How’s this for a no-brainer way to sell out a movie–take thousands of horny college students, plus a sultry Bay Area evening, plus a movie called, The People I’ve Slept With, and mix together. Needless to say, the showing of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival‘s centerpiece movie on the UC Berkeley campus was sold out.
Director Quentin Lee is a Berkeley alumni and the star Karin Anna Cheung noted that the storyline of sex-loving, promiscuous Angela who suddenly finds herself pregnant and in search of the baby daddy, aided by her feisty gay best friend (played by Wilson Cruz, of My So Called Life fame), was inspired by her own friendship with Director Lee and their trials and tribulations with dating.
Sassy straight woman with requisite gay friend providing comic relief isn’t exactly an original romantic comedy formula, but I guess there are a lot of sassy straight women out there with gay best friends in the creative field inspiring these stories. The novelty of seeing this classic genre, reinterpreted with a multiracial cast seemed to have the Berkeley crowd riveted.
Lee described this movie as his most accessible work and noted that in his first student film, he gave his then-boyfriend a blowjob on screen, causing his father to walk out of the room. Compared to that, watching a montage of Angela’s sexual encounters, including a bit that involved Cheung walking a naked Lee around her living room while wearing a dog collar was total cake for his family. They loved it!
If you want to catch the movie as part of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival you have one more chance. It plays at the Camera Cinemas in San Jose on Saturday.
