Whether you dip into it or read it from cover to cover, this book brings a hidden history to life.
A wide-ranging celebration of Asian Americans in film.
Once opened, this book is hard to close. Lushly produced with a mix of screenshots and illustrations, it unwraps the history of Asian cinema in the U.S., punctuated by interviews with important figures. Yang, co-author of Rise: A Pop History of Asian America From the Nineties to Now, has worked in this area for long enough to speak with understated authority, and he looks at 136 films, providing reviews and background information. He groups them into categories such as immigration, family, action, and romance, which demonstrates the breadth of Asian cinema. His criteria for inclusion seem rather loose, with some movies made by Asian directors, some made in Asia that were imported by U.S. distributors, some with Asian headline stars, and others where only a minor character is Asian. In Hollywood movies in the postwar era, Asian characters were often portrayed by Westerners with heavy makeup and appalling accents, and most were pushed into stereotypical roles. But there was a slow process of change, helped along by directors like John Woo and Ang Lee. On the anime side, the visually stunning Akira (1988) broke through to the American teenage audience. Slumdog Millionaire won a slew of awards, and the huge success of Crazy Rich Asians cemented the commercial viability of Asian-themed movies. By the time Michelle Yeoh (who provides a foreword to the book) stepped up in the wildly enjoyable Everything Everywhere All at Once, Asian faces on the screen were no longer remarkable. Fortunately, most of the movies Yang discusses can be accessed in some way, and many readers will find themselves making a list. Perhaps the author might have delved deeper into the future of Asian American cinema, but this is not a fatal shortcoming, and the book is a fun, informative piece of work.
Whether you dip into it or read it from cover to cover, this book brings a hidden history to life.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780762482221
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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