A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Antigone, Presented By The Girls of St. Catherine’s’
They all have a million secrets. What’s so bad about this one? The St. Catherine’s drama club is struggling to put up its first school play – Sophocles’ “Antigone.” As if staging this tragedy in an all-girls Catholic school isn’t challenging enough, the cast’s beloved director ends up betraying them in an unforgivable way — and it’s almost opening night! The cast must figure out the right course of action, all while rehearsing a classic play about impossibly difficult choices. What is the right thing to do? And must the show go on?
Antigone, Presented By The Girls Of St. Catherine’s came with much eager anticipation. Presented by Sacred Fools (which put up a fantastic world premiere production of Gifted), written by Madhuri Shekar, and directed by Reena Dutt (who knocked it out of the park with her previously directed play Defenders), did the play met my expectation? More after the jump below:
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Raymond Bagatsing on Becoming Manuel Quezon in ‘Quezon’s Game’
From 1937-1941, under the leadership of President Manuel Quezon, the Philippines opened their doors to Jewish refugees fleeing from Europe, at the beginning of what would eventually become the Holocaust. Approximately 1,300 lives were saved.
It’s a little known history about the Philippines, but what is even less known is how much Quezon had to fight to make it happen, due to the country being under occupation by the United States at the time. It’s this story that’s explored for the first time for the big screen in the film, Quezon’s Game.
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Hard NOC Life: No Time to Go Viral
‘Devs’ is Unlike Anything Else on TV
Devs, the science-fiction drama that is now streaming on Hulu, is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Written and directed by Alex Garland, the mastermind behind the sci-fi films Ex Machina and Annihilation, Devs follows computer programmer Lilly Chan — played by frequent Garland muse, Sonoya Mizuno — as she unravels the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend. At the center of the mystery is the inscrutable tech genius, Forest (Nick Offerman), who employs them both at his sprawling Amaya corporate campus somewhere in Silicon Valley.
Jason Scott Lee on Living Long Enough to Become the Villain in Disney’s ‘Mulan’
Jason Scott Lee has been part of Hollywood for a long time breaking many barriers than Asian Americans had sought for so long. In 1993, Lee played the iconic role of Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, one of the only Bruce Lee biopics approved by the Lee Family. The following year, he went on to star in the first live-action Disney film, The Jungle Book, as Mowgli, marking the first time an Asian American took on a lead role in a Disney film.
Noted for playing the good guy in his films like The Jungle Book and Lilo & Stitch, Lee was ready to take on a different role — Disney villain. In the new Disney live-action film Mulan, Lee plays Bori Khan aka “Shan Yu” of the Rouran tribes. As the main antagonist to Yifei Liu’s Mulan, Bori Khan is determined to overpower the Emperor (Jet Li) and the people of China.
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Going On a Quest with the Cast and Crew of ‘Onward’
This Thursday, Pixar will unveil their latest adventure — a fantastical bromance of humor and emotion that will surely get your eyes soaking wet with tears, as par for the course from this studio. I’m speaking of course of their latest film, Onward, starring Tom Holland and Chris Pratt. You can check out our NOC review here. Additionally, The Nerds of Color was recently invited to the press conference of the film, to hear from Pratt and Holland themselves, as well as director Dan Scanlon, and producer Kori Rae. Here’s what the party had to say about the new film. Here’s what they had to say about the film.
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Hard NOC Life: The Episode IX That Could Have Been
This week on Hard NOC Life, Dominic and Keith dig deeper into the leaked script for the original version of Star Wars Episode IX.
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Disney’s ‘Mulan’ Will be Rooted in Realism
Over a year ago, in October 2018, I was fortunate the attend the set visit to the live-action version of Disney’s Mulan. Many fans, including myself, have waited over 22 years for the animated version to come to life. It was really surreal to see it play out in person on the set in New Zealand.
When plans of the live-action film were announced in 2015, fans immediately were excited with the idea of seeing their favorite characters come to life — from the Hua family guardian, Mushu, to Mulan’s good luck charm, Cri-Kee, and the bisexual icon, Li Shang.
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The Middle Geeks Episode 10: Character Spotlight on Zari of ‘Legends of Tomorrow’
This month on The Middle Geeks, we’re joined by our friend and fellow DCTV fan Andy Behbakht to discuss why we love the character Zari Tomaz/Tarazi on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow so much. This character brings such wonderful representation, for which we’re very grateful. What does Tala Ashe bring to the role in her excellent performance of the character? What do we make of Zari’s story over the seasons and how she is written? How does Zari, through her cultural background, story, and personality, represent us as Middle Eastern people? We also discuss the news that we may be getting an Aladdin (2019) sequel, whether we feel excited about it, give our recommendations, and much more!
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Hard NOC Life: Toy Fair and What’s Nerd Poppin’
Shawn returns to once again join Dominic and Keith to talk about what’s #NerdPoppin, this week on Hard NOC Life!
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A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘West Adams’
Earlier this month, I watched the opening premiere of West Adams at the Skylight Theatre Company and the first immediate thought I had when it finished was:
“Oh damn, this is Rich Liberal White People (And One Chinese Woman) Gone Crazy.”
I’ll definitely go more into this after the break as there were tremendous things to be praised for this show (acting, directing, and production design aspects) but at the core of it was a very troubling and, at times, a baffling story. Who was the intended audience? That aspect remains unclear but more on this later:
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A Conversation with ‘Almost American Girl’ Robin Ha
Moving as an adolescent, especially moving to another country, is hard. Being forced to move, and unknowingly doing so only to realize later your life has changed, is severely difficult, but can also be fortifying. Writer and cartoonist Robin Ha knows that latter experience all too well, relaying it at Washington DC’s Fantom Comics, speaking with The Nerds of Color EIC Keith Chow about her new graphic memoir, Almost American Girl, this past February 8.
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NOC Review: ‘Onward’ is Mid-Level Magic for Pixar
In the 25 years since Toy Story first hit theaters, the amount of unfavorable films to come out of Pixar versus the number of instant classics can probably be counted on a single hand. That is an insane and unprecedented track record for any studio, and frankly even their worst films are still infinitely better than the average piece of dreck to come out of, say, Illumination Entertainment. That being said, while Onward does not belong on the aforementioned single hand, it doesn’t quite hit the heights of Wall-E, Up, Inside Out, or Coco either. Don’t get me wrong, Onward is a perfectly fine movie — a good movie. It’s also just quite middle-of-the-road compared to Pixar’s usual quality for two-thirds of it.
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Introducing Megascope: a Diverse Line of Graphic Novels Curated by John Jennings
There are some people who like comics. There are others who love them. Then, there are those who live and breathe comics. Not as a way to keep copyrights up-to-date for further cinematic use, but who see the comic form as important; as a worthy and necessary part of our collective artistic and cultural life. Professor, scholar, and creator, John Ira Jennings, embodies the latter.
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Baby Yoda is Going to be the Star of Toy Fair
Ever since The Child made its debut on Disney+ in November, fans have been clamoring for ways to get their hands on some Baby Yoda merch. Well, the wait is finally over. Disney will be unveiling its 2020 roster of Star Wars-branded action figures, plush toys, board games, and more at Toy Fair in New York this weekend. And even though the Skywalker Saga is no more, the Force will be strong with merch based on shows like The Mandalorian and Clone Wars.
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Hard NOC Life: Sir Gawain and the Dark Knight
This week on Hard NOC Life, Dominic and Keith continue their discussion of Birds of Prey and share their thoughts on Robert Pattinson as Batman. Later, Friend of the NOC Preeti Chhibber returns to the show to talk about a couple of new Dev Patel movie trailers.
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Matt Reeves Teases Robert Pattinson as ‘The Batman’
It’s that time of year again where I become irrationally excited for a Batman movie. Last night on twitter, director Matt Reeves sent out a link to camera test footage for his new movie and lit the entire internet on fire.
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Dev Patel Slays in ‘The Green Knight’ Trailer
This summer, English majors of the world will be sure to journey to cinemas to see A24’s first foray into medieval fantasy with The Green Knight, David Lowery’s adaptation of the classic Arthurian poem. Check out the first teaser trailer!
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The Missing Episodes of Disney’s ‘Andi Mack’
Okay, so… someone’s got to say something.
It’s been three months since the launch of the Disney+ streaming service. Since then, viewers have fallen in love with Baby Yoda on The Mandalorian, shed tears over the new shorts released from Pixar’s SparkShorts program, and of course, revisited and binge watched old favorites.
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Hard NOC Life: ‘Birds of Prey’ and a Fantabulous Night at the Oscars
On a brand new episode of Hard NOC Life, Dominic and Keith celebrate the best DC movie ever made, Birds of Prey (that’s right, we said it!)
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‘Birds of Prey’ is An Asian American Aesthetic Superhero Movie I’ve Always Wanted
Holy batshit, batpeople, Birds of Prey is powerful. It is an action-comedy escapade about a squad of DC Comics’ most beloved women characters, including Harley Quinn, Huntress, Black Canary, Renee Montoya, and Cassandra Cain. The film also does a thing which may befittingly fly under the radar: it displays a distinctly Asian American artistic aesthetic in the context of a modern superhero movie. I’ll belabor the question of “WTF is an Asian American artistic aesthetic?” only upon request, because it is so arguable and amorphous and also other a-words, I would never get to blabbing about the movie. To paraphrase the dude in Gladiator, “anything more than a whisper and it would vanish.” To brutally essentialize it, some artworks are more Asian American** than they are Asian or American, although they still may be both, and neither. I’ll attempt to argue for why Birds of Prey is exactly this.
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All Good Things…
As soon as I was exposed to it, I was a rabid fan of Star Trek. We share a birthday, September 8, and a value system that holds art and science as equals. Trek was more to me than a fandom. It was a vision of our shared future world that was achievable. Maybe not warp drive and phasers, but philosophically and materially achievable. While I loved the Original Series, it was The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine that seemed to realize R. Buckminster Fuller’s (one of my favorite thinkers) dream of universal equity.
Fantabulous ‘Birds of Prey’ Really Takes Off
Separated from the Suicide Squad and dumped by the Joker, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), wants to move on but is not sure how. She’s kept the breakup a secret but wants to reveal it’s over. She comes up with the bright idea to blow up the location where they confessed their love for one another. Harley Quinn gets away with just about anything around Gotham because people are scared of the Joker’s wrath. Once that relationship is gone, though, all hell breaks loose for her as this sends a message that she’s no longer under the Clown Prince’s protection. Oops.
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