EclecticLip

(Originally written June 5.  Posted July 9)

Kid-oriented movie “Marmaduke” opens this weekend, with Owen Wilson voicing the title canine and the surprisingly-not-a-one-hit-wonder Christopher Mintz-Plasse (of “McLovin” fame) also pitching in a voiceover.  I suppose Marmaduke is to Scooby Doo, what Heathcliff is to Garfield, and Bing is to Google — the overwhelmingly overshadowed runner-up in its category.

The movie also features, in the role of “Male Executive“, the Hollywood debut of Ashley Liu, a former work colleague.  Who did the modern equivalent of running away to join the circus, quitting his day job to pursue a full-time career in the fine arts.    He was doubly happy to have snagged the role, because the spec didn’t call for an Asian character.  (Lots of non-Caucasian actors have difficulty getting roles which aren’t ethnic-specific.)

Given that in the summer movie schedule, blockbusters drop every week, I didn’t think I’d have time to arrange a teambuilding movie night.  Nor did I think that many co-workers would want to pay $12 to sit through what appears to be a movie really, really aimed at kids: on Rotten Tomatoes, it gets an 11% rating, just squeaking above Ashton Kutcher / Katherine Heigl vehicle “Killers” with its 6%.  (And Killers was so bad, they didn’t even have previews, in an attempt to contain their losses!)

But there you go — to see a movie with a fuel cell tie-in which doesn’t involve disaster (Apollo 13), explosions (Terminator 3), George Lucas-penned dialogue (Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones), or corporate logo placement (”I, Robot”)…  you can go see Marmaduke. 

Oh - and to follow on the titular promise of this email, Ashley made his acting debut in a local theatre production of Sex in Vancouver, a transposition of a play called Sex in Seattle, itself a reimagining of what Sex and the City would be like if it was a bunch of (East) Asian women’s lives in the Starbucksian Pacific Northwest.