Culture Curmudgeon

Theatre Review: “Exclusion” and the hard lessons of Hollywood

December 1, 2016

Carousel of life: A letter to Billy Bigelow

Oh Bill, Billy, Billy-boy, you’re an insufferable idiot… A modern appreciation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s CAROUSEL, currently playing at Arena Stage in Washington, DC.

November 23, 2016

Love Under ‘Moonlight’

The film ‘Moonlight’ is about a journey from an unforgiving childhood to a conflicted adult life. It’s also a romantic film that succeeds in expressing love’s first blush on screen.

November 18, 2016

Magical Thinking in the Age of Trump

I read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking quite a while ago but I’ve never really felt the full brunt of the first few lines of her masterpiece until Donald Trump was declared President elect of my adopted home.

photo-courtesy-of-toho-co-ltd-2016-toho-co-ltd

November 3, 2016

The Monster of My Dreams

The evolution of Godzilla from 1954 to Godzilla Resurgence 2016.

October 27, 2016

Guillermo Calderon’s ‘Kiss’: Art in a time of war

CCTV America’s Ahmad Coo reviews Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderon’s latest work ‘Kiss’ which centers itself on the civil war that’s been raging in Syria since 2011.

October 21, 2016

Hey Patti, it’s Me!

Our Culture Curmudgeon Ahmad Coo recounts his two run-ins with Patti Smith, who has just released a book “M Train”.

October 13, 2016

‘Cloud 9’ ruminates on the obsolescence of race and identity

“Cloud 9” was written nearly 40 years ago but its message is strikingly more relevant today than when it first premiered in the 1970s.

October 6, 2016

‘The Little Foxes’ ugly little world

Greed has shaped human history for centuries. From the dawn of the earliest civilizations to our social-media obsessed and online-shopping-addicted era, it has informed how countless generations have lived their lives.

September 29, 2016

‘Sweet Bean’ delves into the beauty of impermanence and loss

Naomi Kawase’s elegiac film “Sweet Bean” (available on Netflix streaming) explores the meaning of this loss. It also explores how some of society’s most broken individuals come to terms with it.

September 16, 2016

Of gunfights and gangsters: an appreciation of Johnnie To’s ‘The Mission’

For those who have aspirations of becoming an action movie auteur or director, there’s no need to go to film school. A new release of director Johnnie To Kei-Fung’s work is a masterclass in and of itself.

September 8, 2016

Down with love: The warped romance of ‘The Lobster’

In the world of ‘The Lobster’, love is but a fiction and a human construct that will only doom those who believe in it. Yorgos Lanthimo’s satirical film takes place in an alternate universe where this alleged ‘love’ and relationships stemming from it have completely warped everyone’s system of values.

August 31, 2016

Mike Daisey’s The Trump Card

If there’s one takeaway from seeing Mike Daisey’s comedy monologue, “The Trump Card,” — it’s the terrifying certainty that Donald Trump will win the White House come November. I’m serious.

August 11, 2016

Boris: A review

Wata and Takeshi don’t have guitar techs to help them tune their instruments so they walked onto the stage a few minutes before their show was about to start at Washington D.C.’s 9:30 Club and did it on their own.

the Golden State Warriors shoots a lay up against LeBron James

August 9, 2016

‘The Defeat’ crushes NBA ‘greatest team of the century’ dreams

How the Golden State Warriors crushed the dreams of a die-hard fan.

July 20, 2016

There is no normal: A play review and meditation on mental health

‘Next to Normal’ is a musical that addresses the frailty of the human psyche and asks ‘What is normal?”

June 27, 2016

Reflections on Islam and Muslim identity in America

Islam is just as diverse as Christianity and Judaism- there are the extremists, the moderates and the liberals. But unfortunately for the Muslims, nothing gets the TV ratings revving like a gun-toting jihadist.

May 19, 2016

How to be somewhat invisible (without really trying) in America

Unfortunately, being both an Asian American man and an Asian from Asia I’m finding it hard to come up with real people who actually resemble the Asian Americans who populate Hollywood and Western culture.

May 9, 2016

As Above, So Below: One Filpino’s reflections on a flawed past and future

The Philippines has always prided itself for being the first democracy ever in Asia. But my country’s history is pockmarked with struggles against several colonial masters: the Spanish, Japanese, Americans, and yes, even the British.

April 21, 2016

Prince: A personal remembrance of ‘one of the greatest musicians of all time’

Prince to me was an anomaly. I first heard “Purple Rain” when I was in middle school in the Philippines, and at first I couldn’t understand his appeal. All the other cool kids had him in their Walkmans.

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