{"id":22396,"date":"2021-03-18T15:57:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T22:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=22396"},"modified":"2021-03-18T15:57:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T22:57:32","slug":"boogie-end-ups-missing-the-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=22396","title":{"rendered":"BOOGIE End Ups Missing the Net"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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BOOGIE<\/em>\u00a0opens at operating cinemas on March 19th<\/sup>. If you live in San Diego, this includes most AMC theaters in the city, as well as the Angelika. It will also be available from Focus Features at home On-Demand for a 48-hour rental period beginning Friday, March 26th<\/sup>.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s always important to encourage emerging talent on the\nfilmmaking scene. The new film Boogie<\/em>, from writer\/producer\/director\nEddie Huang, is a debut feature that at times shows great promise. Unfortunately,\nthe story isn\u2019t without some major issues. The concept itself is interesting and\nthere are some strong individual moments, but there are several elements that don\u2019t\ngel together well and end up hurting the picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alfred \u201cBoogie\u201d Chin (Taylor Takahashi) is a young man living\nin Queens and trying to make his dreams of playing pro basketball come true. Of\ncourse, his personal life poses several added challenges. For one, his parents\ndon\u2019t get along. Boogie\u2019s traditional dad (Perry Yung) is obsessed with making\nhis son into a success no matter what the personal cost. The lead\u2019s mother (Pamelyn\nChee) harbors deep resentment towards her husband\u2019s lack of earning power and\nwants her child to have financial security. While the family bickers about priorities\nand placing the teen in a well-regarded university providing a scholarship,\nBoogie pursues a young woman named Eleanor (Taylor Paige). He also plots to get\nattention from recruiters by playing against and beating the area\u2019s most talented\nprospect, Monk (Pop Smoke). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s a lot of great material here to create some\nfascinating drama. The family dynamic offers a lot of tension as each parent vies\nfor the attention of different schools and comes up with a different plan to\nhelp their boy achieve his goal. When others get involved and offer alternative\nideas, it\u2019s interesting to hear the offers, as well as the various pros and\ncons that come with them. At a certain point, Boogie begins to feel pressure\nfrom his mom to consider one specific offer, but wonders if he shouldn\u2019t wait and\nsee if he\u2019ll get approached by a school closer to home with a more direct route\nto the NBA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all engaging stuff, but a great deal of it is mitigated\nby the difficult characters. Boogie is a very talented player, but comes across\nas arrogant for the majority of the running time. Frankly, in general he\u2019s not\na charming or easy person to like. He ignores advice, literally stares people\ndown and makes inappropriate comments (even to the lady he wants to woo). In\nmany respects, Boogie also acts passively about his future, deferring decisions\nto his guardians and then expressing anger at their choices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As a coming-of-age tale, this all could still be something\nto explore, as the youngster learns from his errors and strives to be a better\nhuman being. But despite a couple of scenes with Eleanor that soften his attitude,\nthere isn\u2019t much of a character arc on display. There is a scene or two suggesting\nhis own grating behavior is partly influenced by his battling parents, but more\ncould have been made of their effect on his personality. The movie does attempt\nto take the character down a more unusual path during the film\u2019s climax, but Boogie\ndoesn\u2019t change dramatically and still seems conceited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And since the protagonist is socially blunt and his support system is consistently mean to one another (often resorting to screaming and smacking others to make their point), the film itself ultimately becomes a slog to sit through. While the performers are all fine, the screenplay could have really benefitted from a few lighter notes and more humor to alleviate the constant heaviness. Just about the only relief from the bickering is the father\u2019s observations in which he passionately expresses his own passions and beliefs. However, there isn\u2019t nearly enough of these moments to keep us involved in the proceedings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some absorbing scenes and intriguing details about\nhow parents try to get a prospective athlete into the right school.\nUnfortunately, as written, the movie\u2019s protagonist isn\u2019t particularly appealing\nand the deadly serious tone that permeates most of the film weighs it down. Boogie<\/em>\ncertainly shows potential, but feels like a lay-up that doesn\u2019t ultimately land\nin the basket. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOGIE\u00a0opens at operating cinemas on March 19th. If you live in San Diego, this includes most AMC theaters in the city, as well as the Angelika. It will also be available from Focus Features at home On-Demand for a 48-hour rental period beginning Friday, March 26th. It\u2019s always important to encourage emerging talent on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[206,2339,3289,3291,3292,3293,4693,6251,15670,15932,16259,19624,19628],"class_list":["post-22396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-206","tag-basketball","tag-boogie","tag-boogie-film-review","tag-boogie-movie-review","tag-boogie-review","tag-coming-of-age","tag-drama","tag-pamelyn-chee","tag-perry-yung","tag-pop-smoke","tag-taylor-paige","tag-taylor-takahashi"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}