Donald Glover For Spider-Man

I am 100% behind this:



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http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=130945906916984&v=wall

Fast, Good, Cheap

For fuck's sake Fox, get it together.





What kind of cheap-ass bullshit is that?

Avatarded

"Every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes." - Col. Quaritch

Avatar is estimated to have pulled in about $73M domestically over the weekend. That's not bad, but considering how much it cost, anywhere from 300M to 500M, it's not exactly great. That's probably partly to do with how uninspired it seems to be. Admittedly, the CGI is pretty damn great and the 3D is incredible. I mean that in a technical sense, as its used in a more subtle fashion than the usual poke things out at you.

But, one of the main criticisms is that it ultimately tells an incredibly slight and cliched tale. Which isn't altogether untrue. It's FernGully with some Dances with Wolves mixed in. It's rather unsophisticated and everyone's playing an archetype rather than a character. So you basically have the evil human corporations and para-military killfuckers that need to mine a mineral to either earn a profit or power the human empire. In order to accomplish this they decide to killfuck the hell out of the Native American/African Na'vi (which is native with ET taken out). The Na'vi of course are alien hippies with a literal connection to nature in their USB port tipped braids. They jam it into the same in animals and trees and shit to command or communicate with them.

Side note, one of the tests of manhood/hunterhood is to claim an ikran (dragon) as a mount. To do this, you wrestle it to the ground and USB-rape it in order to get it to do what you want. Yeah, I had that reaction too. Also, Jake does this twice. He's a serial dragon USB-rapist.

Back on point, you can throw around White Guilt and shit, but it's mainly humans suck and the native alien hippies are awesome. Which, it has been argued, is simplistic and bad because it's such a weak conflict. Here's the thing though, there's not an insignificant amount of people that can't figure out why the humans didn't just bomb the fuck out of the aliens and steal their shit and stuff. So that's why I think for how simplistic the story was, it pretty much had to. The audience is composed of a large percentage of sociopathic morons. If they can't even understand that it's bad to killfuck a population in order to steal their land, then fuck, no wonder movies are so unsophisticated.

Written and Directed By

So, how many BET Awards will this win?

America's Promise

Back in the '80s and early '90s we used to have awesome neighborhood video rental places. You'd find all sorts of crap to view, much of the time based on how awesomely bad or badly awesome the cover was. These were the sorts of places where I discovered Robot Jox and Deepstar Six. It's also where I got stuff like Rambo, and Die Hard, though I saw Die Hard 2 on laserdisc. Ah laserdisc, those were the days.

Anyway, back in the day we did have guys like Schwarzenegger and Jet Li, but we also had Stallone and Bruce Willis. We had Seagal and Chuck "The Beard" Norris. In other word, men's men. American men starring in the greatest action movies ever. Seriously, Invasion USA will put hair on your chest.

So what the fuck happened? Now all the heir apparents to the manly men of American action movies are coming from other places that aren't America. Sure, I got a lot of love for Tony "I will break your face on my knee" Jaa and Jason "Crank 2" Statham. But where's the next big American action star? Christian Bale? Not American. Sam Worthington? Not American.

Shia "Fucking" Labeouf. Seriously, he was just in what I imagine was the top grossing action movie of the year, and he's the guy that gets killed in movies so you know that the shit just got real. I mean seriously. Remember Orlando Bloom? Remember how much of a travesty it was that Eric Bana's character in Troy got killed for his ass?

What happened to real American action heroes? GI Joe doesn't count, because it looks moronically stupid. Sorry Tatum.

It's like America has developed a generation of pussies. Where kids no longer get into fist fights at school. Bullies have free reign as long as they don't get caught. The kids that should just get fed up and throw a punch now just fester until they bring guns to school. When alcoholism and beating on your kids is no longer acceptable behavior, you develop a generation of pussies instead of men. If we're supposed to be the world's cowboys, then why the hell are our leading men all a bunch of little bitches?

















And that's why we have Shia "Fucking" Labeouf as the "action hero." And why the girls all dig Zack Efron.

Damn Right.

Do you know why this is awesome?



Because Winston was always the most awesome ghostbuster.














That's why.

No Shit, Sherlock.

I have quite a few DVD's, all acquired legally. I know that there's some stuff, disclaimers and the like, that are shown in front of the movie on them. It's fast and it's probably a CYA type of thing. I'm fine with that.

However, this annoys the hell out of me:









Seriously? I already legally bought the freakin' DVD. You're going to lecture me on not pirating movies or buying pirated movies? That's damned patronizing, movie studios.

How about a thank you for buying it legally and giving you money instead?

In truth, I think that the Somali pirates that are hijacking vessels and ransoming off the crew need this message more than me.

Why Star Trek XI Will Rock

Because one of the Asian gets to induct James Tiberius Kirk into the Nation's Punched.














Probably should have ripped his shirt first.

Who Watches?

I wouldn't say that I've been following the Watchmen production closely, but I've been keeping track when things happened. While it just came out today, the opening credit sequence has been uploaded by yU+Co, the company that did them. Around five and a half minutes long, it's one of the most impressive sequences I've seen in a long time. All the details are right, although some stuff is literal as opposed to implied as in the original comics.

As this is The Asian Americanist, one of the writers of the script is Alex Tse (who is Asian):


Though he didn't have a lot of credits to his name, he did have a good relationship with Warner Bros. Some hard work and a little luck, and he was able to get to write the thing. Which is also cool, although it doesn't really matter if he's Asian-American or not.

If it's a good script, then they got the right guy. If not, then they didn't. But, it works like that for most movies I'd imagine.

Ken Leung was in X-Men: The Last Stand

It should be a surprise to nobody, but a new X-Men movie comes out this May. Once again shafting Cyclops, the movie will focus on Wolverine, who is like the Wolverine of the X-Men franchise. Mining the source material in ways other movies have not, this one will feature a host of characters both known, obscure, and even some fan-favorites.

Casting has been a mixed bag from the favored fan-casting of Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool to inspired casting like Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth. What is most odd, and in something of a complete reversal of bitching that many Asian-Americans have in regards to the entertainment industry, Daniel Henney will play Agent Zero.

In other words:

will play

who used to look like this (I don't draw this stuff):

who is East German.

For those that get uppity about this sort of thing, it means that a comic book character that is East German is being played by a (half) Asian (Korean) actor. Because race doesn't matter in this case. It's like the Kingpin being played by Michael Clarke Duncan, only without black people.

I just wanted to mention this because while there is still Hollywood stuff to be righteously angry about, it's not all bad. Then again for those that do bitch, I expect them to have thoroughly researched the origins of a character that wears yellow armor and has way too many straps and pouches. If you're going to throw up examples, you should at least know about them more than a simple google search will give you.

I mean, you only started to care about Avatar when white people started to get cast in it so that you could get pissed off about something? That's actually a little lame, noble, but lame.

Personally, I got a little giddy that Scott Adkins is going to be in the movie.

No, I'm Not Required to Like Ang Lee's Movies

I once took a film class in college that focused on Asian films. Which meant that I had to see the majority of Ang Lee's films, up to that point in time. Which meant that I saw Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, The Ice Storm, Ride with the Devil, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Since then, I've also seen The Hulk, and Chosen, which was his short for The Hire short film series for BMW.

Which means I haven't seen Sense and Sensibility, Brokeback Mountain, and Lust, Caution. That said, I think that I've seen enough of the movies that he's directed to be able to form an opinion on his work. In light of the nature of this blog, I'll focus on his movies that focus on Asians. By which I mean, star Asians, which is good and all, but not the point here.
















I think they were well-made movies that may speak to the Asian/American experience in a number of ways. Well-made meaning he functions well as a director. I still didn't particularly like the movies that much. While I'm sure that there is a jarring transition for an immigrant to have to move to the United States, as well as the generational conflict, I just couldn't get into Pushing Hands that much. Not to get too detailed, I can speak to some experience with this. The point is that while it is an intimate portrayal of a family's struggle, there isn't necessarily a universal Asian truth in this. Nor should there be one.

Maybe it's backlash, but no, this movie does not speak to my experience. Even with grandparents that come to visit and can stay for quite a while. And I should not be expected to connect to the film as if there was some universal Asian truth to it, as if they/we were all the same.

As for The Wedding Banquet, well I seriously question the underlying assumption that being gay in the film is somehow wrong. So the main character, in order to protect his parents' sensibilities marries a woman, instead of coming out that he's gay and in a committed relationship. Now yes, there's a generation gap, and yes I do think that respect for parents is important, but if they're homophobes, that's their fucking problem. Not (looking up in imdb) Wei Tung's. Okay, it was 1993, but still, I'm told that even then, the gays were here, they were queer, and I believe we were instructed to get used to it. Being old is no excuse for being bigoted, even if it's perhaps a less violent form. This isn't Lakeview Terrace now. So, thanks a lot Ang Lee for portraying the older generation of Asians as homophobic, and the newer generation of Asian-Americans as pussies unwilling to buck Asian tradition for what's right.

Or maybe it's just these particular ones. Depending on if you think Ang Lee's films are supposed to speak to some sort of Asian or Asian-American truthiness.

I didn't have any real objections to Eat Drink Man Woman (aka the other Tortilla Soup), mainly because I can't really remember it that much.

Which leads me to the movie that perhaps catapulted him to widespread public awareness, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I'm not going to argue about how it was shot or choreographed, even if I did have to analyze a scene in shot by shot detail for class. There is an ambiguity to the characters so that we were to believe that Jen Yu is more than a self-centered brat. Now, maybe this is the Americanist side of my Asian-Americanist perspective coming out, but there was a failing in that. To me at least. I never bought it and never felt real sympathy for her causing a good deal of the shit that happens because she screws up. Yeah, beat up a bunch of guys in a bar, I'm sure they all totally deserved it because you want to be all emo and everything. Do you think she listens to Dashboard Confessional played on the erhu too?

And while Li Mu-bai and Yu Shu-lien may have had some type of warrior wuxia code, they would have been much happier ignoring that, especially since Li was planning on retiring anyways.

Yes, this is in the source material presumably, so I can't completely blame Ang Lee, but still, the tragedy of this film/book comes from the characters inability to deal with their issues and/or get over themselves. It's historical, but this doesn't exactly speak to me as some grand statement on "Asianness."

Oh, and the events of Iron Knight, Silver Vase, makes Jen Yu's character come off even worse for me. Thanks for nothing Crane-Iron Pentalogy.

My point? Just because Ang Lee is Asian and makes movies about Asians, doesn't mean that they have to speak to me as an Asian-American. And, the other Asians that were in my class, don't be so surprised that I felt that way. I grew up in the Bay Area, and while I grew up on a steady diet of Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies, it doesn't mean that there is some grand Asian message that I buy in Ang Lee's movies. More importantly, it doesn't mean that I have to defend the films nor that I can't criticize them if I don't particularly like the movies.

And despite his race, I don't feel the particular need to promote Ang Lee as if I did like all of his "Asian" films. Just because he's one of my people doesn't mean he's one of my people.