This week, Britney and Dominic are out, so Keith brought in his brother Raymond to review Dwayne Johnson’s first foray into superhero films, Black Adam and incorporate as many WWF Attitude-era Rock catchphrases as possible. They also talk about Henry Cavill’s future as Superman… for some reason.
Now that it’s breaking box office records, Keith, Britney, and Dominic are joined by HK cinema and martial arts movie expert Raymond Chow to break down Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on a new episode of Hard NOC Life.
Southern Fried Asian closes out AAPI Heritage Month by welcoming Keith’s brother, Raymond Chow, to piece together their family’s Southern Fried origin story.
Since it’s the 29th anniversary of Tim Burton’s Batman starring Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton, we’re rewinding back to this classic Hard NOC episode from 2014 when we had a pre-Fatman on Batman Marc Bernardin as a guest!
Continue reading “NOC Rewind: Marc Bernardin on ‘Batman 89’”
It’s been three weeks since Marvel dropped Daredevil on Netflix, and the nerdosphere is still head over heels for the show. Now that Netflix has announced a second season of their hit superhero series, Hard NOC Life returns to talk about how Marvel is taking over the streaming television game with Black Nerd Problems’ Jordan Calhoun (@jordanmcalhoun) — whose Daredevil piece you’ve probably read — and returning Hard NOC champ Raymond Chow.
Stay tuned for a longer conversation between Keith, Raymond, and Jordan Calhoun, from Black Nerd Problems, about all things Daredevil. In the meantime, the trio took a moment to discuss the Batman v Superman trailer and what it portends for DC’s Cinematic Universe.
Continue reading “N.O.C. One-Shot: Batman v Superman and What’s Wrong with DC Movies”
Believe it or not, today marks the one year anniversary of the official launch of this blog. (While we reposted Bao’s article that inspired the website on August 1, we didn’t officially kick off the site until this post on the 12th.)
A year later, we’ve grown exponentially across our various social media platforms thanks to all of you loyal readers, followers, subscribers, and likers. To mark the occasion, we’re going to look back at the secret origins of all of the NOCs who contributed this past year. Fortunately, our roster continues to grow, so you can keep track of future origin stories by following this tag.
As we continue Bat Week here at the NOC, Keith (@the_real_chow) brings on William (@williambwest), Raymond, and special guest Marc Bernardin (@marcbernardin) — senior editor at The Hollywood Reporter who is also a comic book and television writer, as well as a frequent guest on Kevin Smith’s Fatman on Batman podcast. Together the four of them reflect on the legacy of Tim Burton’s Batman on Hard N.O.C. Life.
Continue reading “Shadow of the ’89 Batman with Marc Bernardin”
In a conversation with an acquaintance about The Wind Rises, I told her I was already inclined to love it (and I did) because I was already a big fan of Porco Rosso. Miyazaki is a man in love with airplanes and through both movies he imparts that love to his viewers. Both films are reminders that the real magic (and really all Miyazaki movies do this) is not in the world but in your choices and in your will.
(Contains spoilers for The Wind Rises).
This Sunday night at 9pm on AMC, the fourth season of The Walking Dead is set to resume. To prep for the return of Rick, Glenn, Maggie, Tyreese, Daryl and company, flashback to Episode Seven of Hard N.O.C. Life when … Continue reading Hard N.O.C. Life Rewind: The Walking Dead Returns
Over the weekend, Deadline reported that Justin Lin, the director single-handedly responsible for sending the Fast & the Furious franchise into the stratosphere (and who also helmed the indie movie that launched the careers of a thousand Asian Americans over a decade ago) has been tapped to do a 3D remake of the film that similarly launched Jet Li’s career, The Shaolin Temple.
According to Deadline, the plan is to bring in an “A-list Hollywood” writer for the script and work with a budget over $100 million. Pretty ambitious for a Mandarin-language kung fu flick, but it seems the target audience is in Mainland China as much as it is the rest of the world.
“The aim is to make an unprecedented Chinese-based tentpole with story, style and scope that will resonate with global audiences as well,” [Perfect Storm Entertainment CEO Troy Craig] Poon says.
It’s no secret that we love martial arts films here at The Nerds of Color. But I couldn’t think of two Nerds who love the genre more than Raymond and Shawn S. So I asked them what they thought of Justin Lin bringing his talents to The Shaolin Temple.
Continue reading “Thoughts on Remaking Jet Li’s Shaolin Temple in 3D”
I guess Bryan Singer has a complex about Marvel movie announcements that aren’t about the X-Men. Back in October, on the same day Disney/Marvel released the long-awaited trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Singer and Fox Instagrammed a teaser vid of their own X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer. So last week, when Sony debuted their trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Singer took to twitter to divert the attention of those fans who might have been willing to give Marc Webb’s sequel a chance:
https://twitter.com/BryanSinger/status/408707930116980736
Also because the internet has a short attention span. If the X-Men eighth-quel is indeed about the classic “Age of Apocalypse” storyline from the 90s — in which a mutant time-travels to the past and accidentally kills Xavier, thus setting off an alternate timeline in which Magneto assembles the X-Men, only to have Apocalypse choose that moment to launch a war that places mutants at the top of the food chain because he slaughters humans by the millions (holy run-ons, Batman!) — then that would mean back-to-back alternate timeline movies for the X-Men. But it got the Nerds to reflect on other media that took advantage of the alternate timeline/evil twin conceit. So we took to the Roundtable once again.
Continue reading “NOCs of the Roundtable: The Darkest Timelines”
As we barrel toward the end of the year, we figured it was a good time to go on hiatus and take stock of Hard NOC Life before returning on the other side of the new year with a better experience for the viewers. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the show, please feel free to let us know in the comments!
For our special year-end wrap up, Keith (@the_real_chow) has asked a roster of panel all-stars to come back one more time to the topics of the day. Joining the show are Raymond Chow, Julie Kang (@JulieKang), N’Jaila Rhee (@BlasianBytch), Shawn Smith, and Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria (@rscspokenword). As always, Hard N.O.C. Life is directed by the indomitable Nelson Wong (@aarisings).
When this site was in its early stages, each of the contributors told an “origin” story about how they came to Nerdhood. We’ll be revisiting some of these origin stories once in a while to give you a little insight … Continue reading Wednesday Comics Rewind: The Ideal and the Infinite Batman
Before the season started, we did an episode of “Hard N.O.C. Life” in which we talked about the shows we were excited for. Sleepy Hollow made the cut, but we speculated that the show would probably be terrible. That said, we were all intrigued by the premise. Several episodes in, and it’s become one of the buzziest shows on television. It’s also one of the most diverse, with article after article pointing to its importance as a bellwether for diversifying TV’s primetime landscape.
Shows what we know for shitting on it back in August. Well, not all of us did. Jason sang the show’s praises as soon as the pilot premiered.
To look back at the first half of Sleepy Hollow‘s debut season, some of the Nerds assembled around the Roundtable once again. Here’s what they think of the show:
Continue reading “NOCs of the Roundtable: Head Over Heels for Sleepy Hollow“
With The Walking Dead breaking ratings records and topping direct market sales charts, what better time to discuss the undead phenomenon on Hard N.O.C. Life? So we wrap up Walker Week with an in-depth look at both The Walking Dead comic and television series and the genre of zombie fiction writ large.
Continue reading “Zombies! NOC ‘Em Dead with Angry Asian Man”
I’m supposed to explain how and why I became a nerd, but I’m currently in the middle of James Gleick’s Chaos: Making a New Science so you’re going to have to bear with me wrestling with my own half-baked attempts at understanding what I’m reading and my discomfort at presenting some particular event as the discrete cause of my nerdy predilections. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So here’s a moment: At some point in late 1993 I, or maybe my brother, purchased Detective Comics #662. Batman vs. Firefly. It has a rather evocative Sam Kieth cover of a Batman on fire. Our hero is exhausted because an unknown entity (we later learn to be Bane) has released the entire rogues gallery from Arkham Asylum, and Batman has been ceaselessly fighting to bring his greatest enemies down. But in this issue, we only get to see Batman take down the pyromaniacal Firefly. ‘Tec #662 has a second number designation to it, #8, as in part 8 of a massive 90s Batman crossover event called “Knightfall.”
Perhaps I could have left it there. Batman fights and defeats Firefly. I could have walked away. But I didn’t. I had questions and, suddenly, a quest. If there’s an 8, there must be a 7 and a 9. Who does Batman have to stop next, and who did he stop before?
Continue reading “The Ideal and the Infinite Batman, or Why Fractal Narratives Matter”
“Hard N.O.C. Life” is back for its second episode!
Keith welcomes fellow NOCs Raymond Chow, Julie Kang, Shawn Smith, and Jason Sperber to preview the upcoming Fall television season.
