since its release. The film, only playing on 12 screens nationwide, has a $3,594 per screen average.
Continue reading "Benson Lee's B-Boys at the Box Office"
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Several years ago, when I first heard that the best-selling book Bringing Down the House would be made into a Hollywood movie, I was beyond excited. However, now that '21' is out, no matter how much I try to rationalize the casting decisions behind this film, I remain outraged as an American. I will attempt to explain why Hollywood's discriminatory casting process behind this film is offensive, why over 600 members on a Facebook group have called for its boycott, and why several prominent newspapers and blogs have criticized this movie, with one writer even calling it "moving Asian Americans to the back of the bus."
Continue reading "'21' Discriminatory Casting Unjustified"
Posted by Alvin at 8:19 PM | Comments (7)
I have quite the love/hate relationship with Nicolas Cage, and honestly my use of the phrase, "But he was in Adaptation! Playing twins!" can no longer justify his work in Next, Ghost Rider, The Wicker Man, et al.
Continue reading "Nic Cage takes on Thailand"
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Mike Meyers is coming to multiplexes near you this summer with his first original character since Austin Powers in The Love Guru. This time he is Guru Pitka, “an American who was left at the gates of an ashram in India as a child and raised by gurus.” The rest of the story is refreshingly strange, involving a black hockey player, sports curses, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Alba. Your usual summer movie froth. But of course, the majority of the jokes seem to revolve around Pitka’s spiritual sayings and his Austin Powers-esque libido – this time curtailed by an elaborate chastity belt of sorts.
Continue reading "Hindu Leaders Worried About "The Love Guru""
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NPR's In Character series recently did a feature on the character Long Duk Dong, the horny Chinese exchange student from John Hughes' eighties classic Sixteen Candles.
Continue reading "The Donger Speaks"
Posted by sylvie at 9:27 AM | Comments (2)
Here is some eyebrow-raising news about the casting for the upcoming '21′ blackjack movie, due out March 28th. This is the movie based off the best-selling book 'Bringing Down the House', about the real-life team of mostly Asian Americans who won big in Las Vegas. The two main characters in the book, 'Kevin Lewis' and 'Steve Fisher', were Jeff Ma and Mike Aponte, two Asian American males.
The Hollywood version stars Jim Sturgess, and according to the book author, the Hollywood casting directors initially wanted to completely exclude any Asian male characters from the film...
Continue reading "Controversy Over '21' Movie Casting"
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Tie a Yellow Ribbon director Joy Dietrich. Photo by Seng Chen.
Joy Dietrich's film Tie a Yellow Ribbon will screen at AAIFF tonight at 9:15pm, and from what I understand, it's very close to selling out the theater. Also, there will be an afterparty a short walk away from the Asia Society at Stir with Dietrich, the actors, crew and producers.
I had spoken with Dietrich just hours before it's premiere in San Francisco. (My earlier post, with a synopsis, here.)
Continue reading "Joy Dietrich and Tie a Yellow Ribbon at AAIFF in NYC"
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I should have known better than to think that I could blog while on vacation in New York City. For one, I enter a time warp (especially when it's hot out, unlike the presently chilly San Francisco). Secondly, becoming the pack mule to my laptop while trekking around Manhattan in search of free wireless led me to realize why there are so many neon signs for businesses that say "Back and Foot Rub for Men and Women." So you can see why I lagged in posting about the good times had at the Asian American International Film Festival.
Justin Lin's mockumentary Finishing the Game was AAIFF's opening film last Thursday (here's what Neela thought of it at SFIAAFF), and the gala reception was held at the top floor of the Asia Society. Keeping in line with Finishing the Game, the party had a 70s theme, with a costume contest and a plane ticket for the winner to Hong Kong.
In spite of the rollergirl and the disco kings and queens, this dude won the contest:
"You even have red wine!" I said.
"I'm glad you noticed," he said.
Continue reading "AAIFF Parties Hearty"
Posted by rebecca at 9:57 PM | Comments (1)
This year's SFIAAFF features two creepshows set in the Philippines: Ang Pamana and Blackout. A fellow Hyphen staffer who had lived in the Philippines assured me one day via chat that, second to romances, horror films are plenty. "A LOT," he typed out.
Continue reading "Horror in the Philippines, Two Ways"
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I'm super excited to go to Saturday's panel discussion, Down and Dirty Pictures. It'll be at the Opera Plaza and starts at 1pm.
SFIAAFF is calling the featured directing trio Gregg Araki, Roddy Bogawa and Jon Moritsugu the 'original "bad boys" of Asian American cinema.' How can you resist that? I certainly couldn't.
They're to talk about their bodies of work, the role of the 'truly independent' filmmaker, and, of course, its future prospects. (What panel would be complete without a little prophesying?)
For other panel discussions, see the SFIAAFF website
Another Hyphen staffer will be going to the Ellen Kuras Master Class, which is on Sunday at 3pm, also at the Opera Plaza.
Cinematographer Ellen Kuras' laureled career has included work with Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Rebecca Miller and Spike Lee (Summer of Sam and Bamboozled), and on films such as I Shot Andy Warhol and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. She'll talk about her cinematographic and decision-making processes, and colloborating with directors.
Posted by rebecca at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats...
Buy a ticket to see this one!
Year of the Fish is a sweet, sweet contemporary fairy tale adaptation set smack dab in New York City's Chinatown.
I'll update this post with a full detailing of my thoughts soon.
Continue reading "This One Goes Out to All the Lovers: 'Year of the Fish'"
Posted by rebecca at 3:57 PM | Comments (0)
Indonesia, where the increasingly conservative Islamist government recently passed a broadly interpreted anti-pornography bill banning acts like kissing or baring the legs or shoulders in public, is curiously experiencing a resurgence in polygamy, a practice which had gone underground during President Suharto's long tenure. Some polygamists have taken additional wives in secret, made official by clerics instead of in court, without the knowledge of their first wife. For critics, polygamists are using religion to justify out-and-out sluttery.
Continue reading "Two's Company and Three's a Crowd in 'Love for Share'"
Posted by rebecca at 4:15 PM | Comments (0)
Sprawlingly ambitious, Joy Dietrich's feature film directorial debut Tie a Yellow Ribbon touches upon just about every young Asian American women's identity issue there is, the sum of it being that it pretty much sucks to be one.
Continue reading "Tie a Yellow Ribbon"
Posted by rebecca at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)
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