Arts Briefs
October 28, 2005
An Early Christmas
EVENT: Celebrate a Filipino Christmas
BACKGROUND: Three-dimensional parols (stars) are displayed in homes throughout the Philippines during the Christmas holiday.
INTERESTING: Participants will get to make their own parol by making a bamboo star-shaped skeleton decorated with colorful paper, pompoms and streamers.
DETAILS: Free with museum admission, Nov. 1, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St., www.asianart.org.
Ming-Na Gives Birth to 2nd Child
LOS ANGELES –– Actress Ming-Na has given birth to her second child, an 8-pound, 9-ounce boy named Cooper Dominic Zee.
“Mother and baby are doing great,” her husband, actor/producer/playwright Eric Zee, said.
Ming-Na, 41, played Dr. Deb Chen on ER. This season, she appeared on the NBC drama Inconceivable, which has since been pulled from the network’s schedule.
Cooper was born on October 19 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. He joins his 4-year-old sister, Michaela.
Producer: Bruce Lee’s Death Was Accidental
Bruce Lee’s former producer, Raymond Chow, repeated his stance that the kung fu star’s sudden death at age 32 was a straightforward case of taking the wrong medicine.
Lee died of an edema, or swelling of the brain, in the home of Hong Kong actress Betty Ting Pei in 1973. The coroner described his passing as “death by misadventure.”
The circumstances fueled speculation that drugs were involved and that Lee was having an affair with Ting.
Chow, one of the founders of Golden Harvest studios, said Lee died because he took headache medication that he was “hypersensitive” to at someone else’s home. He refrained from referring to Ting.
He said Lee was sensitive to one of the three ingredients in the medication, equigesic.
FilAm Film Festival
EVENT: 2005 Chicago Filipino American Film Festival
BACKGROUND: The Filipino American Network of Chicago brings the film festival back for its second year.
INTERESTING: Shorts, music videos, documentaries and feature-length films, including works that have won international, critical and festival acclaim.
DETAILS: Nov. 3-6, The Chopin Theatre, Chicago, www.cfaff.org.
Eastwood to Show Both Sides in WWII Battle
Actor/director Clint Eastwood is working on two films that will tell the story of the World War II battle of Iwo Jima from both sides.
Flags of Our Fathers, telling the U.S. perspective of the battle, and the tentatively titled Lamps Before the Wind, telling the Japanese side, will be released simultaneously, Time magazine reports.
Eastwood is scheduled to start shooting Lamps in February.
Million Dollar Baby writer Paul Haggis wrote Flags, while the companion film was penned by Japanese American screenwriter Iris Yamashita.
The two films will focus on the clash of cultures as well as clash of wills between U.S. soldiers and Japan’s military.
Jackie Chan Gets Nod for Rooster Award
BEIJING –– Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan has been nominated for best actor in China’s prestigious Golden Rooster awards –– the first time the category is open to ethnic Chinese actors outside the mainland.
Chan was nominated for his role in New Police Story, in which he plays an officer disillusioned by the death of his team.
Other best actor nominees are Pu Cunxin for A Bright Moon, Wu Jun for Zhang Side and Luo Deyuan for The Silent Remote Mountains.
Winners will be announced Nov. 9-12 at the China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, in the coastal city of Sanya. There will also be a forum marking the 100th anniversary of Chinese film.
‘Porcelain’
EVENT: Crowded Fire Theater Company presents Porcelain
BACKGROUND: The 9th season opens with Porcelain, by Chay Yew, premier chronicler of the gay Asian experience.
INTERESTING: Explores the alienation of an Asian gay teenager and how he is affected by the white world around him.
DETAILS: $18-20, Nov.4 - Dec. 17, 8 p.m., EXIT Stage Left, 156 Eddy St., San Francisco, (415) 675-5995, www.crowdedfire.org.
The Roaring ‘20s –– Japanese Style
EVENT: Japan’s Roaring Twenties: Chic Taisho Fashions Herald Modernity
BACKGROUND: Liza Dalby, author of Kimono: Fashioning Culture, earned her Ph.D. at Stanford University where she specialized in Japanese culture.
INTERESTING: A photo presentation will illustrate women in transition from kimono to flapper attire.
DETAILS: Free, Nov. 8, 5:45 p.m., USF Lone Mountain Campus, Room 100, 2800 Turk Blvd., San Francisco, (415) 422-6828.
70 Years of Excellence
EVENT: City College of San Francisco Concert and Lecture Series
BACKGROUND: CCSF’s foreign language department celebrates its 70th anniversary.
INTERESTING: Asian Art Museum docents are putting on a series of three lectures, including “The Art of the Brush: Chinese & Japanese Brush Painting,” “The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology” and “Taoism and the Arts of China.”
DETAILS: Free, Nov. 9, Dec. 7, all lectures are 12-1 p.m., City College of San Francisco, (415) 239-3580.
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