Breaking News in Yuba County, Review: Last one standing gets the millions It’s genre-defying film, with a most unlikely protagonist, and several parallel tracks, all intertwined. Re-affirming the myth that, in America, anybody can get away with anything, and that killing and violence are about as common as pizza and burgers, Breaking News in Yuba County makes a messed-up attempt to say that amidst all this mayhem, loyalty to your wife and love for her are values worth cherishing. But it...

Jumanji, The Next Level: Low level fare Jumanji was first released in 1995, at a time when video games were the new fad. Since then, the franchise has had three forays into filmdom. The latest one is titled The Next Level, but, ironically, it is a slide down to a new low. Amateurish and even puerile, this movie is probably aimed at pre-teens, but since pre-teenagers cannot be expected to perform such adult acts as are depicted, and the story has already established several grown-ups, and only...

Angry Birds Movie 2, Review: And angry birdwatchers 2 To even begin getting lightly entertained, you will have to sit through the first twenty minutes of Angry Birds Movie 2, which are a cacophonic assault on your senses. During this testing time, you are served a machine-gun fire recap and a kind of general introduction to the birds and pigs that are going to play out a tale of spurned birdy love and its calamitous consequences. Proceedings do get more and more tolerable, and offer a modicum...

As a Chinese-American filmmaker myself, there is a special place in my heart for Chinese-American film. The consistently negative depictions of Asians in American film-culture instilled a sense of shame in me that translated to hiding the fact that I was Asian from many people up until early adulthood. Being mixed, that was generally not too difficult and it was an easier way to navigate life. The only way to truly fix this problem is by people like Lulu Wang succeeding. She absolutely does so...

As a Chinese-American filmmaker myself, there is a special place in my heart for Chinese-American film. The consistently negative depictions of Asians in American film-culture instilled a sense of shame in me that translated to hiding the fact that I was Asian from many people up until early adulthood. Being mixed, that was generally not too difficult and it was an easier way to navigate life. The only way to truly fix this problem is by people like Lulu Wang succeeding. She absolutely does so...