Two movies were watched by me today.
The first film I saw was Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard which was great. Norma Desmond is such a fantastic character and the writing was top notch. Great great great film, it's a shame I hadn't seen it until now...
Film number two was Better Luck Tomorrow. The film that was made by Asian Americans and released by MTV. It was supposed to be the first hip Asian American film. They had beat me to it and been the first Asian Americans to release a relatively high profile film. Well, luckily for me they fell flat on their faces.
Basically it's about privileged Asian American kids somewhere in California who are too stressed out with their lives (going to High School, applying to college, etc.) that they want to have some fun and get in trouble and do things Asian kids don't do. Lame. It's just a script written by some Asian kid who didn't have enough fun as a teen and is now doing it through these characters.
The movie was bad. They didn't accurately portray the Asian American experience at all. Here's a brief summary of oversights and goofs:
They don't seem to have parents. Any Asian knows that parents are always nosing around in your business, especially during the period of your life you're applying to college.
You can't get over a cocaine addiction overnight.
The Asian kids didn't have any fob acquaintances.
Not a single Japanese car with stickers on it was in the film.
Of course all the Asian guys lust over the one Asian girl at their school and don't pay much attention to the non Asian girls.
A lot of the character's choices and the events that unfolded were just improbable.
They looked WAY older then they were supposed to be.
The use of voice overs was a way to overcome shortcomings in the director's ability to tell the story and convey feelings and ideas. He had the narrator over explain things.
Edited annoyingly.
The cinematography was great at first, then they got carried away with the focus ring and incredibly narrow depth of field and it eventually got obnoxious.
Not a single word in another language is uttered, I find that weird for a bunch of Asian kids hanging out together.
They just don't seem Asian.
What kind of Asian kid is named Virgil!? I found that weird, but I'm sure there are some... although I'm sure there aren't many...
A real group of Asian jerks like the kids in the movie would say racist things in when they're hanging out alone. These guys are merely victims of racism and not perpetuators of it themselves. I find that highly unlikely.
No bubble tea? No hello kitty? No kimchi squats? What kind of Asians are these?
I think they might've been trying too hard not to stereotype Asians that they lost touch with their Asianness.
James and I sensed an extreme sense of homophobia on the part of the main character which in our opinions led him to commit a serious crime. What a queer.
The main character, who's a total douche, is named Ben. Weak.
The sound was bad. There were a few moments where the lip synching was slightly off, and there were also moments where the quality of the audio didn't match the environment in which it was originating (i.e. the echo of a voice in a gym, the crisp sound of someone outside on a cold winter night talking, etc.).
Lots of things. Stuff. Bad dialogue at moments bad acting at moments. It's not the worst film I've ever seen, not even close. I was just more critical of it because it dealt with something I'm so familiar with and also want to someday do a film about.
With this film's failure it looks like I'm still in the race to be the first big Asian American filmmaker :) My suitemate James is aspiring to be the first good Asian American male actor so we're going to rise to fame together.
Sunset Boulevard is great, Billy Wilder is great. See The Apartment.
Goodbye.
*edit*
From Roger Ebert's 4 star review of Better Luck Tomorrow:
"These students never refer to, or are identified by, specific ethnic origin; they're known as the "Chinese Mafia" at school because of their low-key criminal activities, but that's not a name they give themselves. They may be Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, but their generation no longer obsesses with the nation before the hyphen; they are Orange County Americans, through and through"
What the hell does Roger Ebert know about this? Lol.
