AXAs 2008: Peering into the crystal ball... and finding a round naked Asian man (節錄)
2008-04-19
By APA Staff
Asia Pacific Arts Online Magazine
That would be the beautiful body of co-host Bobby Lee, likely the only genuinely wonderful thing about the upcoming AZN Asian Excellence Awards. It definitely won’t be the nominees, which our writers are still scratching their heads over.
It should be clear why the Asian Excellence Awards exist: to celebrate the Asian American community’s ability to throw an awards show as gratuitous and gaudy as any Hollywood ever has. That there are even awards and nominees should be secondary to the faux glitz and trashy self-indulgence.
Ah, that is until you actually see the nominees. Because this year, the AXAs have managed to make the nominations as wildly over-the-top as the cringeworthy video interludes and red carpet of unknown stars. Nothing makes me prouder of our community than the fact that we can nominate Rush Hour 3 for best picture and still pretend to be sincere. Try using the words “excellence” and “Brett Ratner” in the same sentence without laughing. Yeah. Didn’t think so.
And if the AXAs can nominate these films with a straight face, the least we can do as a magazine of arts criticism is to meet them on their own level and cover them as we would any other awards show. That’s right... predictions!
Believe me, it’s tougher than it looks. What could possibly be the criteria here? Who picks the winners? Will the fact that few of the nominees will even show up to the awards show affect who wins? These are pressing questions, indeed. To play along, print out the list of nominees and mull over it incredulously as we’ve been doing since they were announced on March 26.
Going by the wisdom of our writers probably won’t help. In fact, I think we’re more confused now than when we started. --Brian Hu
Here’s why:
...OUTSTANDING FILM ACTOR
Naveen Andrews (The Brave One), Jackie Chan (Rush Hour 3), Chow Yun-Fat (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End), Tony Leung (Lust, Caution), Jet Li (War), Lee-Hom Wang (Lust, Caution)
Brian: They’ve managed to nominate four legends of Hong Kong film and one prince of Taiwanese pop. So I’m guessing Naveen Andrews doesn’t stand a chance, especially because he gets killed off in the trailer of The Brave One. Common sense says Tony Leung will win. But the Asian Excellence Awards have never been about common sense. So I’m going to guess Leehom Wang for the same reasons Maggie Q won last year.
Janice: Yea, my bet is on the charming and talented Leehom Wang as well. But only because he’s hot and I want to see him smile and wink at me on the red carpet. Oh, but that’s not the criteria for winning? But Maggie Q....
My Thanh: This category is split into the veterans and Leehom Wang. While Tony Leung was spectacular with the same cold face in every scene of Lust, Caution, it might not be so bad for Leehom Wang to be the odd person out in this category. The odds are that his charming looks and romantic songs will hypnotize whoever is behind this show to choose him. Hey, it worked on me.
Ada: I vote for Keanu Reeves. One might argue that Keanu didn’t even have a film in 2007, but I’m still pissed about last year’s omission. His performances in A Scanner Darkly and The Lake House were both eligible for competition last year, and The Lake House was even based on an Asian film! Plus, last year they had three nominees for Best Actor (Kal Penn, Jet Li, and Ken Watanabe) and four nominees for Best Actress (Rinko Kikuchi, Maggie Cheung, Gong Li, and Tabu), so they could have easily evened out the Best Male category by showing Keanu some love. It’s a blatant conspiracy, I say. He’s the Susan Lucci of the Asian Excellence Awards, except he, unlike Mark Paul Gosselaar or Quentin Tarantino, doesn’t even get nominated. Just you wait: Keanu’s going to be in a film with Jennifer Connelly this year, win an Oscar, thank the Chinese-Hawaiians that he hung out with 0.39 of the time growing up in Canada, and you’ll all be lining up to capitalize on his excellence next year. ...
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