Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Put it up on the glass: Surrogate Valentine poster framed and hanging in Brooklyn Academy of Music’s cinema.
Surrogate Valentine debuted in New York last Thursday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music‘s BAMCinemaFest of new films. The film’s stars came out and shone along with all the East Coast Asian Pacific American stars.
Director Dave Boyle (left) and star Goh Nakamura (right) introduce the film, explain they’ll be drinking during the screening but will return after for a Q&A.
The film’s over and they’re back, joined by co-executive producer, Michael Lerman.
The women of Surrogate Valentine step up: left to right, Di Quon, Mary Cavett and Lynn Chen. Co-writer Joel Clark has snuck in on the far right.
Di gets goofy.
Goh is the best. He’s like when Beyonce is both the guest star and the musical guest on SNL.
Dive in. It’s a nightmare scenario and it’s unfortunately true. The controlling and menacing man you’ve married has cheated on you, but something even worse is waiting down the line. You’re already trying to resolve a working life with a writing life, never mind a marriage that feels like you’re being held under house arrest for charges never specified. Angela Tung’s Black Fish explores so many great themes. Trying to pursue art to the antagonism and mockery of your spouse and relatives. Spending time “in the homeland” and finding out you’re a foreigner there, too. Wondering why you’re so unlucky while others around you seem to find happiness so easily. All of this is shot through with Tung’s East Coast Asian American sensibility, a certain toughness to the voice even when enduring humiliations at the hands of her husband and in-laws. Black Fish is the kind of book you read with your mouth open as bad things inevitably turn worse. And yet, even with the threat of an ill-tempered and unpredictable husband always looming, there is hope. If you bring this book to the beach this summer, you won’t make it into the water. It’s that great a read.
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(Thank you, B.D. Wong)
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You know them from the placemats at Chinese restaurants. Right to left: pig, dog, rooster and half a monkey. Over Memorial Day I got a chance to swing by and see Ai Weiwei’s sculpture exhibit at the Plaza Hotel at the southeast corner of Central Park. Toughest chicken ever! Right to left: rooster, monkey, sheep, horse and snake. The odd thing is that there isn’t a sign describing the heads sitting in the Pulitzer Fountain. There isn’t even a sign that notes the name of the artist or the title of the work (“Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads“). Maybe it was meant to echo China’s silencing of Ai Weiwei via jail. The rabbit is in a rather precarious spot. Right to left: dragon, rabbit, tiger and ox. What is the meaning behind the art itself? Surely it echos the bronze zodiac heads of a famous ancient water clock that were looted from China by British and French forces in the Opium War. It may also be a comment on capital punishment in China (the highest in the world on an annual basis, though not on a per-capita basis). The first time I saw the tiger, I thought it was a bear! Right to left: tiger, ox and rat. Or perhaps the 12 animals represent the mercurial nature and hypocrisy of the Communist Party of China, and the different masks it wears year-to-year, day-to-day, depending on whom it is addressing and what it ultimately wants. I’m just saying. Los Angelenos: Don’t be bummed you’re not in New York City. The exhibit is coming to LACMA in September!
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You didn’t grow up with a tiger mom. As you may or may not know, the public restaurant-grading system has recently come to New York. This pizza joint in the Theater District is the first C that I’ve seen, though. Places seem to have an A, B or “Rating Pending” (which actually means they are challenging the grade given). My wife, who grew up in L.A., says she has never seen a C anywhere. If you run a joint that gets a C rating, you obviously don’t give a damn. If you eat there, you also obviously don’t give a damn, and this place was pretty packed.
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