Film Festival Dispatch: HKIFF Film Highlights

  • April 7, 2012 8:40 am

In my last Film Festival Dispatch blog post, I wrote about my new found love for Hong Kong. I was there to attend the Hong Kong International Film Festival (March 23 – April 5) where I served on the Firebirds Youth Cinema Jury. From the 8 films I had to see, they all had merit and overall, I was impressed with how well run the Festival was. The film selections were also quite good, with a broad range of crowd pleasing fare to more challenging works, and some great retrospective of master filmmakers who’s work should be seen. For a list of the winners from this year’s HKIFF, including my jury’s choices for Firebird and Jury Prizes (I will highlight these particular titles in this blog post), check out the winners list here.  Read more...

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Rear Window Time Lapse

  • April 3, 2012 8:13 pm

Man, technology today… The possibilities of doing super cool things if you’re well skilled in After Effects. Case-in-point: Filmmaker and artist Jeff Desom meticulously and digitally reconstructed L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies’ view (played by Jimmy Stewart) from his window in the Hitchcok’s Rear Window and pasted all the little events happening in the various apartments and time lapsed it. In other words, all the binocular shots of Jefferies’ voyeurism P.O.V were then shrunken down and digitally pasted to their accurate apartment window. The result is just simply stunning. Check it out yourself!This is nothing short of pure genius. I can watch this all day.

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Film Festival Dispatch: Sights, Sounds & Tastes of Hong Kong

  • April 2, 2012 8:52 am

Working for film festivals does take a toll sometimes, but then again, I get to travel to cool places. In March alone, I headed out to SXSW in Austin, SFIAAFF in the Bay Area, Saigon and Hong Kong for the annual Filmart and the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF). Run by friend and mentor, Roger Garcia, the HKIFF and Filmart (the film market arm of the organization) has been on a roll with strong film programming, celebrity-studded events, capped with the Asian Film Awards, honoring the best in Asian cinema.  Read more...

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Around the Horn: Kony 2012 Edition

  • March 26, 2012 10:57 am

What do you make of this whole KONY 2012 situation? It has gone under major scrutiny in the media, as well as many African groups, that it either oversimplifies the situation, making it black and white, or misinforms with glaring factual errors, to being too late in informing the world of Kony.

Michael Debert writes in The Huffington Post:“By blindly supporting Uganda’s current government and its military adventures beyond its borders, as Invisible Children suggests that people do, Invisible Children is in fact guaranteeing that there will be more violence, not less, in Central Africa.

I have seen the well-meaning foreigners do plenty of damage before, so that is why people understanding the context and the history of the region is important before they blunder blindly forward to “help” a people they don’t understand.”  Read more...

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Hope for Paws: Take That, Sarah McLachlan!

  • March 26, 2012 12:40 am

YouTube Preview ImageSaw this on my Facebook news stream and had to post it. First off, Sarah McLachlan no longer is the only Canadian chanteuse who’s cornered the market on saving maimed and abused animals. That little minx Avril Lavigne, or at least her music, is stepping it up, swelling up the water works (and yes, you will cry) for this videolog of an abandoned and blind dog who was found living in a garbage pile in LA. Cue in touchy feely animal rescuers, a flea bath, an OG Asian veterinarian, and some much needed TLC and you’ve just witnessed the story of Fiona. I want to apologize in advance for posting this, but whatever. I’m going to cry myself to sleep now.  Read more...

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Film Festival Dispatch: SFIAAFF Edition

  • March 21, 2012 12:24 am

Last week, I attended the 30th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF), a production of the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). It was great to catch up with old friends and just hang out in drizzling San Francisco, one of my fave cities ever. SFIAAFF is a staple of the Asian American film festival circuit, and really kicks off the festival season, showcasing the latest works from Asian American and Asian International filmmakers.  Read more...

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Film Festival Dispatch: SXSW Edition

  • March 20, 2012 2:40 pm

Sorry, I have been backlogged on festival blogging. I’m currently in Hong Kong attending the Filmart and HKIFF (more on that later), so back-to-back-to-back film festivals have definitely taken a toll on me. But, this is what I do, and to be in the now when it comes to indie films, you have to attend the South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW), and this recent edition was another solid year of eclectic films, lots of Texas BBQ, and of course, tons and tons of film and interactive panels.  Read more...

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ON THE OFFENSIVE: Film Festival Edition

  • March 8, 2012 12:01 am

We’re just days away from the world premiere of Sunset Stories, the feature length YOMYOMF Films debut from co-director Ernesto Foronda (writer/producer Better Luck Tomorrow) and starring Offender Sung Kang, at the South by Southwest Festival (screening info here). So it’s fitting that this week’s podcast features Offenders Justin Lin, Anderson Le, Jimmy Tsai (and occasional appearances by Philip Chung) talking about the latest at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals as well as the festival world in general and how it has changed in the last decade.

Click here to check it out.  Read more...

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Downton Abbey Rap

  • March 7, 2012 2:56 am

God, I love this show. If you haven’t watched Masterpiece Classics’ Downton Abbey, broadcast on PBS in the US, then you’re missing one heck of an addicting show. I recently got caught up, thanks to Netflix and a recent marathon on TV and I am way so damn hooked on this show. And apparently, there are millions of fans as well.

One of them is comic book rapper Adam WarRock, who does a kickass, thumpin’ ode to this kick ass show (and yes, calling a British show about a rich Earl, his family and their help staff during the turn of the 20th Century “kick ass” may be incongruous but I’m sticking to my guns). It definitely has a Lazy Sunday vibe to it, doesn’t it?YouTube Preview ImageAnd if you haven’t seen Downton Abbey yet, then get to it!  Read more...

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R.I.P. Ralph McQuarrie

  • March 4, 2012 12:42 am

Conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie has died, at the age of 82. He was the guy, instrumental in realizing the world of Star Wars for George Lucas. With his concept drawings for the likes of Darth Vader, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and pretty much the whole shebang of the Star Wars universe, his work sold 20th Century Fox in giving a young Lucas a chance in directing a film that pretty much changed everything in Hollywood.

When I was a kid, I was amazed to see these “not really Star Wars” art floating around in magazines like Starlog, especially art depicting a more slender Darth Vader with a different type of helmet or a more feminine looking C-3PO trekking through the desert, as if it walked off the Metropolis set. What I would later learn is that these were early concept drawings of Star Wars, which made it cooler because to me, they were now alternate universes of what Star Wars could be and just opened up that world for me even more. Check out some of the early concept art:  Read more...

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Sexiest HIV Awareness Ad Ever

  • March 3, 2012 11:11 pm

YouTube Preview ImageThis goes out to all the KTV (Chinese moniker for karaoke) and hostess bar girls out there! Using protection will “allow you to move forward without losing steam” and also “walk down the street, carefree.” Hmm… kind of like Mary Tyler Moore? This Malaysian Chinese ad is pure genius, especially the part where the ham sap los are rapping about who is faster than a Ferrari This is a pretty progressive awareness campaign, filled with randy fun, doesn’t take itself seriously, but at the same time, drives the point across.

Hmm, I wonder if there’s an Asian Rush Limbaughwho’s enraged right now and using the slut word a lot on the air.

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Movie Magic: BOARDWALK EMPIRE

  • March 2, 2012 8:16 pm

Many film purists complain about visual effects and computer graphics today. Ever since the magic of computer effects in Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, the way we make movies has gone through a major paradigm shift. Digital artists and animators are the new trades people of the film industry. Digital effects are in every frame of major Hollywood films, and said purists are crying foul. Case-in-point: The Star Wars prequels are essentially, fully computer animated films. There is an overflow of $200 million budgeted B-movies with giant robots, alien spaceships, and wazoo effects that are supplanting good stories, characterizations and plot.  Read more...

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