Nice Girls Crew (2012): LA Asian Film Festival

So this is a weird blog. I barely knew anything going in before I went in.  I almost bypassed it until I saw ....

 "As Asian American media moves to greater prominence in the online space, web series are becoming the norm thanks to the likes of Wong Fu Productions, NigaHiga and KevJumba. However, like most filmed entertainment, female-centric stories driven by women content creators are still a rarity. This is antipodal to a recent Nielsen report on social media that shows the largest demographic of the most active social networkers are Asian American women between the ages of 18-34 years of age. Filling this void are transmedia tastemakers like Felicia Day (THE GUILD), online make-up guru Michelle Phan, and Aussie Natalie Tran (Community Channel), but they're outnumbered by the dominant man-child machismo that infests the current internet entertainment landscape. Into this void comes Christine Kwon, Festival Managing Director of the Center For Asian American Media (CAAM) and longtime Film Festival darling Tanuj Chopra (PUNCHING AT THE SUN, Festival 2006), who team up for the original web series, NICE GIRLS CREW!"



........a mention of Felica Day! Well I am a huge fan of Felicia Day so I had to attend.


     "Nice Girls Crew" is composed of Geraldine, Sophie, and Leeta. As the intro simply explains, they have been friends since second grade and have reunited for a book club. Well, hell yeah...I love book clubs! I'm part of....three at the moment I think...

     The series was damn FUNNY.  Each episode starts off with a book that the girls decide upon. And it just goes off the complete tangent curve from there. For the first episode, the club begins with the third book of Harry Potter, chosen by Geraldine. Geraldine had decided that this was the best book in the series ( I agree) and there is no sense in reading the others. Ultimately denying the others a chance to discover it on their own. And the bickering flies off! It's just hilarious how the episodes have the thinnest connection to the book chosen.

The comedy in the episodes are based entirely off the wonderful acting and physical comedy timing of the actresses. These women were absolutely phenomenal. The personalities of the characters were solid. Geraldine was the fun, out-there drinker. Leeta is the bad-ass edgy chick.Sophie is my absolute favorite as the bubbly and air-headed member. The physical comedy was stellar.

As an awesome experience,  there was a Q and A with the cast, director, and producer. The Q and A was emceed by the man behind angryasian.com. The embarrassing part is that all three actresses were sitting near me during the whole screening. I really hope they enjoyed my laughing and snorting...

From what I gleaned from the Q and A:
* the director, Tanuj Copra, is hilarious
* there was alot of improvisations
* The women have known each other before, but this is the first time they've been given a chance to do physical comedy
*Copra did the series on the condition that the three women would be given the roles
* There was an intention to add more female presence on the web (that was my question!!!)

Currently, the videos are not  on the web yet. The first five episodes are combined together and being shown around the film festival circuit.  I definitely encourage everyone to catch these at a nearby festival and to support this to become a webseries. It's a an absolute treasure!