28 August 2014

In Revolt

Currently pushing: Amos Barshad, “This Is Their Youth.” Someone should go watch this on Broadway and then report back to me. Starring Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, and most importantly, Rookie founder Tavi Gevinson -- who was great in Enough Said. Kenneth Lonergan wrote the great You Can Count on Me, which single handedly made me love Laura Linney, so there’s a pretty good chance this will be good.

Since being back in San Diego, I’ve ripped through a ton of movies, thinking (erroneously) my MoviePass was about to expire: Hercules, TMNT, Sin City 2, Lucy, What If, Calvary, Guardians for a third time. What I gleaned from all that was basically that Taiwan is the new it place for films. Well, if representation in two movies is enough to qualify as “it.” Luc Besson shot the first part of Lucy in Taipei (although villains were Korean), and during the back half of What If, Zoe Kazan’s manic pixie dream girl character has a big job opportunity that would involve moving to Taiwan.

Coincidentally, I will be visiting Taiwan myself in a week or so. I haven’t been back in over a decade so this should be interesting. Last time I spent the back half of my trip in smoky Internet cafes, waiting for our trip to be over. This time I’ll be there for about the same amount of time, but I think I’ll enjoy it more. My mom showed me our birth certificate today. I was born at 2:46am, George two minutes later, at Taiwan Veterans General Hospital. She weighed 5 lbs 14 oz and I was six ounces smaller. The story we tell is that I was supposed to come out second, but right beforehand, I switched places. Thank goodness.

Here’s John Cho, Asian-American Hollywood hero, in the first episode of Selfie. His co-star is Karen Gillan, who plays blue-skinned Nebula, sister to Zoe Saldana’s green-skinned Gamora. I’m hoping Gillan returns for the Guardians sequel because I found her bitter cyborg to be quite compelling. ABC has two shows featuring Asian-American leads this season, with Eddie Huang’s Fresh Off the Boat debuting in October.

It’s fantasy football season and I’m mired deep in my drafts. This year I’m cutting back on all leagues, save my long time ten teamer, and my new-ish sixteen teamer. Oh and I’m counseling a friend for her league. Last year my friend piloted her team featuring LeSean McCoy, Calvin Johnson, and Matt Stafford to the top of the charts before sputtering in the Super Bowl. It was an impressive rookie run and her dedication was extraordinary. Heck, I wish she was in my leagues! “I think I woke up in the middle of the night once to check my lineup.” Direct quote.

This offseason, I was hoping to blow up my monster team featuring Adrian Peterson, McCoy, Larry Fitzgerald, Rob Gronkowski, and Andrew Luck but nobody wanted to trade me for A.P. so I’m just going to have to try to win a title with him. My team is massively impressive on paper but it never seems to do well at the end of the season. I blame All Day, even if he’s been the best fantasy running back for years.

Most of my attention this season going to be spent restocking my sixteen teamer, which has gone 5-8 in consecutive years. My first year, I traded away Drew Brees, which may have been a little hasty. In my efforts to rebuild a winner, I had to pull the trigger for Ray Rice, taking advantage of the good moral fiber of his ex-owner. Do I want a wife beater on my team? Not really, but you gotta leave your emotions off the (fantasy) field.

This season’s Hard Knocks features the Atlanta Falcons. They, like me, haven’t won anything in awhile, so I’m hoping we both have resurgent seasons. It’s been awesome to get some behind-the-scenes on my favorite team, and for the Falcons to actually get some national attention. Each episode features little segments about players on off days or at home, and my favorite so far is when Ra'Shede Hageman and teammates go to the Georgia Aquarium to take a dip with whale sharks. Also, the nuggets of wisdom that D-line coach Bryan Cox drops: "If you ain’t got a vice, something's wrong with you."