Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Day 2. Saw Shanghai Kiss, Undoung, and Year of the Fish. Shanghai Kiss features this dude… Ken Leung. I’ve seen this dude in a commercial, running years ago. I remember watching this with my cousin Mike, and we used to say stupid stuff like, man, Asian Americans from the East Coast look different. It was a joke, since Mike acts, and had no idea who this dude is/was. But then lo and behold, he’s in at least two movies in this festival! Then I found out, he’s in Xmen, the guy with the spikey face, and is in tons of films. He’s big time. So I look him up on IMDB, he’s wearing a rice picker hat! This film also features Kelly Hu. Then later before Undoing, I see Undoing director, Chris Chan Lee who helmed Yellow. We’re going up the escalator to his Undoing SF debut. We reminisce a bit about the 10 years that elapsed since we were filmmakers together in SF. He looks exactly the same. Me, hell no. He’s a special guy, and it was nice to see him. LA’s so bit, I’ve probably seen him 3 times in ten years just for instances. 10 years between feature films. That’s tenacity. Again,his film also features Kelly Hu. The last film was Year of the Fish done in Rotoscope just like Scanner Darkly! I guess there’s lower budget ways to do that too. Ken Leung was in this one and it features massage parlors. I liked one line that went something like, (in a FOB Chinese HO voice) “yuu stik yo fingaaa in asss-hole all da tyyme.” I can’t give opinions here at all, but the goal is to compare them to each other, and it’ll be tough! (forgot to add the dude with the glasses is Sooyoung Park who was in Seam and ee.)
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Saw a lot of the Super 7 folks today Brian and Dora and we were at the shop then at their studio. They’re great folks, it’s all you need to know… But in a few, it’s movie time. I think I have three screenings tonite for the Film Fest. It’s on now.
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As some of you know, I’m a juror at this event. Today is day one. I’m hanging out in the car ride from the airport when “ring” my phone goes off and poof it’s cousin Dan Auto calling me for lunch. We go to a Yucatan spot on Valencia and 15th. The film event was the opening film Finishing the Game by Justin Lin. It made it’s SF premier and opened this film fest. It is one of the twelve films I need to watch. Since I’m a juror, I’ll give no opinions of the film yet. Enjoy the photos. We also went to the after party at the Asian Museum, and then ate Sushi, then went to Jade Bar where there was yet another event. There, I see Justin, Sung Kang, Quinten Lee, Karin Anna Cheung, and many other great folks including festival organizers like Chi-hui Yang, and others. People are friendly when they get a little bit of liquids in them!
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In the Desert there are dinosaurs. It’s in Cabazon… These stand monstrous and you can sort of see them from the freeway, but when you get there you find out a lot. 1) The T Rex is open only on the weekends. For $2 you can go inside to it’s mouth.2) The Bronto has a shop inside. The shop sells no original merchandise. BUT, inside there was religious TV playing and a nice woman watching it. 3) There’s a free pamphlet. Grad that and read the parts that are about dinosaurs which is fine, but then read the parts that are anti evolution! No! We didn’t come from apes! Man is NOT Ape! 4) Now you find out this is entirely a religious “theme park” and it’s two dinosaurs in the middle of the desert. It’s all bizarre. 5) Get some pennies smashed.
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