I’ll be honest: up until recently, I wasn’t a Marvel fan. I guess a part of it had to do with the fact that superhero movies existed in a realm outside of what I knew out here in suburban Asian American life. Those films didn’t seem to speak to me as an audience member, nor […]
The desecration of 5 Pointz came suddenly one night in 2013. Paid men, at the behest of a real estate developer, painted over the graffitied murals that adorned the walls of this Queens complex. A gross, white layer of gunk was slathered on top of the colorful tapestry of aerosol paint that had occupied the […]
Have you ever boiled all the water away from a pot? What begins as an innocuous simmer suddenly drains all the liquid away until you’re just burning the pot, rendering it unusable. Watching See You Then at this year’s SXSW felt like that. See You Then, directed by Japanese American filmmaker Mari Walker, is a […]
Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles County, I’ve occasionally wondered what the story was behind those local Asian-owned mom and pop donut shops that were never more than a five-minute drive away. They seemed to be everywhere, all offering a familiar smattering of tasty pink frosted donuts, heavenly maple bars, and elegantly simple […]
In recent years, there’s been a small wave of domestic horror films whose source of terror comes from within. Rather than being haunted by a monster or a psycho killer, the threat instead comes from within the family lineage, manifesting family pressures, illnesses, and hidden anxieties into ugly, hideous forms. Perhaps most recognizable within the […]