News Bytes

• Boston Progress Radio turned one year-old last week - Happy Birthday BPR. Check out the great video interview they just put up with hip hop duo Blue Scholars.
  
  
• Interesting story on Aurora Abella-Austriaco who could be Illinois' first Asian American state representative (which would be a long time coming considering the half a million Asian Americans in the state):
  
  

  Fil-Am lady lawyer’s historic run in Illinois
  
  A top Filipino-American real estate lawyer is eyeing a chance to make history in Illinois when she runs for a seat in the State Assembly. Aurora Abella-Austriaco, 43, ran unopposed in the Democratic Primary, garnering 9,875 votes, nearly double the votes of the 16-year Republican incumbent she's facing in the November 4 general election. If elected, she will be the first ever Asian American state representative in Illinois, also known as the Land of Lincoln, being the hometown of the Civil War era president. She will represent a district which includes the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, where former first lady and New York Senator Hillary Clinton grew up.

• This could get fun - my money's on Disgrasian.
  
  
• Read about this at 8Asians and I couldn't agree more - the closer we're getting to the 2008 Summer Olympics the more we're hearing about situations like this and even worse as people are being evicted from their homes to make space for the games.
  
  

  Tang Wei: “Lust, Caution” actress banned in China
  
  According to news reports, Tang Wei, the Chinese actress made famous in Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution”, is currently band from all media in China - television, film, print, etc. As you may recall, “Lust, Caution” is a suspense-thriller set during the World II era of Japanese occupied Shanghai - with Tang Wei’s character trying to seduce a Japanese collaborator, with some heated sex scenes (thus resulting in a lot of controversy)...

• Caught down at AAM that Margaret Cho will be coming back to TV on VH1 with her own new reality show called "The Cho Show" - which sounds like it could be pretty cool. There's also a good article in the SF Bay Times with her talking about her touring and stand-up.
  
  

  For Margaret Cho, her upcoming three-day engagement at The Warfield is a double homecoming. Not only does it bring Cho back to the Bay Area, it returns the San Francisco-born stand-up comedian to the artform which made her famous.
  
  With comic Liam Sullivan opening – and his "Shoes"-loving alter-ego, YouTube sensation Kelly, as special musical guest – Cho plays her hometown March 14-16 as part of her national Beautiful Tour. Here the funny lady who has carved an indelible niche for herself within the LGBT community discusses her return to stand-up, touring the country and an evolving sense of "beauty."

Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Tang Wei nominated for Independent Spirit Awards

Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Tang Wei have both been nominated for Independent Spirit Awards for their roles in Lust, Caution. Tang Wei is nominated in the Best Female Lead category and Tony Leung has been nominated in the best Male Lead category.

“Lust, Caution”: Lots of lust but no love? Banned from the Oscars, and Too Chinese?

While Ang Lee’s film Lust, Caution has been getting great reviews and doing extremely well at the box office internationally and in limited release in the states - there’s been a lot happening lately with the film - and not all of it great either - some of it seeming to have more to do with politics and being myopic than anything else.

Too Chinese?

Apparently the head of the production company that made Lust, Caution is weary of expanding the film in the U.S. because it’s a “very Chinese” film. Huh?

So martial arts and anything having to do with geisha is O.K. - but an art-house romantic war epic featuring Asian people might be too much for the general public to handle.

Banned from the Oscars

Even though Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon had few Taiwanese crew and actors associated with the film, it was still allowed to be nominated for the U.S. Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category - but this year - Taiwan’s Foreign Language Film Award Selection Committee was notified that Lust, Caution would not be allowed to compete in the category because it didn’t have enough Taiwanese crew working on it who were in “lead positions”.

So the director - famed director Ang Lee - and the screenwriter who are both Taiwanese aren’t “lead position” enough? Because one of the actors is from mainland China (Tang Wei) and they had a Mexican cinematographer and French composer it still can’t be a Taiwanese film?

It isn’t foreign language enough?

No Hong Kong Film Awards - Mostly

It seems HK is no different either. Because there weren’t enough people from Hong Kong working on the film - versus mainland China - the movie won’t be eligible for numerous awards, however it still will be able to compete for the best Asian film category at least - which allows any Asian film, regardless of how many people from HK worked on it.