2nd to Final Day of Fest ='(

It's 3AM right now and I am too consumed with emotions [and a bit of stress from studying for Prof. Llora's quiz in a few hours =P] to sleep, and I just have that urge to BLOG!

Unfortunately, I was unable to watch Year of the Fish on Monday because of studies and various other school-related activities, however that night I received an e-mail from Kerry Yo Nakagawa, one of the producers from American Pastime.

"Leslie:

Congratulations on your Journalism award and we were very proud of your
work with 'American Pastime.' I am the associate producer Kerry Yo
Nakagawa, and Susanna Thompson was Shirley Burrell in our film. We sat
together at the JACL table and wanted to introduce ourselves to you
but we could not find you at the end. Susanna will be at our film
screening tomorrow evening if you have friends that would like to see
it. I think the power of our film is with an audience and we had a
great screening on Saturday. Keep up the great work and look forward to
seeing your ideas and words in the future. All the best,

Health, Spirit and Aloha,

Kerry Yo Nakagawa"

After I read the e-mail, my mind just screamed "NOOO!" I originally was not planning on going to the film festival on Tuesday because I have class from 9:30AM [with Prof. Llora!] until 9:40PM, but I really wanted to meet Susanna Thompson because I missed my chance to meet her and Kerry at the gala. My last class of the day is a class that meets only Tuesdays starting at 7PM. Many other professors would be nice and let us out early, but not this professor. His incentive for us to attend the class in its entirety are "pop quizzes" given at each class period, and he would give us the "pop quiz" at the end of class. Because we only meet once a week, he would quiz us in every class, and if he does not administer a quiz in one class, he said he will most likely quiz us twice in the next class.

Throughout his monotone, outdated marketing lectures, I tend to doze off. Last Tuesday, I woke up to my professor asking the class, "Do you want to leave early, or take a quiz?" What kind of question is that? Of course we'll opt out of a quiz to leave early! Because of that, I knew he was going to quiz us at least once this Tuesday, so I had to strategize carefully. The screening of American Pastime was scheduled for 8:15PM. The film was about 100 minutes long, so if it starts on time, the movie will end around 9:50. It takes about 5-10 minutes to walk to my car, depending on where I park it, and it will take 10-15 minutes to drive from SDSU to the Hazard Center.

I then moved my car to the nearest parking lot prior to class, and parked it in a spot where I can easily avoid the swarms of students and cars leaving from their evening classes. Time could not have passed any slower as I anxiously waited for my professor to administer the quiz. I had even debated skipping the quiz, and allowing that score to be the score that I drop, but it's a good thing I stayed because the quiz ended up being worth double, so STAY IN SCHOOL KIDS! In the end, I made it to the Hazard Center with 20 minutes to spare.

The only times I have seen American Pastime were in the comforts of my own home for the sake of writing my review. It was very different watching it with an audience. They laughed and gasped at the same places where I did when watching it for the first time. I even heard some sniffling of tears. Because I caught the film towards the end, I noticed a few things that I never noticed before because usually at that point in the movie, I would be crying too hard at that point.

Anyway, I was able to meet Susanna Thompson, who was also anticipating me being there because I sent an immediate reply to Kerry Yo Nakagawa after receiving his e-mail the night before, telling him that I was going to do my best to go to the screening. She was just as happy as I was to meet me, and she gave me a T-shirt compliments of Kerry, who could not be there. If you are reading this, thanks Kerry! I was also able to talk to Susanna about how this film opened my eyes to a completely different perspective of Japanese internment during WWII. I had never known that baseball was such a vast and influential outlet to the Japanese internees. We need more films like this to help educate the public on a more specific truth of our Asian-American history.

Susanna Thompson and I at the screening of American Pastime.

Thanks for the shirt, Kerry!

My American Pastime autographs from Susanna Thompson, Aaron Yoo, & Leonardo Nam.


Tonight, I saw two films: Tie a Yellow Ribbon and Shanghai Kiss. I usually carry a little notebook with me to jot down any notes that may pop into my head at the most random of times, but tonight I forgot to bring it. I had to resort to writing down my thoughts on the backs of two sheets of surveys that the volunteers hand out at the entrance of the theater to each film. Sorry but I was desperate! Of the two movies, I honestly thought that I was going to enjoy Shanghai Kiss more. On the contrary, I found Tie a Yellow Ribbon, which is definitely the darker film of the two, to be the better. Although Tie a Yellow Ribbon is far from being a happy story, it was more moving and I believe to the point in expressing self-identity. was a cute movie with many good laughs, but I felt that it dragged on throughout many parts of the movie. Ken Leung nails all the humor in his sarcastic retorts, but all in all, I was not very moved by Shanghai Kiss.

On the other hand, Tie a Yellow Ribbon is a film that will leave you walking out of the theater feeling, in what we young'ns say, "Emo." It's not necessarily a negative feeling. I felt deep in thought and anyone who tries to engage me in a conversation at the time will most likely be rejected because I would rather leave myself be in my own state of thought. On the back of one of the surveys, I began to personally analyze the film. Usually, I start by analyzing the title of the film. The "yellow" in the title obviously refers to the yellow bandanna, or "ribbon" that the main character, Jenny, carries around throughout the film. However, "yellow" could have a more racial connotation in that it refers to being Asian. The film focuses around Jenny's search for her identity, which she believes she lost the minute she was born "on an airplane...45 inches and 45 pounds." She tries to find the balance between her Asian heritage, which she knows nothing about, and her Caucasian heritage, which was greatly influenced by her now-estranged adopted parents.

I would want to go into more detail if I wanted to give away the whole film, and if it wasn't so late/early in the morning. [Oh, the life of a college student.] Shanghai Kiss had an enormous turnout where the entire theater was filled.

Every seat was taken in the theaters, and I had a hunch that it was going to be a busy night at the festival because this is one of the films that Miguel [Prof. Llora] approved for our Asian Studies 310 midterm paper. Many of my classmates in that class had said that they were going to see Shanghai Kiss, so I figured that there were going to be a lot of people. Thank goodness I had an all-access pass so I didn't have to wait in line.

After the movies, I wanted to buy an SDAFF shirt, but I didn't have cash or my checkbook on me. Jessie was nice enough to let me take one & IOU SDAFF $15. I hold myself accountable for the $15 that will swear to pay tomorrow!

Plan for tomorrow: West 32nd!

Good night/good morning!