Triscribe

Category: Brooklyn

  • TGIF

    Another AAIFF observation: I asked FC what he thought of “Fruit Fly,” which he saw at AAIFF on this past Sunday. He liked it, although he said it’s of the musical genre – people suddenly breaking into song. But – to me – that is the point of the genre! 😉 I hope I’ll see it soon; I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff.

    As we get closer to the inevitable, as feared – the opening of the live-action G.I. Joe movie (“G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra” – man, the titles for G.I. Joe has yet to really improve). The trailers for the G.I. Joe movie kind of highlight some odd things for me:

    Christopher Eccleston – a.k.a., the Ninth Doctor – as Destro? What? For a moment there, I thought it was the Doctor trying to take over the world; I do fear that he is going to be typecasted – he might have to go back to doing independent films. Sienna Miller as the Baroness? She doesn’t have the requisite creepiness for me (perhaps because she has more callow youth to her than I would have expected of the Baroness).

    What made the trailers least original for me – see one below – is how it seems vaguely similar to the J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie trailers. You have the deep inspiring tones of the elder leader – General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) in a G.I. Joe trailer, versus Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) of Star Trek. You have the young leader-in-waiting (Channing Tatum as Duke in G.I. Joe; Chris Pine as Kirk in Star Trek – even having them both yell, “Go, Go, Go!!” — huh?). Even similar parachute scenes? Granted, the Big Reveal didn’t get shown in either trailer (Cobra Commander or Spock (Prime)), but still – they loom. G.I. Joe taking cues from Star Trek? Who’d a thunk it?…

    I will say that I’m a bit perturbed that they didn’t use the old G.I. Joe theme song (maybe they will in the movie – I’m still not sure I want to see it) and that there was the ironic line reading of “Real American Hero” in the trailer — aww, come on!

    Something that looks seriously cool (well, besides a good Star Trek trailer): the preview of AMC’s “The Prisoner,” coming in November, after being shown at the recent Comic-Con in San Diego. I have to say, kind of saddened with the recent passing of Patrick McGoohan – the original Number Six – but this will be fascinating. Ian McKellan as Number Two? Jim Caviezel as the new Number Six (but American — oh well). Ian McKellan – now that’s a casting coup; you need a good Number Two to go up against an intense Number Six (and Number Two is a character that was divvied up into different actors – probably to drive Number Six crazy – Leo McKern being the most memorable to me of the Number Twos – (1) because he later became Rumpole of the Bailey and (2) he was the last Number Two (I think)).

  • Rain, Rain, Go Away

    Hey Seattle, you want your weather back? – I don’t want the 100 degrees that you’ve been having (sorry but we had that a couple of years ago, and that wasn’t fun), but I’ll take a sunny dry 90 over monsoons (even if it is not hot).

    Helen Hong, comedian and television producer, brings to us speed matchmaking at a comedy show – a way for East Asians (and soon others) to enjoy a laugh and not be so shy. Speed-dating, speed networking, and now this?

    John (H.) Doe is a Korean-American who lives in the Upper West Side. I’m amazed that people get all crazed that he goes by John Doe. (and I wonder to the fates of people named Roe; do they get the whole Roe v. Wade barb?).

    A pad thai recipe in the Times.

    Apparently, there’s a reason why we swing our arms when we walk.

    Fear of 2012 – what it might mean, according to the Mayans (or Fox Mulder of X-Files).

  • An AAIFF Follow Up

    Asian American Int’l Film Festival in NYC:

    Thursday – missed seeing “Paper Heart.” 🙁 It got sold out.

    Friday – 72 Hour Shootout – on YouTube. The Asian American Film Lab announced the Top Ten. (with a cross-posting by Angry Asian Man).

    The winner:

    “Time’s [Not] Up” – I liked it. Poignant.

    Number Two was “Grace and the Staten Island Fairy” – I really liked it. But, I’m a sucker for funny and crisp looking films.

    “Just a Burger” was fourth, but hilarious.

    Later, I might post more on the ones I watched that didn’t make top 10. The screening was at the renovated MoCA – well, during the soft opening anyway. I like that the space is so spacious!

    Saturday – as noted, I watched “Karma Calling” and “You Don’t Know Jack“.

    “Karma Calling” was fun – The Raj family of Hoboken deals with this thing called “life.” The eldest daughter falls for this outsourced call center operator – played by Samrat Chakrabarti (who I enjoyed seeing in last year’s “Kissing Cousins” – what an actor to switch accents!), who tells her that he’s from Connecticut (rather than several thousand miles away in India). The brother falls for a girl who came all the way from India to marry the 99 cent store owner. The baby of the family wants a bat mitzvah. And, the elephant god Ganesh is voiced by the guy from The Sopranos (Tony Sirico; “G” apparently has a NJ accent because he’s in Hoboken). I like romantic comedies, with a touch of fantasy. I also liked the Q&A afterward, where the director Sarba Das talked about how she was inspired to make a movie that touched on Asian America (and her love of 1980’s movies).

    “You Don’t Know Jack” – filmmaker Jeff Adachi (who previously made “The Slanted Screen” about Asian American actors) on Jack Soo, a pioneer – and to think I barely remember the guy as the Asian one in the Barney Miller series. They don’t make actors like Soo (or tv series like Barney Miller for that matter). During the Q&A, Adachi touched on how it was difficult to get the info, but it certainly seemed worth it. Adachi also mentioned his other life – that of being Public Defender in San Francisco. Lawyers and their creative sides – wow.

    Sunday – saw “Pastry” – a young woman’s love of egg custard tarts – the dan taat – and how it revolves around her family life and her love life. I thought the movie started strong – but thought it end was a little different than the amused tone at the beginning seemed to suggest about the movie.

    Wanted to see “Fruit Fly” (its own website)(because I’m a sucker for musical comedies), but didn’t get to see it. I think FC did?

    Winners of AAIFF announced – documentary “Whatever It Takes” (its own website) won Audience Choice; hmm, maybe I’ll catch it another time.

    Pretty enjoyable, even though AAIFF seemed quieter than previously (recession seems to be affecting a lot of non-profits); still I’m glad to have been a part of it.

  • A Very Merry AAIFF Weekend in July

    Stand on the Soapbox time: I read this Michael Daly column in the (dead tree) Daily News newspaper. He made good points: NYC is not South Dakota, nor should we apologize for having some questions for people who carry concealed weapons (for instance – why is your weapon concealed? Are you up to something other than to defend yourself? And, even if you’re defending yourself, do you really want to leave yourself liable for other possible causes of action?…).

    As we’re past the half-way point of 2009, it’s good to note that apparently, year 2009 is good for something – especially for being the year to remember everything that happened in 1969 (what a year that was).

    Fascinating item: Thought this was a good read – even as California’s trying to deal with the budget problems, at least they take the opportunity to apologize for past racist laws against Chinese Americans. I kind of applaud that they’re acknowledging past wrongs, and that this can be a teachable moment than anything else (the article notes that too). We might not see the US Government apologize for the Exclusion Act, but you never know.

    It’s that time of year again – Asian American International Film Festival! I had really enjoyed it last year indeed. Plus, FC – who had participated in past 72 Hour Shootouts (see here for example) – invited me to help with writing the dialog for the latest entry – Team Triscribe’s own five minute film! Theme: Time’s Up. I think we did a great job – especially kudos to FC, YKC (they acted and wrote, and FC did much blood, sweat and stuff), and AS (who did a hilarious voiceover, I thought). We did not win, but – hey, cool! – two scenes of FC and YKC ended up in the 72 Hour Shootout trailer! (ok, I can’t find a link or an on-line version of the trailer, but we saw it on Friday, honest!).

    Saturday – I saw two movies at AAIFF – Karma Calling and You Don’t Know Jack. I’ll say more on another post; suffice to say for the time being: they were both excellent.

    Some great articles and pictures of the High Line, inspired me to check it out on Saturday, after I enjoyed the AAIFF movies. Here from NY Times – a great article on how the public reaction is going well so far; and this NY Times slide show by Bill Cunningham, on the fashion on the High Line (so true, so far as I could tell when I was walking along the High Line), and the video from Time magazine’s Richard Lacayo interviewing the architect Ricardo Scofidio – which was so great:

    I’ll see if I’ll post pictures. I took a lot of pictures, but I’m not quite sure how well they turned out (there was haze and humidity to some extent).

    More AAIFF on Sunday.

  • Mid-July Stuff

    Okay, I’m slightly behind, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s still the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 and the moon landing. Great Time article about the astronauts.

    Saw “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” on Sunday at the Cobble Hill theater. It was a decent adaptation. It’s not going to satisfy everybody, but it was good enough. (well, I had mixed feelings about the book in the first place, which was sad and left me really unsure about Dumbledore).

    Alan Rickman – he was priceless as ever as Prof. Snape (but was barely on-screen). Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter is improving his acting chops – and I think he and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley could be the future Hugh Dancy or Hugh Grant, if they dare want to pursue romantic comedies (which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend if they do want to go down that route of a British acting career; they might want to consult with Damian Lewis or the current King of British actors in America, Hugh Laurie). Emma Watson as Hermione Granger was also very solid. I liked Michael Gambon – I kind of resented what Dumbledore did in Book 6, but Gambon played the humanity of Dumbledore very well. (and if you’re looking for the great tragedy of Book 6 to be exactly in the movie – well, don’t. Just don’t do it; adaptations are just that: they’re adaptations).

    I did enjoy the trailer for the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey, Jr., as Holmes. It just looked really good – even if it might not be a great movie, it looks like silly fun (well, okay, I am fond of silly Holmes movies – now there are tons of adaptations of that stuff!). Guess we got to wait until Christmas for this one.

    The passing of Frank McCourt, author of “Angela’s Ashes” – and a memorable teacher who wrote (or writer who taught) – with a lasting impact for what he did for others.

  • Weekend

    Summer in the city.

    A look at a life of a Chinese immigrant in 1923 – fascinating stuff!

    Imagine if it were Yoda dealing with the confirmation hearings; now, you don’t have to, because a law professor does it for you; hilarious posting on the Balkinization blog.

    The passing of Walter Cronkite; they really don’t make anchor people like him, the model. Cronkite was well before my time (I still miss Peter Jennings), but he was tv’s way to witness history: especially with the moving way he handled announcing the assassination of Kennedy.

    The tributes written are rather eloquent. Slate’s John Dickerson was especially poignant – since he has a personal element to it (his family was a news family, and his mother was one of the early newswomen of tv) and he notes:

    By the time I made it upstairs, the kids wanted to know why I’d disappeared. I had been watching the Cronkite tributes when I should have been upstairs for bedtime prayers. I told them why he was important and that he’d worked with their grandmother. They wanted to know how old he was and how he died. They just wanted the facts. It was a little hard to convey to a 5- and 6-year-old what had happened, but there is one way in which Cronkite is a part of their nightly ritual. It’s his voice I try to imitate when I’m reading to them.

    NY Times’ Alessandra Stanley and Time’s James Poniewozik make the tv critic’s perspective of the Cronkite career – and in a way, they touch on how the American media was different than it was in Cronkite’s prime. Is he the last of a breed, as this Washington Post appraisal asks; well, I’d say he was one of the first of the breed, of the pioneers who made the national television nightly news become part of a generation, rather than say whether he was the last (Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings took the torch; that the media industry became what it is – well, I’d rather not blame it on Dan/Tom/Peter than on the networks’ managements or the American masses’ own shabby tastes).

  • This Week

    I’m not nearly watching as much of the US Supreme Ct. confirmation hearings as I’d like. The Slate coverage/commentary has been pretty solid (ex., Emily Bazelon’s noting how Sotomayor goes into the context of her speeches – wherein she’s trying to motivate women and minority law students).

    But from what I saw, I do wonder if the senators would ask some of these questions of a man (and how much all sides had to restrain themselves – Judge Sotomayor must have much patience not to roll her eyes at some of the patronizing attitude – like Bazelon, I would’ve have liked to have seen her attack right back at some of that attitude; some of the senators seemed patronizing (ok, maybe I shouldn’t be so presumptuous about Sen. Graham, but I do wonder if he’s never met a real bully – and judges can be bullies, just like anyone else, by virtue of they’re being human); maybe Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick‘s right – at least the anti-abortion protesters are consistent and up-front).

    So, I guess it’s a good thing that Sotomayor handled herself real well, but I do wonder if these hearings could be less like plays.

    I fell behind on this, but Bazelon’s interview with Justice Ginsburg was fascinating.

    This Washington Post article about Sotomayor’s career development is fascinating about how mentoring can be very important.


    Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson notes     good points:

    The only real suspense in the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is whether the Republican Party will persist in tying its fortunes to an anachronistic claim of white male exceptionalism and privilege.

    Republicans’ outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor’s musings about how her identity as a “wise Latina” might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity. Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any “identity” — black, brown, female, gay, whatever — has to be judged against this supposedly “objective” standard. [….]

    The whole point of Sotomayor’s much-maligned “wise Latina” speech was that everyone has a unique personal history — and that this history has to be acknowledged before it can be overcome. Denying the fact of identity makes us vulnerable to its most pernicious effects. This seems self-evident. I don’t see how a political party that refuses to accept this basic principle of diversity can hope to prosper, given that soon there will be no racial or ethnic majority in this country.

    Yet the Republican Party line assumes a white male neutrality against which Sotomayor’s “difference” will be judged. [….]

    There is, after all, a context in which these confirmation hearings take place: The nation continues to take major steps toward fulfilling the promise of its noblest ideals. Barack Obama is our first African American president. Sonia Sotomayor would be only the third woman, and the third member of a minority group, to serve on the nation’s highest court. Aside from these exceptions, the White House and the Supreme Court have been exclusively occupied by white men — who, come to think of it, are also members of a minority group, though they certainly haven’t seen themselves that way.

    Judging from Monday’s hearing, some Republican senators are beginning to notice this minority status — and seem a bit touchy about it. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) was more temperate in his remarks than most of his colleagues, noting that Obama’s election victory ought to have consequences and hinting that he might vote to confirm Sotomayor. But when he brought up the “wise Latina” remark, as the GOP playbook apparently required, Graham said that “if I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over.”

    That’s true. But if Latinas had run the world for the last millennium, Sotomayor’s career would be over, too. Pretending that the historical context doesn’t exist — pretending that white men haven’t enjoyed a privileged position in this society — doesn’t make that context go away.

    Yes, justice is supposed to be blind. But for most of our nation’s history, it hasn’t been — and women and minorities are acutely aware of how our view of justice has evolved, or been forced to evolve. Women and minorities are also key Democratic Party constituencies, and if the Republican Party is going to be competitive, it can’t be seen as the party of white male grievance — especially in what is almost certainly a lost cause. Democrats, after all, have the votes to confirm Sotomayor.

    “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed,” Graham told the nominee. He was right — Republicans probably can’t damage her. They can only damage themselves.

  • July!

    Gasp. July?! It doesn’t feel like July. In fact, NYC feels an awful lot like… Seattle.

    Meanwhile, on a more serious observation: thanks to the state senate’s continued debacle, NYC had to revive the old Board of Education, with a new Board (at least for the time being) – legally reconvening, picking a new president, and then voting to keep the chancellor and keeping business going. NY Times’ City Room blog seemed to have done a good job covering the subject. Many things in the state are affected. When will the state senate get on with their business? Stay tuned.

    This article about a law graduate who was denied admission because of his huge loans affecting the approval on grounds of character and fitness — kind of jaw dropping. Not so much that this guy had such a huge debt and hadn’t done such a great job at paying back due to all kinds of setbacks – but that it was viewed by the judges as a negative on his character and fitness to be a lawyer – even though Character and Fitness committee approved him. Ouch. Maybe the judges just didn’t believe him, but who’s to say; to become a lawyer, it’s not just the bar exam.

    An interesting analysis of this term’s US Supreme Ct., by NY Times Adam Liptak – J. Kennedy really is the ultimate swing justice.

    The passing of Karl Malden. “Don’t leave home with them” – ye olde American Express commercials. I forgot he was in “A Streetcar Named Desire”; quite the character actor and even a president of the Academy (as in Academy Awards, aka Oscars).

  • June’s End

    This year is going too fast for me. Gasp.

    As of June 29, 2009:

    Awww, is it really the end of this year’s Supreme Court Breakfast Table? Lithwick et al. did a fabulous job analyzing the New Haven firefighters case (which employers are going to have to grapple with from here on in; how much of an impact is there on disparate impact in employment discrimination cases remains very much to be seen).

    Emily Bazelon’s analysis was a sharp follow up to her and co-writer Nicole Allan’s look at New Haven’s fire department. I think Walter Dellinger was on the money – and Linda Greenhouse – about whether the US S.Ct’s decision would have much of an impact on Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation process.

    Anyway, so I’m still trying to digest the New Haven firefighter case, and that whole Bernie Madoff sentencing stuff.

    An interesting look at the history of the stereotypical Asian Babe – and how demeaning it really is.

    6/29/09 – Caught a little bit of roving Shakespeare in (Battery) Park – King Lear (more this summer!). It kind of reminded me of how they used to do Shakespeare at Alma Mater, with the troupe running around campus as they enacted each scene.

  • More Observations

    This was an interesting read, in light of the (still!) upcoming US Supreme Court decision on the New Haven firefighter case – a Slate examination of the firefighters of New Haven – a rich look at the complex issues.

    The passing of Farrah Fawcett. Time’s James Poniewozik has a nice post about her impact on tv and culture; so does NJ Star-Ledger’s Alan Sepinwall. Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker also has an interesting observation. NY Times’ Alessandra Stanley has a moving analysis.

    The sudden passing of Michael Jackson. One may never be quite sure about the man, but the talent – the talent was something amazing. Time’s Poniewozik with the observation of Michael Jackson who made MTV what it was; he also embedded to a fascinating cover of Billie Jean. Tucker also has a slightly more broad view (perhaps being an older critic helps), in noting Jackson had an updated Gene Kelly technique — well, Tucker embedded a YouTube of Jackson himself doing Billie Jean – (YouTube’s capabilities on remembering people are quite useful).