Beauty vs Beast: Tiger vs Dragon

Jason Adams from MNPP here, hoping against hope that Michelle Yeoh's name doesn't get lost among all the brand new Oscar contenders currently dominating our thoughts thanks to the ongoing Toronto Film Festival; they might be fresh playthings but Crazy Rich Asians as Nathaniel just reported is still dominating the box office, so let's keep Yeoh's heat going.

And what better way than to use this week's "Beauty vs Beast" glance back at her previous greatest role, that of the love-stricken bad-ass Yu Shu Lien in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She faced down an ignorant but loveable upstart that time around to, with Zhang Ziyi embodying all fiery desire as the thief and shit-kicker Jen Yu. 

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PREVIOUSLY Our Hammer vs Cavill battle kept itself pretty tight but Armie came out on top (I hear he's into that) with 52% of your vote - said Matt:

"Well, Armie Hammer wants to wrestle. So....yeah."

Podcast: Crazy Rich Asians and Glenn Close for Best Actress

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl welcome Nick Davis back to the podcast this week for lots of Crazy Rich Asians talk.

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Introductions. Randomness.
02:10 Nick has read the book that The Wife is based on!
05:01 Crazy Rich Asians talk. Lots and lots on with SPOILERS (sorry). We love the ensemble including Michelle Yeoh, Harry Shum Jr, Pierre Png, Gemma Chan, and more...
36:34 Older films we've been watching: Travels with My Aunt (1972) Your Name (2016), and Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969)
42:00 Recent releases: I Feel Pretty, Madeline's Madeline, The Darkest Minds
50:45 Steve James new docuseries "America to Me"
54:00 Glenn Close for Best Actress! 

Referenced in this discussion
• Nathaniel's year old review of The Wife from TIFF
• Murtada's Desiree Akhavan interview
• Justin Chang's Crazy Rich Asians review
• Kelley Dong's Crazy Rich Asians review
• The 1972 Best Actress list

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Crazy Rich Asians, The Wife

Posterized: Michelle Yeoh

by Nathaniel R

It's a new season of our series Posterized in which we look back at the entire careers of various actors and directors. Last week Spike Lee joints. Today, Malaysia's finest: Michelle Yeoh. The fifty-six year old Asian superstar is currently grande dame'ing it through the romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians, giving the movie nearly all of its dramatic bite through her excellent nuanced underplaying of the intimidating and at times outright cruel potential mother-in-law. 

Yeoh's career is harder to track here in the US since not all of her films are released here. Nevertheless, let's do our posterized retrospective. We've pruned just a bit for lack of quality posters or obscurity but this is nearly everything starting with her first leading role in 1985 in Yes, Madam! (which has apparently been retitled Police Assassins), a dual-lead action vehicle with American actress Cynthia Rothrock (of late 80s B movie fame). Anyway... on to the pictorial survey.

How many of these 34 Michelle Yeoh projects have you seen? Was it more than you expected? The posters are after the jump...

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Review: "Crazy Rich Asians"

by Chris Feil

Crazy Rich Asians feels like something sterling from the past, the kind of wholly satisfying and rapturous romantic comedy that we bemoan is missing from the multiplex. Director Jon M. Chu’s loving embrace of the genre pulls its influences from across the decades, infusing Doris Day/Rock Hudson rompiness with the cutting character detail of The Devil Wears Prada. It’s a high mark that the film clears and safely so, sliding with ease onto a shelf next to your rewatchable favorites - and it’s been a minute since something new joined the ranks.

The film’s massive ensemble is led by Constance Wu as Rachel Chu, a self-made economics professor set for her fated meeting with the overseas family of her charming boyfriend Nick Young, played by a painfully dashing Henry Golding. Unbeknownst to Rachel, this family wedding getaway is about to thrust her center stage in front of one of the wealthiest families in Singapore. And all of the generational expectations and deceptive opulence that entails...

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Beauty Break: "Crazy Rich Asians" Covers THR

Chris here. While August is usually a slow winding down of the summer movie season into unfortunateness, one of this summer's most anticipated is still to come: hit lit adaptation Crazy Rich Asians! We fans of Kevin Kwan's extended family book series already know why you should be very excited about this Jane Austen-esque delight, but allow me to quickly illuminate you what's in store: an ever rare romantic comedy, set in the glamorous and opulent lifestyle of the filthy rich, and most crucially, the first American studio film led by an Asian American cast in decades.

The film is currently sitting poolside on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter, which gives us a moment to luxuriate in its gloriousness...

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