Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Still can’t believe my friend Cate invited me to watch The Rolling Stones kick off their current tour at Staples Center last Friday. Still can’t believe how great they are live. Like the blues musicians they grew up idolizing, The Stones have become not only timeless but ageless masters… Yes, to kick off the evening they had the UCLA marching band play “Satisfaction” following a video montage of musicians, filmmakers, and fans sharing their devotion to Their Satanic Majesties; there were guest appearances by Gwen Stefani and Keith Urban; and the CSULB choir sang a chillingly beautiful intro “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” to make it a special night. But really it’s all about their enormously heavy catalog of songs. Everyone from The New York Dolls to Aerosmith has tried in their own way to channel The Stones’ primal, evil grooves but The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band remains just that. Everyone talks about how Mick and Keef have survived with style but Ronnie and Charlie are effortlessly on point and cool…
Just got back from the opening night of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. The featured flick was the Los Angeles premiere of Linsanity, a real crowd-pleaser of an underdog story that we’re all familiar with, but for a guy like me who doesn’t get out much the highlight was seeing friends. Clockwise from top right are Eric from GR, Working Man/Perfect Time/SGV skateboarding homie John Lee, Patrick from NFS, and Eugenia Yuan, who appears in the movie Chink on Saturday night. Also saw my pal Kristina Wong decked out in a bridal gown and met Judy Lei from the Asian American International Film Festival, who is going to bring the Animal Style skate program that I put together to New York City this summer. More on that later. First comes Los Angeles… Have I ever mentioned that my friend Anderson Le (Visual Communications’ Artistic Director) recruited me to be on the programming committee this year? Part of my duties include introducing films and filmmakers as well as conducting Q&As after screenings. These are the four that I’ll be handling, and it would be cool if you came by to check them out and say hi. Saturday, May 4 (Director’s Guild of America on Sunset) 12:15 – A River Changes Course. Winner of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary. 2:45 – Stateless. Like a spelling bee movie on steroids, Duc Nguyen tells the story of Vietnamese War refugees who never made it to America, settled illegally in the Philippines, and are preparing to interview with U.S. State Department officials when the immigration department decides to open new cases. 7:15 – Abigail Harm. Director Lee Isaac Chung does a remarkable job of crafting a compact but open-ended fable that can be as deep as you want it to be. As sad as you want it to be. And as fantastic as you want it to be. But gorgeously and masterfully executed in any case. Thursday, May 9 (CGV Cinemas in Koreatown) 7:00 - The Sound of Crickets at Night. Displacement from home, broken family, loss of identity, and eroding tradition are only some of the themes that are presented dreamily yet effectively in this modest and skillful film from the Marshall Islands. Seeya then. Support independent film! Support film festivals!
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After following Milk Music for a while but never getting a chance to see them, I had mixed feelings about finally getting to catch them at a big place like the The Echoplex. But then I found out that the headliner was pretty interesting (Iceage) and the cover was still fair (15 bucks). If you stand right in front, it doesn’t matter how big the venue is, right? Of course, Milk Music were great. Doubly fuzzed rock ‘n’ roll with the stony riffs of Dinosaur Jr. and unedited power of Hüsker Dü, they sounded amazing live. Then they took it down a notch for a song that was “half written by someone else” that happened to be Johnny Thunders. Wow. Their first LP is impossible to find these days (being repressed as I type by Perennial Death) but they had a box of the new one which I snatched up. I’ve only listened to it a hundred times. The band said they came from Joshua Tree, which I thought was a joke, but I heard that they are indeed moving there from Olympia. Hopefully they’ll play Los Angeles more often as a result. See them when you can. When Iceage asked all the photographers to leave the space between the barrier and stage, I told my friend Ben that they are either totally punk rock or they’re assholes. Maybe it’s both? The young Copenhagen band’s first release mixed the angular sounds of Joy Division with the fay vocals of The Church, which they ditched for hardcore on their second (and superior) album. They ripped through their short set like well-dressed animals and walked off after less than 40 minutes. It was a statement more than a show, and they nailed it. INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL OF LOS ANGELES PREVIEW Next week the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles opens. I’m a big fan of the film fest, which is in its eleventh year, because they always come up with an interesting mix of arty blockbusters, lo-fi indies, and cool oddball documentaries. I was lucky enough to watch some screeners… Eega is doubly, maybe even threefold weird. The big-budget and unabashedly commercial flick starts off as a straight-up love triangle movie between a pretty girl (Samantha), a nice but poor guy (Nani), and a ruthless and rich man (Sudeep). Following a sweet courtship complete with sappy songs and dancing, the story takes a serious left turn when the businessmen offs his rival who is reincarnated as a housefly. That’s when director S S Rajamouli turns it up as the fly defends the naive love interest by creating spa accidents, causing sleep deprivation, and pestering the villain as he drives a motorcycle. The cg insect writes on the dirty windshield of a crashed car: “I will kill you.” It’s darkly funny and oddly sweet, and it wouldn’t work as well as it does if the escalating reactions of Sudeep weren’t at least as good as the special effects. Miss Lovely is an arty...
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If you’re a writer, you have to like this man. Roger Ebert wrote tons of reviews, watched plenty of movies, but understood how to keep doing it and at the same time adapt to new technology and changing times. That might have been one of his better gifts. He also championed films from a wide spectrum of people and understood what the playing field was like for them and worked accordingly. I’m glad to have met him at the Hawaii International Film Festival. I’ll see him at the movies. (Chicago Sun Times – Roger Ebert)
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Roger Ebert’s cancer has come back. Well, when you read it, you realize it’s not the fact that it came back, it’s sounds like it’s in another spot. That said, he’s moving to a different role in his mini-mega empire that’s not only about cinema but about media across different platforms. The man even wrote about cooking in a rice cooker. You can read about his current doing and situation at his blog. I wish him well and it was great to meet him a few years back in Hawaii.
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