May 1, 2018
Mark your calendars now!
Five must-see documentary films are screening on WORLD CHANNEL's America ReFramed. They will be available after their broadcasts for online streaming (see dates below).
Award-winning series co-creator Liz Cheng and her team have curated this stellar slate of films for May's AAPI Heritage Month. Cheng is WGBH's General Manager for Television which reaches local and national viewers, including series Local, USA, Doc World, and Stories from the Stage for WORLD Channel which reaches 152 stations in markets representing 63% of U.S. television households.
These are worthy of organizing your own screening parties. Screening schedule:
UNBROKEN GLASS
May 1, 2018 - Encore Broadcast on WORLD CHANNEL's America ReFramed at 8pm EST (East), and 9pm PST (West)
May
1
to
May
15,
2020
-
Online
Streaming
June 8, 2018
Its been a tough week. First Kate Spade. Then this morning the news of Anthony Bourdain.
I never knew them personally, but they touched my life and so many of my friends. There was something about our Kate Spade handbags that made us smile, and we watched Anthony Bourdain travel the world sharing his adventures in culture and cuisine.
Of the many tributes and articles, here is one by writer/filmmaker Kevin Pang, who met Anthony Bourdain several times. (for links to work, click to the main article) Click here to his article "What Anthony Bourdain gave us, and what he left us."
Another notable article "Preventable Tragedies" written by The New Yorker writer Andrew Soloman discusses the factors that may be contributing to our naton's increased suicide rate.
Soloman writes in his article,"we feel both our own anguish and the world's. There is a dearth of emphathy, even of kindness, in the national conversation, and those deficits turn ordinary neurosis into actionable despair."
Two important new documentaries on suicide are "The S Word" https://theswordmovie.com and the soon to be released "Do No Harm." "The S Word" is directed by Lisa Klein, and produced by Doug Blush who was also Supervising Editor. Filmmaker Robyn Symon, director of the soon to be relesed documentary Do No Harm DoNoHarmFilm.com about the suicide rate of doctors writes:
Updates! September 3, 2018
Its now the closing hour of the Labor Day weekend and Congratulations to "Crazy Rich Asians" crossing the $100 Million mark!
As of today, the movie is estimated to bring in $117 million for the North American box office making directoro Jon M. Chu's film the most successful Hollywood studio romantic comedy in nearly a decade.
Keep buying tickets, keep going to see movies with diverse casts!
"Searching," starring John Cho is also a great movie! "Searching" is another must-see movie!
============
Headline: Go See This Opening Weekend! CRAZY RICH ASIANS - August 15-19, 2018
August 14, 2018
Congratulations to the cast and creators of Crazy Rich Asians!
It’s been 25 years since the last movie by a major Hollywood studio to feature predominantly Asian Americans in leading roles, since The Joy Luck Club. #TheJoyLuckClub
Make your ticket count! See Crazy Rich Asians now during opening weekend August 15 - August 19. Opening weekend box office ticket sales are critical barometers on how Hollywood studios will rank the financial success of this movie, as well as greenlighting future films with Asian Americans in lead roles.
Read the extensive Sunday, August 12 coverage by Los Angeles Times film reporter Jen Yamato, profiling fourteen members of Crazy Rich Asians cast and creators - click here. https://lat.ms/2MAARsN @LATimes
Crazy
Rich
Asians
is
a
milestone
f
August 14, 2018
Congratulations to the cast and creators of Crazy Rich Asians!
It’s been 25 years since the last movie by a major Hollywood studio to feature predominantly Asian Americans in leading roles, since The Joy Luck Club. #TheJoyLuckClub
Make your ticket count! See Crazy Rich Asians now during opening weekend August 15 - August 19. Opening weekend box office ticket sales are critical barometers on how Hollywood studios will rank the financial success of this movie, as well as greenlighting future films with Asian Americans in lead roles.
Read the extensive Sunday, August 12 coverage by Los Angeles Times film reporter Jen Yamato, profiling fourteen members of Crazy Rich Asians cast and creators - click here. https://lat.ms/2MAARsN @LATimes
Crazy Rich Asians is a milestone for Asian American representation in a Hollywood movie. Alot is riding on the success of Crazy Rich Asians to help open doors for more Hollywood movies with diverse stories featuring Asian Americans in leading roles. Jen Yamato writes that despite 'increased calls for industry change in recent years, significant progress has not hit the big screen. According to an Annenberg study of the top 100 films of 2017 only 4.8% of movies featured a character of Asian descent with a speaking role."
View interviews by Jim Ferguson with author Kevin Kwan, and actors Jimmy O. Yang and Gemma Chan of # Continue Reading
What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once
By Ben Fong-Torres
MAY 8, 2022
With “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres” the documentary about me, now out today and streaming merrily along on Netflix, I’m officially in the film industry.
Actually, that’s been the case since last June, when the documentary, which stole its title from a popular column at Asian Connections created by director Suzanne Joe Kai's son Mike when he was 14, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan.
In the months since, the film, which was produced, written and directed by Suzanne, screened at various other festivals, picked up awards, including a Critics Choice honor, a 2022 Nomination by the Writers Guild of America for Best Documentary Screenplay, a Best Music Film Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival, the Audience Award from the Asian American Film Festival in San Diego, and scored more than 112 press reviews and mentions (so far) - all quite positive reviews.
And
I
find
myself
mingling
with
movie
people.
In
March,
I
attended
the
premiere
of
“Everything
Everywhere
All
at
Once,”
starring
Michelle
Yeoh,
at
the
Castro
Theater
here
in
San
Francisco.
Our only previous connection was at a Lunar New Year parade, in 2018, when she was the glamorous grand marshall and I was co-anchor of KTVU’s broadcast.
From a distance, we waved at each other. Or maybe she was just waving to her fans.