lena dunham's polly pocket movie and jerry seinfeld's pop tarts movie being announced within 24 hours of each other really affirming my conviction that we live in a godless world
there's a difference between saying "i am not the target demo for this" and "this is not about me, so it must only be for a tiny group of Others." how insulting and incurious. how small.
if i didnt believe lucy liu was from queens before, i sure do now after hearing she literally started throwing hands at bill murray after he stopped in the middle of a take while filming charlie’s angels just to tell her she cant act 😩 like first of all she carried that film!!
Plz send heartwarming stories of straight male partners supporting your creative endeavors. Hungry for a story that isn't "I achieved unprecedented professional success and my relationship was never the same."
My first cover story for
@THR
: MINARI star Steven Yeun, writer-director Lee Isaac Chung & producer Christina Oh talk about the difficult balance between capturing lived experience & not wanting, as storytellers of color, to have their film reduced to that.
i spent the first few months of the pandemic anxious about leaving the house, more afraid of anti-asian comments or violence than infection. i haven't really talked about this w/anyone because i wanted to believe my fears were irrational, that the world is safer than it was. 1/2
More
@NewYorker
hiring news!
@inkookang
joining as our new TV critic.
@dstfelix
, who has been in the seat since 2019, moving on to a broader ambit. Congrats all!
As soon as I saw FIRE ISLAND, I knew I wanted to talk to the geniuses behind it. What a thrill to speak with Joel Kim Booster, Bowen Yang and Andrew Ahn about sexual racism, Margaret Cho, and the real-life experiences that made it into the film.
"The Idol breathlessly wonders, what if a man sexually dominated a woman? Snore! Showgirls asks a much more worthwhile question: what if sex was like a dolphin having a seizure?"
I see referencing the foods and drinks that the characters on a TV show are seen eating over and over -- so much so that they become iconic images of said show -- in a review of a movie based on the show is "racism" now. OK.
i was relieved in recent months to finally no longer fear going to the grocery store or walk my dogs in the neighborhood i've lived in for almost a decade, even if i live near oakland chinatown, where there have been attacks against elderly asians. so much for feeling safe. 2/2
I wrote about why the sit-down between Meghan, Harry and Oprah was so powerful, and how the Sussexes delineated how interpersonal niceness without institutional change often isn't enough.
RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON is the kind of movie I watched two days in a row, because I wanted to share the viewing experience with my husband. The last Disney animated movie I liked this much was INSIDE OUT.
honestly, very gratifying to see ryusuke hamaguchi thank his actors in an industry that still so devalues asian performers (why was he drummed so aggressively off the stage tho)
what a wasted opportunity to reconsider what's been normalized as "universal," esp. by a company that only had its
-first female protag 10 yrs ago (don't get me started on brenda chapman)
-first black character 2 yrs ago
-first female feature director (not co-director)... now
Finally got to write at length about one of my favorite current shows — set in an LA I recognize and starring a comedy dream team of Chris Estrada, Frankie Quiñones, Michael Imperioli, and secret weapon Laura Patalano.
@anthonyocampo
A friend and I have a pet theory that the more prestigious the university, the less they’re likely to pay — they treat you like they’re doing YOU a favor by letting you talk to their students. It’s not a perfect correlation but it’s been a pretty reliable rule of thumb.
On
#NationalPetsDay
celebrating our dog Grizzly who we raised as a puppy but had to give away because one of our boys became allergic to him. Miss you Grizz!
#dogsforyang
In addition to this, it’s felt very frustrating watching a lot of non-Asians (and Asians!) unfamiliar with Asian American discourse dunk on
@therebeccasun
, who is one of the most thoughtful and conscientious people I know, esp. about diversity and representation issues.
"Bamboo ceiling" is a term widely credited to an As-Am to express the glass ceiling for AAPIs in leadership. The fact that it's new to many is a reminder of the lack of visibility of AAPIs & our representation in media coverage. We welcome conversations reevaluating this language
3 BODY PROBLEM, the follow-up series from GoT creators David Benioff/DB Weiss (w/Alexander Woo) is the most invigorating drama I've seen since THE CURSE. And I can't remember the last time I craved more episodes this much as soon as I finished a season.
Just in time for Halloween 🎃, here's my first review for the New Yorker, on AMC's sexy, smart, and extremely fun remake of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 🦇.
since i'm beplagued and bored - can't really do anything useful atm - here's a brief list of things i do a lot more now 10ish years into my writing/criticism career than i did at the start (feel free to add your own hard-won lessons):
FELLOW TRAVELERS, an adult drama in more ways than one, is the best series I’ve seen in months. I really hope this show—and Jonathan Bailey in particular—get the love it deserves.
watched MISS CONGENIALITY for the first time last night. it's obviously well done for what it is, but i definitely don't miss that late 90s/early 2000s era of rom coms where the female protagonist is wildly attracted to the openly chauvinistic womanizer, oof
shows i would rewatch in a heartbeat if i had the time, approximately ranked
-the americans
-halt and catch fire
-looking
-enlightened
-atlanta
-vida
-the other two
I adored PHYSICAL, Rose Byrne's new show (out Friday) about a former '60s wannabe idealist embracing the Reagan years’ most iconic forces: aerobics and capitalism. Unsurprisingly, Byrne is effing sensational.
to die for has to be, uh, far and away nicole kidman's best film, right? with the others a close second? please for the love of god no one nominate the hours.
hard getting back into any sort of celebratory mood, but i was proud to make my pop culture happy hour debut this wk, chatting w/
@craftingmystyle
about steven yeun's essential pre-MINARI performances in BURNING, TUCA & BERTIE, and the underrated MAYHEM
MINARI is out on VOD today. ICYMI, here's a wide-ranging interview I did with Lee Isaac Chung, in which we touched on the astounding production design, the obvious care in the Korean dialogue and his interest in nature and ecology.
I really enjoyed talking to Lee Isaac Chung about the personal experiences he put into MINARI, the search for a bilingual Korean/Korean-American cast, and how he and his mom's dreams changed after the making of the film.
One very annoying thing about reviewing things with toxic fanbases* (esp. as a woman and a critic of color), as I did this past week with the Jon Stewart show and The Sopranos/Many Saints of Newark, is that I felt this extra pressure to prove that I knew what I was talking about.