YNMS x 3: Crazy Rich Asians, Venom, and Woman Walks Ahead
Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 7:00PM 
So many trailers hitting recently. So little time to Yes No Maybe So them all. So let's catch up with three of the newer ones after the jump: Crazy Rich Asians, Venom, and Woman Walks Ahead...
Crazy Rich Asians
YES
• It seems absolutely insane that this is (unless we've forgotten something?) the first all Asian US studio release since The Joy Luck Club (1993), which was incidentally a hit. That movie was followed less than a decade later by a SUBTITLED Asian picture that made over $100 million at the domestic box office so there's absolutely no excuse for Hollywood being all shy about these things for the past 25 years!
• Constance Wu is a delight and the supporting cast looks particularly fun here. Especially excited about Awkwafina (who is also in Oceans 8 this summer) and Sonoya Mizuno (Ex Machina alum alert!)
• Handsome male lead / find in Henry Goulding. The desexualization of Asian men has been a much-discussed US problem in social media but it does seem to be changing (finally) with this and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Into the Badlands and Riz Ahmed and John Cho fanbases and more... to which we must offer our hearty approval. And thirst.
• "Comfortable... that's something a super rich person would say." - LOL. so true.
NO
• The accidental golddigger trope -- get married for love but find out you won the lottery because he's insanely rich! -- has decades and decades of dust on it. It's pure wish fulfillment shell game fantasy, greedy without all the moral ugliness of greed! So we're hoping this is extra funny to make up for that or that it least has a few interesting things to say about wealth and fantasy.
MAYBE SO
• We ♥️ Michelle Yeoh and she should've been Oscar nominated for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) but we'll have to hope that her role has more pizzazz in the actual movie than in this trailer where she seems to be kind of doing a simple stock character (disapproving uptight mom)
Are you a yes no or maybe so? And is any of that contingent on being a Constance Wu Fresh Off the Boat Emmy campaigning fan in your spare time?
Woman Walks Ahead
YES
• Jessica Chastain.
• All those landscape shots. The cinematographer is Mike Eley who recently shot the remake of My Cousin Rachel but his first high profile project was the Grey Gardens TV miniseries from nine or ten years ago. God, has it been that long? Soon we'll all be ecccentric old ladies holed up in family houses
NO
• Let's hope the movie is more focused than this because the trailer is overstuffed and unfocused. As if it has to show you selections from every single scene of the movie in 2 minutes lest you lose interest.
• Starting to worry about Sam Rockwell being typecast as a racist. It's such an uncomfortable niche. This is three back-to-back roles now (Three Billboards, A Woman Walks Ahead, and Best of Enemies). He probably needs to play a nice evolved guy soon, don'cha think?
MAYBE SO
• It might take a bit to get used to Chastain's Brooklyn accent.
• It's somewhat morbidly amusing to remember that civil rights struggle movies used to be a "safe" way for (white) filmmakers to win accolades. But public discourse has changed a lot in the last 10 years. American history is now not so much well-trodden non-divisive ground but landmine-filled as new wars are fought on old terrain. I'm not personally sorry to see that era of historical films vanish since it bothered me my whole life that history films felt so "safe" and cozily proud of their 'modern' understanding. Your mileage may vary but I've always personally felt that more artists should address their own era rather than pat themselves on the back about being on the ride side of wars already won / lost / agreed upon.
But it's even more complicated than distance and political correctness. Now there's much more complex discourse about racial identity and authorship. Cue "Hamilton" music:
Will they tell your story?
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
Will they tell your story?
Who lives, who dies
Who tells your story?
As we move into this new era filmmakers would probably be smart to really think long and hard about what stories they want to tell and interrogate the why of that. History is no longer at the safe remove it once was (but probably never should have been) in the arts. I haven't read reviews of this film yet but one can bet -- no matter how graceful or clumsily the movie proves to be about its central relationship between the painter Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain) and her subject Chief Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes)-- that they'll all complain that a white woman is the lead in a story that's steeped in the suffering of people of color.
Okay let's end with something sillier after that heavy topic. How about an alien symbiote with a silly devil-on-your-shoulder cartoon voice?
Venom
YES
• Are our ears malfunctioning or is Michelle Williams still doing her I Feel Pretty comedy voice? Why the hell not when you're cashing a check, right!?!
• Speaking of voices, are weird voices the theme of these trailers? Tom Hardy is always welcome on our screens but doesn't his voice seem all over the place in this trailer, accent and pitch wise? Let's hope this is a sign of a totally risky BIG performance because the movie will surely need it to be watchable.
NO
• This storyline wasn't all that compelling when they let Topher Grace do it 11 years ago, you know? In fact it kind of ruined that particular movie.
• Anti-heroes with quips might prove a difficult subgenre to pull off and/or a super quickly tiresome subgenre to watch in the wake of Deadpool and Deadpool 2.
• Looks kinda cheap and ugly, no?
• And that's before that stupid looking shot of the Venom face covering up something we'd MUCH rather look at and then sticking out a Freddie Krueger tongue. We always have and will continue to consider it a crime against beauty/humanity that filmmakers are relentlessly intent on covering up Tom Hardy's mug. We blame Christopher Nolan in perpetuity.
MAYBE SO
• Ruben Fleischer hasn't made that many films but he's hit and miss thus far. Zombieland: yes; Gangster Squad: no.
• Riz Ahmed as villain!? That'd be a yes except his role looks super small / dull in the trailer.
Reader Comments (19)
I have this perverse desire now to see Tom Hardy sign on for a solo Doomsday movie, so he alone can lay claim to portraying the dumb and boring "edgy" Gen-X-era comic book villain trifecta in live action.
Venom:
YES:
#LetVenomEatPeople
Doesn't really seem Deadpool level quippy, at least based on this. More on the "Logan or Daredevil" end of the R-Rated Superhero concept.
Tom Hardy's voice. Yeah, this is something that needs you to go big or go home.
No:
"Sym-Bye-Oat"? That better just be a Jenny Slate vocal quirk and not the entire cast.
Maybe So:
Looks kind of cheap and ugly right now, but this has five months. Final product could be better looking than this. Not Best VFX nominee good, but even at this juncture, it looks better than Green Lantern did.
Ruben Fleischer IS Hit and Miss.
We don't actually know the main villain. Maybe they're hiding that performance/character to be a surprise...? The guess going around is Woody Harrelson as Carnage.
Oh, hot Tom Hardy riding a motorbike makes this an absolute YES. So long as his face isn't covered up for TOO much of the movie. You're right - Christopher Nolan has a lot to answer for!
I'm reading the novel of CRAZY RICH ASIANS at the moment and it's a blast. So much funny material I hope they don't turn out a mediocre movie. I'll see it but the trailer looks like it could go either way.
WOMAN WALKS AHEAD looks earnest and kinda dull. I love Sam Rockwell but it's unfortunate he's getting typecast as a racist. Or maybe bad luck that his racist trilogy is coming out all in the same 12 months.
I rewatched Rockwell's scenes in THE WAY, WAY BACK again on Netflix the other night and he was terrific, with just the right amount of pain and compassion to offset the wacky funny guy persona. Maya Rudolph was great in that too - when is she going to get her breakout lead film role that makes her a superstar? Her Dionne Warwick in KIMMY SCHMIDT still cracks me up whenever I think of it.
Crazy Rich Asians.... fuck no. It's from that hack who did those Justin Bieber docs and that atrocity that was Jem & the Holograms. Woman Walks Ahead is a yes. Venom is a maybe.
Venom seems so generic. All the dialogue in the trailer seemed hammy and uninspired. All I really want to know is how they plan on selling this without Spider-Man. The dark suit Spider-Man is usually so integral to the Venom story. Crazy Rich Asians only interests me because of the savagery in the title. Michelle Yeoh getting to flex her comedic muscles is a plus too. Jessica Chastain is always an instant yes.
Thanks for your thoughtful engagement with the A Woman Walks Ahead trailer. I agree that they will need to play it carefully to avoid the “white savior” trope that so often makes historical films feel clunky. That said, Sitting Bull appears to be a real character with some humor, complexity, sensuality, violence, etc. on display in the trailer. This does much to refocus and offset the white savior trope since he gets to do more (presumably) than just look “noble.” I think it’s a testament to the very public critiques of historical films, and historians’ own critiques of popular culture, that we are seeing (hopefully) more complex engagements with the past. Will it be a Mudbound? Probably not. The Rockwell gang of unambiguous racist villains seem poised to make modern audiences feel comfortable in their (presumed) distance from the horseback riding racists of the past. So **shrug** on that front.
Crazy Rich Asians seems interesting. Hopefully they sort the tone out better in the movie than they did in the trailer. I’ll take a dancey, comedic travelogue film as long as it doesn’t get too self-serious or cliched, particularly in pitting the older and younger woman against one another for the affections of the (super appealing but also maybe boringly flawless) man.
Love Riz Ahmed as a villain (and, you know, generally) although the theming of “South Asian guy as tech villain” seems dubious (or bad optics) since he also featured in this role in the last Bourne movie. That said, he looks great in suits and is always a welcome and dynamic screen presence.
Woman Walks Ahead: YES
I love Jessica Chastain.
Michael Greyeyes is a really interesting actor and dancer. He danced with the National Ballet of Canada and with the Eliot Feld company in NYC. (I adore Eliot Feld). Now he choreographs, creates theatre pieces, and teaches as well as acting.
Jessica Chastain has a different movement style and sense of physical expression with every role she does, so seeing the two of them work together sounds like bliss.
Add to that director Susanna White, with her sharp, accurate, taut directing style, and you've got something that promises multiple cinematic pleasures.
I love Chastain but this does not look like a good film. And some of the dialogue and story is silly (I just want to paint? Please). I’m a yes for the three principle actors (all phenomonol actors) but no for the rest of it.
Crazy Rich Asians: Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. What might be funny as a book isn't always funny when translated onto screen. I mean, have you SEEN the live-action Screech Owls show? I. AM. Canadian. And lame.
"Soon we'll all be ecccentric old ladies holed up in family houses "
...soon ??
maybe
maybe
no
Does Memoirs of Geisha count as a US studio release? And also, there is the under-appreciated Better Luck Tomorrow.
Yes to the sexualisation of Asian men - a thousand times yes.
Hasn’t Jessica’s career been the weirdest thing? She needs a better agent.
Thank goodness M Yeoh speaks English here. Her mandarin in Crouching Tiger was an unintended comic outcome. Read any reviews here in TW, HK or SG and they never fail to mention how misplaced her pronunciation was in the Ang Lee film.
Chastain is always a delight!
And no to Venom except that Tom Hardy is just too handsome to turn away from.
Crazy Rich Asians: Maybe, leaning towards yes - and as you pointed out in your write-up, it's mostly based on Constance Wu. She is so talented.
Woman Walks Ahead: Maybe, leaning towards no - Chastain is a great talent, but I am increasingly feeling she doesn't have good taste in projects.
Venom: no. I won't do any Marvel movies going forward unless it's a Black Panther-like proposition. I can't. They are all terrible in similar ways, and I almost fell asleep during the trailer for 'Infinity Wars.' When can we stop giving a crap about this continual desecration of cinema? I have feelings about this, apparently.
It always puzzles me when I read reviews in other publications of movies with First Nations actors in them. Basically, those actors are not considered as actors, but as part of the set.
I'm thinking in particular of "Hostiles" reviews, where many reviewers discussed the acting techniques of every single little white guy in the movie, but whose eyes skimmed over the First Nations actors as though they were just "there", background, maybe a symbol.
When a First Nations actor appears in a film, they are a working artist. They deserve the consideration we give artists, thinking about their acting choices, their particular style, their timing, their rapport with other actors, etc.
Why not nominate Michael Greyeyes for a Best Actor Oscar? It will probably be one of the most thoughtful and deeply considered film portraits of the year. That is, if we are thinking of the acting, not the character as a symbol.
YES YES YES YES YES YES to Crazy Rich Asians. The book is great fun and the trailer looks SO luxe and sexy/funny. Plus I'm all about Wu vs. Yeoh.
Jessica Chastain can always get me to see her* films in the theater. (*non-superhero franchise)
Crazy Rich Asians looks cute and I support more summer programming like this - fun movies that women over 25 (i.e., my demo) can enjoy.
"Crazy Rich Asians" is a yes, but that trailer is a meh. The marketing feels too much like it's styled after "The Devil Wears Prada" just because it's another "chick lit" adaptation - it's been 10+ years, let's freshen things up.
Jessica is too earnest in her choices. She needs to select projects by director. Wonder what Mother! would have been had she were cast.