The Lakers’ Coaching Carousel – A Lesson in Leverage

  • November 12, 2012 7:18 pm

If you’re a hoopshead like I – and several other family members on this site – am/are, then all you’ve been hearing about today is the Lakers’ decision to go with Mike D’Antoni over Phil Jackson to fill the coaching vacancy created by the firing of Mike Brown. But what gets me every time one of these things happens is all the impassioned conjecture and confusion over why things happened the way they did. In this case, it’s stuff like: why did the Lakers pull the trigger on D’Antoni Sunday night before Phil Jackson’s agent had a chance to start negotiations on Monday? Wasn’t this Phil’s “job to lose”? Who was whispering in Jim Buss’s ear and swaying him away from Phil?

Without needing to know the exact details of what happened or who said what (or debating over whether D’Antoni was the right fit), all this can be understood very simply if you just boil it down to one simple thing: leverage. People tend to let emotion get in the way when it comes to trying to understand these dealings, but it’s really quite common in business, and would make everything a lot more easier to accept if people just tried to see exactly where the leverage is in each situation. My family members Justin and Norith always label me as a “company man” when I go into these soliloquys, but it’s really not about choosing sides so much as it is just trying to understand the situation and why things unfold the way they do.  Read more...

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“J” to the “Z”

  • August 6, 2012 11:21 pm

As a viewer of the Olympics and a bilingual speaker of English and Mandarin Chinese, I feel like it is my duty to point out an ongoing error in broadcasters’ pronunciation of the city “Beijing.” With the current Olympics going on, there have been opportunities aplenty to reference the previous 2008 Olympics that, of course, took place in Beijing. So I am hearing this error repeated time after time…after time…after time (and I can’t possibly be the only one who is annoyed by this).

Here’s the thing: “Beijing” is one of those words that should just be pronounced as it’s written in English. Don’t try to get fancy with it. For some reason, I keep hearing broadcasters pronouncing the “j” as a “ziuh” sound (as in “je ne sais quoi” or “photogenie”).

Let me clue all you people in on something with my somewhat-limited knowledge of the Mandarin language: that “ziuh” sound DOES NOT EVEN EXIST IN MANDARIN. “Beijing” is pronounced with a hard “jay” sound. BEI (bay) JING (jing). Get it?!  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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THE HKVD Experiment

  • February 3, 2012 12:10 pm

Pop question for the day: what would the HKVD Experiment look like today in 2012?

What is the HKVD Experiment you ask? No, it’s not some kind of new venereal disease imported from Asia. What I’m referring to is the Hong Kong Van Damme Experiment. Back in the nineties, when the leading men in movies all sported physiques mirroring action figures, one of the more interesting things to come out of Hollywood for action fans were a series of movies each starring Jean Claude Van Damme and directed by an internationally-renown director from Hong Kong.

It all started with HARD TARGET, by the cinematic master of the heroic bloodshed genre, John Woo. It was then followed by DOUBLE TEAM (Tsui Hark) and MAXIMUM RISK (Ringo Lam). The directors of those two movies obviously liked working with the Muscles from Brussels enough to go for a second round, and thus were born the movies KNOCK OFF and REPLICANT (one of the gems of the JCVD oeuvre, in my humble opinion). It was an interesting experiment for an action movie nut like myself, in that you were afforded the opportunity to see different directors and their unique stylistic tendencies given similar material with the same actor (on a larger scale, kind of like what the ALIEN series has been able to do in its various incarnations with four different auteurs).  Read more...

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YOMYOMF Podcast: On the Offensive – The Itch Edition

  • January 10, 2012 3:00 pm

If you’ve been following YOMYOMF over the holidays, you may have read about some of our members’ moment in the spotlight of the fantasy sports universe via an ESPN/Grantland Bill Simmons column. Well, if you’re interested in following our soap opera of a fantasy league (declared by Simmons as “the greatest fantasy league EVER” – his words, not mine), we’ve got a bit of a follow-up.

Several of our basketball-crazed Offenders and extended members of the Family gathered together last week to present the second official podcast of the YOMYOMF network, which we’ve come to name “On the Offensive,” with this version aptly being the sports edition, or what we like to call, “The Itch.”  Read more...

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Buy in Bulk

  • December 7, 2011 1:28 pm


With the holiday shopping season in full swing now, I’d like to proffer a suggestion to all you holiday shoppers (esp. those of you who are of the semi-lazy variety) who are having problems figuring out what to purchase for your various friends, family, colleagues, etc. It’s an idea that will not only save you time but actually also contribute exponentially to the Asian American arts.

Buy in bulk.

Yes, we’re all familiar with the general idea, especially those of us who are frugal, thrifty, cheap (whatever you want to call it). You make the semi-weekly runs to Costco or Sam’s Club or whichever massive warehouse store is in your geographical area, and you purchase a buttload of the same item at the same time (usually at only a small discount if you do the actual math).  Read more...

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THE TOWN: The Greatest John Woo Movie Since FACE/OFF

  • November 17, 2011 5:09 pm

Calling all film buffs, enthusiasts, and scholars in the YOMYOMF community. Time for some film discourse.

Yeah, I’m not talking the superficial film fluff most movie sites pedal these days – I’m talking good ole’ fashioned film school essay shit. The stuff where you have to dig in deep and understand terms like “diagetic,” “theme,” and “motif” (bonus points for those of you who know what a “leitmotif” without having to google it).

Today’s thesis sentence: The Town is the greatest John Woo movie since Face/Off.

(spoiler alert: this essay will divulge significant plot details about both the film version of The Town as well as the book it was based on, Prince of Thieves, by Chuck Hogan; if you haven’t seen or read either and want to be surprised, read no further…or watch/read first, then come back for some healthy film discourse and see whether you agree or not.)

Okay, before you naysayers start crying, “Jimmy, you dumbass, John Woo had nothing to do with The Town,” first let me say that I am well-aware that John Woo neither produced, directed, nor had anything to do with The Town; I am, instead, using the term “John Woo movie” as a sub-genre.

What exactly is a “John Woo movie,” you ask?  Read more...

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Economic Win-Win Proposal

  • October 30, 2011 10:32 am

In this season of economic plans and proposals, I have one of my own that I think would be a win-win for the countries of both the United States and China. Want to hear it? Here it goes.

First, the facts (or, at least, estimated facts). Number one: according to reports, the U.S. debt to China is roughly $1.6 trillion at last count. Number two: according to estimates and reports, the U.S. movie industry loses approximately $1.2 billion to piracy of their products in China. Sure, the government there says that they’re actively “destroying” pirated DVDs, but, come on now, who are we really kidding?  Read more...

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On the Business…of Business

  • October 27, 2011 1:18 pm

As this NBA lockout drags on (when will it ever end?!), a ridiculous number of comments/posts/articles remind me of a misuse of terminology I see continually perpetuated in conversations revolving around both the business of basketball as well as the business of film. It’s a misuse or misunderstanding of common business-related terms, something most business students learn in Business Administration 1A (or whatever class number is assigned to the “Introduction to Business” course at the college level). Here it goes:

The terms “revenue” and “profit” are NOT interchangeable.

I repeat: the terms “revenue” and “profit” are NOT interchangeable.

In this latest NBA lockout conversation, a number of complaints have arisen (mostly from the players’ side, understandably) about how the NBA has seen a “growth in revenue” in the last few years and how this should be justification that players need not sacrifice anything even given the current state of the economy.  Read more...

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On the Origins of Things: “Shanghaied”

  • August 23, 2011 9:11 am

As a writer and a lover of language (amongst many other things), I find myself wondering frequently about things like word usage, word origins, and common vernacular versus acceptable written practice.

For example, in screenwriting, I find it acceptable to use the term “wanna” in dialogue because that’s the way that people actually speak when referring to “want to.” However, I would never spell the word “wanna” outside of dialogue passages or in very casual written conversation (e.g. emails/texts with friends). I also find myself annoyed when I read someone writing the word “wanna” to substitute for the phrase “want a” as in “I wanna sandwich.” Why? Because it serves no purpose. The reason “wanna” works as a stand-in for “want to” is because, on top of it actually sounding that way when spoken quickly, it actually functions as a written abbreviation as well (“wanna” is comprised of five letters while “want to” is comprised of six – or seven, if you include the space). Substituting “wanna” for “want a”, in my opinion, is a misappropriation of the term, and, I figure, one that serves no real purpose outside of showing that the writer doesn’t necessarily think through these things (at least relative to me; maybe I am just overly anal when it comes to grammar and language).  Read more...

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On the Origins of Things: “Dragonsaurs”

  • August 17, 2011 12:01 am

As people become more educated and knowledge circulates faster and faster around the globe, we begin to understand why certain things happen and how people possibly came to believe in things that seem absurd once you know the facts. You know, things like lightning bolts being thrown down by Zeus, the earth being flat, people walking across water (I’m referring to David Blaine, of course).

Which got me to thinking: what about the myth of dragons? How can two vastly different cultures – European and Chinese – produce such a similar mythical creature before the advent of telephone and Skype?

The answer: I believe definitively that the legend of dragons was birthed by dinosaur bones found in the days of yore.  Read more...

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Great Movie Wisdom Comes in Threes

  • August 8, 2011 12:05 am

You know the many sayings about how certain things come in threes: animals in children’s stories (bears, pigs, etc), religious icons, celebrity deaths. Here’s another one to add to the list:

Great pieces of movie wisdom.

Okay, technically, one of them isn’t a movie; it’s a television series. Game of Thrones.

It’s the saying: “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

In Game of Thrones, this piece of brilliant dialogue comes via Queen Cersei Lannister (as played in the television series by the beautiful Lena Headey).  Read more...

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