Oscars 2022: My Coda to CODA’s Best Picture Win

CODA (c) Apple TV+

My Initial Reactions to the Best Picture Win of "CODA" at the 94th Academy Awards 

Congratulations to “CODA” for its historic and record-breaking Oscar win for Best Picture. It tied as the nominee with the least number of nominations and eventually won all three. The odd thing is that if the Oscars still had its five nominees for Best Picture, I am almost sure CODA would not have made the cut in February. So, good job, “CODA.”

Reviews: Asian Mothers and their American Children Deal With Everything (Bagels) in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Turning Red” and “7 Days”

Everything Everywhere All at Once (c) A24

Film: Everything Everywhere All at Once 
In Cinemas 

“Everywhere” is the easiest part to explain in the wacky and highly enjoyable “Everything Everywhere All at Once”: It’s the multiverse. And if you think that’s hard enough to understand (the new Marvel movies' storylines help a little), just imagine it’s your immigrant Chinese mother you have to explain it to.  And that’s the case with Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh). who is a laundromat owner dealing with the IRS when a variant version of her husband (a sympathetic Ke Huy Quan, yes from “The Goonies”) tells her the world is about to end. And like explaining how not to hit the phone screen with your finger but glide it to my own mother, Evelyn has to have it explained to her many times before she gets the hang of it (my mother, not so much). “Everything” is harder to characterize without spoiling the fun (the less you know, the better), but just imagine if life was an everything bagel, which is yummy except for the garlic. Well, how you deal with the garlic is how one will enjoy the bagel (and thus life).  Told you it was hard. But, “All at Once” is what makes the film by directors Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert, who made “Swiss Army Men”) a bit overwhelming during your initial viewing. Like “Donnie Darko” and “The Matrix,” Daniels probably expects fans (and there will be many) to keep rewatching and try to figure out the meanings of the googly eyes stickers, the fanny pack or the raccoon. But, even when the running time wears you down, you will still enjoy the audacity of the film’s spirit, its fearlessness of imagery and its joy in referencing other movies like “Ratatouille,” “In the Mood for Love” and every Jackie Chan movie in which he plays twins. This movie would not work if Michelle Yoeh wasn’t game for this journey, and she is magnificently badass in, dare I say, her best performance ever. She plays many versions of herself, including a variation of the movie star Michelle Yoeh we know, even seen in a montage at the “Crazy Rich Asian” premiere. But the whole cast is having a grand time, including Stephanie Hsu, who I know from Broadway’s “Be More Chill,” the legendary veteran actor James Hong and a deglamorized Jamie Lee Curtis. It all heads towards a rather sentimental ending that might be a bit much for such a genre movie, but it ultimately works. You have to see this crazy movie on the big screen to get the full effect. This film is “The Matrix” on crack. 

The Interested Bystander’s "Win Your Office Oscar Pool" Predictions

(c) Interested Bystander

"We Come to This Place for Magic"

It has come to this: My final 2021-2022 Oscar Predictions 

CODA (c) Apple TV+

BEST PICTURE 

OSCAR PREDIX: CODA 
LONGSHOT: The Power of the Dog 
TIB’S PERSONAL PICKS: The Power of the Dog 

GALECA Names "Power of the Dog" Best Film; Kristen Stewart & Ariana DeBose Win Performance Awards

(c) The Interested Bystander / Netflix

SAM ELLIOT VS "THE POWER OF THE DOG" COWBOY SHOWDOWN

The Critics Group that I am a part of has announced our film winners for 2021.

GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics announced the winners of its 13th Dorian Film Awards, again honoring movie content from mainstream to LGBTQIA+. To perhaps Sam Elliott’s chagrin, Netlix’s noirish western The Power of the Dog lassoed three major prizes, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay, the latter two Dorians going to auteur Jane Campion. 

Reviews: “Out of Time,” “The Baker’s Wife” and ‘On Sugarland” All Shine With Diverse and Talented Acting Ensembles

Theater Reviews: Out of Time, The Baker's Wife and On Sugarland

Out of Time (c) Joan Marcus

Theater: Out of Time 
Public Theater (closed) 

A few New York theater shows reopened in August 2021 after the pandemic shutdown with most Broadway and nonprofit Off-Broadway companies really revving up around October. And now here we are in March 2022, eight months later, and we get “Out of Time,” the first play written by and starring Asian-American theater artists. Thank goodness for the Public Theater, who co-produced “Out of Time” with the National Asian American Theater Company, and is also producing “The Chinese Lady” this month with the Ma-Yi Theater Company, for giving these smaller but vital theater companies much needed exposure. And of course, the need for representation was reiterated earlier this month when a Chinese dancer on his way to the Public to celebrate “The Chinese Lady” was beaten on the Lower East Side (and still wanted to perform!). Just add this incident to the countless other attacks and murders of Asian people in the last two years in New York City alone, not to mention all the unreported microaggressions (which I too have experienced on the R Train recently). So, while I enjoyed “Out of Time” enough, I was happier to finally be in the company of Asian-American actors with more than the usual number of AAPI audience members. “Out of Time” was an evening of five monologues written by five different playwrights for five over-60-year-old actors. And like most evenings of one-acts, some were more enjoyable than others, but all five plays have something important to say about the human experience.