Dissing Tia Carrere’s Grammy
February 24, 2009
“Tia Carrere has made a career of being a chameleon. She played a Vietnamese girl on an episode of The A-Team. She played hapa Asian/black in the movie Rising Sun. In Wayne’s World, her character Cassandra Wong is described as ‘Chinese-American.’ And now she’s playing Hawaiian”…
True that. But a Honolulu Advertiser columnist’s vitriol filled Feb. 12 piece titled “Carrere’s Win Not Worthy,” which whined about Carrere winning a Grammy Award for Hawaii music, was way over the top. Get real. She’s an actor, damn it. She’s supposed to be a lying, opportunistic, shape-shifting stereotype. And the Grammys are just a big corporate jack-off.
Ken Tanaka Meets A Dominatrix
February 24, 2009
An Anglo gentleman using the name “Ken Tanaka” is accosting women in Little Tokyo under the guise that he’s looking for his birth parents. White guys who speak unaccented hyojungo 標準語 are creepy IMO. If I ever see this guy, I’m gonna kick him in the kintama.
- The Ken Tanaka Story, YouTube
- Ken Tanaka’s a Fake, TokyoMango
- Ken Tanaka Meets David Ury, YouTube
- Bio: David Ury, IMDb
Sato Masuzawa Mystery Solved; “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto”
February 23, 2009
Actor Sean Penn, who won the best actor Oscar at the 81st Academy Awards for his portrayal of San Francisco gay activist Harvey Milk in the film Milk, opened his acceptance speech by calling the audience “you Commie-, homo-loving sons of guns.”
Then, the first person Penn thanked was “my best friend Sato Masuzawa,” whom almost no one had ever heard of. Speculation was that the Japanese name was a cipher for the actor’s wife, Robin Wright Penn or that it was some inside joke. Nope.
Sato Masuzawa, a graphic artist and artistic facilitator, is credited as “assistant to Mr. Penn,” beginning with the 1998 film Hurly Burly. According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) Masuzawa’s first show biz credit came in 1991 when he she (thanks, Disgrasian Whoo-whoo!) was the post-production coordinator on Indian Runner, which Penn wrote and directed.
The best acceptance speech by far was delivered by young Japanese animator Kunio Kato, whose Tsumeki no Ie/La Maison en Petits Cubes won for best animated short. Kato kept it short and sweet quoting ’80s Styx lyric, “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.”
The best foreign language film award went to Japan’s Okuribito/Departures.
Other non-Slumdog, non-winning Asian nominees included Thavisouk Phrasavath, best documentary Nerakhoon/The Betrayal; Steven Okazaki, best documentary short subject, The Conscience of Nhem En; and James J. Murakami, art direction, Changeling.
- Sato Masuzawa credits, IMDb
- Kunio Kato’s “Mr. Roboto” acceptance speech
- 81st Academy Awards results
- James Murakami credits
The 81st Academy Awards: For Your Consideration From Deep Within the AMPAS Ghetto–The Asian Nominees
February 21, 2009
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WHO KNEW? Back in the mid-’80s, Yojiro Takita was nothing but a soft-core porn hack, but his multilayered Okuribito (Departures), is the first Japanese film in six years to merit a Best Foreign film Oscar nomination. It’s a tough field, but Takita has faced stiff competition before. Lao American director Thavisouk Phrasavath’s Nerakhoon (The Betrayal) follows the hard-scrabble struggles of Lao immigrants in New York and is nominated in the Documentary Feature ‘hood category. In his Documentary Short The Conscience of Nhem En, Japanese American documentarian Steven Okazaki tells the story of a teenager who photographed thousands before they were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Okazaki was Oscarized in 1990 for his short-form doc Days of Waiting. This is the Venice, Calif.-born Okazaki’s fourth nomination. La Maison En Petits Cubes (Tsumiki no Ie/House of Small Cubes) by Robot Cage artist Kunio Kato gets Oscar’s chinky-eyed glance for short animation. Finally, 2009 marks the year Bollywood unleashed a Slumdog Millionaire on Hollywood, uncovering a slew of pennies-on-the-dollar South Asian talent including composer A.R. “Mozart of Madras” Rahman with three nominations and Best Song nods to Urdu poet Galzar (Jai Ho) and (O Saya) from Web 2.0 multimedia Tamil force majeure M.I.A. If form holds, these nominees will all take home bupkes.
Who’s The Sarcastic Asian Dude In All Those TV Commercials?
February 9, 2009
- COMMERCIAL APPEAL: Tim Kang may be marketable, but the actor’s all about being obscure, KoreAm
- Yila Tim Kang, IMDb
- Video: Q&A with Tim Kang re: CBS series The Mentalist
Riders On The Storm
February 8, 2009
Thunder, lightning, hail, rain, stimulus packages—we needed a good cleansing. I keep playing Rain by Priscilla Ahn over and over and over.
