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YOMYOMF at Sundance: The Best Of Edition

  • January 29, 2012 4:24 pm

Justin Lin at Sundance 2012 Awards Ceremony / credit: David Magdael

I’m back in LA, enjoying the summer like weather… This year’s Sundance was a mixed bag for me, with the documentaries being the strongest component of the programming and questionable quality when it came to the batch of narrative features. But, that’s a trend that has been going on for awhile now, especially in the indie film world. Maybe it’s the fact that we live in an instantaneous world of 24-hour news cycles and Youtube video uploads capturing immediate reports and movements, ranging from the Arab Spring to “Shit My Blank” memes, life tends to be stranger than fiction. But, it was great to hang out with some Offender cronies, in a phat house, and in the end, my viewing experience in the second half of the Festival was much better. I already mentioned THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES and BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (which won the Grand Prize for US Dramatic Competition, which Offender Justin was on the jury for),  in a previous Sundance report, so here’s my top picks from this year (in no particular order):  Read more...

YOMYOMF at Sundance: Once More with Feeling

  • January 29, 2012 12:17 am

So in a few hours, the last Offenders standing at Sundance (Justin, Elaine and myself) will be heading back to L.A. where I hear we’ve been experiencing beach weather. It’s going to be quite a change from this:

After Thursday’s snow adventure, the sun’s been shining in Park City making the weather picture perfect in my book: snow on the ground, sun in the sky. It’s certainly the perfect weather to sit inside a toasty theater with a thousand other film fans to watch movies, which for me included everything from Up the Yangtze director Yung Chang’s moving new documentary China Heavyweight–about boxing dreams in a small Chinese province–to Smashed—a dramedy about an L.A. woman struggling with alcoholism starring my new Sundance crush–the very talented Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

 Read more...

YOMYOMF at Sundance: Snow Day, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Foodie Heaven

  • January 27, 2012 1:35 am

Yesterday was a fun-filled day here at Sundance. The big event was our friend/colleague Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Hit Record at the Movies. I attended with my fellow Offenders Justin, Anderson, Elaine and indie film guru John Sloss. Anderson already posted the live video stream of the event (click here). Justin took part when Joseph invited him to help shoot a scene from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer featuring Joseph and “indie queen” Parker Posey (who still is hot, BTW) live on stage for an upcoming short video. Will be curious to see how that comes together and, of course, we’ll post the finished video on YOMYOMF when it’s done.

That's Justin with his back to us.

Joseph really made sure there was plenty of audience interaction by doing everything from bringing up people who wanted to sing for a future project and answering interesting tweets (Best line of the night from Joseph during one of the conversations with an audience tweeter: “A hipster is someone who dresses up like an artist, but who doesn’t make shit.”).  Read more...

YOMYOMF at Sundance: hitRECord

  • January 27, 2012 12:19 am

YOMYOMF attended Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s multimedia live event hitRECord tonight at the Sundance Film Festival. Offender Justin was also part of the event, which was hosted by Gordon-Levitt and some help from the “queen of indies,” Parker Posey. Not knowing what hitRECORD was, I was introduced to a very cool project — an open collaborative production company, where people can submit video, writings, songs, drawings, and have them culled together into short films.

Tonight’s hitRECord event at Sundance was held at the Eccles Theatre, and there were literally 1,200 screaming fans. It was full of energy and Levitt was an affable host that would at times, make girls swoon. There was lots of audience participation as well, and using social media and recording was encouraged.  Read more...

YOMYOMF at Sundance: Top 10 White People Problems

  • January 26, 2012 1:00 am

Ordering a “quadruple stacker” at Burger King and washing it down with screwdrivers at 1 in the morning will make you do silly things. As we congregate around the kitchen, eating unhealthy food and getting drunk after an exhausting day of film viewing at Sundance, we realize that there is a unifying theme with said films… These plots deal with problems and situations that only seem to happen to white people. Therefore, here’s our Top 10:

1. Dealing with awkwardness of your husband’s pants tent because of your hot houseguest.

2. Worrying if your dad is going to keep his high-paying job or retire.  Read more...

YOMYOMF at Sundance: The First Time

  • January 24, 2012 7:44 pm

In a few hours, I’ll be boarding a very early flight to Salt Lake City to join some of my fellow Offenders including Justin, Elaine and Anderson for the second half of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Unlike the others, this is my first time at the fest. I try to avoid anything that reeks of Hollywood glitziness (which is why I also wasn’t there for the first half of the fest when most of the Paris Hilton types are in attendance), but with a YOMYOMF cabin this year and Anderson’s promise of coke and whores, I couldn’t resist.

And yes, everyone looks exactly the same 10 years later. Vampires or Asians?

And speaking of Sundance and first times, I should point out that Justin’s Better Luck Tomorrow premiered at Sundance exactly ten years ago this year. That was also the first trip to the fest for most of the Offenders—like Sung and Roger–who worked on the film (though not the last, many of the same crew would be back for Finishing the Game).  Read more...

YOMYOMF at Sundance: We’re too old for this shit

  • January 22, 2012 11:36 pm

That’s our pal Parvesh Cheena at the Youtube Party last night, representing YOMYOMF. As for me, Elaine and Justin, we had late screenings, there was a major snowstorm, and our collective creaky bones couldn’t muster the strength to go all out partying. As for me, I needed to head back to the massive house that Justin rented for the family and get my sore and cold feet on some heated, hardwood floors. So, after a quick Burger King run, we made it home and just talked shop for hours.  Read more...

YOMYOMF at Sundance Film Festival

  • January 21, 2012 1:09 pm

YOMYOMF is representing at the Sundance Film Festival throughout the week. Justin Lin, our fearless leader, is on the Narrative Jury, so he’s shackled with festival jury duty until the very end. Offender Elaine and I, on the other hand, are partaking in as many screenings as we can. Elaine is a crazy cinephile, and a screening machine, so she is out in about watching films and booking lots of meetings with industry players. As for me, I arrived a day late, and actually road tripped from LA to Park City, which is always a fun drive (with a quick stop in Las Vegas for breakfast buffet and a couple of hands at the blackjack table). I have to play catch up to Justin and Elaine, who have seen a number of films already.  Read more...

INTERPRETATIONS Filmmaking Panel (LIVE BLOGGING 2-4PM PST)

  • May 2, 2010 8:34 am

LIVE BLOGGING STARTS HERE AT 2 PM SO CHECK BACK AND REFRESH…

UPDATE (NOON): I’M AT DGA PREPPING FOR OUR PANEL SO STARTING LIVE BLOGGING EARLY. KEEP REFRESHING ALL AFTERNOON FOR UPDATES.

Reminder that we’ll be live blogging here and tweeting during Interpretations: So You Really Want To Make Films? panel this afternoon at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival from 2-4 PM PST (that’s West Coast time for those not in the know). If you have tickets, we recommend showing up early to stake out a spot. If you don’t but want to take a shot at rush tickets, again show up early. We’ll do our best to get in as many people as we can. But for the rest of you, check in right here this afternoon and keep hitting that refresh button for updates.

We’ve commissioned eight talented filmmakers to make short films for us, which we’ll be using to launch this initiative. We’ll be screening a few of them at the panel today and you can see the rest at the festival through a special app via your iPhone. Just stop by the Toyota Lounge or the area where the cars are being displayed to see how. All the shorts will eventually be up on our new Interpretations site (which should be up and running at some point today). Some of the shorts are playing “exclusively” at the fest so they won’t be online until after Thursday so definitely be the first to see them if you stop by the fest. And here are our eight commissioned filmmakers:

 Read more...

Little Saigon, OG Style

  • February 10, 2010 4:41 am

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a field trip with some Offenders to check out the various coffee shops in Westminster, CA or Little Saigon. With over 300,000 Vietnamese residing there, it is the largest Vietnamese population outside of the motherland. It was a fun excursion and at our last stop, Cafe Miss Cutie, I left with a parting gift:

Yes, I got a calendar, which you can order online. It hangs next to my other calendar of Yoshitomo Nara. Yeah, it’s kind of incongruent, but hey, I can deal with the dichotomy of mutant big headed babies and tasteful shots of Vietnamese pseudo-models overseeing my workspace.  Read more...

Coffee Girl of the Day

  • January 31, 2010 4:04 pm

This past weekend, YOMYOMF Offenders Phil, Anderson, Emmie and I took a field trip to some Vietnamese Coffee House’s in the O.C.

As I’m growing more grey hairs on the side of my head, I realize what qualities are more important in my dream woman. I know every “nice guy” is trained to say its her personality and in normal world it’s quite true. But in bizarro Vietnamese Coffee house world, the most important quality is not her personality but rather her passion in tea pouring.

 Read more...

The Vietnamese Coffee Experience

  • January 30, 2010 12:15 pm

WE’RE LIVE-BLOGGING, BABY!

UPDATE: Inspired by Anson’s post on Vietnamese coffee houses where the waitresses are scantily-clad women, some of us Offenders decided to do some “research” and investigate a few of these establishments. I decided to blog about our afternoon in real time. The Offenders who were with me–Anderson, Anson and Emmie–have also promised to post their own blogs in the near future (with additional photos, of course).

12:10 PM: I’m here with two of my fellow Offenders Anson and Anderson at Cafe Di Vang in Garden Grove enjoying a nice cup of Vietnamese coffee. More detailed blogs to come later but thought I’d just do some updates throughout the afternoon. Stay tuned.

12:16 PM: Offender Emmie called to say she is on her way so that this does not turn into just a sausage fest.

12:20 PM: Anderson is the “expert” on these establishments and he is filling us in on his experiences. He says people come here and hang out all day and it looks that way. It’s pretty packed on a Saturday afternoon. People hanging out playing Chinese chess and keno.  Read more...