To the Fast X box office haters - 'cause you know you're out there (I've seen you) - Fast X is now the top 3rd film for 2023. And this is the TENTH INSTALLMENT.
Think about franchises and think about 10 installments.
Number One - How many core ideas can really become franchises?
Number Two - When you think about franchises, and those not based in Marvel/DC land because it's vastly different where they have multiple franchises - how many really get 10 films (and more)?
Exactky.
And how many still have the hype and expectations of Fast X?
Exactly.
Pretty amazing if you ask me--thankful for the all the AANHPA goodness that has helped make this franchise what it has been.
According to reports at Deadline, this is looking to be huge:
SATURDAY AM: Disney’sThe Little Mermaidis staying on its great course, maintaining that $38M Friday (which includes previews) for what is shaping up to be an estimated $104M 3-day and a 4-day between $120M-$130M. At that upper part of the threshold, the pic is the third-best opening for a movie over Memorial Day weekend.
Audience exits are great, with an “A” CinemaScore (same grade as Disney’s live-action Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King). Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak notched 91% positive and a 76% definite recommend, while kids under 12 were over the moon at 92% positive and a 69% definite recommend. Natch, heavy female leaning at 68%, with 61% between 18-34, and the largest demo being millennial 25-34 year olds at 35%. Diversity demos strong across the board, with 35% Black, 25% Latino and Hispanic, 26% Caucasian and 11% Asian. Most vibrant lands for Ariel were the East, South, and South Central.
Take a classic. Live Action it. Make it diverse. Get a huge opening. How does this go over people's heads. And it has Awkwafina in it, who's getting some great animation parts lately (which is awesome to see...and hear).
And the Danielle from New Jeans doing the Korean version (who did the Korean Ariel dub)
While we have to lament the fact that Justin Lin is no longer with the franchise as a director (but who's still on as a producer)--that doesn't mean his contributions to the franchise and keeping it alive aren't still a HUGE piece of the franchise and that you still can't be hyped for FAST X, Sung Kang, and Jason Momoa.
Sung Kang Looks Great
Just noting for the record how awesome Sung Kang looks.
“It’s also a form of commerce and it makes money,” the actor said. “But it’s an art. And no one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give into the latest, most current idea of what morality is.” [...]
He then cited a bit of a history regarding Laurence Olivier being “the last white actor to play Othello,” referring to the 1965 film, in which the British actor performed in blackface. Dreyfuss praised the performance, saying Olivier played the role “brilliantly.” “Am I being told that I will never have a chance to play a Black man?” Dreyfuss said [...]
Hoover pushed back, asking if there’s “a difference between the question of representation and who is allowed to represent other groups … and the case of blackface, given the history of slavery and the sensitives around black racism?”
First--funny how people have asked for me to post on so much shit over the years in regard to film, but you call closing your ranks when it comes to MF Joy Ride. Cool. I get it. But that's why I'm also blogger and not beholden to any MF's.
Second. Listen--when you are posting up on this film--and see my other post on this cause I'm not trying to sink it--it's not just a tale about identity and self-discovery.
It's about a Chinese American who was adopted going back to China--the motherlands--to search for their Chinese family, their original family. By not talking about it, you are ERASING A WHOLE GROUP OF MF's that already can get left out of the diaspora--now a WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE IS DEDICATED TO THIS JOURNEY--WHICH A LOT OF TIMES IS NOT SOME HAPPY MF TIME--and you MF's leave that shit out?
I would like you to re-think that shit MFs.
At least get that shit correct because you're leaving out a FUCK TON when you leave that shit out.
“Every time I see that fucking video ... I see my son. There is no safe place in America anymore ... not because of books, not because of trans kids … because we value things over people.”
— Texas State Rep. Gene Wu (D) urges gun control following the Allen mall mass shooting pic.twitter.com/7LLcnUcGFw
As more news comes out about the shooting at the Allen Mall in Texas we are learning more about the victims of the shooting with many being Asian American. Right now from current news reports the following have been identified.
Daniela Mendoza (4th grade) and her sister Sofia Mendoza (2nd grade)
Aishwarya Thatikonda, 26
Christian LaCour, 20
Elio Cumana-Rivas, 32
The Shooter Had Connections To Racist Groups
As being reported by the BBC, the shooter had ties to racist groups:He was seen on video with a clothing patch with the letters RWDS, which stands for "Right Wing Death Squad". This is a phrase popular among right-wing extremists and white supremacy groups [...] An account run by the suspect on a Russia-based social network seen by BBC News includes pictures of Nazi swastikas and SS tattoos, other posts glorifying Nazis, and rambling messages about violence
What Do We Have To Do?
To be honest, I don't know what happens next. What do we do? How do we combat both lobbyists and industry here in the US to have sensible gun laws as well as combat racism against Asian Americans, immigrants, and BIPOC?
How do you shoot a fucking 3 year-old? What allows someone to think they should and can get away with this--and they did, let's be fucking honest. What makes you see a Korean American family and shoot to kill? I don't understand--I mean, I understand, but there's a culture here in the U.S. that makes people think this is OK. And it's backed by these conversations that we let happen, versus saying there's no place for them--versus not electing politicians to a seat who have views that create the foundation for this.
And a 2th grader? A 4th grader? 8 and 10 around? What makes someone think that killing them serves any purpose? Just to say they don't care if we're dead or alive?
This is so fucked up.
And the significance of it happening in APIA Heritage Month and just after Cinco De Mayo?
That makes it even more fucked up.
I don't know.
I honestly just don't fucking know.
But I will say this. I am glad that fucker is dead.
To all those that last everything--what do you say? You can't. There's nothing that could be said to them to truly comfort them. Not right at least I believe.
But what we need to do is not let racism die. In all its forms, we have to combat it. We have to stand up to it. I don't care where it is, if you're getting thrown down some racist MF shit at the hands of people--even those liberals who think they aren't racist but uphold racist structures--we have to call it out.
In some way, we have to make it known we won't stand for this.
This a great article by RUTH CHIZUKO MURAI who won the Excellence in Written Reporting, Features Award for her article.
Here's a snippt:
The disappearance of my family’s farm can be traced back even further than the executive order that forced them to leave. Japanese immigrants had started to come to California in the early 20th century, and the backlash started immediately, in the same mold of the anti-Chinese bias that was already prevalent.
In May 1900, the San Francisco Labor Council held a meeting to address the tensions. White laborers were fearful for their jobs, but San Francisco Mayor James Duval Phelan emphasized that Japanese immigration was not just a labor issue. It was an existential threat, on par with the surge that led to the fall of Rome. He stated that immigration was “not a labor question, nor a local one, but an American question involving the existence of our Republic.” In a speech applauded by the attendees, Mayor Phelan said he believed that Japanese “aren’t the stuff of which American citizens can be made.”
When you actively say to other public workers to back off when they wanted to check George Floyd's vitals--that alone is enough to warrant a conviction.
Finally - one of the last pieces of justice to be served. Already convicted on Federal Civil Rights chargers, and looking at the other sentencing it's safe to say that Thao will be in there around 6 years.
"In 1977 Reps. Frank Horton of New York introduced House Joint Resolution 540
to proclaim the first ten days in May as Pacific/Asian American
Heritage Week. In the same year, Senator Daniel Inouye introduced a
similar resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 72. Neither of these resolutions passed, so in June 1978, Rep. Horton introduced House Joint Resolution 1007.
This resolution proposed that the President should “proclaim a week,
which is to include the seventh and tenth of the month, during the first
ten days in May of 1979 as ‘Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.’”
This joint resolution was passed by the House and then the Senate and
was signed by President Jimmy Carter on October 5, 1978 to become Public Law 95-419
(PDF, 158kb). This law amended the original language of the bill and
directed the President to issue a proclamation for the “7 day period
beginning on May 4, 1979 as ‘Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.’”
During the next decade, presidents passed annual proclamations for
Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week until 1990 when Congress passed Public Law 101-283 (PDF, 166kb) which expanded the observance to a month for 1990. Then in 1992, Congress passed Public Law 102-450 (PDF, 285kb) which annually designated May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.
The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the
first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the
anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May
10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese
immigrants."
I while back I was generating some images on DALL·E because I wanted to see how good it was on rendering Asian people vs other people, and one of the things that stood out for me was the fact that that it did no really understand the word Hmong. It tried to come up with some images, but literally every other image in a set of 4 was like a window or some just non-defined shape. I was pretty surprised actually (albeit I guess I shouldn't have been).
But I was checking in just a little bit ago, and I mean - it's at least better now. Even after multiple generations, it still has some issues, which tells me about the depth--because in order to truly understand what it's capable of you need to go through mutliple generations--of understanding that DALL·E has on "what" a Hmong person is--vs:
Korean
Vietnamese
Thai
Chinese (so so)
South Asian (I know...it's general)
And some are still not awesome, but it at least had something and I thought did a pretty clean representation.
But Hmong was definitely not looking good. Now I'm not Hmong, so I can't speak to some things, but I guess I was kind of happy it looked at least somewhat recognizeable in some ways...which takes us though back tot he questions of what makes us--us--and how we're represented and I think AI is becoming a good indicator of how some of the world sees us (and the world at large)--but also taking into account how data and images are gathered--because that speaks volumes too.
Everyone's pretty much heard about this, based on the 2006 graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, and having Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in it, and overall looks like it should be pretty cool.
I can't help but think though at the same time, purely from a representation standpoint in media from this age group (at least what I would project them to be focusing on), there's still this connection on Asian Americanness to Asia and to martial arts, again strictly from a mainstream media representation vs having another theme dedicated to it--
Wouldn't it be cool to see a new show based on Chloe Kim and a snowboarding theme? How about a band/music theme? What about crazy painter from another world? I know I know--it's just not marketable they say.
You might be thinking to yourself well it's a part of culture and history--and absolutely--but there are also droves of Asian Americans where martial arts isn't even on the radar.
From the filming to the lighting to the music to the old school vibe of just hanging out on a front porch and singing some songs--it's a classic cover.
The slantyapolis blog (formerly SEFTRE) has served millions of views to 500K-1M+ individuals, trying to help in its own way, to give voice to the Asian and Asian American community, as well as document it, over the last 17 years. Sometimes op-ed, sometimes straight news, sometimes off the beaten path--the continued impetus remains that there's power in sharing voices and in sharing your own voice and reflecting that back into the communities you belong to.
If you're looking for the 2008 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).
2007 In Review Posts
If you're looking for the 2007 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).
