April 15, 2003
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WEEKEND MOVIES
Saturday night
After the GR2 store opening and dinner with Jorge, Sandra, Gabe and John in MicroTokyo, we went and saw Better Luck Tomorrow - touted as a very important indie film because it is the first Asian-American film to be picked up by a major distributor at Sundance(MTV)… a film which is said to challenge the usual Asian-American stereotypes …
What comes to mind when you think of Asians in cinema? Perhaps, this comes to mind: Kung-fu fighting by martial artists, exotic women, the Chinese Mafia, delivery boys, computer science nerds and broken English. Director Justin Lin’s new film shatters these misconceptions. - Anardeep Gill/New University review. (More reviews/articles here)
Apparently the director had his cast work for free and used several credit cards to get the movie made (instead of sacrificing his vision and succumbing to studio wishes for an all-white cast).
So does it succeed? I think we all had our doubts especially about the ending: Lead character ends up getting the girl (with the flashy car) after killing her boyfriend. He and his teenage buddies are nerds by day, smalltime mafia by night.. er… Does this film really break stereotypes?
Maybe the most refreshing thing was just seeing an all Asian-American cast period. Even if they weren’t always likeable. And it was a slick film.
And guess what? Axel Rose was there across the aisle from us! However he walked out before the movie even started. Either he was sick of waiting (the movie was delayed while they ran sound tests for half an hour) or maybe it was Gabe singing Guns n Roses songs…
I prefer to believe the latter - Eddie
Eddie: As for Better Luck Tomorrow…it was a pretty standard, middle-class, school-angsty thing that had good characters, good acting, but not a hell of a lot going on in the plot department. I found it ironic that a film such as this – that is going all out to ‘shatter misconceptions’ about Asian-Americans – potrayed the only African-American characters in the movie as uzi-totin’, drive by hoods, looking for trouble.
Link to more BLT reviews and interviews
Sunday night
We went to the American Cinematheque’s screening of the noir classic: Nightmare Alley (with Tyrone Power). Eddie Muller who wrote Dark City was there as host; also a chanteuse on piano (doing a noir-ish number) before the movie. Followed by an interview with Colleen Gray who played the leading actress. But we had to leave because there was work to do …
There’s something about carny movies that we both love. In Nightmare Alley, Tyrone Power’s character starts off as a conman-magician-mindreader and degenerates into a GEEK (sideshow freak who bites the heads off chicken for money… in this case, booze).
Interesting how the term “geek” means something completely different today.
A novel that I highly recommend: Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. This is one of my all-time favourites. It’s disturbing, intense, tragic, and is about a family of circus freaks and their quest for power, fame and fortune. Deserves to be made into a graphic novel or animated movie…
