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Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
With ‘Left-Handed Girl,' Sean Baker's Longtime Producer Shih-Ching Tsou Is Ready ‘to Come Back to the Director's Seat'
Furious energy down alleys and boulevards. A little girl trying to bond with her distracted mother. A familial gaggle of working-class women. Tactful editing showing off the emotional range of female characters. Humor across nuanced class divides. A massive confrontation where a woman doesn't go down without a fight. You wouldn't be too wrong if you guessed the topic du jour was Sean Baker's ('Anora') oeuvre and moviemaking style. That's because you'd also be discussing the work of Shih-Ching Tsou, Baker's longtime collaborator, friend from film school, producer of his celebrated films 'Starlet,' 'The Florida Project,' and 'Tangerine,' and co-writer and co-director of 'Take Out,' Baker's lesser-known 2004 film about a Chinese food delivery worker in New York. Particularly, you'd be ruminating on the images, characters, and craft of 'Left-Handed Girl,' Tsou's Taiwan-set first feature as a solo director, debuting this week in the Critics' Week sidebar at Cannes, branded with some of Baker's hallmarks since he co-wrote and co-produced it with Tsou, and also edited it. More from IndieWire Logging Trucks, Swimming Pools, and Bathtubs, Oh My! We Fact-Checked Our Favorite 'Final Destination' Deaths 'Dossier 137' Review: Léa Drucker Carries an Ambling Police Procedural About Institutional Corruption Talking to IndieWire over Zoom a few days before flying to Cannes, Tsou frankly spoke of her childhood as inspiration for this fleet-footed, darkly funny intergenerational drama about a mother and her two daughters returning to Taipei to open a stall at one of the city's iconic night markets, even as Tsou's own mom was present off-camera in the room during the conversation. Regarding her relationship with Baker, Tsou credited her two-decade experience working with him in preparing to direct a movie set in her hometown: 'I have learned so much working with Sean, because everything in his films is hands-on. I was doing a lot of things on set, from learning the research process to talking to people from the community. We tried to tell the story as real as possible.' About the return to directing after a long gap of 20 years, she said, 'For 'Left-Handed Girl,' I had the idea since I was very young. The first time I brought it to Sean, he thought it was really interesting. So we started to write the draft together. After every other film that we finished, we would always come back to this film. Unfortunately, the time [to make it] wasn't right. It took a while to get the funding together, to get people interested. I think it's all about timing. This is the time for 'Left-Handed Girl.' This is the time for me to come back to the director's seat.' One of the central conflicts begins when the cute five-year-old daughter, I-Jing (Nina Ye), is reprimanded by her otherwise aloof grandfather for being left-handed. He warns her that the left hand is the devil's hand and wonders why her mother hasn't forced her to become dexterous with the right. The fear this instills in I-Jing — already ignored by her busy mother, nor attended to by her mercurial older sister, I-Ann, who holds a grudge against her mother and rebels by working at a shady betel nut stand — sets off a secrets-unearthing chain of events. The cultural bias favoring right-handedness, however, stands out as a fascinating myth and theme. Unsurprisingly, Tsou is left-handed. 'My mother remembers that she 'corrected' me when I was very young. That was just the time when everybody was expected to use their right hand. You don't want to hit people sitting at the wrong table. Or you don't want to get your hands dirty when you are using calligraphy pens,' she said. Is this superstition a Taiwanese or Chinese cultural belief? An idiosyncrasy of the 80s? Tsou says, 'It's interesting. I actually asked many people. This left-handed thing is actually across cultures: in Japan, in India, in Jewish culture, in German culture, they all think the left hand is the devil's hand. My grandfather also told me about it. It's to scare kids into not using it, but there is some religious basis to it too. It's not necessarily the devil of Christianity. Just something evil.' So when I-Jing starts thinking that she just might be the devil, she begins her klepto phase, stealing trinkets from the night market where she freely roams. In this, the film's arresting central stretch, Tsou's visual language — alive, kaleidoscopic colors and low-placed cameras — really pops, showcasing how all three women, but specifically the two sisters, have gone awry. Speaking to these craft aspects, Tsou says, 'We definitely want the audience to [physically] get to I-Jing's [ground] level [in the night market]. Kids probably see more color than adults, who are more used to it.' By contrast, the betel nut stand where I-Ann works is more neon, greener, and darker. 'When you get to the noodle stand, the color is different again. The color difference shows the different inner worlds and interpretations of the three women.' For Tsou, the night market is as vital a character. ''Yi Yi' is one of the Taiwanese films I really love. Having grown up in Taipei, I recognized so many places in the film. I wanted to portray Taiwan in the same way, show places that bring back the memory, but with different places [than 'Yi Yi']. The night market is chaotic, very communal. It's not just a backdrop or a setting. It actually jumps forward. Especially after living in New York for so long, when I go back to Taiwan, I actually rediscover it. I see all the things that [locals] take for granted. That was the inspiration for me to go back to Taipei. I want to show it to the whole world.' Another of Tsou's favorites is Mike Leigh's 'Secrets and Lies,' where, at the end, a group of people get together at a party, and skeletons scramble out. Similarly, the setting for the high drama at the end of 'Left-Handed Girl' is a fancy restaurant where the extended family and friends assemble to celebrate a birthday. Staying in that one location takes a bit of getting used to, given the fluid camerawork and the nifty, high-energy editing of the film's middle. Tsou agrees, and attributes this dual-pacing strategy to Baker's vision for the edit, and also to the back-and-forth written into the script, a process that began in 2012 when she and Sean arrived in Taiwan, scouted the night market which ended up in the final film, and also auditioned a five-year-old girl with whom they shot the first trailer. The story fell into place once Baker saw Taiwan firsthand. 'Cutting back and forth in the daily lives of the characters, we compare them, see how they move through the day, how they process their environments, and how their busy outer world affects their inner world. The little girl doesn't really understand anything, but you can tell she's trying to understand the meaning of adults' conversations.' Thus the film's intentional camera placement, the characters' inner journeys, and the night market's energy captured by the fluid camera, all become assets for Baker to work with. During the actual shoot — which spanned five five-day weeks — Baker could not be present since at the time due to challenges in gaining a visa to Taiwan. But he was still a significant presence. 'When we were doing camera tests,' said Tsou, 'I had conference calls with Sean. We sat down together with the DPs to tell them how we should shoot the film. We wanted the night market to be fluid. In the restaurant, we wanted to see everybody's facial reactions. We collaborated to get what Sean wanted in the end.' The actors were equally crucial to the success of the film. 'I learned casting through working on Sean's films, [beginning with] 'Starlet,' where I found the old lady in the locker room in LA. [For 'Left-Handed Girl,'] I found I-Ann on Instagram. I didn't want to do a lot of street casting, since I don't live in Taiwan, so I tried other ways, like going online or asking friends. I also went the traditional casting director route, but I didn't find anybody who's authentic. The little girl was recommended by a casting director, and she already did a lot of commercials in Taiwan, so she has a really nice presence.' Given the tumults and local challenges presented by casting, Tsou was the most surprised by Shih-Yuan Ma, the Instagram find who plays the older teenage daughter I-Ann. 'She has never acted before. So I was really surprised when she gave us such a wonderful performance. Especially during the scene when she was crying on the toilet, she cried the first time on cue. After we shot everything, she said, wait, can I do it again? I want to do it a different way. And she did. I was like, wow. She's such a natural grown actor.' Pondering on the similarity in themes of her two films 20 years apart ('Take Out' and 'Left-Handed Girl'), Tsou said, 'My mom has six sisters. Each is married to a different kind of family, some with more money than others, so when we get together, we have a weird dynamic. Sometimes, you [as an individual] end up doing everything on your own. You hope your family will help you, but in the end, everybody has their own problem. So I think it's kind of interesting to see how we're weird and also have a very real family dynamic on screen.' That dynamic, Tsou hopes, is one Taiwanese audiences will identify with. The film has already been invited to the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei. 'That's a huge launch pad for our film,' she said. On the Croisette, though, which she is so excited to visit for the premiere, she will benefit from Cannes attendees' curiosity about Baker's next project, a year after 'Anora' won the Palme d'Or, before going on to win multiple Oscars. Surely, the devil's hand is entirely the stuff of myth, and won't influence this movie's Cannes journey. 'Left-Handed Girl' premieres in Cannes Critics' Week on Thursday, April 15. Best of IndieWire The 19 Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in May, from 'Fair Play' to 'Emily the Criminal' Martin Scorsese's Favorite Movies: 86 Films the Director Wants You to See Christopher Nolan's Favorite Movies: 44 Films the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Final-Generation Toyota Starlet Is Down on the Tokyo Street
Though there are some notable exceptions, most of the vehicles you'll see on the streets of Japan will be less than 15 years old. Older cars that were cheap when new are especially rare, which is why today's late-1990s Down on the Street machine caught my eye as I traveled to Akihabara to check out the stunning scale-model selection at Yodobashi Camera. We only got the Starlet in the United States for its second generation, which had rear-wheel-drive and was sold here (only in three-door hatchback form) for just the 1981 through 1984 model years. From 1987 until 1998, the US-market Tercel was built on chassis derived from the next few generations of front-wheel-drive Starlet. That's about the extent of our Starlet experience. In its homeland, though, the Starlet was a strong seller for nearly three decades. Some of the best JDM car commercials ever made were for the Starlet. This one, for example. In fact, home-market Starlet ads got more frantic with each passing year. This one is my personal favorite. The final generation of Starlet was built for the 1996 through 1999 model years. It was available only as a hatchback, with three or five doors. I'm told by a Japanese Starlet racer that the 1996-1999 Starlet five-door is a very rare automobile, because most buyers took the cheaper three-door. The owner has a parking spot sized perfectly for this car, though it appears that the location on a busy alleyway has resulted in some right-side body scrapes. The characters at the upper left of the license plate indicate that this car is registered in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo. This would be a useful commuter machine for the narrow, crowded streets of Tokyo. It's battered enough so that a few more scrapes won't show, yet still benefits from Toyota reliability and ease of parts obtainment. It's a little bigger than a kei car, but it also has enough power to make long highway drives low-stress. The Starlet was replaced by the Vitz, which we know as the Echo and Yaris.
Zawya
05-03-2025
- Automotive
- Zawya
South Africa's top 5 car brands for February 2025 revealed
The month of February has just passed, which makes it a perfect opportunity to have a look at the best-selling car brands for the past 30 days in South Africa. In January, Suzuki overtook Volkswagen (which includes Audi sales). The Japanese-based brand previously managed to do this in the past, but was it able to maintain its position for another month? Before looking at the top five selling car brands for February, let's look at the new car sales figures for the month. Aggregate domestic new vehicle sales in February 2025 totalled 47,978 units, reflecting an increase of 3,229 units, or a gain of 7.3%, compared to the 44,749 vehicles sold in February 2024, according to Naamsa. 'Despite February being a short month, it was not a particularly short sales month, providing wherewithal for consumers to act on renewed confidence and easing affordability,' said Lebo Gaoaketse, head of marketing and communication at WesBank. Three consecutive downward interest rate adjustments have provided a 0,75% relief in prime lending rates, with the most recent cut in January. 'While further expected cuts would continue to address affordability and stimulate market activity, other inflationary increases, including electricity tariffs and fuel prices, persist and have many economists questioning the expected pace of interest rate cuts, warning there may be fewer cuts throughout the year than previously envisioned,' says Gaoaketse. Top 5 In first place is Toyota South Africa. For February 2025, the brand slid 3.4% year on year to 11,743 units, but still maintains a healthy lead as South Africa's best selling car brand. At the helm of the Toyota sales charts, the Corolla Cross with 1435 units, followed closely with strong performances by the Starlet and Starlet Cross duo with 1,279 and 1,003 units respectively. The Urban Cruiser, finished off with volumes totalling 875 units, whilst the Vitz continued to display character with 551 units. With an additional 64 units sold in comparison to January sales, the Prado luxury SUV boasted a 375 sales tally. In second place is Suzuki South Africa again after besting Volkswagen in January. Suzuki totalled 6,044 units while Volkswagen managed 5,249 in units in third place. In fourth place is Hyundai South Africa with a tally of 3,074 and coming in fifth is Ford South Africa with 2,900 units. On a possible reason smaller brands are performing better month to month, Nada commented: "A notable trend in the market is the growing presence of OEMs competing in the entry and lower segments of the market in the top 10 rankings, with brands such as Suzuki, Hyundai, Kia, Mahindra and Chery gaining traction. "This shift suggests that affordability is playing a key role in driving unit sales, enabling consumers who previously could not afford a new vehicle to enter the market. "Additionally, a 0.25% decrease in interest rates at the end of January as well as speculation over a potential VAT increase may have encouraged some buyers to expedite their purchases."
New York Times
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Sean Baker's Oscars Battle Cry (and Mine): Don't Abandon the Big Screen
Two minor quakes hit Los Angeles Sunday night, and I like to think that they were cosmically connected. The second earthquake was a small rattler (3.9) centered in the San Fernando Valley, just north of where the first quake hit inside the Dolby Theater when 'Anora' won best picture. A pleasurable romp about an exotic dancer who runs off with the son of a Russian oligarch, 'Anora' is the latest of several movies that its writer-director, Sean Baker, has made on sex industry workers. The first one that Baker did on the same topic was 'Starlet,' a wistful, charming 2012 drama set in the Valley, long the center of the pornography industry. It was gratifying to see Baker win for 'Anora,' which is the kind of scrappy, low-budget, independent movie that has been making the Oscars more interesting for, well, decades. Each victory for 'Anora' also underscored the industry's existential problems, in part brought about by large companies, including the remaining legacy studios, that have embraced expensive franchises and sequels to the exclusion of art. In the past 10 years or so, some of the best picture winners — the ones that stir up excitement and headlines, and help justify the continued existence of the Academy Awards — have been low-budget features that, like 'Anora,' were bankrolled for $20 million or far less, including 'Moonlight' and 'Parasite.' There's a romantic and comforting underdog narrative that accompanies the success of these movies, though as Baker recently pointed out at the Independent Spirit Awards, the economics of indie filmmaking are unsustainable. During the Oscars, Baker again turned the awards circuit into a bully pulpit on behalf of the movies, urging viewers to see films in theaters. 'This is my battle cry,' Baker said as he held his best director award. 'Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen.' At that point, the show cut to a wider shot that encompassed the award presenter Quentin Tarantino, another big-screen advocate. I wish they had cut to Ted Sarandos, the chief executive of Netflix, who recently told CBS News that he doesn't 'think it's sacrilege for someone to watch a great movie on their phone.' The Academy Awards of course reflect what Academy voters like, but they also reveal what kind of story the voters want to tell about themselves. That story on Sunday was somewhat melancholic; among other things, one of the giants of cinema — Gene Hackman — recently died. But the entire industry feels bruised partly because of the lingering trauma of the conflagrations that roared through Los Angeles County in January. The show referenced the fires repeatedly, most movingly when the host Conan O'Brien introduced a group of firefighting personnel who were rightly cheered by the audience. Along with the pandemic and the 2023 labor strikes, it's been a very rough interlude with no end in sight. Never mind that the worst issue remains the creative timorousness of the industry's power brokers. As to the show itself, as a piece of television it was, well, fine; I didn't yell at my set once, though I rolled my eyes during the two lengthy musical numbers that were effectively advertisements for those money-printing behemoths 'Wicked' and James Bond. O'Brien was innocuous enough to get the job done, tossing out jokes that landed and others that didn't, with very little overt reference to the reality that has filled headlines since President Trump was sworn in. The actress Daryl Hannah gave a shout-out to Ukraine before handing the best editing award to Baker, his second Oscar of the night (following best original screenplay). 'I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian,' O'Brien said later, earning startled oohs from the audience as well as applause. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Porn stars: Oscar favorite 'Anora' gets sex work right
For a film about sex work to win an Oscar is rare. For it to win the respect of sex workers is even rarer. If Sean Baker's "Anora" triumphs at the Academy Awards next Sunday, as predicted by most pundits, it will have achieved both. "Sean gets sex work. He just does," porn actress and director Casey Calvert tells AFP, as she prepares to film an explicit lesbian scene on a set in the San Fernando Valley. "Sean is the only working mainstream filmmaker who has the ability to get it right. He's also the only one who cares about getting it right," adds adult film veteran Eli Cross, who is the cinematographer for the day. Baker's journey to the Oscars began in this valley next to Los Angeles, infamously and accurately dubbed the capital of the US porn industry. It was here that he shot "Starlet," a micro-budget film about a young adult actress who forms an unlikely friendship with an elderly widow. Baker's candid portrayal of an industry used to being maligned and sensationalized by Hollywood earned him the friendship of porn workers like Calvert, who later worked as a paid consultant on his film "Red Rocket." She will be among the many pornographers and sex workers cheering on "Anora" as it competes for best picture, best director, best actress for Mikey Madison, and much more on March 2. "It's so exciting to me that I can't even think about it," says Calvert. "It would feel like this industry that I love being recognized on a stage it's never been recognized before on." - 'Really skeptical' - "Anora" follows Ani, a New York stripper and escort, as she embarks on an ill-fated, whirlwind romance with a bratty young Russian customer who turns out to be the son of an oligarch. Typical of Baker's movies, it is stuffed with details that "civilian" viewers might miss. These range from the pole-dancing bruises on Ani's legs, to the way she licks her fingers before instigating a sex act. "It's just such a sex worker thing to do. It's so in character," explains Calvert. Authenticity is not something sex workers expect from Hollywood. Most famously, "Pretty Woman" served up a sanitized fairy tale about a prostitute and her wealthy savior. "The sex work industry as a whole is really skeptical of any film having to do with sex work," says Calvert. "Hollywood, historically speaking, has made a lot of movies about prostitution and escorting that are not particularly positive." Following the world premiere of "Anora," Baker told AFP he had deliberately avoided the "hooker with a heart of gold" cliches. For Calvert, Baker's films stand out because they are not really about sex work -- they are about the struggles, emotions and humanity of people who happen to do sex work for a living. "It's not about the taboo of sex. It's just about a marginalized community of people who he finds really interesting and wants to explore," she says. - 'Consensual' - "Anora" has already won multiple awards, from the Cannes festival's Palme d'Or to prizes from Hollywood's directors, producers, writers and critics. Baker has repeatedly dedicated his success to sex workers, and Madison used her BAFTA acceptance speech to pledge to be "an ally." That such remarks caused zero controversy arguably represents a sea change in Hollywood. A decade ago, industry heavyweights like Meryl Streep joined a campaign to oppose the decriminalization of sex work. It is part of a wider, age-old debate about the profession. Opponents warn that criminal gangs exploit and traffic vulnerable women. Proponents of a regulated industry say it would better protect sex workers, who have the right to do as they wish with their bodies. Pornographer Siouxsie Q said it was "amazing" to see a film portraying "consensual adult sex work" receiving mainstream accolades. "We've come a long way, baby -- we really have," she told AFP. - 'Stigma' - Still, Calvert says the "stigma" surrounding pornography remains fierce, with highly experienced and talented adult filmmakers rarely able to cross over into Hollywood work. On the day AFP visited her set, Calvert -- known for directing what she calls "big budget cinematic features" in adult film -- was shooting in a large but outwardly nondescript house on a suburban cul-de-sac. Neighbors chased away reporters carrying camera gear to the home, wary of what was taking place inside. Baker is an unusual mainstream director who casts real porn actors in his films, and is genuinely friends with many in both businesses. Calvert says that fact was "a huge reason why I think that the critical success of 'Anora' is so important." Baker's work "helps a ton to break down those barriers," she said. amz/sst
