CHICAGO SUN TIMES
JANUARY 18, 2002


NO PLACE FOR POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN FILM
Roger Ebert


PARK CITY, Utah--The man in the audience was angry. "How could you," he
asked the director, his voice trembling with sincerity, "despite your
talented cast and great production values, make such a bleak, negative,
amoral film? What kind of a portrait is this of Asian Americans? Don't
you have a responsibility to paint a more positive and helpful portrait
of your community?"

Roger Ebert at BLT screening at Sundance.Justin Lin, whose "Better Luck
Tomorrow" had just played to an enthusiastic reception at the Sundance
Film Festival, replied that he had made the film he wanted to make, the
way he had wanted to make it. He felt it depicted a reality among
teenagers of any race.

I usually don't speak during the Q&A sessions after screenings, but I
couldn't restrain myself. I told the man I thought he was being
condescending: "You would never make a comment like that to a white
filmmaker."

I quoted Chris Eyre, the Native American filmmaker, who was on a panel
with me that afternoon. "For 100 years," he said, "American Indians
have played the same roles in movies. Either savages or spiritual
peoples who exist on some mystical plane. It is time to let us just
simply be people."

The same could be said of Asian-American characters, who are often
either martial-arts practitioners, exotic sexual prizes or winners of
the spelling bee. Justin Lin's film tells the story of a group of
bright, ambitious Asian high school kids who live in an affluent suburb
and have their sights set on Ivy League schools. The hero is a brain
who captains an academic decathlon team. Because he wants his college
application to look good, he also plays basketball, does community
service and belongs to half the clubs in school, in addition to getting
high grades.

Meanwhile, he and his friends drift into criminal activity--at first
selling cheat sheets, then dealing in drugs. Eventually they commit
murder. He considers turning himself in to the police, but "I couldn't
let one mistake get in the way of everything I'd worked for. I know the
difference between right and wrong, but I guess in the end, I really
wanted to go to a good college."

Amoral, yes. Shockingly. He seems to exist in a world of achievement
and ambition that operates entirely apart from moral values. Another
audience member drew a parallel with Enron executives who apparently
concealed the fact that their numbers didn't add up. Justin Lin said he
senses a moral disconnect in some of today's teenagers and wanted to
make a movie about it. His cast was all Asian-American because--well,
why not?

For years filmmakers have tiptoed around the sensibilities of some
ethnic groups, afraid to offend. Maybe the tiptoeing is the real
offense. Until Indians, Asians and African Americans are shown with the
same moral complexity as white characters, they are being short-
changed, stereotyped, closed off from the full range of human response.
Some Italian Americans are offended by "The Godfather," but isn't it
one of the best American movies of all time?

I thought about "Our America," which played here a few days ago. Ernest
Dickerson's wonderful film, based on fact, tells the story of two black
teenagers from a poverty-stricken Chicago public housing complex. Given
tape recorders by the local NPR station and asked to make a radio
documentary of their lives, they produce a result so powerful that they
become the youngest people ever to win a Peabody Award.

But they are attacked by power brokers within the black community. A
school official and a talk-show host say the portrait they painted was
too negative--that a white producer must have put words in their
mouths, in order to show only the bad side of the Ida B. Wells complex.
The kids are shaken; they respect these black adults, and question
themselves, but decide at last they told their own story in their own
words.

Consider, in a different kind of film, Denzel Washington's astonishing
performance in "Training Day," where he plays a completely evil,
vicious, corrupt cop. A negative portrait? Yes. Should he have shown
the bright side, by playing a dedicated black cop? And denied us that
performance? If there can be a corrupt white cop in the movies, why not
a black one?

Morgan Freeman told me once that he liked to play villains in the
movies because they were often the most interesting characters. His
Oscar-nominated performance in "Street Smart" (1987), as a violent
pimp, launched his starring career. But often producers preferred to
have a white villain. James Woods, Tommy Lee Jones and Christopher
Walken got the juicy bad-guy roles, because Hollywood fears to portray
blacks in a negative way.

That kind of thinking is an artistic straitjacket, exiling minority
characters to a benevolent limbo. Denzel Washington may play a bad cop
in "Training Day," but he also represents a great black actor.
In "Skins," Chris Eyre shows alcoholism, poverty and despair on an
Indian reservation, but he also shows vibrant human characters both
good and bad, in a real world. If Justin Lin had made "Good Luck
Tomorrow" about white teenagers, no one would have batted an eye--and
his cast of gifted young Asian-American actors would have been denied
important roles.

One of the many qualities of the great film "Monster's Ball" is that it
avoids stereotypes about black-white relationships and shows two
characters who come together out of human need and desperation. Race is
the last thing on their minds. That movie, and "Better Luck
Tomorrow," "Skins" and "Our America," are pointed in the right
direction, toward films that celebrate the full range of their
characters without the emasculation of political correctness. If Justin
Lin had a responsibility to "his community," it was to make the best
film he possibly could.

Originally posted by Simpson Purist
I'm surprised some people are turned off by the fact that MTV is producing this film. Isn't this the same MTV that produced "Election"?

Originally posted by UKingdom
Definitely. Don't let the MTV monikor fool you. I think Justin Lin was seriously in need of money and thought that not only would this help distribute the film but also help advertise the money to young people.

In limited release, the low-budget "Better Luck Tomorrow" had a huge first weekend, grossing $398,489 in just 13 theaters for an average of $30,653. Directed by Justin Lin, the film features a cast of unknowns in the story of straight-A, Asian-American teens who, bored with their suburban lives, slide into petty crimes that lead to violence.

MTV Films acquired the movie at last year's Sundance Film Festival, feeling its fresh faces, dark humor, eclectic music and ambivalent ending would appeal to the network's youthful audience.

Asian-Americans made up a bit more than half the audience, but the filmmakers hope it can cross over to a wider crowd as the movie expands to more theaters over the next two weekends.

"These kids could be anybody," said Van Toffler, MTV president. "It's silly to underestimate the eclectic moviegoing tastes of our demographic. The cast doesn't have to look or feel like them for them to want to see it."

Originally posted by matrixrok9
-MILF dude

Originally posted by matrixrok9


Pros
-first half was good
-Looked good for a low budget movie
-MILF dude (crowd went wild when he made is first appearance)
*I thought he looked familiar

Con
-2nd half was crap
*while not as good as the first half - calling it crap is a bit harsh - the movie just went where it had to go.
-some actors looked too old for their roles
*yes - but at least the lead guy looked perfect for his role.
-copied too much of Scorsese's work (took me out of the movie)
* I tought while it was similar, it wasn't too much of a copy, unlike Blow.
-one shot was too long, got me dizzy (care to guess, which one?)
*I think that was the POINT of the shot - to make you feel queesy and nausious, just like the characters - therefore it worked.

Taking everyone by surprise were the sensational results for the Asian-American art film Better Luck Tomorrow, which opened in 13 theaters in four cities and took in nearly $400,000, or about $31,000 per theater. The film, picked up at Sundance by MTV Films for $500,000, had been heavily promoted on MTV and the Internet. Although it stars a group of unknown Asian-American actors, "these kids could be anybody," MTV President Van Toffler told the AP. It's silly to underestimate the eclectic moviegoing tastes of our demographic."