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The Asian American experience will be different from person to person. And although many on-screen depictions highlight the more universal and timeless topics, such as generational gaps, cultural estrangement and racism, Viet Nguyen and Chris Dinh’s 2015 horror-comedy Crush the Skull instead focuses on its protagonist’s utmost dilemma; he and three other robbers inadvertently break into a serial killer’s house and then become trapped. Yet beneath the movie’s plot-driven exterior lies an overlooked but important example of Asian representation.

In Hollywood movies from both the past and present, Asians have a tendency to be the supporting character rather than the lead. And if they’re lucky, they may be given an occupation other than a doctor or a scientist of some kind. In more problematic cases, the Asian character is rooted in Orientalism or a product of Yellow Peril. Mister Wing from the original Gremlins, played to the max by Keye Luke,...

Russell Sanzgiri’s Counterpart Pictures has optioned the film rights to Tapas Media’s digital comic book “Blink,” Variety has learned exclusively.

The comic, written by former DC Comics editor Rex Ogle and drawn by Eduardo Francisco, focuses on a young African-American girl pushed to the brink — until she screams at the top of her lungs, seemingly causing anything and everything to freeze indefinitely. Alone and afraid, she wanders around New York City while being stalked by an ancient evil entity.

Sanzgiri will executive produce. His credits include Netflix’s “Michael Bolton’s Big, Sexy Valentine’s Day Special” and the Fullscreen series “Guilty Party: History of Lying.” Sanzgiri broke into the business assisting on Spike Jonze’s short films, such as “I’m Here,” starring Andrew Garfield, and “We Were Once a Fairytale,” with Kanye West. Most recently, Sanzgiri served as an executive producer on the documentary “Changing the Game,...

This week, Justin Chon’s Ms. Purple will make its Los Angeles debut at the Nuart, attempting to gain some traction when it expands to New York and other markets in the following weeks. The film premiered at Sundance to critical acclaim and was acquired by Oscilloscope shortly after. The intimate storytelling of Ms. Purple, which tells the tale of two estranged siblings in L.A.’s Koreatown, matches that of his previous film Gook, also a celebrated Sundance favorite.

Also opening this weekend is Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice from Greenwich Entertainment, chronicling the life of the iconic singer, her activism and how she became one of the most prominent voices in the music industry.

Although the weekend will be busy with the opening of the Toronto Film Festival, there will be plenty to watch at the Specialty box...

Loss is at the heart of Justin Chon’s searing new film, “Ms. Purple.” We fear it, dread it, don’t want to imagine our lives with it, and a number of us will fight like hell so not to lose the ones we love. But, as the long-suffering siblings of “Ms. Purple” learn, loss is every bit a part of living.

Kasie (Tiffany Chu) is the more responsible of the two. She’s trying to look after her terminally ill dad (James Kang), but after health aide after health aide quits, they tell her to make her peace with putting him in a hospice, where he can get better care. She refuses, eventually leaning on her wayward brother Carey (Teddy Lee) to come back home and help care for his estranged dad.

At nights, Kasie steps away from the domestic drama of her family to face another soul-crushing reality:...

In Los Angeles, a brother and sister are brought back together as their father slips away. Such is the crux of Ms. Purple, the sophomore feature from writer/director Justin Chon, who was at Sundance in 2017 with his debut Gook. Kasie (an incredible Tiffany Chu) moonlights as a hostess at a karaoke bar, in which she serves at the whim of male clients. It is demeaning work, something she tries to wash away in the mornings.

At home lies her father (James Kang), wasting away in the final days of his life. Desperate for help and reluctant to go to hospice, her wayward brother Carey (Teddy Lee) appears just in time. This is the central relationship of the piece and it’s deeply felt. Chu and Lee work marvelously together, Chon employing a shaky, indie style to their scenes of conflict. Not unlike his debut film, much of this feels messy.

We should be past the point of excessive praise for a male filmmaker who actually sees women characters as whole people, Justin Chon has — along with his co-screenwriter Chris Dinh — endowed his latest protagonist with so many uniquely human complexities that he does deserve some praise. The rest of it belongs to actress Tiffany Chu, who enriches “Ms. Purple” with a performance that is both vulnerable and fearsome, softhearted and severe all at once. Chu is the heart of “Ms. Purple,” a deeply felt and gorgeously framed portrait of the personal cost of fulfilling one’s filial duty. Through relationships with her dying father, estranged brother, and the men who pay for her company, Kasie (Chu) is forced to reckon with where her loyalties lie — with the men around her or with herself?

“Ms. Purple” opens on a flashback: Young Kasie (Abigail Kim) is being dressed up by her father...

A sharp detour from the deliberately raw feel of his well-received prior “Gook,” which won the Next audience award at Sundance two years ago, Justin Chon’s “Ms. Purple” is a character study-cum-mood piece of dolorous style and saturated color. Some may find it a little too mood-driven, with perhaps a few too many dialogue-free, plot-lite interludes of characters looking glamorously angst-ful. But there’s enough substance here to reward the patient in this tale of two disparately isolated siblings reuniting during their father’s last weeks in L.A.’s Koreatown.

Childhood flashbacks scattered throughout gradually clue us to the key event of Kasie (Tiffany Chu) and Carey’s (Teddy Lee) lives: When they were little, their mother walked out on the family, dismissing their father Young-il (James King) as a “loser.” She soon found a more financially advantageous second husband — whom she left in the dark about her prior one,...

Exclusive: As an Asian American filmmaker, Justin Chon has made his own lane when it comes to telling Asian American narratives. His film Gook premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017 and put him on Hollywood’s radar as an up and coming filmmaker. The black and white film about two Korean brothers during the L.A. riots won the Best of Next award at the fest and then went on to win the “Someone To Watch” Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. His follow-up, Ms. Purple, premiered Friday in Park City and it’s becoming a buzzworthy title among audiences. It’s safe to say that Chon is officially a Sundance darling.

“If it was about the money or the fame or any of that bullshit I wouldn’t be making these stories,” Chon tells Deadline. “It’s too hard to!”

When the actor-turned-director talked to us, he...

Fresh off the Tribeca Film Festival lineup, The Endless and Tilt both have teasers that are sure to pique your interest. We also have Indiegogo campaign details for Calculating Euphoria and the Ghost Hug figure release details.

New Promo Video for The Endless: "The Endless is the story of two brothers who return to the deal cult from which they fled a decade ago, to find that there might be some truth to the group’s otherworldly beliefs."

Directed by and starring Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, The Endless also features Tate Ellington, James Jordan, Shane Brady, and Kira Powell. To learn more about

To learn more about The Endless and its screenings at Tribeca, visit:

https://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/endless-2017

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A Look at the Tilt Teaser: "All seems normal with Joseph and Joanne. Joanne is pregnant with their first child. Life in their little urban house is cozy and familiar.

The new “Before Sunrise”-inspired Los Angeles romance “Comfort” follows two people who fall for each other over the course of two nights, and it arrives just in time for Valentine’s Day. The film follows the mild-mannered Cameron (Chris Dinh) who’s content working as a late-night courier for his boss Eddie (Billy Sly Williams), until one night when an important client, Martin (Kelvin Han Yee), asks him to pick up his daughter Jasmine (Julie Zhan) from the airport. As they drive through the streets of L.A., Cameron and Jasmine quickly connect and soon he shares his love of cooking with her and tells her about his dream of owning a food truck. But when respective secrets begin to surface, it endangers their newfound romance. Watch an exclusive trailer for the film below.

Read More: Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ Trilogy Finally Comes to Criterion This February, Plus Pedro Almodóvar...

Winner of the inaugural “Nightfall Award” at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival —an accolade bestowed upon the festival’s best horror or "midnight" film— Viet Nguyen’s feature directorial debut “Crush The Skull,” is a hilarious, thrilling hybrid of a heist film and a gory, old-school slasher flick. The screenplay, written by Nguyen and one of the film’s stars Christopher Dinh, skillfully balances comedic moments with frightening, unexpected twists and turns. Nguyen’s direction also adeptly brings many of funny and fear-inducing scenes to life, an effect no doubt bolstered by the excellent performances of a stellar cast that includes Dinh, Tim Chiou, Katie Savoy, Chris Riedell, Lauren Reeder, Walter Michael Bost, Leonard Wu, Jerry Ying and Lincoln Hoppe, in a film reminiscent of other comedy-horror hybrids such as Eli Craig’s “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” or Drew Goddard’s “The Cabin in The Woods.” Read More: L.A.

Recently celebrating its world premiere at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival, Viet Nguyen’s Crush the Skull could easily be summed up as part heist movie, part slasher but it’s 100 percent unexpected fun. Nguyen confidently blends the two genres together for an experience that’s tense, well-paced and often hilarious, demonstrating there are still a few twists to be had in the modern horror genre.

Crush the Skull follows Ollie (Christopher Dinh) and Blair (Katie Savoy), a loving couple who commit small burglary jobs in order to pay the bills and they run into some trouble on what’s supposed to be their final job. When Blair has to resort to extreme measures in order to help Ollie out of a tough situation, she turns to her brother Connor (Chris Riedell), who has planned the perfect heist on a country home in the middle of nowhere with his wingman...

Last night at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival, the wildly fun horror comedy caper Crush the Skull made its world premiere. Co-written and directed by Viet Nguyen, the film follows a group of thieves who end up trapped inside what they thought was an idyllic summer home they planned to rob, but is in fact the lair of a psychotic serial killer. They are then forced to find a way to outsmart their ingenious captor who would like nothing more than to add some more victims to his collection.

Daily Dead had the opportunity to sit down and speak with both Nguyen and Christopher Dinh, Crush the Skull’s co-writer and star, in advance of their big night about how this project had evolved over the years from their 2010 short (by the same name) to the feature film version, the challenges of blending genres and staying a step ahead of savvy genre fans,...

After making quite an impression at the Stanley Film Festival, Todd Strauss-Schulson's meta horror hit, The Final Girls, will screen at the L.A. Film Fest next month, along with an advance look at MTV's Scream TV series and many more onscreen scares.

The 21st L.A. Film Fest takes place June 10th-18th in downtown Los Angeles. The festival will feature screenings of 74 feature films, 60 short films, and more, including the following genre offerings:

"Gala Screenings:

The Final Girls – USA (Director Todd Strauss-Schulson Writer Producer Cast Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Adam Devine, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Alexander Ludwig, Nina Dobrev) – An unconventional comedy about Max, a high school senior, who is mysteriously transported with her friends into a 1980s horror film that starred Max’s mother, a celebrated scream queen. Los Angeles Premiere

Scream – USA (Showrunners Jill Blotevogel, Jaime Paglia Writers Jay Beattie, Dan Dworkin Executive Producers Harvey Weinstein,...

There are many web series about finding love, but the show in today's Indie Spotlight is all about escaping it. Megan Rosati is the creator of 52 Ways To Break Up, a web series that offers exactly what it says on the title card. 52 Ways To Break Up is separated into short vignettes; out of the five release so far, none run longer than three-and-a-half minutes. The word "break up" is used liberally. Sometimes, it refers to escaping a bad hookup, which can be done through laughter, heavy drinking, or quiet footsteps. In more heartfelt episodes, it stands for something bigger. Check out this episode, for instance, which co-stars Chris Dinh of Wong Fu Productions: Regular readers of our blog may recognize Rosati's name from her appearances in Anna Akana's short films, where she shows up regularly. In her own work, she's adopted a much quieter, more personal tone, and it works well.

Back in January, it was announced that Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas is behind a new web series for CW Seed, which centers on both the actor Ryan Hansen and his Dick Casablancas character from the original series and the Veronica Mars movie. Today, it has been confirmed that the web series will be entitled Play It Again, Dick, and will feature Veronica Mars stars Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), Jason Dohring (Logan Echolls), Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars), Percy Daggs III (Wallace Fennel), Daran Norris (Cliff McCormack), Francis Capra (Eli "Weevil" Navarro), Kyle Gallner (Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas) and Christopher B. Duncan (Clarence Wiedman), all playing both their fictional characters and real-life versions of themselves.

The show will follow Ryan Hansen trying to kickstart his writing career by crafting a spin-off of the Veronica Mars series. Here's how series creator Rob Thomas described the project back in January, comparing it to Party Down.

When an opportunity first arose for you to go out with a group of co-workers, including that cutie you kinda had your eye on, were you lucky enough to have some sort of guide - a moves mentor, if you will - to be straight with you about everything you needed to know? Unlikely, unless you paid this dude a lot of money. Or are lucky enough to have a friend who knows how to work it. Up in Da Club’s Evan is that lucky. When he comes running (literally) for help, his buddy Jason tears himself away from a nap long enough to indoctrinate him into the challenges of clubbing: how to get in, how to buy drinks and carry them, and, most crucial, how to get appropriately jiggy. Created by Philip Wang of the Wong Fu Productions trio, Up in Da Club is one of the freshest...