WHAT HAPPENED TO CREEPY ELECTRONIC SCORES?

Confession: I have never watched The Shining from beginning to end. I don't know if I'll ever get up the nerve to do so. Even the trailer leaves me shook.

(P.S. I just realized Roland Emmerich bit this same score for the teaser trailer for 2012. It was decidedly less scary when he did it).

--O.W.

ON BRÜNO

Numero Bruno

Before I saw Brüno this evening, I had read gushing reviews heralding the film as a brilliant skewering of homophobia and ignorance.

I also read equally negative reviews, as well as complaints from several advocacy groups, slamming it as a faux-gay minstrel show that has the ultimate effect of promoting homophobia.

Given that Sacha Baron Cohen attended a rally for Proposition 8 as a potential scene for this movie, I had high hopes that this film would skewer the lunacy of homophobia.

But I nonetheless viewed it with an open mind, open to a spectrum of possibility, ready to opine on the matter.

Alas, I just finished watching it and I only have one strong opinion about this film: it is exceptionally apolitical.

It's just two hours of extreme pranks with a brave provocateur who had the sole goal to shock and awe.

Spoiler alert: Consider the Ron Paul scene. For me, the idea of Brüno tricking Ron Paul into making a sex tape is delicious with potential. Ron Paul, after all, is one of many politicians opposed to fully extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians. However, the scene is funny only to the extent that it is funny to see any random person -- regardless of their politics or sexual orientation -- being Punk'd by a fake gay Austrian fashionista who tries to seduce him. Plus, Ron Paul is no Rick Santorum.

Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles seemed driven by a purpose beyond entertainment in only one scene: when they exposed the lunacy of stage parents willing to sacrifice anything to land their kids a gig. (Those five minutes, in my opinion, were well worth the price of admission.)

In contrast, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was a thoughtful satire that had the partial goal of exposing some subtle forms of prejudice that Americans have towards immigrants.

What Borat and Brüno have in common, however, is that both films left me a hundred times more fascinated in the guerrilla tactics used to make the movie than the finished products themselves.

Long after I've forgotten about specific scenes from these movies and the television show, I will continue to wonder how so many people were duped into signing consent forms and remaining on camera even after the hijinks started.

--Junichi

CHATTING WITH JOHN CHO

cho gets serious

I was really happy to be able to do this; I knew John as a classmate from UC Berkeley - *15 years ago* - and I've taken a lot of pleasure in seeing his career accelerate over that time. I finally had the opportunity to interview him and at the risk of sounding immodest, I thought it was a great conversation, especially with his candor about issues of acting, media and race.

Here's Part 1 of our interview, part 2 is here.

--O.W.

MILK: SEE THIS

I watched Milk last night and I have to say: it was easily the best film I saw out of 2008 in terms of its formal, filmmaking elements, its performances, and its inspired energy.

It was a remarkably, incredibly prescient film for 2008 - not just because of Prop 8 (though its dramatization of the fight against 1978's Prop 6 was an obvious, sobering parallel), but also given Obama's election and the idea that mass movements in the United States are still a possibility.

But that larger backdrop aside, the performances were phenomenal, especially Sean Penn who, to me, was completely unrecognizable from any other role I've ever seen him in. While, sentimentally, I like pulling for Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, I feel like Penn does the better "acting" job here. James Franco is very good, Emile Hirsch is great and Josh Brolin as Dan White was incredible too, imbuing White with a nuance that gives his character such depth beyond "the guy with the Twinkies defense." Did I mention that Penn smiles, a lot? It's weird. But in a good way.

(Milk also further confirmed how downright trifling Slumdog Millionaire was. If people are looking for a "feel good" film, Milk's real-world message is >>>>>>> some fantasy about game shows and destiny.)

--O.W.

PLANET B-BOY TO AIR ON MTV

And now for something less contentious...

One of the better documentaries I've seen on so-called "hip-hop culture," - Planet B-Boy - is going to be airing on MTV starting this Sunday:

Sunday January 11:
- 11 am PST/EST (10 am CST)
- Midnight PST/EST (11 pm CST)

Wednesday January 14:
- 1:30 am PST/EST (12:30 am CST)
- 8 am PST/EST (7 am CST)
(Thanks to Angry Asian Man)

If you haven't seen it before, it's a very well done look inside the world of contemporary b-boying. Peep the trailer:


I also interviewed director Benson Lee for UCLA's Asia Pacific Arts.

--O.W.

MESMERIZED BY "THE ROOM"

don't say we didn't warn you

Normally, I'm not into bad movies for the sake of bad movies - I never was an Ed Wood fan or followed Mystery Science Theater 3000. However, I was reading EW's recent feature about the 2003 film, The Room by writer/director/producer/actor Tommy Wiseu and it just sounded too good (or, er, bad) not to check out. I first started with this trailer and by that point, I was game:



So then I managed to, ahem, "acquire" it. And then watched it with my wife (who is even less into "bad movies for the sake of badness" than I am).

It was completely mesmerizing. As Sharon put it, it was "so fascinating because it was so bizarre" whereas I kept going back to this quote from the EW article: "It's not like there's one or two or three things that are bad about it. There are several hundred."

That's not an exaggeration. Every scene in the film has something completely off with it - the script, the acting, the timing of the dialogue, subplots that go absolutely nowhere, characters who make no sense, etc.

It's as if a plane crashed into a train which then demolished a bridge and then the debris fell onto a nuclear reactor which then blew up. But instead of being tragic, it's completely awesome.

For those of you who manage to track down a copy (it's available on DVD and "circulating" online elsewhere), I highly recommend group viewings - this was meant to be shared. Like love. Or chocolate. Or lice...whatever.

Just see this.

Here are a few inside jokes to whet your appetite:

*Rose petals
*Denny
*"The tests came back."
*"Let's throw the ball around."
*San Francisco skylines.
*Tuxedos.
*Buying flowers.
*Chocolates.

--O.W.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Best picture. Final answer.

Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle's surprising new film, is one of the best I've seen in a long time.

The movie focuses on an impoverished boy living in the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? and advances to the top-dollar question.

In short, it's the story of my life, except for the part about being an impoverished boy living in the slums of Mumbai and advancing to the top-dollar question.

While it's an unabashedly feel-good, romantic, Dickensian Hollywood fantasy, Slumdog beautifully and painfully captures the deep poverty of India in a way like no other.

The cinematography alone makes the film a must-see. Boyle collaborated with an Indian co-director, Loveleen Tandan, who, shamefully, doesn't get much billing. Tandan's knowledge of how to film India from an insider's perspective with Boyle's frenetic style make for a strong pairing. With M.I.A., bhangra beats, and a booming tabla lacing the soundtrack, the movie is an audio-visual feast.

Stay for the closing credits.

The trailer:

Thanks, Zahir, for the recommendation!

--Junichi

DID THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION BANKROLL THE DARK KNIGHT?

Up next: Waterboarding

In The Dark Knight, Batman seeks to protect the world from terrorists and suicide bombers.

But evildoers like the Joker don't play by the rules. So Batman, who has always operated outside of the law, must become even more vigilante and take measures with which even his own staff is uncomfortable.

And so Batman wiretaps all of Gotham's citizens' cell phones. He listens to their conversations to infiltrate terrorist cells. When the Joker is in custody, he resorts to violent interrogation techniques that rise to the level of torture. Not only does he refuse to listen to authorities, he doesn't even stay for the end of conversations. Batman is The Decider.

As Bruce Wayne, Batman also embeds himself in the shady worlds of cronyism and money laundering. His company secretly funds defense contractors and top secret weapons research. He calls upon his rich friends to support men like Harvey Dent who take tough stances on crime. The fundraising is especially important to offset the influence of the Chinese, who are literally sitting on top of our money.

As the film progresses, Batman's approval rating with the citizens of Gotham City begins to tank, in light of the rising death toll of Gotham's soldiers. But the film makes clear to the viewer that Batman was only acting for the greater good.

Which leads to the question that serves as the title of this post: Did the Bush Administration bankroll The Dark Knight?

The movie is well-crafted and undoubtedly entertaining. (To my surprise, Heath Ledger really does give an Oscar-worthy performance.)

But TDK is also a powerful propaganda film that ultimately justifies Bush's actions in his global War on Terror.

Intentional or not, the Nolan brothers clearly support the use of torture and other unlawful custodial interrogation techniques in times of terror. The film climaxes with multiple "ticking time bombs," which is the exact scenario that GOP Congressional leaders and other pundits have cited when defending the need to torture. The sadistic criminal refusing to leak life-saving information is both at the apex of TDK and at the core of why this country hasn't passed more laws banning the use of torture.

Plus, if Congress had any trouble passing the FISA bill, they could have delayed the vote until after this film, which showcases the need for eavesdropping and glorifies other temporary deprivations of civil liberties to fight the bad guys.

As if the allusions to the current administration's policies were not obvious enough, by the end of the film, Harvey Dent even looks like Dick Cheney blew the left side of his face off.

A movie that reflects our post-9/11 world? Nothing new.

But a post-9/11 film that actually seems to unabashedly endorse Bush's post-9/11 response? New to me.

Perhaps the only point that the analogy fails is when we see Batman actually struggle with the moral complexities and ethical constraints of what he's doing.

*

P.S. Since Nolan's version of Batman learned about war in Southeast Asia, perhaps John McCain is a better substitute for The Dark Knight.

(With thanks to Jingalls and Sarisa)

--Junichi

A CHAT WITH KEN LEUNG

the ghost whisperer
One more Lost-related post (and a self-plug). I interviewed Ken Leung earlier this spring and among other things, we talked about his role on Lost and how challenging it's been for him given his approach to acting. Leung doesn't do interviews often but I found him to be an exceptionally thoughtful and candid person to talk to. Asian Pacific Arts Magazine has the three-part interview in their new issue.

And here's one of my favorite scenes Leung's done:

--O.W.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL MOCKINGBIRD

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

Instead of writing a film review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I've decided to randomly reimagine the plot of To Kill A Mockingbird if the novel had been touched up by the writers of this latest Indiana Jones flick.

Note: Spoiler alert! Seriously, don't read further if you plan on seeing the movie.

To Kill A Mockingbird

Originally written by Harper Lee
Amended by George Lucas and David Koepp

At the height of the Red Scare, Atticus Finch works as a criminal defense attorney in the town of Maycomb, Alabama. After a decade of fighting Nazis, Atticus begins his vigorous defense of an indigent African American defendant named Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white woman.

After fleeing a mob of angry townspeople trying to lynch him, Atticus unknowingly wanders into a nuclear testing zone. After leaning on a plastic lawn ornament, he accidentally detonates a nuclear bomb. A second before the blast, Atticus takes refuge in a lead refrigerator. The force of the atomic explosion sends the icebox hurling over the mushroom cloud and safely dumps Atticus back into town.

When the leader of the mob - a Russian dominatrix with a quasi-British accent - spots Atticus in a diner, Tom helps them both escape on his motorcycle. At the end of a long pursuit through town, the pair slide underneath a row of tables at the courthouse library. When the motorcycle finally comes to a screeching halt, one of Atticus's other clients calmly asks Atticus if his pretrial motion hearing can be postponed.

Meanwhile, Atticus's children, Jem and Scout, become fascinated by their reclusive neighbor, "Boo" Radley. Scout is so curious about Boo that she makes up stories about him and drops out of school. Unbeknownst to Jem and Scout, Boo leaves the children a gift of a crystal skull. When Scout stares too long into the eyes of the magnetic crystal, she receives secret instructions on how to discover a city of gold.

After Tom's trial, Bob, the alleged rape victim's father, vows revenge upon Atticus. One day, when Atticus picks up Jem and Scout from school, Bob chases them into the Amazonian jungle. After nearly escaping quicksand and blow darts, the Finches escape death when Boo picks them up in an army jeep, uses the crystal skull to ward off flesh-eating ants, drives over a giant cliff, lands on a tree, survives three giant waterfalls, and wards off a tribe of Incan / Mayan / South American / Latino / Indegenous / Hispanic / dark savages.

The Russian Dominatrix also catches up with them, but her plot is yet again foiled when Jem learns to swing on vines like a chimp and leads a barrel of monkeys to stop her.

The plot thickens when Atticus uses his knowledge of Incan hieroglyphics to discover that he is Boo's father.

Finally, when Boo and the Finches discover the path to gold in the city of Akator, Bob attacks again. Jem and Boo kill Bob in self-defense.

When Maycomb's sheriff arrives upon the scene to arrest Jem and Boo, the crystal skull suddenly floats on top of a crystal torso, which is seated in a tribal council of twelve other crystal skeletons. The sheriff decides not to arrest them after the floor becomes a giant spinning wheel of fortune and the skulls form a single extra terrestrial, which converts the Mayan ruin into a giant flying saucer and flies off into space.

After learning that gold is really a metaphor for knowledge, Scout learns that she should stay in school.

The End.

--Junichi

THE WAR ON LATINOS GOES TO THE STREETS...LITERALLY

enjoy 'em while they last
Forget Arizona. Right here in Los Angeles, legislators are going after...taco trucks.

$1000 fine or six months in jail for...selling tacos out of a truck? Are you serious? This is what the L.A. City Council considers valuable legislation? Isn't there, for example, low income housing they could focus on? De-congesting traffic? FIXING LAUSD?

Cotdamnit, leave my al pastor alone!

And while you're at it - leave the bacon-wrapped hot dogs be, too.

---

It's not all bad news...NPR's Morning Edition highlighted the extraordinary story of Guy Gabaldon, a Chicano from East L.A. who learned Japanese from his Issei and Nisei friends growing up and used that skill to convince 1,000 Japanese to surrender during WWII. A new documentary is coming out to tell a story that has gone under the radar for 60 years.

--O.W.

DUK DUK GOOSE

beyond redemption?

NPR's All Things Considered picked Long Duk Dong to be part of their "Character Studies" series. (Listen here).

For those of you unaware (read: those of you not born in the 1980s), LDD is pretty much the gold standard in modern f---ed up portrayals of Asian men in Hollywood (Mickey Rooney in yellowface being the older gen's favorite). Everything from the gong that announces his presence, to his accent, to that hair, to, well, everything has traditionally offended Asian Americans to no small degree.

I was just a tad too young to really get into the John Hughes films of the '80s (or maybe I just held little interest in the school/love lives of suburban teens when I was already living it) so I never saw 16 Candles until much later and I have to say...even though I "got" why LDD puts such a black eye on the game, I couldn't help but think he gets a little overvillified.

Don't get me wrong - John Hughes should be thoroughly embarrassed at himself and god knows Gedde Watanabe hasn't had an easy time living down the role but all said, I guess part of me - the Asian geek with insecurity issues - kind of liked how at ease LDD was with himself, how unabashed (read: oblivious) he was in his sense of self. He was a hedonist who didn't really care about what people around him - let alone older White folks - thought of him. He was just trying to do him.

And lest we forget, for all the bemoaning about Asian male asexuality and what not...the Donger got the girl (a white girl at that).

Just putting it out there.

Ok, let's hear it now.

--O.W.

WHO SHOULD WIN

Not Lost in Translation

I feel surprisingly indifferent about most of this year's Academy Award categories.

As usual, many of my favorite films were shut out altogether from Oscar love: V for Vendetta, Thank You For Smoking, Inside Man, Word Play, Lucky Number Slevin, Hollywoodland, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and at the risk of sounding biased, Shut Up and Sing.

I will admit enthusiasm, however, over the fact that 2006 was a relatively good year for racial and ethnic diversity. I'm amazed that eight out of the twenty acting nominees are people of color. I'm also psyched about three Mexican directors being honored for their work.

When Dima and I went to see Babel, we were both amazed to see a film that not only incorporated all four of the languages that we (kinda sorta) collectively speak -- Arabic, Japanese, English, and Spanish -- but also highlighted my penchant for urinating in bed pans and flashing my junk to strangers.

That said, despite seeing most of the nominated films, I feel ho-hum about most of the categories. Here below are the ones I do feel invested in:



Argentine musician Gustavo Santaolalla won this award last year for Brokeback Mountain -- and quite frankly, he didn't deserve it. His work was minimalist and non-essential to that film. But in Babel, his score -- especially for the scenes in Morocco -- provided the perfect haunting sonic background to the film's three international settings. The instrumental track, "Bibo No Aozora," which features Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, is one of the best closing songs of any film.

Was there even music in The Queen? I'm not joking. I don't remember a note.




Alan Arkin deserves something for the amazing feat of stealing every scene in which he appears as a horny, heroin-snorting grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine.

Eddie Murphy will probably win, even though he doesn't deserve it. (Interesting side question: does Norbit hurt his chances -- for obvious reasons -- or does it help him because it allows the Academy to send Eddie the message that he should stick to more serious and respectable fare?)

Mark Wahlberg shouldn't have been nominated, although I don't mind him getting belated kudos for Boogie Nights. Ben Affleck, whom I normally abhor, was terrific in Hollywoodland, and should have replaced Marky Mark on the ballot. (Granted, Pearl Harbor was so bad that Affleck should be blacklisted for another decade or so.)




Rinko Kikuchi in Babel delivered one of the best acting performances of any human being in the last five years. Without saying a word. I can't imagine any other person anchoring a movie about global crises in the role of a deaf, volleyball-playing girl in Tokyo so desperate for intimacy that she tries to tongue-kiss her dentist.

Call me a hater but Jennifer Hudson's performance in Dreamgirls amounted to no more than a fantastic night on American Idol. Her voice was amazing, but her acting wasn't even half as good as Shareeka Epps in Half Nelson or Maribel Verdú in Pan's Labyrinth, who both shamefully failed to make the cut.





In making the excellent United 93, Paul Greengrass could have exploited a national tragedy and made it into a jingoistic TV movie of the week. He could have made the terrorists one-dimensional movie villains and made the passengers into Hollywood heroes. But he didn't. He didn't even make "Let's roll" into a catchphrase. Instead, Greengrass made what feels like a real-time documentary from the eye of a poet. As I noted in this DVD review, Greengrass' commentary demonstrate how much careful thought and research he put into this painful but exhilarating film.

Scorsese is obviously long overdue, but giving him an Oscar for the mediocre The Departed is almost as ridiculous as giving him an Oscar for directing Michael Jackson's video for "Bad."

Stephen Frears directing a surprisingly entertaining film about a subject in which I have very little interest. But most of that credit should probably go to Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen (a doppelganger for Tony Blair), and the screenplay. Most of the time, I felt like I was watching a really good TV movie of the week, which isn't saying much.

--Junichi

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #90

Eyes Without A Face

This Week's Question:

What movie has no chance of getting a Best Picture nomination tomorrow from the Academy, despite your belief that it was one of the best movies of 2006?


FWIW, I'd be willing to bet my underwear that the five best picture nominees will come from the following list of six movies: “Babel,” “The Departed,” “Dreamgirls,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Queen," and “United 93.”

--Junichi