trying to make sense of the madness
Good luck on the marathon circuit guys! Glad to hear that you're all keeping in shape!
Since we are on the topic of indian themed movies, have any of you heard of/seen Monsoon wedding? I think it debuted on video/DVD late last year. It's a decent flick, set in India in a family that is preparing for a festive wedding. The shots of the bustling are done well, and while the film is a bit cheeky in its plot, its worth seeing.
There does seems a big influx of Indian themed movies these couple of years, along with equally, if not more, big wave of literary works from India or Indian diaspora. On the Borders Newly Arrived table you can always find one or two books written by Indian authors.
Most influential AsianAmerican? I really can't think of any. But how would you define influence?
Along with Tiger Woods...read Hsu's comments a few post ago. I think that list is a bit lacking as it doesn't mention the former Chancellor of UC Berkeley, Chang-Lin Tien (whose son Norman is a EE prof at Cornell). I don't think a semi-successful actor, #7 Jason Scott Lee (remember him as Liu-Kang from Mortal Kombat movies?) would compare.
Greetings from beantown.
Oh yes, by the way Andrew, I refuse to support UNC from now on. McCants is a bastard! That guy can kiss my A$$. I will not support UNC until Baddour is removed, or at least until all the current players from this current squad have left (except for Felton).
I'd just like to say that the fact that the smoking murder involved Asians doesn't in my mind make it any better or any worse. However, it is worth noting, that for better or for worse, many outside people's opinions about Asians are formed by events such as these, so it certainly isn't beneifical to our cause (if we even have such a thing).
Perhaps those two just saw Better Luck Tomorrow and decide to contribute to the effort to break the non-confrontational Asian stereotype.
New York — A Manhattan nightclub bouncer was fatally stabbed when he tried to enforce the city’s new ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, police said Monday.
Hmm... With Better Luck Tomorrow, Spirited Away, and Cowboy Bebop, it looks like there's a mini Asian invasion at the theaters!
And I think the infoclearinghouse is run by one person who is using the cloak of "independent media source" (read first line of his "mission statement") to bash the US and only the US. Okay, so his focus is on US foreign policy. You know, there's much more to US foreign policy than just the Iraqi war. How about the billions of money given to third world countries? I've never heard those numbers on the network news because they're usually lost in some obscure Senate bill. Strange how he doesn't cover the positives, and only focuses on the negatives. If Fox News practices hypocrisy in their mission statement, this guy does even more so. But on the web, everyone's an author and a reader, even for the most disgrunted among of us.
We really can't compare infoclearinghouse and Fox News, they are apple and oranges. The former is a website run by one or two private individuals dissatisfied with the war cheerleading provided by major media outlets. So they collect news articles from various sources (mainly British media) that offer perspectives usually not found in the American mainstream media. This is not ignorance, this is a good service run by a few dedicated people. Fox News, on the otherhand, is a billion-dollar enterprise whose alleged mission is to provide impartial news to the huddled masses around the TV sets.
All hail Mike Weir, first ever Canadian major champion! Down with the Tiger, the whitest person who still considers himself black in America. If Tiger played golf 200 years ago, he'd probably still support slavery as long as it kept paying his bills.
Support sexual discrimination, watch golf! It's nice of the sheriff of that county to designate a "first amendment" zone for the protestors about half a mile away from anyone else. Gotta love the power of the rich.
It turns out that I was able to view that video, but I had to use the download link instead of just watching it in the browser. First off, I always find it ridiculous that news broadcasts have started taking jabs at the competition. I find it distasteful when Fox News does it to CNN, and I find it distasteful now. Sounds like ABC has an identity problem to attack its rivals.
That site has all the right to be ignorant and only see what it wants to see. I don't disagree with that aspect. However, I find it a bit absurd that it's trying to find fault with Fox News (one or two reports can't be representative of the entire organization as a whole, right?) when its own site is so polarized, or as they say "a pot calling the tea kettle black."
I must disagree. informationclearinghouse is an anti-war website. The articles themeslves I find to be generally pretty good, offering perspectives not found in major news networks. The US government does come off in a bad light in them but one shouldn't condemn the website for that. To say infoclearinghouse is biased is to say a website for Democratic candidate is biased against Republicans. It has an legitimate opinion, so it's expressing it. Nothing wrong with that.
And on that site which used to host the Fox News comparison, these are the headlines (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/):
Iraq isn't likely to experience any democracy in the forseeable future. All hail President Chalabi! Just don't let him pay state visit to Jordan, where they will jail him for corruption.
In response to growing chaos in Iraq, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon. "It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
This is absolutely hilarious. A must see!
Speaking of news biases, I was watching the news last week on NBC (as that is the only US channel I get) and saw yet another special on Jessica Lynch, the rescued soldier. Early on, when she was first rescued, I distinctly remember the news reporting that she had gone off to join the military in an attempt to raise money for college. However, in recent days, the word out of NBC is that what in fact happened was that she decided to go join the military because somewehat whimsically, she "wanted to see the world." Not only does this sound like a weak reason, but it leads me to think, is it wrong to even criticize the US's higher education system in times of war?
Hmm, I've followed BBC for a while and they don't look very biased to me. All news sources agree anarchy is the rule in Baghdad. And it is somewhat expected the US troops don't want to and don't have the training to police a city. Anyway, 4 pictures from an article can't be representative of BBC as a whole.
BBC News is horribly biased. The captions from the 4 pictures in their headline article:
This is it, the most eagerly anticipated movie of the year goes into limited release next week. No, I'm not talking about the Matrix Reloaded, or X-2, or T-3, or any other retarded sequel that big budget hollywood has in store for us. No, I'm talking about Better Luck Tomorrow, by Justin Lin, the first major American movie ever about Asian males. And not only that, but it is said to be quite good, heaping up awards at Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festivals. Lets go represent!
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar might be the next head coach for the 2-25 (0-14 Ivy) Columbia basketball team next year.
Don't be too sad, Chris. I've been to Borders countless times, results the same.
In the immortal words of Goldberg:" Who's next?" After Iraq, that is. A scary article.
In the first movie, we see things mostly from Starling's "sane" perspective, so it's fitting the tone of the movie is gritty and realistic. But the next movie the story is really Hannibal's. And instead of confined in a dungeon wearing jumpsuit, he is living the way he wanted. Here is a guy who scorned all social taboos, who listen to Goldberg Variations while beating a man to pulp and quotes Florentine history as he disembowel a victim, not to mention his dietary inclinations. He is an over-the-top, larger than life individual. So a story focused on Hannibal on the outside necessarily become over-the-top.
I haven't seen Manhunter either, though I've heard that it and Red Dragon are very, very similar. As far as Hannibal goes, my first thought is that it is way over the top. Personally, I think part of what makes Lecter so menacing and chilling is how real he could be, and that edge is lost in Hannibal which is almost like watching a comic book unfold, minus the tights. Secondly, yes, in the books, Thomas Harris goes to great lengths to explain Lecter's origin (another comic book story telling mechanism I imagine). Supposedly, he was sexually abused as a youth, on top of the wolves taking the sister. Iin reading this, it was rather disappointing as it goes a long way in demystifying Lecter, which is yet another reason I do not like the book/movie.
Hey, it's about Lecter, so I think its brazen outrageousness fit well with the demented world-view of Lecter. The first one felt too claustrophobic to me and I didn't particularly like Jody Foster's Starling.
Tom, how can you like Hannibal the best of the 3 Lecter movies?!?!?!?! It is by far the worst of the 3!
C'mon Wally, your life's not that boring. I'm sure you can fill up a blog. Looks like there's been a lot of action here since I've been immersed in my video game world. Have to catch up on everything...next week.
I agree. I don't think the phatgirl page has much to do with race. Nor, for that matter, do I feel the Yankees ad have much to do with race, although I imagine that it is yet another example of it still being okay to make fun of Asians in the media. As for the act of putting out the ad, I also think it was bad taste on the Blue Jays to put out such an ad. However, since when were professional sports teams tactful? In fact, on the grand list of larcenies that pro sports teams perpetuate on a daily basis, this is surely just a minor detail. It is ridiculous that this ad (which I found humorous by the way as it also depicted bird shat on the beloved yankees cap) generates far more attention (on this blog, in the media, wherever) than say, the idea that pro sports owners can hold the fans for ransom and threaten to move their teams where-ever they want, an act that incidentally, for all you Yankee lovers out there, that the Bronx Bombers have tried repeatedly to do under Steinbrenner.
