Movie Review Everything Everywhere All at Once

Everything Everywhere All at Once 

Directed by The Daniels

Written by The Daniels

Starring Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu 

Released April 8th, 2022 

Everything Everywhere All at Once is my new favorite movie. This gloriously chaotic comedy drama from directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, is an epic of galaxy-brained thought experiments, love, despair, and everything in between. While the Multiverse is a concept most often given over to Marvel movies in our modern pop culture, it’s also a real theoretical and philosophical concept and Everything Everywhere All at Once plays out the theoretical and philosophical concept to an absurdly brilliant degree to explore the relationship between a mother and a daughter and the choices that made them who they are. 

The completely brilliant Michelle Yeoh stars in Everything Everywhere All at Once as Evelyn, a troubled, easily distracted, and deeply unfulfilled Laundromat owner. Evelyn is scatterbrained, everything requires her attention all the time. Her family business is being audited by a cranky IRS Agent, Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), she’s growing disconnected from her dippy husband, Waymund (Ke Huy Quan), and her relationship with her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), is strained to the breaking point as Evelyn struggles with not wanting to tell her father, Gong Gong (James Hong), that Joy is gay out of fear of his reaction.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media,  linked here. 

Movie Review Joyride

Joy Ride (2023) 

Directed by Adele Lim 

Written by Cherry Chevapravataldumrong, Terese Hsiao, Adel Lim

Starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu

Release Date July 7th, 2023 

Published July 11th, 2023 

There is a visual gag in Joy Ride that is one of the biggest laughs of 2023. It involves one of the most elaborate and unexpected tattoos ever brought to a film screen. I will not spoil it, but truly, any attempt to describe this gag does not do justice the visual designer who crafted this. I don't know if that was makeup or a CGI design of some sort, whatever it was, it's so funny that I laughed embarrassingly loudly. I laughed so hard that it hurt. My eyes popped open to such a degree that I was concerned. It's just that great of a visual gag. 

It's also a very raunchy, incredibly R-Rated gag and thus why you will have to see it for yourself when you see Joy Ride, a terrifically funny and very R-Rated road trip comedy. The film stars Ashley Park as Audrey, one of the boys, despite being very much a woman, at her boy's club of a law office. With her shot at a partnership on the line, Ashley agrees to travel to China to meet with a client and secure a deal. Not speaking Chinses however, Audrey is forced to bring along her childhood friend Lolo (Sherry Cola). 

Lolo is a loving and devoted friend but also a bit of a chaos demon. The two met as the only two Asian girls at their local park. Shy and reserved Audrey was there with her adopted, white parents who could not be more excited to welcome an Asian couple with an Asian daughter to their neighborhood. Lolo secures their friendship when she punches out a boy who uses a racial slur against Audrey. They've been best friends ever since, even as Audrey has gone on to professional success in the law and Lolo has lived in a guest house nearby while working on being an artist. 

Because of Lolo's inability to say no to her family, the two are being joined on the trip to China by Lolo's deeply odd and ambiguous Cousin, Deadeye (Sabrina Wu). Deadeye is the Zach Galifianakis of this Hangover style comedy, a breakout weirdo with her own movie happening in her head that we only catch glimpses of. The final member of the Joy Ride foursome is Audrey's friend from college, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), now a famous Chinese television actress known for her radiant innocence. Once you know that, you know how that joke is likely to payoff but you won't believe how it pays off. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media