Washington Heights Dances Center Stage in the Trailer for ‘In the Heights’
Lights up on Washington Heights. No matter how many times you’ve listened to the In the Heights Original Broadway Cast Recording, whether once or 96,000 times, it gets stuck in your head. And after you watch the trailer for the big-screen adaptation, you’ll be singing it from now ’til its release next summer and beyond.
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Hard NOC Life: Return of a New Empire Strikes the Jedi Hope Back
With Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga at the end of the month to look forward to, Hard NOC Life is going to be a Star Wars podcast for the month of December. Because there aren’t enough Star Wars podcasts on the internet! Each week, Dominic and Keith will be breaking down a different trilogy that make up the beloved Star Wars franchise.
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15 Things We Learned from the Set of ‘Birds of Prey’
With the holidays around the corner, what better way to celebrate than with news from the anticipated Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. The Nerds of Color was invited to the set of Birds of Prey this past April to explore the dangerously fun production of the all-women led “superhero” movie and chat with the cast and creatives of the film.
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Oh Dip! You Can Now Pre-Order ‘The Good Place’ Funko Pops
Even though The Good Place is by far one of the best shows on TV, there is not a lot of official merch available for the series. Fortunately, Funko is rectifying that situation by unveiling a series of Pop! Vinyl figures featuring everyone’s favorite Soul Squad. The show may be ending, but it can now live on forever on your display shelves for all of Jeremy Bearimy.
Take a look at each Pop! below and pre-order from Entertainment Earth now for delivery in June 2020.
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007 has ‘No Time to Die’ in the New Bond Trailer!
Bond is back! The trailer for the new 007 film, No Time to Die just dropped today, and it’s trending pretty high. It’s been four years since the last 007 film, Spectre, which was seen as a bit of a disappointment following the dynamite showcase that was Skyfall. But the always amazing Daniel Craig is stepping back into the tux of the world’s greatest MI6 agent for one final gloriously amazing martini, and he’s bringing Oscar-winner, Rami Malek with him!
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Hard NOC Life: The Phantom Attack of the Sith Menace Revenge Clones
With Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga at the end of the month to look forward to, Hard NOC Life is going to be a Star Wars podcast for the month of December. Because there aren’t enough Star Wars podcasts on the internet!
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‘The Irishman’ vs ‘Iron Man’: Both Great American Cinema
As it turns out, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Marvel Studios’ Iron Man are two great works of American cinema, if “great” is used in the sense of high significance, somewhere between “representative of their respective genres” and “super-sized with extra bacon, please.” Spoilers for The Irishman to follow:
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The Middle Geeks Episode 7: The Prince of Egypt
This month on The Middle Geeks, we discuss Dreamworks’ 1998 masterpiece, The Prince of Egypt. Why does this film resonate so much with people, including and besides its religious aspects? We discuss the representation aspects of the film, how it did well at depicting the ancient Middle East, and how the rich character drama and design holds it up today. We also give the deets on the delicious food at our Middle Eastern households during Thanksgiving and give our recommendations! (We start our The Prince of Egypt discussion at the 7:10 mark.)
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Hard NOC Life: Fancasting the Impeachment
For the last two weeks, the most riveting show on television was actually the impeachment hearings. So naturally, Dominic and Keith convened an episode of Hard NOC Life to talk all about it.
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Arendelle Antics at the ‘Frozen II’ Press Conference
We made it folks! It’s been a few months and our countdown is at last complete! Frozen II has arrived! That’s right, give yourselves a big pat on the back for sticking with us! To cap off everything, we wanted to take you all inside, perhaps, the most fun press conference we’ve ever covered here at The Nerds of Color. We got the chance to hear from (and bask in the glory of) national treasures Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Evan Rachel Wood, Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez, and Peter Del Vecho! Here’s how the magic went down.
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‘Occupy Me’, NOC’s Science-Fiction Audio Drama, Continues!
Occupy Me is a new science-fiction audio drama/narrative podcast presented by Hard NOC Media / The Nerds Of Color and Melancholyball Media. Episode 2: “Internet Killed The Video Store” premieres today.
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Southern Fried Asian: Jia Tolentino
On this month’s Southern Fried Asian, Keith sits down with The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino about her new book, Trick Mirror and life on the internet in the 21st century.
Take Part in the Gold Rush This Holiday Season
Gold House, the largest collective of Asian cultural leaders, has unveiled its Gold Rush deals that will be live from November 20-22. They represent never-before-seen major deals from the likes of iconic fashion founders Phillip Lim and Prabal Gurung (20% off) to others such as NOC favortite Ally Maki’s Asian American Girl Club. Each company will also select one winner to receive a once-in-a-lifetime gift (e.g. fashion week experience including lunch with the company’s CEO and up to 20 friends, shopping and personal styling at Great Jones boutique, private pre-order of runway collection, two runway show tickets). The items are viewable at goldhouse.org/GoldRush or by clicking the image below.
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Hard NOC Life: Is ‘The Mandalorian’ Maclunky?
Dominic and Keith weigh the pros and cons of Disney+ and review The Mandalorian on this week’s Hard NOC Life.
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A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Defenders’
In the realm of Los Angeles intimate theatre, efficiency and constraint are often unfortunately emphasized as budget limitations become the all-too familiar factor hovering over anyone who dreams of doing anything grandiose. So when I heard about a World War II play written by Cailin Maureen Harrison that was going to have its world premiere with the Pandelia’s Canary Yellow Company, I was intrigued because my burning question was: How exactly do you stage a WWII story in a black box setting and do so compellingly??
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Interviewing the Crew Behind ‘Frozen II’
Well folks, after a month-long countdown on our site, we are in the homestretch leading up to the release of Frozen II, and we’ve only just begun to break the ice (Wow. That was bad. Sorry.). I would like to extend my humble thanks to everyone who counted down to the film’s release with us, and we have a couple more surprises in store for you Frozen fans this week! For one, we had a chance to talk to the Heads of Animation for the film (Becky Bresee and Tony Smeed), as well as the Head of Story (Normand Lemay) and Director of Story (Marc Smith) about the evolution of the project. Here’s what they had to say!
NOC Review: ‘Frozen II’ is the Best Animated Movie of the Year
The Oscar Race for Best Animated Feature is over. It’s going to be Frozen II. As someone who thought Frozen, now considered by many to be a classic animated film on par with The Little Mermaid, was a very good-not-great movie, it was going to be tough for its successor to melt my icy cold heart. Rest assured, this one is grander, deeper, more challenging, and even more gorgeous than its predecessor. Walt Disney Animation Studios has made a near perfect movie here, and they deserve to be proud. Frozen II outdoes the first in every respect! Heart melted!
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Hard NOC Life: Jamie Noguchi’s ‘Dark Fate’
On a special Hard NOC Media crossover, Jamie Noguchi of the Fuckin’ Do It Cast joins Keith on Hard NOC Life to figure out why Terminator: Dark Fate failed at the box office.
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‘The Mandalorian’ is an A+ ‘Star Wars’ Story
For fans of Star Wars, today will be a day long remembered.
The arrival of Disney+, the Mouse House’s foray into the Streaming Wars, is finally here! And with it comes the first live action Star Wars television show to hold people over for the month between now and Rise of Skywalker in December. Luckily, that show is The Mandalorian, and it’s one of the best incarnations of Star Wars mythology to ever be put to film.
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‘Jojo Rabbit’ Sends a Timely Message via Satire, Fascism, and War
The 39th Hawaii International Film Festival is currently underway in Honolulu, and the 11-day event began with a stellar opening night screening last Thursday of Taika Waititi’s latest film, Jojo Rabbit. Set in Nazi Europe, the dark comedy loosely based on the Christine Leunens novel, Caging Skies, follows a 10-year-old Hitler Youth (Roman Griffin Davis) who finds out his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their home. Through getting to know her, he comes to question his own beliefs, even in the midst of his imaginary friend, an idiotic version of Adolf Hitler played by Waititi himself, trying to tell him otherwise.
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A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘COCK’
This marks my second NOC Theatre review since Hannah and the Dread Gazebo performed at the Fountain Theatre a few months back and it was here that my key interest in doing so was a commitment/announcement of sorts. For as much as I can, my focus will be to review plays & musicals with the qualifying criteria that the director, writer, and/or one of the main cast members (not supporting/ensemble but one of the leads) MUST be a non-white artist. The more PoC in the cast/production team, the better I’ll want to review it as I’ll give a glaring stink eye to all things tokenism.
NOC Review: ‘Last Christmas’ Did Not Give Its Heart
Last Christmas really tried.
It really did.
It had the makings of a cute, cheesy Christmas romantic comedy. The film stars Emilia Clarke as a 20-something Londoner who lost her moral way after a life-changing surgery and Henry Golding as the man who helps her find her way back. It had the perfect cheesy formula and all perfectly wrapped during Christmas. The film even had a great supporting cast with Michelle Yeoh and Emma Thompson.
What many were hoping for a story similar to Love Actually (which Thompson also starred in) ended up with an awkward coming-of-age Brexit Christmas story.
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‘The Mandalorian’ Serves Up a Bunch of Easter Eggs
Star Wars fans are already excited over the anticipated release of Disney+ on November 12 because it will premiere the first episode of The Mandalorian, a whole new story about a lone Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) five years after the fall of the Empire.
With an entire new story and new characters, Star Wars fans may be looking for any reminiscence of the Star Wars canonical history.
“I didn’t realize there were a lot of [Easter eggs]. I guess there is,” Executive producer and writer Jon Favreau mused during The Mandalorian press conference last month.
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