Tag: Immigrants

Animation, Interview, Movies

‘Elemental’ Director Peter Sohn on Bringing His Personal Story To Life

Michael Lee

Peter Sohn’s Elemental is set in the fictional city of Element City, where anthropomorphic elements of nature: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air co-exist. The story follows Ember (Leah Lewis) a tough, witty, and hot-headed fire element who has trouble controlling her emotions, and Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a go-with-the-flow water element who is overly emotional has no trouble expressing his emotions openly.

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Animation, Movies

‘Elemental’ Director Peter Sohn on Sharing His Personal Story Through Animation

Michael Lee

Pixar is at its element when they are delivering original storytelling. It’s something that they pride themselves in doing. And while sequels expand upon some of their classics, nothing beats a Pixar original. Especially when those stories come from a personal place, like director Peter Sohn‘s Elemental.

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Movies, Streaming

Disney’s ‘Chang Can Dunk’ Trailer Mixes Basketball and Identity

Laura Sirikul

The trailer and key art for the new Disney+ Original Film Chang Can Dunk has just been revealed. Written and directed by Jingyi Shao, the coming-of-age sports comedy stars Bloom Li as Chang, a 16-year-old Asian American kid in the marching band who bets the school basketball star that he could dunk a basketball by Homecoming.

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Interview, Streaming

Stars of Apple TV+’s ‘Pachinko’ Discuss Bringing the Novel To Life

Laura Sirikul

Apple TV+ new series Pachinko premieres this week, and we could not be more excited. Based on the bestselling novel by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko chronicles the struggles and successes of four generations of a Korean immigrant family living in Japan.

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Roundtable, Television5 Comments

‘Bob Hearts Abishola’ Finds Common Ground Through Love

Laura Sirikul

There’s always a formula when it comes to romantic comedy sitcoms — boy meets girl. Girl isn’t interested in boy. Boy is determined to win her heart and succeeds. Hilarity ensues. The formula does work, but it does become tiring when there’s no substance behind it. Having the hot-wife-bland-husband-with-annoying-in-laws can only take you so far on television nowadays.

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Reviews, Streaming1 Comment

Padma Lakshmi’s ‘Taste the Nation: Holiday Edition’ is Wonderful and Moving

Swara Salih

We obviously look forward to the holidays for the food. Whether it’s for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Passover, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Diwali, Día De Los Muertos, Seollal (Korean New Year), Nowruz (Persian New Year), or some other holiday, we always enjoy diving into a scrumptious feast with our loved ones to commemorate these occasions. But how exactly did some of these food traditions develop here in the United States, and what were the specific contributions of Immigrant and Indigenous communities?

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Streaming, Television

Padma Lakshmi’s ‘Taste the Nation: Holiday Edition’ is Coming to Hulu in November

Swara Salih

Taste the Nation is famed cookbook author and TV personality Padma Lakshmi’s documentary series that highlights the American food of various communities of color and immigrants to the US. It’s an incisive and moving look at how BIPOC peoples all around the country have influenced and defined the nebulous and all-encompassing “American” cuisine, which is really just many cuisines from the communities highlighted in this series and beyond.

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Comics, Interview

‘Home’ Comics Creator, Julio Anta

Patrick Strange

Yo! Yo! Yo! It’s Kuya P back again with another interview for my friends here at the NOC! I recently sat down for a conversation with Comics Creator, Julio Anta to discuss his project with Image Comics’ Home which I’ve previously highlighted here on The NOC as a series that you should be picking up! Check out our conversation and then head over to your LCS so that you can give it a read!

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Martial Arts, Television

‘Kung Fu’ Star Olivia Liang is Fighting on Her Own Terms

Laura Sirikul

When Olivia Liang first hears what outlet I’m from, she tells me that she just got off a panel for Kung Fu moderated by my editor-in-chief, Keith Chow. I asked her how it went and she said it was ‘really good.’ Knowing she’s been doing interviews and panels all day, I told her I’d be quick with my questions. Liang has been doing press non-stop for the past two weeks and doesn’t look to be slowing down as the series is set to premiere on The CW. Fortunately, Liang knows it comes with the territory when you’re starring in a network television series, especially one that is breaking barriers as the first predominantly Asian cast centering around an Asian heroine and her family. 

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Comics

Image’s Forthcoming ‘Home’ Comic to Feature Special Series of Jacoby Salcedo Variant Covers

Patrick Strange

PORTLAND, Ore. 02/18/2021 — The upcoming series Home by writer Julio Anta (Frontera) and artist Anna Wieszczyk will boast a special, collectible series of variant covers featuring artwork by the lauded Jacoby Salcedo.

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Comics

Image’s ‘Home’ to Explore U.S. Immigration Policy and Border Patrol Through Superhuman Lens

Patrick Strange

PORTLAND, Ore. 01/22/2021 — Debut creators Julio Anta (Frontera, forthcoming HarperCollins 2023) and Anna Wieszczyk weave a deeply grounded and heartfelt story in the forthcoming comic book Home. This five-issue miniseries will explore the real-world implications of a migrant with extraordinary powers, and will launch from Image Comics in April.

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Music, Theatre

The Timing and Timeliness of ‘Hamilton’

Lauren Lola

The following is a slightly altered cross-post, originally published on Lola By The Bay.

Last weekend, I finally got to see a matinee performance of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical, Hamilton, at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco.

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Animation, Movies2 Comments

Right Here, Right ‘Bao’

Julie Kang

Oakland and the surrounding East Bay Area is a welcoming, casual town. The standard uniform of jeans and a hoodie is a ticket to pretty much anywhere: a Warriors game, a UC Berkeley lecture hall (as a student or even as the professor), a Michelin-star restaurant, R&B paint night at the Complex. The few exceptions are three-fold: the Piedmont School District, an available slice of sweet potato pie at Lois the Pie Queen after 10:00 AM, and Pixar Animation Studios.

I have lived in the East Bay for more than twelve years, and I have never gotten closer than peering through the iron gates while driving past to get my son to badminton practice. Until now.

To celebrate the upcoming in-home release of Bao and Incredibles 2, Pixar opened their gates to The Nerds of Color as well as other media outlets for dinner and interview opportunities with their creators.

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Hard N.O.C. Life, Movies

A Grrreat Time with The Tiger Hunter

Edward Hong

I’ve been waiting for over a year to say this since I first saw it at the LA Asian Film Festival last May:

The Tiger Hunter is one of the most delightful comedies I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s also one of the best films about the Asian immigrant experience, one that doesn’t mock or ridicule the immigrants but rather honors them for the sacrifices they made to achieve the American dream. These are some mighty high praises and now expectations but I’ll go into detail why this charming indie film starring Danny Pudi and Karen David deserves your attention after a brief synopsis of what this film is all about:

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Crowdfunding, Hard N.O.C. Life, Movies

‘Snakehead’ Filmmakers on the Search for Sister Sze

Hard NOC Media

The filmmakers behind the upcoming independent movie Snakehead — director Evan Jackson Leong (Linsanity) and producer/actor Brian Yang (Hawaii Five-0) — join the show to talk about media representation, building community through crowdfunding, and the evolution of independent Asian American film.

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Star Trek, Television6 Comments

#MyStarTrek: The Immigrant Generation

Junko

Originally posted at YOMYOMF

A little context before you jump into reading this: I’m a child of immigrants (access: child of immigrant experience) who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago: the not very diverse kind of suburb (access: white suburbia experience).

I’ve been a Trekkie since I was about seven years old when Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) first aired. Up until then, my father and I use to watch some old Star Trek episodes or the films… Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was a favorite of mine. It was great to see George Takei up there, but I really loved seeing Uhura be the strong independent female especially by the time the films came out.

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Art, Comics, Interview2 Comments

APAture2015: Interview with Artist Thi Bui

Alice Wong

Kearny Street Workshop, one of the oldest and well-known arts organization in the Asian Pacific American community, proudly presents APAture2015: Future Tense, a series of showcases featuring emerging artists from the San Francisco Bay Area.

On Saturday, October 10, the Comics & Illustration Showcase will feature a number of comic book artists. Below is a brief Q&A with  Thi Bui, who is the featured artist at this year’s showcase.

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