Yesterday I was at Eagle Rock Plaza (also affectionately known as the "Mall of Manila") because I was shopping for a new scale to replace the one that Pork Chop broke. The Christmas episode of Glee was being shot there, and I wondered, via Twitter, "How many Filipino shoppers will try to jump in and out-sing the cast, ruining take after take?"

To understand my question in context, I'm cutting and pasting a post I published last year, titled "Filipinos and Their Damn Karaoke Obsession":

Remember when I declared that I could "karaoke to 'Bet on It' like a 13-year-old Filipino girl?" And remember how that comment elicited fury unlike the world had ever seen? Somebody actually wrote this in response:

uhm. excuse, but who the f*ck are you to say that? did you hear what happened when desperate housewives talked about the philippines' doctors? all the filipinos who heard complained and were going to sue. what youre saying when you said that is, "come on SUE ME!" let me tell you something there are a lot of filipinos in the united states. many of the teens and tweens, as you call them, have AIM. most of them read this. they will report this to their parents. you will get notified and will probably have to apologize, AND MEAN IT! youre an effing racist PERIOD. sure people think its gay, but who was this show created for?? sure its called high school musical, but the people on disney wernt really aiming for high schoolers, THEY WERE GOING TOWARDS YOUNGER KIDS! and finally (for now anyways) WHY DO YOU STILL POST BLOGS ABOUT HSM AND HSM2 if you HATE it soo much?!?! give me a straight answer to that. and your answer better not be, 'people keep telling to talk about it.' or any bs like that because thats BS! i want a straight answer. and remember youve been warned what filipinos can do. adios Prince Gomolvilas...if thats your name

My statement was grossly misinterpreted, of course, something that somebody else so deftly pointed out:

That comment about angry Filipinos was hilariously ignorant. The poster obviously has never seen a 13-year-old Filipina karaoke singer. If they had, they would have understood the intensity, passion, and pure joie de vivre that your comparison conveyed. Karaoke is an important part of Filipino culture, and so is being able to have fun and joke about it. It's something I love about my Filipino and Filipino-American family.

Well, today I was at the Eagle Rock mall, which I like to call "Little Manila" because it basically is. I mean, c'mon, there's a Jollibee and a Goldilocks bakery there.

In the middle of the mall is a cart that sells karaoke machines. I saw a petite young woman confidently march up to the cart, ask the salesperson to throw on a song, and proceed to belt out a powerful rendition of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," filling the entire echoey mall with the sweet sound of her voice.

I was fully expecting every single mall patron to burst out in raucous applause after she finished, but only the salesperson bothered to clap. You see, singing Whitney Houston passionately as if you were performing at the American Idol finale is just part of a typical day in the life of a Filipino.

And to the person who wondered, via Twitter, "Is Charice there?," I am sad to say that I don't know what that means. Yup, folks, the excitement of all this was totally wasted on me.

Sorry to be such a Contrary Mary (spank me?), but I didn't dig the Facebook movie as much as everyone else. However, I was floored by the tiny indie documentary, Catfish, which also sort of revolves around the power of Facebook. What both movies do have in common—and what you already know—is that Facebook can fuck up your life.

Now that the heated festival-circuit debate over the veracity of Catfish has died down (an ABC News segment and tons of other supporting evidence confirm it's a true story), we can simply focus on the film as a film. It traces a New York City photographer's online relationship with the Michigan woman of his dreams—a woman he flirts with through various modes of communication, but most significantly through Facebook, where he is also in contact with her mother and sister.

But the movie also happens to be a taut thriller and a dizzying emotional journey—when the photographer finally meets her, will she turn out to be as perfect as she seems?

DO NOT read anything else about this movie before seeing it, and DO NOT let anyone reveal its secrets. SPOILERS ARE EVERYWHERE—CLOSE YOUR EYES!

The trailer is safe to view, and will further entice you to seek this out at your local cinema. (It was even playing at my neighborhood mainstream multiplex—in the same building as Skyline!) Watch:



(By the way, some have accused the movie of being exploitative—but I think it only is if you yourself look upon its subjects with condescension rather than compassion.)

Before the opening night performance of the all-Asian American Crimes of the Heart at East West Players last Wednesday, Artistic Director Tim Dang gave a curtain speech that included a warning: the play would contain "mature situations and language"—at which point I almost burst out into uncontrollable laughter. After EWP's last show—my stage adaptation of Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin—sent old Asian ladies fleeing from the theater because of the graphic text, extreme violence, and full-frontal nudity, was a warning for Beth Henley's relatively tame Pulitzer Prize-winner really all that necessary? I mean, from what I had remembered, the three sisters in the play are super dysfunctional, sure, but I don't think anyone gets fisted.

Anyway, opening night was a reunion of sorts for the cast of Mysterious Skin, who had previously vowed endless love and devotion to one another and who gathered to see Skin's Elizabeth Liang appear on the EWP stage once again, this time as Lenny in Crimes.

While the 30-year-old text is rather chatty and clocks in at 130 minutes (this was before Attention Deficit Disorder became America's #1 phantom illness, after all), director Leslie Ishii keeps the pace brisk and her Asians-in-South take is fresh (and complemented by a handy timeline in the theater lobby). The performances—all of them—are stellar and deeply funny. But special mad props, of course, go to Elizabeth Liang, who made me cry like a little bitch several times during the course of the play.

In an age when female playwrights are getting the shaft, kudos to Beth Henley for staying afloat after all these years and kudos to a play that provides powerhouse roles for women.

Here's an interesting Asia Pacific Arts interview with director Leslie Ishii:



Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley runs through December 5, 2010, at East West Players in Los Angeles.

While I was immersed in Mysterious Skin-L.A., I didn't go to as many movies as I usually do—so I recently did a lot of catching up. Let's breeze through my thoughts on current cinema, shall we?

127 Hours: Practically everyone knows the story of Aron Ralston, the dude who cut off his own arm after being trapped by a boulder in a canyon. So the only thing to really learn was whether or not he jerked off at any point during his five-day ordeal. Well, I am sad to report that James Franco (who plays Ralston in the film) entices us by reaching "down there," but he does not, I repeat, he does not masturbate. As for the rest of the movie, which spends most of its 95-minute running time in that one agonizing location, I kept trying not to fall asleep from boredom—I wanted to make sure I was awake for the climactic and gruesome amputation scene, which I guessed would be the most effective torture porn horror since the first Saw. Yup, the arthouse crowd found it hard to stomach (they were squirming)—but then again, they probably never watched Cary Elwes hack his leg off. Pussies.

Jackass 3D: If Johnny Knoxville's mercilessly disgusting yet very funny 3D extravaganza isn't high art, then why did the Museum of Modern Art in New York screen it—without irony?

Let Me In: This remake of the superb Swedish horror movie, Let the Right One In, wasn't supposed to turn out good (it is an American remake, after all), but it is fan-fucking-tastic—and perhaps even more emotionally resonant than the original.

Paranormal Activity 2: The first film may have been over-hyped, but this installment perfects the style, is smartly written, and scared the crap out of me. And I know the actress who plays the superstitious nanny! I was sitting right next to her while I was watching her on screen, making my life even more meta than it already is.

Red: Why is there such perverse joy in watching Helen Mirren wield a machine gun? A solid action film with a bunch of old coots.

The Social Network: It's undeniably entertaining, fast-paced, and hilarious, but its depiction of Facebook genius Mark Zuckerberg as an extremely unlikeable sociopath is so removed from any possible reality that it makes me uncomfortable that a living, breathing human being is being unfairly maligned like that. Also, the film ultimately isn't really about anything. (Seriously, people, it's not. Don't argue.)

Unstoppable: It's as preposterous as the trailers make it out to be (rudimentary research will show you that the filmmakers stretched the "inspired by true events" claim to its illogical extreme), but it's highly entertaining and technically well-executed.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger: I'm usually a Woody Allen apologist, but, man, this just didn't click. At all.

...And I know Skyline has gotten horrible reviews and the audience buzz is dismal, but I am inexplicably morbidly curious about it. Well, maybe it's not so inexplicable. Lord knows I loves me some Eric Balfour. And Eric Balfour in a wife-beater? Sold! I'll tell you how bad it is next week.

Despite the fact that I haven't blogged around these parts for an agonizing number of weeks (macraméing bracelets for Zac Efron takes time, people!), Bamboo Nation's traffic and subscriber base is as healthy as ever—which I suppose means that you still love me, really love me, like from the bottom of your bowels. So I will stop neglecting you now.

And despite the fact that we've heard nary a peep from our beloved Pork Chop for what seems like ages, his power and influence continues to reach far and wide. Case in point:

Remember Pork Chop's much-circulated Mexican Cat Dance video—the one that's racked up a mind-boggling 100,000+ views and that's been mentioned in Entertainment Weekly twice? The one here:



Well, somebody I don't know used that video to create an animated image, an Internet meme that first appeared on Senor GIF, which is a part of the I Can Has Cheezburger? network. This GIF...



...has been viewed by several thousand people, has been shared via Facebook more than 100 times, and has spawned a comments thread that ranges from cruel taunts about one commenter's dead cat to ebullient expressions of appreciation over the inexplicable joy of Pork Chop, like:

"This is the greatest thing ever."

"Does anyone know exactly why this is so funny? I’ve been laughing for like ten minutes."

"I cannot stop laughing at this f**king cat in a sombrero. I keep checking it every hour or two...still funny. WHY?!"

Oh, Pork Chop, I remember when you were just a small-town boy with dreams of Hollywood stardom.

By the way, the photo at the top of this post is Zac Efron saying "fuck you" to cancer. No. Seriously.

[Thanks to Brent J. for stumbling across this meme.]