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Crazy Rich Asians Serve Up Sex In The City Feel-Good Sentimentality

I liked Sex In The City. A lot...

In large part, because it was relatable. Not the details of the Carrie Bradshaw’s circumstances. But in the everyday struggles she and her gals faced down on the regular.

And, of course, there were the dependable happy endings. Up to the bitter end (which includes two features films, the second of which was an unmitigated disaster) CB and her posse had their wishlist fulfilled...

Carrie FINALLY married Mr. Big. Miranda found her lesbian comfort zone. Charlotte eventually gave up on the notion of finding the “perfect husband,” and in managed to stumble onto her Mr. Right. And Samantha was empowered to continue her tom-catting cougaris ways in perpetuity.

Everything tied up in a neat and tidy bow. YAY :---)

Well, the new film, Crazy Rich Asians, serves up very similar sentiments. You may connect the lavish surrounds and incomprehensible wealth with your own life. But the challenges are germane to most interpersonal relationships, irrespective of the size of your bank account.

The film, based on Kevin Kwan’s bestselling book of the same name, tells the tale of  Chinese-America Rachel Chu and her beau, Nick Young, played to perfection by Contance Wu and Henry Golding.

The “youngest on the faculty” NYU econ professor Rachel is the bright and beautiful pushing-thirty daughter of a low chaste, Chinese immigrant, single mother. Boyfriend, Nick, on the other hand, is the heir apparent to a family-owned Singapore real estate empire with a property portfolio valued somewhere around $40 billion.

This, however, is unbeknownst to the unassuming Rachel, who believes Nick to be a “regular guy” content with mooching off her Netflix account and playing basketball at a smelly and dilapidated YMCA.

But things change drastically when Nick persuades Rachel to accompany him to his favorite cousin’s wedding (he is, after all, the best man) back home in Singapore. In turn, the unsuspecting Rachel in lobbed into the world of Nick’s uber-wealthy, status-obsessed family and extended social circle. The majority of whom turn out to be a pack of snobby, conniving, backstabbers certain “gold digging” Rachel has no place beside the illustrious Nick Young, Singapore’s most eligible bachelor. And led by Nick’s disapproving mother, the clan is intent upon revealing Rachel’s unworthiness to Nick and facilitating her speedy ouster.

On the relatable side, many of us have been dropped into the meat-grinder of a significant other’s wild, whacky, and otherwise unbearable family. Or had partner’s parent, brother, or best friend sure we were “not good enough” for their solid gold little prince or princess.

And this, combined with the up-close vicarious view of Singapore’s mega-monied elite, gives Crazy Rich Asian’s its undeniable charm.

On the other hand, the flick’s plot holes, a few of which are big enough to drive a Mac Truck through, push the film uncomfortably close to soap opera territory. Chiefly, after more than a year together, how could Rachel not have had at least an inkling of what ole money bags Nick was really about? And when he essentially threw her to the wolves, in completely failing to prepare her for what proved to be one of the most excruciating experiences of her life, how could she not run in terror? Especially considering she had no indication from him of any future plans, making her seeming audition for his family all the more confusing.

Additionally, the film’s final resolution [SPOILER ALERT: It’s a happy ending!] fails to address how the duo plans to reconcile their disparate lives... Where, exactly, are Rachel, the dedicated NYU econ professor and Nick, the Pan-Asian real estate mogul supposed to “meet in the middle?”

But all of this said, I left the theater with a broad smile on my face. Great art, Crazy Rich Asians is not. But if you’re in the market for a fun, wish-fulfilling, relatable film you can kick back and enjoy with the tub of buttered popcorn and cherry Icee, Crazy Rich Asians fits the bill like it was tailor-made for you!

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“Searching” Takes a Twist on the Typical Thriller, But Still Serves Up the Same Old Hollywood Ending...

Technology has grown both pervasive and ubiquitous in our society...

It’s probably fair to say we have a stronger relationship with our smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers than we do with many of the actual human beings that populate our lives. And the many of us have become dependant on the apps and other software and web tools that staff these devices.

Filmmaker, Aneesh Chaganty, grabs ahold of this thread in his interesting new flick,  Searching, and uses it as the basis for a novel take on the thriller genre.

How so?

Merging tech and filmmaking is certainly nothing new. We’ve seen the internet as a whole, along with a variety of social media platforms given plenty of screen time into many a movie. And often doing so employing highly imaginative constructs.

Chaganty, however, takes this a step further... Searching is told entirely telling from the bounds of a computer screen.

But all technological twists aside, Searching is, at its heart, a murder mystery. Well, sort of...

The Disappearance

Protagonist David Kim (played to perfection by John Cho) loses his wife to lymphoma (otherwise known as Hodgkins Disease). Two years down the road from this life-shattering tragedy, David, and his 16-year-old daughter, Margot, are both seemingly coping. Each in their own way.

That is until Margot fails to return home one Thursday evening, following a late-night AP Bio study session. Presuming she cut school and took off on an unsanctioned student camping trip, David remains collected, choosing to give his still grieving teenage daughter a bit of “adolescent leeway.”

Things change, however, when the campers return, sans his daughter, who apparently never joined her classmates. The chilling revelation that Margot is officially “missing” sends a frantic David to his daughter’s laptop, and a deep dive into her digital footprint. An exploration in which David quickly discovers he doesn’t really know his daughter...

Told through desktop screens, web browsers, text chats, Facetime calls, and iChat videos, the film builds a frantic, (web)page-turning pace. Each new click of the mouse uncovers another potential clue. But is it a puzzle piece in the mosaic of the overall solution? Or yet another red herring, to be summarily dismissed by Detective Vick (played by Debra Messing), the investigator assigned to the case?

Technology Aside, Searcing is a Real Nail-Bitter

What it is for certain, beyond a novel approach to filmmaking, is this: Searching is a captivating film that keeps you edge-of-your-seat from start to finish.

All of this said, however, I do have a few issues with the movie...

Debra Messing -- Two Thumbs DOWN

First of all, I can’t stand Debra Messing. She always presents as a wild-haired, raccoon-eyed, lip wagging hot mess. She’s not the least bit funny. And she intent upon overplaying role to the hilt of hyperbole. In other words, she’s just not a good actress. And Messing certainly shows up as the same ole stridently over-acting tornado, subtracting far more from the movie than she adds.

An acclaimed movie producer once told me successful actors are either exceptionally attractive (uber-handsome guys and stunningly beautiful gals), hysterically funny, or possess Daniel Day-Lewis caliber acting chops. And Messing fails to check any of those boxes. Yet, somehow she’s managed to grab prominently movies and TV roles for several decades.

The Loner Angle Falls Short

Secondly, David Kim discovers, much to his surprise, his daughter is a loner. Though well-known, and universally liked, Margot’s classmates all claim she is much more of an acquaintance than an actual friend. This piece of telling intel turns the film’s tone sinister, but it’s never explained, or even touched upon again. Leaving a gaping hole in an otherwise taut narrative.

A Hollywood Ending, REALLY???

And finally [SPOILER ALERT], Margot is NOT dead. Like I said, Searching is only sort of a murder mystery, vaguely in the vein of Gone Girl (which the movie name checks at one point). So, while writer/director Chaganty takes a novel approach in constructing his mise en scene, he most definitely cops out in the story department, delivering audiences a trite Hollywood ending. The film’s resolution ties up the tale up in a big red bow that sends David and Magot back to their old lives, where all is once again hunky dory. A less the satisfying final result to say the least.

Aim For Seeing Searching in the Theater

One last parting note, I recommend catching this feature on the big screen. The overcrowded forest of browser windows open throughout the majority of the film use up most of a full-size movie screen’s bountiful real estate. Once pared down to your TV screen, however, the composition is bound to feel more than a bit claustrophobic.

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With Tongue In Cheek, Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman Takes on ‘70s Race Relation + the KKK, With a Serious Eye Cast Toward Modern Day Racism

By the mid-1970s, the Civil Rights Movement was on the decline in the United States...

Reaching its peak in the late ‘60s, the movement began to wane as it lost much of its key leadership. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had both been assassinated. And the Black Panthers -- a group that minted the template for present-day community organization + activism, and is responsible the free school lunch program concept -- had been largely dismantled. Thanks mostly to the efforts of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and complicit law enforcement agents nationwide. And while most of its leaders jailed or dead, ranking Panthers still on the streets had by this time turned their focus to the growing and lucrative illicit drug trade.

Meanwhile, for its part, White America had become more tolerant of racial minorities taking a larger role in mainstream society. Or at least they’d learn to keep a greater percentage of their racial prejudices and bigotry to themselves.

And this setting provides the backdrop for the new Spike Lee film, The Blackkklansman. The film is based on a true account of the first black police officer employed by the Colorado Spring Police Department, Ron Stallsworth.

Essentially, a token hire, Stallsworth, though still a rookie, is promoted to detective, in the “Intelligence department.” The move is executed largely to place Stallsworth undercover in an effort to monitor the Black Student Union (the most “subversive” group in the area at the time, at least from the perspective of the local cops).

Stallsworth, uncomfortable with this role, for a variety of reasons (not least of which being he feels like the departments' pawn and a trader to his own people), decides, almost on a whim, to investigate what he feels is a far more subversive group: the local KKK chapter.

Stallsworth casually calls the number listed in a Klan a recruiting ad posted in the local paper. It’s not clear what Stallsworth expected, but regardless, he winds up on the line with the local chapter president. And this call initiates a domino effect that results in Stallworth not only joining the Klan, with the help another detective who serves as his “White Face” stand-in for face-to-face encounters (a guy who also happens to be Jewish), but ultimately being inducted by none other than David Duke.

Duke, intelligent, well-groomed and fresh-faced, had recently become the Klan’s National Director (a term crafted to replace Grand Wizard, which had apparently fallen out of favor, go figure?). And through numerous, lengthy telephone conversations, Duke and Stallsworth forge a strong relationship. Meanwhile, amid a plethora of intense and detailed exchanges, Duke is completely ignorant of the fact Stallsworth is actually Black.

Sounds like the PERFECT storyline for Spike Lee film, no?

And it gets the full-on Spike tongue-in-cheek treatment. Also in typical Lee fashion, the movie is a bit up and down. A few plot holes, a couple of confusing scenes, and an unrealistic characterization or two (or three or four). Most notably Lee completely ignoring the fact that a rookie would never be allowed such latitude (let alone the first black officer in an ALL WHITE police department) or be so readily embraced by older, veteran, white officers. Nor would Stallsworth or his fellow officers be so insubordinate and generally flippant and disrespectful to superiors.  But Lee has never been one to allow a tightly crafted film to intrude on a good story or an opportunity to trot out a cast of quirky characters, two trademark elements of Spike Lee Joints.

That said, it’s a compelling story, filled with captivating characters, told with Lee’s charming, cheeky brilliance.

But perhaps the film's most powerful moment comes in the epilogue. Lee tacks on documentary footage of the harrowing events last year in Charlottesburg, VA. We see unsettling images of legions of young white men, marching through the streets, torches (Tiki torches, no less) held aloft chanting in unison "you will not replace us;" violent clashes in the streets the following day between warring protester groups; the vehicular rampage on a tightly, crowded street by a young white supremacist from Ohio that left scores injured and a young (white) women dead; and finally, clips of “President” Trump in a press conference stating: “There were lots of ‘bad people’ on both sides...”

And though Spike is laughing with us at the cartoonish angst of the incompetent Klansmen, the documentary footage serves as a stark reminder that while we may have just spent nearly a decade with a Black President in the White House, the pendulum swings both ways. And more pointedly, racism is far from dead, let alone a “relic of the past.”

Ultimately Spike’s comment is this: The current “Make America Great Again” rhetoric (a phrase uttered in passing by the Klan chapter president in the film) is really just code for “Make America WHITE Again.”

Another sad lesson underscoring the fact that in our culture, each step forward results in two steps back.