Category: America

Flexo! Shoot Flexo! | The One (2001) Review

December 5, 2025

Partway on the timeline between Demolition Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once, behold The One, a blend of science fiction and martial arts to suitably harebrained ends. Far from an expert on all things Jet Li, this first-time viewing was spurred on by its relatively recent coverage on The Greatest Movie Ever! Podcast, in which shameful secrets were revealed about past fondness for musical acts like Drowning Pool and Papa Roach (believe me, I understand). Indeed, this movie is from the year 2001 the way that people from Boston are from Boston, and as I’m currently reading/listening to two examples of popular literature from the mid-1980s, I’ve had occasion to reflect on how often not timeless movies and television are. Those books, Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, are both set in the past. By contrast, it’s the rare genre film from the 1980s that doesn’t feel Totally ‘80s! and thus subject to modern nostalgia-driven filmmaking. Will we have a cultural resurgence one day of movies like The One and XXX and The Scorpion King? No. … More Flexo! Shoot Flexo! | The One (2001) Review

What Can I Do?

November 2, 2025

When I used to ask “What can I do?” in response to the world’s terrible events, I’d imagine marching in the streets and all the dramatic scenarios which spin out from there. At that point, it’s a troubling question of constitution, and integrity. “Am I willing to risk my life – or more realistically, my job – for what I claim to believe in?” During the first Trump administration, though, I saw how much the real fight happens in courtrooms, by organizations like the ACLU and the SPLC. The best I can do there is donate money. For the more dramatic end, I’m not a frontline guy. At least, so far, I haven’t been called upon. ICE invaded my hometown (and in doing so, made national headlines) but hasn’t occupied where I currently live. I assume that if I were to join one of those protests against a horde of ICE agents and be detained, it would be for so long that I’d lose my job and, judging by how things are going, my citizenship. Whether or not I’m willing to give up my livelihood and back up my convictions with courage – as so many have elsewhere in the country – is something I have to decide, especially as the situation tilts ever toward state violence. … More What Can I Do?

A Couple of Nobodies

August 25, 2025

The story of how Bob Odenkirk became an action star begins, of course, with John Wick. The 2014 film was positioned as a comeback for Keanu Reeves, whose star had been tarnished by invisible indies and outright failures like 2008’s The Day the Earth Stood Still remake and an expensive fantasy take on the 47 ronin in 2013. A sleeper hit, John Wick owed its success to Reeves’s persuasion with a global audience – soon to become legendary – and a shift behind the scenes with industry-wide implications. Beginning life as a spec script by relative newcomer Derek Kolstad, “Scorn” was reconfigured as Reeves’s “John Wick movie” by directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, two veteran stunt coordinators. These were guys from the trenches of the action genre, with Stahelski having doubled Reeves on The Matrix – as well as being Brandon Lee’s stand-in on The Crow – and directing second-unit on blockbusters like Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Even after the release of John Wick, he and Leitch returned to their day gig for the set pieces on Captain America: Civil War. A nice paycheck, perhaps, but this old way of doing things was coming to an end. … More A Couple of Nobodies

Thrice | KPop Demon Hunters (2025) Review

July 6, 2025

I have a friend who’s a bit of a troll. She wanted to watch KPop Demon Hunters and wanted more, perhaps, for me to watch it. Her logic was sound: “You like K-pop!” to which I noted I also like movies, and that doesn’t mean I’m rushing out to watch F1 this weekend. Nor for that matter, Elio, live-action Lilo & Stitch, or live-action How to Train Your Dragon – really, guys? Three at the same time? Anyway, my logic here is sounder: those movies are for babies. Of course, I’ve enjoyed movies for babies, especially when I was a baby, as well as movies empty of thought or weight. One doesn’t need to approach a work of art or entertainment in the exact same way each time, and we understand this implicitly, setting different expectations based on genre, content rating, and so on. Still, a lot of the criticisms I have for KPop Demon Hunters can be brushed aside with “It’s a kids’ movie,” leaving me in the impossible situation of having watched a movie I wasn’t meant to watch. … More Thrice | KPop Demon Hunters (2025) Review

Swan Lake of Blood | Ballerina (2025) Review

June 7, 2025

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is a strong contender for “movie with the worst title of the year,” and incidentally, the subtitle (supertitle?) is both strength and weakness. My question, from the moment the film was announced in 2019, was “Why does this have to be a spin-off?” There’s nothing about a ballerina-turned-assassin that screams John Wick any more than it does La Femme Nikita or 2023’s own Ballerina, though the lead character in that one wasn’t the titular ballerina. In fact, 2025’s Ballerina starts on the most stock-standard note: her father is killed, and she seeks revenge. That’s every action movie! It’s also why the original John Wick was such a breath of fresh air: action movies are bad. … More Swan Lake of Blood | Ballerina (2025) Review

The Streak

May 28, 2025

When BTS went on hiatus on account of military service, I will admit to worrying about the future of hallyu. Surely, one day, this fever will break, right? Trends never last. It would help, I think, if some of the key players became household names in, say, America, the way they have in other countries. Understandably, Korean names are more difficult to remember and pronounce than, for example, Japanese names. Back in the day, we had the crossover efforts chronicled on this site — “Gianna” Jun in Blood: The Last Vampire, Lee Byung-hun in GI Joe and Red — and they didn’t really go anywhere. Well, they went back to Korea. Remember Choi Min-sik in Lucy? What do you mean no? Jesus, live-action Blood comes up way too often on this website. … More The Streak

Lessons from Television

April 25, 2025

My memory of the movie Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society is that my memory of it is fuzzy. Even for Ghost in the Shell, it’s a little too murky, with less promise of a reward than the similarly complicated Ghost in the Shell 2. Still, it’s an appropriate sendoff for Stand Alone Complex, refocusing the story to the “what” of the Major from the “why.” After having fun playing hacker pirate, she returns to Section 9, though her continued employment is nevertheless a question. It actually frustrated me how indecisive the show was, as if afraid to muss the continuity. One of the things I do remember is mention of Dejima, the island of migrants whose manipulation into declaring itself a nuclear state by a rogue intelligence agency bent on returning Japan to prewar imperialism was the subject of the show’s second season. By the finale, Dejima’s hero Kuze has been executed, with the criminal mastermind behind the manipulation, Gouda, assassinated by the Major – his head a-splode. Where does that leave Dejima? According to Solid State Society: nowhere. The immediate threat is over, but the broader problem remains unresolved. In this case, the indecision is useful. … More Lessons from Television

Gotta Be Number One at Something

March 27, 2025

I’ve always meant to dedicate space on this blog to the exploits, the travails, of Michelle Wu, mayor of Boston since 2021. Immediately following her election, I subscribed to the Boston Globe to follow her policies, and opened a couple of Google Docs for notes and scratch thoughts on, say, Mass and Cass. How indeed would she fulfill one of her major campaign promises and solve the city’s homeless problem? Well, as I discovered, the answer was “slowly.” I ended up not writing about Mayor Wu simply because there wasn’t really anything [for me] to write about, and also because this is a blog about Asians, not their scurrilous Western counterparts. So it looks like this blog’s actual introduction to Mayor Wu is gonna come in response to something that happened on The Daily Show. That’s about as much as my brain can output. … More Gotta Be Number One at Something

New Sluggie

March 10, 2025

It’s Seulgi Day, which is typically cause for celebration around these parts. Unfortunately, her lead single “Baby, Not Baby” arrives at the conjunction of two emerging threads: one, my own gradual realization that Red Velvet members don’t really make Red Velvet music when pursuing solo work (made clear by Irene, who does), and two, the promotional build-up to Seulgi’s solo album being kind of a bummer. The very album title, Accidentally On Purpose, makes me a little nauseous. … More New Sluggie

Starship of Fools | Mickey 17 (2025) Review

March 8, 2025

It’s been a long winter. If I’m getting into my car these days, it’s to go to the grocery store to continue stocking up on canned goods for the coming economic recession or government collapse or whatever it’s gonna be. Tonight, as I waited for the engine to warm, I asked myself: “Do I really want to see this movie?” It was kind of an obligation, for two reasons. One, I’ve been writing a sci-fi story about clones and needed to know if I should stop, and two, Parasite was so good that I owe Director Bong. I’d also managed to avoid all trailers and plot details – even the cast list, beyond Pattinson – so why spoil that now, though it’s probably why I was feeling so neutral. What was there to excite me but the promise of another Bong Joon-ho movie? He’s been a little hit-or-miss, though I’m not sure if it’s just because I vibe so much with his friend and colleague Park Chan-wook. That man can ruin my night any day of the week, and by comparison, Bong’s sillier, more welcoming sensibilities are less appealing. As a sci-fi movie with a funny premise, Mickey 17 seemed to promise the same thrills of The Host or Okja – undoubtedly with that satirical bite. … More Starship of Fools | Mickey 17 (2025) Review