By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly Troubling. Challenging. Problematic. Call 2015 what you want, it had plenty of reasons to stay in bed with the covers pulled over your eyes. Here are 10 visions worth getting out of the house for (although, in fairness, you can ingest most of them through your television). 10. “Cambodian Son,” directed […]
Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi”
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly If Jafar Panahi’s new movie comes off less than perfect—or even if it seems perfect—one must consider the circumstances. The Iranian director’s own government banned him from making films for 20 years. In a statement issued earlier this year, Panahi replied that “Nothing can prevent me from making films […]
The Top 10 APA Movies of 2012
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly From close-set family dramas to burgeoning blockbusters, Asian films were as strong as ever this year. Here are my picks for the top ten Asian Pacific American films that played in Seattle this year. 10. “The Secret World Of Arietty,” directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, starring Mirai Shida, Ryunosuke Kamiki, […]
Not a film, but a triumph
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly “This Is Not a Film,” a documentary by co-directors Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, opens with a man seated at his breakfast table, preparing to eat. He takes a phone call, puts it on speaker phone, and seems to tense up in his shoulders, bending slightly to avoid looking […]