DVD Reviews: January 2006 Archives

Now you gotta know, based on my name, that the Flash is my all-time favorite character. I love the Broome\Fox\Infantino version, the Baron\Guice version, the Waid\Weiringo version, and the Johns\Kolins version. And this was way before 1990, but I had fairly good memories of the TV show that premiered that year. Yesterday I received the Flash DVD set and watched the pilot episode. Oh my god. It stunk worse than a crate of thousand year old eggs. All the characters dress in the excesses of the 80s. It's like all the extras and rejects of Miami Vice and MTV showed up on the Flash set. Paula Marshall plays Iris Allen and wears clothes that might have looked good on Boy George. The sets were decorated in primary colors (blues, purples, etc.) which reminded me of Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy movie. The pilot features the threat of a--gasp--motorcycle gang, who peddle around the studio set very slowly lobbing lime green balls that are powerful enough to explode buses and set cars aflame. The actors don't seem to have much enthusiasm, except for John Wesley Shipp as the Flash and Tim Thomerson as his brother. When you see ol' Jack in a piece like this, the quality speaks for itself. Although I think he's probably the best actor in the pilot!.

Watching this, you see how far technology has come in modern TV shows. In some of the action scenes, the movement of all the actors and stunt men is way too slow. The way they portray the Flash running around the streets, they just took some film and sped it up. The Smallville episode with Kid Flash had small Matrix-like effects to convey the sense of speed. Kid Flash could run on the water with no difficulty. His race with Clark Kent at the end looked pretty good, too. I don't know if I can watch anymore 1990 Flash. I had some good memory of the Trickster episodes...but it's Mark Hamill. Nuff said.

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My wife and I watched Saving Face a few nights ago. During the movie she asked me if I was bored, "Bored?" I asked. "How can I be bored? There are Asian lesbians in this film!"

Saving Face has a typical plotline that seems very familiar: Asian Americans growing up with values that conflict with their first-generation parents. It's been done before in The Joy Luck Club, and also in a Canadian film with Sandra Oh (Sideways) called Double Happiness. I highly recommend the latter, because (if memory still serves) Sandra Oh is very funny and charismatic. In Saving Face, we have not one, but two main characters who conflict with old world values. One is Wil, played by Michelle Krusiec (Bring It On, Mind of the Married Man), a doctor who has kept her lesbianism a secret from her family. Then there's her mother, Gao (played by Joan Chen) a 48 year old single woman who is mysteriously pregnant. It causes a great degree of scandal, forcing her to leave her parents home and live with her daughter. Just at this moment, Wil meets Vivian (played by Lynn Chen), an ultra hot ballerina. Needless to say, Mom cramps Wil's lifestyle. The rest of the movie consists of both women coming to terms with their romantic partners as well as each other. Joan Chen delivers a great performance in the movie, the best of her career. But the lead actors, Krusiec and Chen, don't seem that convincing as a lesbian couple. Maybe it's the point of the movie, to make Krusiec's character so distant that she's reluctant to kiss in public. During the scenes where they kiss, or the most notable topless scene in bed, it's just not that convincing. I just had a feeling that the actors weren't really going for it. I think the director should have gotten them high before that big bedroom scene and really let them go at each other. Or maybe they should have hired Grace Park from Battlestar Galactica to take over Krusiec's role? That would add another element to the mix, a Korean-Chinese lesbian pairing. Don't eat Kim Chee before the sex scene!

Saving Face is at least worth a rental. It's not as weepy or emotional as the Joy Luck Club. If you're a Joan Chen fan, you'll like it, though she doesn't have any toe kissing scenes. Lynn Chen is really a hot chick, I think she outta be in Stuff magazine. Krusiec is OK as the mousy lead, but she seemed much hotter as a slutty Asian masseuse in Mind of the Married Man. But all in all, this is really the best Asian lesbian coming of age flick I've ever seen, because it's the only one I've ever seen. You had better let me know if other flicks exist! Nuff said.

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