You are currently browsing all entries tagged with 'community'
Forget food trucks! What about a mobile cinema? That’s right, they have them in the UK, with one film loving married couple who runs the Vintage Mobile Cinema, which houses a 22 seat theater with a DLP high definition projector and 7.1 Dolby Surround sound. Not too shabby, if you ask me. There used to be a whole fleet of these cinema-on-wheels bad boys back int the mid-60s, where the Ministry of Technology built several models to travel across the UK to promote the British film industry.
Finally got a chance to catch up on the latest episode of NBC’s Community this weekend and it reminded me again how great this show is. Normally I wouldn’t blog to just let readers know that I think a TV show is awesome, but in light of last week’s news that Community is going on a temporary “hiatus” come 2012, I’m doing just that.
For those not in the know, the show isn’t technically cancelled. It’s just being placed on hold until some undetermined time in the future when NBC will bring it back on the air. So on the surface that doesn’t sound so bad. But what often happens when an already low-rated series is benched is that its momentum is lost, people forget about it and when it does return, it’s often with little marketing muscle in a timeslot that almost guarantees it dies. If cancellation is the equivalent of shooting a show in the head and putting it quickly out of its misery, benching a show is the equivalent of shooting it in the gut and watching it die a prolonged and painful death.
PARVESH
Parvesh Cheena (that’s me, yup, I’m writing my own bio, as we tend to do) grew up in Aurora/Naperville, the suburbs outside of Chicago, Illinois. He studied acting at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign and transferred to Roosevelt University in Chicago so he could act in addition to school because he was jealous of his friends getting agents in Chicago who hadn’t even done much theatre. Anyhoo, he did some commercials, got cast in BARBERSHOP and then did more theatre and then did the sequel, BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN THE HABIT – no, that was SISTER ACT 2. Oh well. After that sequel, he auditioned for BOMBAY DREAMS, the Broadway musical, and didn’t get cast because, oh yeah, he can’t sing. So then, he – Parvesh that is, moved to Los Angeles and gave demonstrations of ice cream gelato and chicken in grocery stores and did commercials and TV and movies. He was cast as Gupta in the NBC series OUTSOURCED and can next be seen in EWP’s A WIDOW OF NO IMPORTANCE. Blah. Aren’t you bored now? Please like me. Or follow me. Or YouTube me. I’m cute but getting older.
Hi YOMYOMFers. I say it like Yom Yoff. At least when Danny Pudi and I hosted the opening night of LA ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL this past year, we said that. You know Pudi, right? He is that charming pal who I knew in Chicago before we both moved out here. He’s on television, killing it on COMMUNITY and I was on OUTSOURCED. But our show got killed this May. Funny, how KILL can be a good and bad word. Like bad, or fat (or is that PHAT for good?) or the phrase ‘shut up,’ when we hear something cool or unbelievable. I said ‘shut up’ a la Phoebe from FRIENDS (I was backstage at the CONAN show this year because his assistant is a pal, and Lisa Kudrow was on and I was scared to go up to her) … anyway, I said ‘shut up’, like that to my Mom once trying to be all hip and pop culture-y and cool and I don’t think she talked to me for a week.
What I Learned on YOMYOMF This Week is a capsule of the week’s blogs with sarcastic commentary from Yours Truly (that’s me!). If you’ve been busy and missed out on a couple of our daily gems, this is a perfect way to catch up.
But seriously – what was more important than reading YOMYOMF?
This week, the Offenders discuss whom not to rape; frisbee killings; and dental robots realistic enough to do the two-backed tango with. Thanks for the assist, Shakespeare!
INDIAN WOMAN CHOPPED OFF HEAD OF MAN WHO TRIED TO RAPE HER THEN PARADED THE HEAD AROUND TOWN:
“The woman was working in the fields; using the aforementioned sickle to cut grass when the man tried to sexually assault her. But the woman decided to defend herself. One guess what she used to fight back with?”
I would have been in suspense at this point if the title hadn’t ruined the surprise – MARK FOR SPOILERS NEXT TIME PLEASE.
By the way, Snape kills Voldemort.
VIDEO SPOTLIGHT: ASSASSIN’S CREED REVELATIONS TRAILER.:
In which I highlight an exceptional video game trailer and an interest that explains why I am forever alone.
MICHELLE
Michelle Krusiec is a critically acclaimed actress who is best known for her starring role in the romantic comedy Saving Face for which she was nominated Best Actress for the Chinese Oscar equivalent, the Golden Horse. Michelle has been globetrotting and trekking Earth as an actress, writer, solo performer, blogger and domestic violence advocate. Read her blog, her self deprecating truth telling stories about what it’s really like to be an actor. Michelle sleeps in Los Angeles, dreams about New York and eats in Asia, but really you’ll find her up near the Griffith Park Observatory with one of those Korean sun visors on.
Michelle with the cast of NBC's "Community"
I was in an audition for a big franchise film when the casting director who happened to be Asian sheepishly asked me, “Could you…did you see the note about doing it with an Asian accent?” She was a little apologetic and I detected her discomfort for having to put me in what she assumed was an uncomfortable situation. I’m not an actor who is uncomfortable with doing accents, but I have an Asian American actor friend who would have said, “Absolutely not.” It got me thinking, are we equating Asian accents with stereotypes because there’s a communal shame surrounding our lack of diverse representation for Asian Americans? When I appear on panels about AAs in the media, I’m almost always asked if we are moving away from stereotypical Asian characters, such as accented ones, and I’m torn because I want to say, there’s nothing wrong with accented characters. It’s how you portray them.
We know many of our readers weren’t able to attend the sold-out opening night screening of Fast Five (directed by my fellow Offender Justin Lin) at this year’s Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival produced by our friends at Visual Communications. Also unable to attend was Justin himself because he was in the middle of promoting his movie in Europe.
Though Justin wasn’t there, he was definitely not forgotten as the many jokes at his expense told by hosts Danny Pudi, Parvesh Cheena, Sung Kang and myself during the program made clear. But we also shot a little video during the evening featuring some of the actors who’ve worked with him in past projects like Better Luck Tomorrow and TV’s Community sending a lot of love his way so Justin could know what he was missing. Check it out and if you take anything away from this video, it should be that Justin Lin really, really misses Chevy Chase:
We had a blast at the opening of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival last week. The closing night film (Love in Disguise from our friends at Cherry Sky) and gala is tonight so thought it’d be the perfect time to share some photos from the opening as we say good-bye to another fest.
I’ve broken up the photos into two parts below.
PART 1 is a sampling of the images from the festival’s official and unofficial photographers: Grace Chang, Kristian Dowling, Allan Figuracion Jr., Elaine Hu, Steven Lam and Ivan Perez (oh, and the shot above is from our own Danny Pudi of himself with his evening’s co-host Parvesh Cheena and some new friends).
PART 2 are pictures taken by the students from the Asian Youth Center, KW Lee Center for Leadership and La Puente High School. Our generous friends at Intertrend subsidized their tickets so they could attend and I’ve been told they had a great time. Before the screening, the students got to meet with my fellow Offender and Fast Five star Sung Kang along with hosts Parvesh (Outsourced) and Danny (Community) as well as Danny’s Community co-stars Gillian Jacobs and Yvette Nicole Brown and other celebs who took the time to not only pose for photos with the teens (many of them aspiring filmmakers), but talk with them too.
If anyone else was at opening night and want to share their own photos, feel free to leave a link to them in the comments section. But without further ado…
I’ve been binging on milk lately (organic FTW). This is the truth and I’m probably the most surprised about all this since I couldn’t stand drinking the stuff as a kid.
Somehow, I’ve been able to burn through three half-gallon containers within the space of a week, which is all well and good but I’m lazy and I hate having to go to Sam’s Club so frequently to get more.
This weekend, one of my many responsibilities was to procure more of the white fluid, so I headed off to the nearest S to the C filled with dread.
If you’re reading with no idea why I’d be so apprehensive, then you’ve obviously never been to a Sam’s Club:
People buy lots of shit at Sam’s Club, moreso than in other stores. I mean, where else do they have carts like the one above?
Something about those stores activates some base hoarding instinct in people of all races and ages, and by the time I’ve gotten my one item for purchase, I’ve got a snake of a line filled with full carts waiting for me.
Outspoken director Spike Lee (Malcolm X) has never had the highest opinion of the work of fellow African American filmmaker Tyler Perry (best known for his Madea series), which Lee has said is stereotypical “coonery and buffoonery.” Apparently, Perry has had enough of Lee’s bad-mouthing because at a press conference for his latest film this week, he had some uncharacteristically harsh words for Lee.
“I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee,” Perry said. “Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, ‘this is a coon, this is a buffoon.’…Spike needs to shut the hell up!”
Perry continued to say: “I’ve never seen Jewish people attack Seinfeld and say ‘this is a stereotype,’ I’ve never seen Italian people attack The Sopranos, I’ve never seen Jewish people complaining about Mrs. Doubtfire or Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. I never saw it. It’s always black people, and this is something that I cannot undo…I’m sick of it from us. We don’t have to worry about anybody else trying to destroy us and take shots because we do it to ourselves.”
Now, Perry raises some interesting points, which I’d like to discuss in the context of the Asian American community. But first, let me just point out some issues I have with parts of Perry’s statement. I realize he most likely said these things in the heat of the moment, but there’s inaccuracies that I don’t think we should just gloss over.
Firstly, I should point out that contrary to what some might think, there were Asian nominees at this year’s Oscars: Cinematographer Matthew Libatique, composer A.R. Rahman, actor Hailee Steinfeld (who’s part Filipina), illustrator Shaun Tan (who won) and documentarian Ruby Yang. My hats off to all of them!
OK, now for the real issue at hand:
Yeah, I get it that the Oscars were pretty white-washed and there was no diversity and that sucks, blah, blah, blah. And my reaction to that is—so fucking what? Come on, this isn’t exactly breaking news, but more importantly, focusing on the Academy Awards as a target of our ire–while symbolic in many ways–doesn’t really do us any good. Why? Because the Oscars are largely reactionary and it’s always more effective to go directly to the problem rather than the reaction to the problem.
First off, a tip of the hat to fellow Offender Jerome for going out on a limb and claiming that actress Jessica Pare, who plays Don Draper’s secretary Megan (the soon-to-be Mrs. Don Draper #2), wears fake teeth on the show. In the season finale, Megan tells Don how her flitty little LA actress friend told her she’d never make it in show biz because of her teeth. Unbelievable! They made a plot point out of Jerome’s crackpot theory! Young man, I salute you.
And is it any wonder Megan’s little friend was sniping at her? Fake teeth or no, Megan is so much hotter than her, especially in that sexy black dress with the diamond cutout she wore to the Whiskey A Go Go.
I have been challenged to write about Inception once a week until the end of the year. Not that this really changes anything because I was planning on doing that anyway.
If you’ve seen Inception, you know that one of the greatest points of contention is the ending. The fact that I mentioned ‘Inception’ and ‘ending’ in the same sentence should serve as enough of a spoiler alert, but just in case:
SPOILER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT
What I enjoy most about walking out of films like this is the snippets of spirited discussions I hear from people who went there with friends. As I leave the theater alone, sniffing quietly, it becomes obvious that the film has left an impression on the audience, something more than a smoking crater in their eardrum from a volley of explosions. And more often than not in this film’s case, the way it ends is what lingers in people’s minds, an idea planted that will grow to, well-
Is it real? Is it a dream? Does the top fall? Does it even matter?
