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Must we look so hard for things to be faux outraged about?
I can’t wait to see the movie. One of the women in it is the mother on Fresh off the Boat, and she’s a hoot.
Hey, ask the people who are faux outraged anytime the word black is used in a title. It doesn't bother me at all.
In a bit of good news, Crazy Rich Asians is poised to repeat as the number one movie for the weekend box office. It is even predicted to have a very small dip compared to last week, and even has a small chance of actually increasing its box office take. All in all, a wonderful success story for this movie.
But, alas, it won't hardly change the opinions of Hollywood executives, who will continue to toe the party line that "Americans don't want to see Asian faces in the movies," and so expect another decade until we see an all Asian cast American motion picture.
Now Crazy Rich Asians will cause crazy rich Asian actors, so good for them.
But, alas, it won't hardly change the opinions of Hollywood executives, who will continue to toe the party line that "Americans don't want to see Asian faces in the movies," and so expect another decade until we see an all Asian cast American motion picture.
Yup, Hollywood execs have been parroting that tired nonsense for decades. When this movie was first being pitched, someone wanted a white person in the lead. Thankfully the author said hell no and stuck to his guns.
Crazy Rich Asians gives us one of the best box office stories of 2018 in a year full of them, and something interesting to talk about as the new releases underwhelm on a late August weekend.
As expected, holding at number one is Crazy Rich Asians. What wasn't expected was an estimate of $25 million for the weekend, no I did not cut and paste that figure from last weekend's article. That is a mere 5.7% weekend decline for the romantic comedy, with the actual figure coming in at $26.5 million last weekend (ahead of the $25.2 million estimate). This is the sort of thing that doesn't happen often, if ever. In fact, we have it as the eighth best weekend decline for films released in over 3,000 theaters that were not December releases (when things get weird because of Christmas):
Mother's Day +32.5% 4/29/16
The Blind Side +17.6% 11/20/09
Bolt +1.4% 11/21/08
Shrek +0.3% 5/16/01
Puss in Boots -3% 10/28/11
Brother Bear -4.5% 11/1/03
How the Grinch Stole Christmas -5.4%, 11/17/00
Crazy Rich Asians -5.7%, 8/15/18
The weekend hold looks even better when you realize that over half of those entries had their second weekends fall on holidays (Mother's Day's second Sunday was the titular holiday, Shrek's second weekend was Memorial Day weekend and three others had their second frames come over Thanksgiving weekend). What Crazy Rich Asians has done is exceedingly rare and something we only see once every several years.
There has been the same story of rich son / average or poor girl romance that is not approved by the boy's parents. It has appeared in with a white cast in USA, Indian cast in Indian films numerous times and most likely other Asian films too.
This is the first time it has come with an Asian-American cast who speak in English and the expected primary audience is the Asians in USA, and to a lesser extent the non Asians in USA. It has succeeded in that respect. Other than that and the scenes of opulence, it is a rather average film
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
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It's more than just rich vs poor but business vs academic success. Chinese venerates more than one avenue towards success. One is the business realm and the other is the academic realm. There are other realms.
Why is the theater so packed for this movie? Me or my friends haven't even heard of this movie, so it's not like it seems to be getting a lot of publicity though, unless we somehow missed it?
It was/is a bestselling book (actually part of a series), so that was what originally built the hype for it... at the library where I work, it's had as many as ~350 holds on our copies! And no, I haven't read the book or seen the movie yet. I probably will do one or both, though, when I get around to it.
It was as bad, or a little worse, than I expected. I was very curious, because it seemed like the first mainstream Asian-centric movie since "Joy Luck." But I thought it was awful.
Okay, let's just look at it as a movie. There is something very wrong with a romance where they show you nothing particularly appealing about the characters. Neither of the two main characters seem particularly interesting, and the relationship isn't much depicted at all. Then, there is something very wrong with a romance about to make the plunge into an engagement where the man has been hiding crucial information about his background. There is also something depressing where there is nothing at all novel about the movie (frosty mothers-in-law and financial disparities have been routinely depicted before) other than the racial/national element. None of the characters are much developed, with a couple of superficial stereotypes thrown in (e.g., the chunky gay fashionista) The woman is ostensibly a New York college professor, but says nothing that remotely implies an education or any sophistication.
As to the Asian part ... I suppose you could ascribe this to being rich rather than being Asian, but most of the characters are depicted as shallow, frivolous wastrels. And in theory, I assume they're supposed to be of Chinese descent, but most of them didn't look Chinese to me - and I later discovered this was true.
This is on a par with the worst, dumbest kind of Apatow/Ferrelly movies, only not as crude. Also not particularly funny.
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