Are you ready for a music competition?!
The Nerds of Color have received an exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming episode of Disney+/ Disney Channel’s new original animated series Hailey’s On It. In the episode called “Splatter of the Bands,” Hailey must decide between perfection and fun in order to win a local music festival.
Continue reading “‘Hailey’s On It!’ Exclusive Clip: Sing a Sea Shanty!”
Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria), Brittany O’Grady (Little Voice), and Fred Hechinger (Fear Street) star in HBO’s newest show, The White Lotus. The six-episode limited series is a social satire set at an exclusive Hawaiian resort and premieres on Sunday, July 11 at 9PM ET/PT. The White Lotus will air on HBO and also be available to stream on HBO Max.
Continue reading “Sydney Sweeney, Brittany O’Grady, and Fred Hechinger Discuss ‘The White Lotus’”
Pili and Ione a.k.a. E Kawena reconnect with their Hawaiian roots by way of a treasure hunt of a lifetime in the latest Netflix film, Finding ‘Ohana. After finding themselves with their widowed mother in rural Honolulu to take care of their grandfather, the Brooklyn-raised siblings are initially skeptical about the arrangements. However, things change after Pili comes across a journal hinting at treasure hidden in the island’s caves and mountains. Together with E and their new friends and putting her geocaching skills to good use, they make their way onto forbidden and dangerous turf.
The Hawai’i International Film Festival is capping off its 40th rendition with Christopher Kahunahana’s feature film debut, Waikiki. The story follows a woman, Kea (Danielle Zalopany), as she works multiple jobs in order to break away from her abusive relationship and get herself a place to call home. When she accidentally hits a homeless man, Wo (Peter Shinkoda), with the van she’s living out of and later finds her van missing altogether, the two sporadically travel and connect with each other, all the while Kea confronts the traumas of her past.
Continue reading “‘Waikiki’ Doesn’t Pull Any Punches about the Realities of Tourist Hot Spot”
Water Like Fire is another film part of the lineup for the 40th Hawai’i International Film Festival. Directed by Mitchel Viernes, Chanel (Taiana Tully) navigates her days working at a local restaurant, while surfing in her spare time. With both her parents gone, her only remaining family member is Caleb (Randall Galius); her brother who’s fighting a drug addiction. No matter how strained their relationship is, nothing keeps Chanel from being by Caleb’s side, after he winds up in the hospital from a hit-and-run. Continue reading “‘Water Like Fire’ Explores Life and Loss in Contradictory, Unexpected Ways”
The Hawai’i International Film Festival is marking their 40th year with a 25-day virtual program. Of the wide variety of stories coming from Hawaii and beyond, Jason K. Lau’s Story Game stands out as a film about just that: storytelling.
College friends James (Alberto Rosende), Chika (Lyrica Okano), and Nicole (Greer Grammer) go camping in Hawaii when they decide to challenge each other to telling the best story possible. With the guide of an app called Story Game, each friend must telling a supernatural story set in Japan, featuring a character with green eyes. Each friend goes at it as they attempt to one up one another, as their narratives come to life.
Continue reading “‘Story Game’ Navigates Celebration of Storytelling Through Odd Plot Choices”
On a new episode of Southern Fried Asian, Keith welcomes Hawaii Five-O actress and Atlanta native Christine Ko.
Happy Asian American Pacific Islander Month!
Good news! The story of the Ni’ihau Incident is coming to the big screen. Bad news? Hollywood has learned nothing from the whitewashing outrage that has been in the zeitgeist for the last year.
Continue reading “Surprise: Hollywood is Still Whitewashing POC Characters”
Even though the movie is more than a year away, we cannot contain our excitement for Moana, the newest addition to Disney’s iconic princesses. Set for a Thanksgiving 2016 release, the movie will star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the demigod Maui and 14-year old newcomer Auli’i Cravalho has been tapped to play the titular Princess Moana. That’s right, a Disney Princess movie about Hawaii starring actual Pacific Islander actors in the roles of Pacific Islander characters. And Emma Stone is nowhere to be found!
Last night, Warner Brothers made waves across the geek-o-system by finally announcing a director for its solo Aquaman movie, due in theaters on July 27, 2018. James Wan — who took the wheel of the Fast and Furious franchise from Justin Lin and steered the franchise into record-breaking, billion dollar box office territory — has been tapped to helm the most intriguing film in the DC Cinematic Universe.
Starring Khal Drogo himself as the titular King of Atlantis, Aquaman is the rare blockbuster superhero movie that is unafraid to defy comic book convention and place a person of color at the center of its narrative. And now, DC/WB is the first studio to entrust a person of color to direct its superhero franchise. Your move, Marvel.
Continue reading “James Wan to Direct Jason Momoa in Aquaman“
Depending on where you stake your claim on the internet, there has been a lot of chatter about a movie that tanked at the box office1 and another one that isn’t due in theaters for at least another year. The thing that links these seemingly disparate films is that both thought casting white women as characters who are written as Asian American and Pacific Islander was a good idea.
Last night, the director of one of those films — Cameron Crowe — finally broke his silence and offered this explanation for why he cast Emma Stone (Amazing Spider-Man) as a character called Allison Ng:
Continue reading “These Actresses are Not Asian or Pacific Islanders”
Originally posted at Reappropriate
A mere week after I wrote a post swearing off of sharing fan news, the fandom insidiously pulled me back in.
This week, rumours began circulating that Tilda Swinton was in casting negotiations for Marvel’s upcoming Doctor Strange film starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the titular role. Swinton is being considered for the role of the Ancient One, a nearly-immortal Tibetan sorcerer who becomes the young Doctor Strange’s mystic tutor and personal mentor.
That’s right. Tilda Swinton — a British actor whose Wikipedia article notes that she can trace her Anglo-Scot heritage back to the Middle Ages and who is about as far from “Tibetan” as one might get — may be cast to play a racebent and genderbent version of one of the few Asian characters of prominence in the Mystic Marvel world.
Continue reading “Hollywood’s Strange Erasure of Asian Characters”
