I don’t hear anybody talking about how the decade is coming to a close. When it was 1999, mad people were freaking out over the Y2K. But even in 1989, going into the 90s was a big deal. And I’m sure it was the same in 1979. But people aren’t tripping over 2009 becoming 2010. Is it because nobody knows what to call the decades? I heard people using ‘The Aughts’ – but I’m cool with ‘The Zeroes’ because, ther’es no confusion over it right?

OK, my top ten movies of the Zeroes.

10. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
My wife and I thought this was a kids movie when we snuck in. I guess we are idiots because it is not at all apprpriate for children. But it is an amazing flick. Taking place after the Spanish Civil War, a girl escapes her fascist – in multiple ways – stepfather by imagining (?) a fantasy world in which she is actually a long lost princess who will eventually be reunited with her parents – king and queen of the underworld.

All children create alternate realities to some extent, and dwell in them for various amounts of time, depending on how emotionally healthy they are. This film is heartbreaking because Ofelia is forced to live most of her day in her fantasy world because the reality of her life is so rough. Her stepfather eventually kills her before he’s assassinated by rebels in bittersweet justice. And of course, the special effects are crazy ass.

9. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
After seeing this flick, I went to the bookstore to read the short story it’s based on and was shocked to finish it in about 15 minutes. To actually read the source material makes it all the more impressive that such well developed characters and such an emotionally-affecting story was built off a short story of about 30 pages. But most of all, the movie is made by Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger’s performances. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two characters in an American movie more convincingly in love.

8. My Sassy Girl (2001)
My favorite thing about this movie is that it is based on a true story. I know, right?

Of course Ji-hyun Jun (aka Gianna Jun?) is the undisputed star, but I feel Tae-hyun Cha actually holds his own. If you haven’t seen it, don’t watch it without your ride-or-die, because even though the premise – silly dude meets drunk girl on subway, she subsequently ruins his life as they fall in love – sounds kinda throwaway, it really helps remind a viewer what it means to be in love. Korean movies have a weird penchant for being mad deep even when they don’t seem it; it’s the han.

7. Synecdoche, New York (2008)
I don’t know if I’ll ever see another movie that does this to me. I can’t say I liked it in the traditional sense of liking stuff, but I loved how sad it made me. Does that sounds weird?

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No I didn’t forget I did this movie, but many of you would be forgiven if you didn’t believe me because it has only screened in a few places. Although those places are really big places, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City…still, I don’t blame you for having doubts.

Well, this fall, The Humberville Poetry Slam is gonna be hitting mad more festivals, so DC, Toronto, Philly, San Diego, and the desert – you have no more excuses. Info below.

The 10th San Diego Asian Film Festival
(Oct. 15-29, 2009) – San Diego, CA
Schedule & tickets


Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival (sponsored by HBO)
(Oct. 9-11, 2009) – Philadelphia, PA

Schedule & tickets)


Albuquerque Poetry-Film Festival
(Nov. 9-11) – Albuquerque, NM
The Guild Cinema

The DC APA Film Festival
(Oct. 7, 2009) – Washington, DC
Schedule & tickets

Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival
(Nov. 11-15) – Toronto, Canada
Schedule & tickets

Last week was loaded with all kinds of bad things among people very close to me. Luckily, we’ve come out on the other side of it, and are miraculously relatively unscathed. So what better time than now to throw up some more movie reviews. Bang. Watch out for spoilers; that’s your only warning.

Superbad
I had thought this looked good when it first came out. You know how it can be for bro-mance films. Anyway, I never saw it because I was scared it would be racist. It’s weird, a lot of movies I want to see, I end up avoiding because I’m scared it’s going to be racist and make me really mad. This had all the makings of subtle racism: the nearly all-white cast, the juvenile humor, and the subpar acting. Lo and behold, I don’t remember there being anything very offensive. Hooray for you Superbad! Weird that all a Hollywood production needs to do for some kudos is to not be too racist.

Regardless, only one scene was laugh out loud funny to me – when dude is in the room and those older bros come in doing lines, then notice him in there. And they think he’s another guy who’s a really good singer, so Michael Cera starts singing. I fell out over how into it the other dudes got.

What you were expecting some film theory or something?

Pineapple Express
Surprise surprise kids, I don’t get high. So I was skeptical going into this movie because I was concerned it was going to be only jokes that are funny to stoned people. Un/Fortunately, I was wrong. The jokes were not funny to any people. The one character I thought was really good was the Danny Mcbride character Red. I liked how he used the phrase “bros before hoes” twice in the same movie, and both times it was totally wrong for the context.

I wish they had kind of gotten a little deeper into the fact that they constantly referred to the rival gang as “The Asians.” Only once did a character go, “what kind of Asian?” Like, so they were Korean, but for a movie that actually cast a bunch of Koreans to play Koreans, they may as well have acknowledged that they had done something right.

The Nine Lives of Marion Barry
Marion Barry has been a polarizing figure during my lifetime, but more recently, he’s been treated like a punchline. Here’s the truth: he was a community organizer from the streets, who rode the support of regular people in DC to the mayor’s office because he wanted the poor and underrepresented to have a say in their own city’s governance. The fact he’s been down so many times and continues to get up, is an inspiration for the people of DC.

But he’s a story because, as my friend Neel says, “he’s a really intelligent man with a ridiculous amount of character flaws.”

This documentary was great to me, but probably because I’m sympathetic to Barry’s plight. For those who hate him, this is probably not the movie for them.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
A little too precious and a little self-consciously hip, but overall I enjoyed it. Norah’s friend character was grating, but served her purpose for the plot. Aside from her, and the title characters, and possibly Nick’s two homies, the other characters were very poorly developed, and were pretty obviously there to be a part of Nick & Norah’s story. That’s kind of annoying if you allow it to be, but I chose not to.

But I’m kinda wondering when Michael Cera is gonna jump the shark.

X-Men
I saw X-Men 3 – totally awful – but never saw the first one until recently. I guess it was OK.

Definitely, Maybe
So does Ryan Reynolds act or simply exist? He is a delivery vehicle for the story and superior performances in this film, kind of like cupcakes for frosting.

Isla Fisher owns this movie. I’ve seen her in other flicks, but I didn’t know she was this good. I am now motivated to see every movie she’s done.

I am not averse to date movies or so-called chick flicks. This – even with Reynolds kind of moping his way through the whole thing – is pretty fun front to end. There are some inconsistencies in plot details but oh well, that was a small price to pay for the happy ending.

What up world?

I’m still kinda mortified of actually seeing myself acting in a movie. But there are a couple of upcoming screenings of this flick, and I gotta be at one of them. It would be weird to just know it’s screening in my time zone and not make any effort to see it. I have been hearing good feedback from others who have caught it, so shoot, I want to see what the fuss is about…

So folks in New York and surrounding areas, here’s info for one screening in Chinatown and one in Long Island.

Without a Paddle Film Festival
July 18 // 12:30 AM (yes that says AM)
The Creek, 10-93 Jackson Ave
Long Island City, NY
For more information follow this link.

Asian American Int’l Film Festival // “Fun and Fantasy” shorts package
(I’m planning to be here…)
July 26 // 2:15 PM
Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street
Manhattan, NY
For more information follow this link.

Something happened to my blog when I was vacation and I couldn’t update until today. That was more than a month kids, and many things happened I normally would have wrote about. I missed them, ah well, I guess that means movie reviews. Spoilers ahead.

Marley & Me
Terrible writing and even worse acting; even, and I don’t feel good about saying this, the child actors were awful. Aren’t there talented child actors? Did they cost too much? I tried to appreciate it just for the dog doing cute and/or funny things, but there’s isn’t even much of that in here. One of the few bright spots was Alan Arkin being awesome as usual. He can make any movie better; he, unfortunately, could not raise this movie beyond “irritating.”

Taken
Again with the casting here – why not find a talented teenager to play the 17 year-old daughter? Why a 25 year-old woman? Most adult actors playing teenagers just act like idiots; it comes across as inauthentic. I also think they blew too much money on Liam Neeson. He was great, but it seems like they had no money left over for special effects, any other good actors, or even a semi-famous singer to play the famous singer. It would have helped the story tremendously if it had been like Mandy Moore or even Kelly Clarkson his daughter was excited about instead of some invented pop star.

Liam Neeson’s character is badass though!

I’m Gonna Git U Sucka
I used to have this joint on VHS, which I recorded off like USA when I was 11. But of course it got thrown out with the trash some time ago, so I haven’t seen it in a while. That shit is as funny as I remembered, and I actually caught a few more jokes this time than when I was a kid. Best Wayans movie ever. Actually, I had forgotten about this movie; it’s gotta be a top 10 comedy for me.

The Invasion
Not really feeling this movie, because the virus wasn’t scary. There was something there behind the idea – but they didn’t take it anywhere special. The concept is that people are being infected with this alien virus that connects them all and mentally/emotionally makes all of the infected tied into a larger group consciousness. In a world where everyone is infected, theoretically there would be no violence – no war, no rape, no crime – because all people are one. The problem is that some people are immune to the virus – so those people have to be killed since they can’t get down with the rest of the infected.

So it could have been interesting if there had been more internal struggle of Nicole Kidman trying to save her immune son. Instead, it was just an action movie with less-than-stellar action. To top it all off, all the infected were cured at the end of the movie with no memory of what happened to them. What the hell was the point then?

…is playing at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival on May 4 as part of a shorts package. (Oh, memory-jogging prompt: it’s called The Humberville Poetry Slam,” and I play a swaggerific dude named Liberty Fu.)

So Southern Cali heads, check for it!

movie reviews. i feel a drive to do this when it’s really busy at work. spoilers ahead.

the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford
this movie is phenomenal. it starts really slow, but by the end of the like 9 hours, i was so engrossed. brad pitt is AWESOME in this movie, but maybe more impressive – casey affleck carries this flick. it’s kinda shocking that this is a true story. i feel like pitt as james cast a shadow throughout, like hannibal lecter in silence of the lambs, don corleone in the godfather, or al capone in the untouchables.

three scenes stand out as flawless to me: the assassination scene could not have been better, the scene where jesse beats up that little kid, and the scene where robert ford is drunk listening to a guy sing a song about him, and he shoots his gun at the floor and goes, “i’m robert ford.” DAMN. american filmmaking at its finest.

wheels on meals
i saw this when i was in high school on VHS, and revisited it again while looking for the greatest movie fight scene of all time. (i know, my hobbies pwn your hobbies.) greatest fight scene of all time? definitely one of – the tranformation jackie goes thru to be able to win that fight is slick. actually this is a good jackie chan movie for people who don’t like jackie chan. it’s yuen biao’s show tho – he does the lovestruck thing really well, and is actually the goofy guy here and jackie gets to be the harder more asshole-like dude. i also like most things that sammo hung has directed.

the lookout
it’s good and joseph gordon-levitt was actually very good in this – the three male leads are all perfect for their roles. but one thing bothered me, and it’s pretty important. did isla fisher’s character know or not know the plan? because she seems to know until halfway through, then she seems not to have known. what happened?

“am i dead? i must be dead. nobody’s answering me.”
“you’re not dead.”
“oh thank god.”

school of rock
never saw this movie before. it was good, but i wish it rocked a little harder.

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It’s weird to me that I have a profile on IMDB.

But I guess not as weird as the fact that I’m like, you know, acting in a movie. If you live in the Bay, or plan to be there in mid-March, go check out one of the screenings of The Humberville Poetry Slam. And then come back and tell me I didn’t ruin the movie.

Thanks.

a lot going on in the world now, and i’m desperately looking for ways to escape it from time to time. judge me if you want to.

my homies Kiwi and Prometheus Brown both throw movie reviews up on their blogs from time to time. but those are intelligent brothers…me not so much, so i’m doing abbreviated reviews of all the movies i’ve seen in about the past month.

mad spoilers below.

reign over me
remarkably uneven. some parts of this flick are mad compelling, and other parts just feel so pointless. its overall message – that we should all try to be as open and communicative with the people we love all the time because you never know what’s gonna happen – is worthwhile, but executed kinda poorly. don cheadle, who is good in just about everything, is just average here. the movie really hinges on adam sandler’s performance, and when he’s channeling the isolation of his character, the movie really works. but sandler is not known for his acting chops – a reputation not at all unfounded, so when he’s less than stellar, the film stumbles over itself. a good sign though: at no point did i think he was gonna start chasing a giant invisible penguin, so sandler was able to at least separate himself from the goofy bro image he nurtured in the beginning of his career.

you don’t mess with the zohan
to my grand surprise, this is actually the better sandler movie. i saw this maybe a day or two before the most recent violence broke out in Gaza – so my opinion of it was formed then. i assumed this flick was going to be like the most offensive movie i had ever seen – but it is actually a level-headed mainstream opinion on israeli-palestinian conflict. it is in no way – NO WAY – leftist or progressive or radical – BUT, it has a far better macro-analytical view than most american elected officials. i know. i didn’t expect it either.

much of the humor is juvenile, and the cameos by mariah carey and dave matthews are gratuitous and a little stinky, but john turturro proves once again that he may be better when he’s not trying very hard. and the scenes where the israelis and palestinians sit around on a manhattan corner snapping on their wardrobes and talking shit about each others’ moms didn’t feel like movie fantasy at all. and if you were to take a step back and see sandler representing israel, turturro representing palestine, dave matthews representing the american military, and the old rich white guy as the united states…you actually get a well-reasoned plea for peace and less invasive american foreign policy. really.

talk to me
this is how i prefer to see don cheadle. all swagger and unapologetic righteousness. i know parts of it are true to life, but parts are not. boston’s own kasi lemmons slipped in things here and there to make elements of it fit better as a movie – but i ain’t mad. if i were to describe the plot to you here, it would sound very much like some movie-making cliches, and it could have easily been, but the pace of the movie and the performances from the leads – chiwetel ejiofor and cheadle -and taraji henson as the main supporting character all held something beneath the surface that lesser actors would not have had. and cedric the entertainer: that’s how you do a cameo – just stay out of the way…

tropic thunder
…unless you’re tom cruise in tropic thunder, in which case you need to be as in the way as possible, because he was one of the few bright spots in this movie. because we already know tom cruise is weird, having him in a fatsuit and bald cap dancing to ludacris is just that much more better.

but what was wack about this movie was, well, it was supposedly lampooning how seriously actors and movies take themselves considering how much more hard real life is than the movie business. but there was no effort put into making that rough real world anything like the real world. how did they start out in vietnam, but ended up among a militia all speaking mandarin chinese? why is the only person in that camp who speaks english a little boy? where did he learn english if he’s been living with this militia? why can robert downey jr’s awful awful attempt at speaking chinese trick the militia into thinking he’s actually chinese? (as someone who speaks chinese very poorly, let me tell you, downey’s chinese sounds like he just read it off google translator and there was not a single person who ever read the lines aloud to him correctly.)

as is the norm in hollywood flicks, the asian characters are just a huge mishmash of conveniences. i would say stereotypes, but it’s not really that, so much as they only exist as plot devices, not characters. there’s no attempt to make anything about any of them consistent, which means you can never forget the asian characters are written by clueless hollywood types, which means you can never completely lose yourself in the moment and just enjoy it. so thumbs down.

first sunday
ice cube can only play dudes who are down on their luck and need to accomplish some task before the end of the flick. that’s all he’s ever done in movies if you don’t count doughboy. so even knowing that by the end of the movie, this situation was going to be resolved peaceably, i still laughed mad times! tracy morgan should be getting a lot more roles – i know he’s already the host of scare tactics. katt williams took a tiny piece of his stand-up routine and turned it into a hilarious side character. and then that dude who used to host comicview was in it. but the story was awful. and the way it ended made no sense, it was like a rodney dangerfield movie.

jane austen book club
emily blount’s character – was her name purty? – is in the running for the least appealing movie character of all time. every time she appeared, i wanted the other characters to throw coffee on her bag or something to get her to leave.

while the other characters were not necessarily interesting, they at least didn’t make me feel like tearing my tv out of the wall. but there’s still not anyone really likeable in this movie. what was with that young woman and the fetish for women of color? goes from the black writer woman to the asian doctor woman (thanks for busting those stereotypes yo!) like she thinks it’s hip to be ethnic. gross.

after seeing this movie, i jumped on the internets to join the flaming fun, as i was sure i’d find all these webforums about how awful that movie was. but to my abject horror, my fellow interets-goers seemed to mostly like this movie. i didn’t realize everyone else on the internets was a middle-aged midwestern housewife. if that sounds unnecessarily mean-spirited, that’s because even having to think back to the fact that i wasted 2 hours of my life on this movie makes me angry. on to something else…

iron man
being enough of a nerd to know robert downey jr. is a great choice to play tony stark, i expected a lot. i got less than i expected, but overall it’s an enjoyable flick. i wish they woulda pressed the anti-war message a little harder, but i thought updating to reflect recent world events was a smart move. caught the ghostface cameo in the dvd extras. why would you ever cut ghostface out of anything? he’s at least as good an actor as gwenyth paltrow.

hancock
like another recent will smith action flick, i am legend, this started out really strong and ended kinda eh. the plot unfolded nicely until that amazing left turn came about charlize theron’s character. how unexpected was that? i was thrilled!

but then it was like they just wanted to get the movie over with and everything seemed to unfold in like 20 minutes. in my head, i expected hancock to turn out to be a supervillain unbeknown to himself…which i still think would have been a better ending. it was not to be. but they left it open to do a sequel, and there is a strong enough backstory to make a second movie better than the first was.

college road trip
i don’t know if getting older has made me soft that i can’t dislike any movie anymore, but i thought this wasn’t as bad as you might think a martin lawrence-raven simone buddy road trip comedy might be. overall, i actually thought it was pretty good. the only thing that really bothered me was…what the hell was the deal with the pet pig? there was never a point at which his existence moved the story along at all. couldn’t they have done away with the pig entirely? the only explanation would be that they were hoping to do some merchandising after the movie, and nobody want a martin lawrence action figure, so they figured having a pig might help them make some cash.

the perfect holiday
charlie murphy as a rapper? and why would you cast katt williams in a movie just to not give him any funny lines? pass.

meet dave
people just want to hate on eddie murphy because he isn’t making movies like coming to america and beverly hills cop anymore – oh and turns out he’s a giant prick in real life.

so it is supposedly a comedy, but i don’t think i laughed even once. but overall, i can’t say i hated it or anything, because unlike tropic thunder and a lot of american movies, it did not offend me as a human being. it was slightly offensive to me as someone who wanted to laugh during a comedy. ssssso…as we’re grading on a curve – compared to most american flicks, it’s probably like a B+.

i know who killed me
fuck this movie.

made of honor
i’m all for seeing a mainstream romantic comedy from time to time. even one with patrick mcdempsey. even though i saw and hated enchanted (mad xenophobic, but that’s a topic for another post). i am not closed-minded about so-called “chick flicks.”

but when the love interest of the main character is a self-righteous asshole, then i lose interest. i find it despicable that she berated complete strangers for selling alligator skin, but wouldn’t say anything to her friend for eating shrimp, or even her fiance for killing deer and boars? you know, to make real change, you have to start with those around you. yelling on strangers don’t do any good. especially small businesspeople just trying to make a living. learn a lesson.

pretty woman
i don’t think i have ever seen this movie before. it pretty much was everything everyone says it was. i can see why julia roberts still has all this goodwill from moviegoers even tho she hasn’t done a good flick since this. i remember being in 5th grade and seeing commercials and thinking richard gere looked so old, but actually he looks good in this movie. good for him.

creepy to see george costanza as an attempted rapist. i would say a flaw was there was no attempt to bring about restorative justice for all the bad deeds done by characters in this movie, as tho we should just let everything slide because the girl and the guy find each other in the end. i know it’s fantasy and you’re not supposed to think that hard, but still…

the other boleyn girl
generally uninteresting, except for the fact that i remembered elements of it from european history class in high school…and i kinda got a geekthrill anytime something happened i kind of remembered. but what bothered me about it was how they would use phrases that sounded like modern-day slang in what is supposed to be like the 16th century. i have no idea if they used phrases like “you heard what i said” and “go on and tell yourself that” back in the day…but don’t they feel like anachronisms?

anyway, tune in next year when i review ferris beuller’s day off, chocolat, and a bunch of other movies that are no longer in theaters. peace.

A lot of people are hating on this movie, but I can’t see why. A movie about Biggie’s life? What…too soon?

I guess the major beef people have with it is that Gravy plays Biggie. But I don’t know who else would have been the obvious better choice? Sean Kingston? Forrest Whitaker? Anthony Anderson?

Stop hating. I can’t wait for this flick – to come out on DVD so I can rent it from the Redbox…$12 is too much even for a movie about B.I.G.

According to blackfilm.com, there is a movie in the works about the Juice Crew. Holy shit!

So apparently the actress who played Akeelah is gonna be Roxanne Shante, which got me saying like…word? I thought she was like 11, but after reading up on her, she seems like a good choice. A+ for you guys.

Surprised about Cuba Gooding Jr as Marley Marl, and looking forward to David Banner as Biz. But I’m casting the movie in my head. Please play along:

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“Seinfeld” was a funny show, but based on his recent television appearances, commercials, and this godawful new film, I have to assume that the show should have been named after Larry David instead. Either Jerry was never that funny, or having kids makes you infinitely more lame.

But aside from “Bee Movie” being unfunny, which a lot of kids flicks are, it was actually kind of offensive…which a lot of kids flicks also are.

It started out innocuously enough, a little racial joke here and there, not much to get excited over. They certainly weren’t funny, but were only mildly offensive – which is pretty much par for the country club course nowadays. They were just there, kind of like a reminder, “oh yeah, I guess that’s what some white people think is funny…” Except nobody was laughing at anything, like not us, not the white folks, not even any of the kids were laughing at the jokes. It’s like, my 3 year-old nephew would have giggled more if we’d gone to see “American Gangster” like I originally wanted.

For example, the Jerry Seinfeld bee character – I don’t even remember the lead character’s name, how often does that happen? – is talking to his parents about what he’ll do instead of work after graduating college. The final and most outrageous option is “get a gold tooth, start calling everyone Dog” as he pounds his chest and makes a peace sign with his fingers. Come on now, really?

Another one that struck me as pretty uninspired was when they were watching the news, and all the reporters had names like “Buzz Bumble” or whatever bee-related name they came up with, and the final reporter to be mentioned was “Jeanette Chung.” Haw haw. It’s not that I don’t understand the joke, I just don’t see how a professional comedy writer could have thought that was laugh-worthy.

Also, Chris Rock’s mosquito character – Mooseblood – was weirdly like a drug addict. Take that for what it’s worth.

But those somewhat questionable, altogether unfunny jokes didn’t ruin the movie – which was really three plots rolled into one. What really had me kind of upset was the moral of the story. All kids movies have life lessons at the end right? They are often overly simplistic, but you know, it’s for kids, so what do you expect? But the moral to this one was unnecessarily convoluted and turned out to be pretty messed up. (SPOILER AHEAD.) (more…)