Kaila Yu is the lead singer of the Asian girl band Nylon Pink, and as they like to say, they sound like “Hello Kitty on acid.”

So it makes sense that if Yu is going to venture out into jewelry design for her line Hello Drama, you’d expect nothing less than punked-out cuteness. With a penchant for bloody cleavers, slashed teddy bears and heart-shaped handcuffs, Yu does not disappoint.

Her “Love” earrings are all geometric angles and sharpness, but with a message oh-so sweet. The gold pair is on sale today at AudreyShops.

Hello Drama "Love" earrings.

It’s good to be Jennet Chow.

Or maybe I should say, it’s good to be friends with Jennet Chow.

Not only does the Chinese American own adorable shoe line Jellypop and its sister shoe company Prima Royale, but for her 30th birthday, she decided it’d be a good excuse to give back to her friends and family with a huge Thank You party. Yup, Jennet was hitting the milestone, but she was treating her friends to all manner of sweets (gastronomic and otherwise) at her Southern California home.

From left: Kendra Liu-Ackerman, Jellypop owner and creative director Jennet Chow, Euri Wong, and Kelley Lee Gin, with their Jellypop gift bags.

Flowers by Fleuretica decorated the Chows' home.

For the party, Jennet called in some flavorful favors from friends. Flowers were courtesy of Fleuretica, a company run by two Asian American women, Euri Wong and Kendra Liu Ackerman. And Popisme Dessert Concierge, run by Asian American Kelley Lee Gin, along with Wong and Ackerman, set up an amazing “hanging” dessert bar.

The "floating" dessert bar by Popisme.

Guests noshed on pistachio macaroons, sea salt caramel macaroons, kiwi tarts, white chocolate cream puffs and chocolate chip cookie milk shooters.

Popisme offered delectables like pistachio macaroons and sea salt caramel macaroons.

White chocolate cream puffs by Popisme.

Milk & cookie shooters.

And what’s a party without some gorgeous baubles? Guests perused two jewelry lines, both owned by Asian Americans. Lucky Grace features beautiful jewelry handmade by Grace Lu, and Matt Wang showed off Guy and Eva pieces.

Lucky Grace jewelry by Grace Lu.

And of course, there were plenty of Jellypop shoes to sweeten the aesthetic palate. With dainty floral prints, stripes and wovens, candy-sweet hues, and lacy, ruffled details, the shoes were a perfect complement to the dessert bar and décor.

As sweet as can be, Jellypop shoes and look book images.

Jellypop shoes were prominently on display.

More shoes!

Want a taste of the sweet life? In another post, we’re giving away Jellypop shoes, so scroll down!

Photos courtesy of Jennet Chow.

We just blogged about Jennet Chow, the owner and creative director of Jellypop shoes. She threw quite a party for her big 3-0, and now we’re here to share the wealth with you! We have three pairs of Jellypop “Trendy” sandals for three lucky Audrey readers.

Jellypop "Trendy" sandal in antique gold.

The antique gold pair is a size 8 and comes in a gorgeous shimmery bronze color, embellished with bronze and clear faceted beads, bronze studs and sequins. An easy zip back makes it a snap to wear and elastic sides allow for a comfy fit.

Jellypop "Trendy" sandal in black.

We have two black pairs, one in a 7.5 and one in an 8.5. The black pair is smooth and matte, with jet and blackened silver faceted beading, black sequins and dark studs. It’s also got a zip back and elastic sides. So cute for summer!

So just click on this post’s title and it’ll take you to a page where you can comment to your heart’s content! Don’t forget to tell us your preferred size (you can pick more than one size), and you must have a U.S. mailing address to win.

You have until Wednesday, June 30, 11:59 pm to comment. Good luck!

When I went to Hawaii a couple months ago, I lived in my hat.

Here’s what I envisioned: A holiday chic look, lounging by an infinity pool or scouring a local handicraft market, with oversized Alexander Wang sunglasses adding an air of mystery and Chanel Le Vernis in Jade on the toenails.

After looking at the photos, here’s what actually was: Pale, pasty, practically all vision obscured by my blah-colored hat. You couldn’t tell from the photos whether I was 36 or 63.

Lesson learned. Next time, I’m going with San Diego Hat Company paper braid hat with extra large brim. The happy, sunny hue alone is enough to liven up any holiday chic look.

San Diego paper braid X-L brim hat.

That, and some serious self-tanner.

Film: Make Believe

Watch it at: Los Angeles Film Festival, Saturday 6/26 @ 5:00pm, Regal Cinemas LA Live, 1000 West Olympic Boulevard

A massive oil spill is destroying the environment. The U.S. just fired one of the guys in charge of the war it’s fighting. Women are still using sporting events as an excuse to wear very little clothing. So why, why, why should we care about some kids and their magic tricks?

We all had friends who did magic tricks, and I–despite being way uncool myself (stuttered, wore big glasses etc) — despised them. First, the ones I knew were all disheveled and sometimes drooled. Then there’s picking cards. I hated picking cards because I knew that somehow, by some hell-spawned pact with Satan, they knew; and even if I forgot, they still knew it was a three of clubs. For some reason, I couldn’t handle that. So while everyone would “ooh” and “ahh,” I would “meh.” Move on. It felt good, purging to my 12-year-old ego.

A decade later, reading the synopsis for Make Believe, I thought to myself: well well. Look who’s come back to play. I chuckled. I stroked my cat, slowly.

It’s a simple plot. Every year Las Vegas hosts the World Magic Seminar, where a popular vote determines the Teen World Champion. It’s the summer Olympics to Michael Phelps, the Pokemon tournament to Ash Ketchum, the World Cup to the world (minus the U.S.). It’s so competitive, yearning magicians frequently take time off from school and college to prepare. Director J. Clay Tweel films six contestants (including two from South Africa and one from Japan (!) more on him later) for over a year. The whole thing would seem pretty mundane to us non-magical folk, except for one simple thing: these kids love magic.

You know how someone can love something so much (swimming, soccer, pokemon etc) that you can’t help but take note? Well, I kind of love magic now too. And I love Hiroki Hana, the film’s card-throwing, kabuki-mask-wearing magician contestant from Kitayama, Japan. There’s a scene where Hana stands atop a classic, karate-master-locale hill in Japan, perfect 360 degree fans of playing cards splayed in each hand, where I realized, I was so wrong about these losers. I mean, magicians.

Hiroki Hana, shiny in real life too. Photo courtesy of Hiroki Hana

So it didn’t help my guilt when, after the screening, teen magician Derek McKee waxed poetic about performing for friends: “They wouldn’t care. I’d bam ‘em, and they’re like “so.”"

“And it took me two years to [be able to] do that.”

Now, I can’t in good conscience take one movie and use it to justify doing something so broad as to “follow your passions.” What if your passion happens to be Bud Light Lime? Yet, after watching Make Believe, it’s hard not to root for these kids and their obsessive, sometimes-strange pursuit of their dreams. Those people who said you can be whatever you want to be, well they were right — every now and then.

Now let’s all take a deep breath, and go back to studying for law school.

The cast and director of Make Believe after a screening at the LA Film Festival

I enjoy movies. I watch them when I can, especially on rainy days, which make the best days for movie hopping. But don’t tell my mother.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen a movie with my busy schedule and whatnot. I believe the last movie I watched was Avatar, which was dope, but pathetic seeing that so many great movies have come and gone since then. New Moon and Sex and the City 2 come to mind.

So when I had the opportunity to go check out the LA Film Festival, something I’ve always wanted to do, of course I was down. Movies galore.

Sunday was my only availability for the week, so I made my way down with my sister and best friend to watch the premiere of South Korean film critic Jung Sung-il’s debut of Café Noir. It sounded promising based on the synopsis, despite the somewhat unfamiliar references to Dostoevsky’s White Nights and Johann Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. It sounded like an epic Korean drama. And besides, I had read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in high school and Goethe’s play Faust. I trusted my theatre and English double major to take care of the rest.

A scene from the deliberat, frustrating, excruciating "Cafe Noir."

Wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong.

The movie took on the bold task of being a double adaptation of both White Nights and The Sorrows of Young Werther, which resulted in my not being able to fully appreciate the struggle of Young-Soo, the music teacher protagonist, in his search for love and a place for himself. Much of the significance of the movie’s beautiful scenes were lost on me as I wrestled through a duration of three hours to understand why the opening shot was of a girl methodically devouring her cheeseburger as she cried, or how Young-Soo had jumped off a ferry only to stand before an aquarium to have a conversation with a mermaid in a wedding dress who only spoke sign language. And what was going on with the constant repetition of “You can’t go on like this?” Why did the movie cut to black and white for the second half, and why did that girl have a 10-minute monologue?

Needless to say, my sister and friend were bored out of their mind. At least I had my theatre and English background that had equipped me with some analytical tools and I had seen enough abstract theatrical performances to try to impose some meaning on the movie. For them — they’d come along to watch the movie for sheer pleasure — the movie was dull, long and unnecessary.

For those who are simply moviegoers, I think this sentiment is viable. Young-Soo never truly accomplishes anything. His mistress unceremoniously dumps him, he fails to kill his mistress’ husband, and a potential lover dashes his hopes to the ground when she finds herself back in the arms of her old lover. Young-Soo sucks as a protagonist.

Young-Soo in his search for love.

Fortunately, I got a little more out of it than just anxiety and a headache. Although the meaning, the story and the philosophical questions it posed were hard for me to grasp, I was able to appreciate the slow scenic shots that, for whatever reason, Jung had taken. I knew I wasn’t completely getting the point, but I could tell that the shots were carefully chosen, and it was a breath of fresh air from the typical million shots a minute I usually see in an action-packed film.
The acting in the film was also interesting because it wasn’t necessarily naturalistic as you would normally see in a movie about a young man searching for love. There was a deliberate quality to it that made it natural because it wasn’t trying to be everyday, it was everyday. It reminded me of a Chekhov play, and at the closing credits, it listed Anton Chekhov and Bertolt Brecht and some others for something that skipped by too quickly.

Although some of the spoken words were long, most of the dialogue was short and simple. Though few, I found them very poetic and discovered that what wasn’t said actually held the most significance. It was in the way the character faced each other, or looked away, or turned as the words that were said and weren’t said that depicted the most meaning, that revealed the underlying emotions and tensions of the situation or the relationship.

I also thought that whatever the story was, Jung had done an excellent job in causing the audience to feel something throughout the movie, genuine feeling. Throughout the movie, I felt myself anticipating action. I was waiting for something to happen. From the get go, Jung creates an uneasy suspense: something is about to happen, going to happen, must happen. This feeling is largely unfulfilled, which was frustrating. At various points in the movie, he would take his time with shots, allowing the camera to take in the landscape, and I would feel agitated, waiting for the shot to end. Young-Soo feels a sense of helplessness as the women he gets involved with him leaves him without any qualms, and he loses them without any say. The viewers go with him on this ride of helplessness as we are made to watch the scenery go by.

"Cafe Noir"'s helpless protagonist Young-Soo.

There were multiple times when Jung would film Young-Soo, or a girl, or both walking next to a wall or a river. Sometimes these shots would go on and on and on. And after the first minute or so, it would get uncomfortable, especially when these shots were in black and white. Nothing was really happening. But this was deliberate. None of Jung’s shots had been arbitrary although they seemed like it. They were too choice and particular to have it be random. The characters were usually walking right along the wall, nearly pressed up against it, or the river would be looming largely in the background. Most of the characters were seen in profile or squarely facing the audience, both strong images. Jung was intentionally pressing the wall and the characters onto the viewers, demanding that they look and listen. Even if we didn’t want to.

And we did. We did look. Watch. Sigh out loud. And even laugh at poignant moments.

It wasn’t the movie I had anticipated walking into the theatre. But it definitely made me think about the way in which film can be created to lift its 2-D self off the flat projection screen and press itself into my brain.

Check out the trailer and let us know what you think:

My poor husband. This summer’s been filled with must-see’s for me, from Sex and the City 2 to the documentary Babies, and now my guilty pleasure, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, is finally coming out!

Thank goodness there’s a film opening tomorrow that he might actually like (and that I’d be willing to see!). Grown Ups features a heavyweight comedy cast, including Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Kevin James, David Spade and Filipino-Jewish American Rob Schneider.

Rob Schneider, middle, with David Spade and Chris Rock.

The heavyweight cast of Grown Ups.

We ran into Chinese American actress Di Quon, whom we’ve featured in Audrey, late last year and she told us about her role as Rita in the film. She said it was amazing to be in a scene standing there between these legendary comic geniuses. Can’t wait to see her in the film!

Another Asian American making an appearance is former Audrey cover girl Jamie Chung. The Korean American actress stars as Amber Hilliard in the film.

Jamie Chung, far left, in a scene from "Grown Ups."

The multicultural cast of "Grown Ups."

Grown Ups opens tomorrow, June 25.

What do you think? With a cast like that, will it be a hit? Or a flop?

Photos by Tracy Bennett, courtesy of Sony Pictures.

When I get ready for a night of dancing at a club here in Chicago, I always have a hard time choosing what to carry my essentials in. I can’t use a purse because how can I get my groove on when I have to lug around a clunky bag? A wristlet is out of the question because it’s impossible to fit my credit cards, lip gloss, compact mirror and iPhone into that tiny thing.

Navoh Handbags "Columbus" clutch in teal.

The Navoh Handbags “Columbus” clutch in teal makes the perfect girls’ night out accessory because of its convenient size, attractive design and number of compartments. You’ll have no problem fitting all of your essentials in this gem! And while the faux leather material gives it that chic rock star look, it also has a very cute, lady-like flower lining.

The “Columbus” clutch also features an adorable button and rouched detail on the fold-over flap and comes with three different straps (wristlet straps, 9-inch drop chain shoulder strap and adjustable messenger strap) so you can work a new look every night you go out if you wanted.

World Cup madness is upon us, and Audrey intern Han Cho gives us a firsthand look at some of the most rabid of its fans — Korean Americans.

“There’s blood,” my friend Carolyn said to me.

I looked around me, and I had to agree.

We were at Wilshire Park Place Radio Korea for the Korea vs. Argentina FIFA World Cup game in the heart of K-Town with several hundred other Koreans. Every single one of us was wearing her colors proud: Korea reds and blues.

The rabid South Korea fans in Los Angeles' K-Town. Photo courtesy of IamKoream.com.

Although we were a continent and an ocean away from where the FIFA World Cup was actually taking place, a solid turnout of Koreans from Los Angeles and its surrounding counties had gathered together at 4 am to cheer the South Korean team on. And without a doubt, gatherings like this were taking place all over the world. My friend Carolyn was exactly right. This was blood. This was more than getting together with a bunch of friends and driving to L.A. late at night to grab a few beers while watching the game. It was about supporting your blood, your nation.

I don’t mean to get nationalistic or anything. And believe me, I am one of very few Korean Americans who is not a diehard Korean. National pride, school pride. It’s not my thing. If anything, I am more Californian than Korean. But that night, I got a taste of what it meant to be proud of your ethnicity

There were Koreans. I nearly had an aneurysm. They. Were. EVERYWHERE. In the streets, in the surrounding Denny’s, Starbucks, and Ralph’s. Some were driving, some were walking. On stage, in front of the stage, backstage. Most of them had already found a spot to sit before the huge flat screen TV projector thing to watch the dancers and singers entertain the crowd before the game started, to get the people going. And when the game did start, more and more people gathered, packed nearly on top of each other to encourage the players with words of encouragement

“DAE HAN MIN GOOK!!” my friends and I screamed and clapped with a bunch of dudes we had just met. Whether you were 6 and had no idea what was going on or you were an ajushi (middle-aged man) chilling on the outskirts smoking a stoge, or you were me, a newcomer to the idea of being an “-an” (in my case a Korean), we were united together as we cheered when great passes and blocks were made, or as we cheered even harder when things weren’t going as well.

When the final score was posted, we all glumly headed back to our cars as the sun broke over the buildings, and we squinted our way back to parking lots. We had rejoiced together, and now we were mourning together.

But no worries. We’d back. In five days. Cheering our team on, harder than ever.

– Han Cho

Film: Where Are You Taking Me?

Playing: Los Angeles Film Festival, Thursday, June 24th, 5:15pm (1000 West Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles 90015)

A still from "Where Are You Taking Me?"

Director Kimi Takesue knows what it’s like to be an outsider. Raised by her Asian American father and Caucasian mother, Takesue split her childhood between the disparate cultural worlds of Hawai’i and Massachusetts. Other hapas can probably relate to the issues of identity and cultural belonging that being bi-racial entails, but Takesue chose to embrace these things in her work — what she calls “that meeting point where people from very different worlds come together and struggle for some form of communication.” When commissioned by the Rotterdam International Film Festival to make a film on Africa, Takesue, who had never before set foot in the country, jumped right in.

I saw her movie at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and it was unlike anything else there. For one thing, this movie employs neither narration nor translation; the camera simply wanders through Uganda, capturing daily life. The scenes are all somewhat familiar, but never completely. There’s the wedding ceremony where soap bubbles float towards the alter; elsewhere, children sit in a dark room watching an old Bruce Lee flick, while an attendant does a live voice-over.

Director Kimi Takesue

“I intentionally wanted to construct the piece as an outsider,” Takesue explained, “so you’re constructing meaning through body language, through gesture.” While filming, her goal was to capture the little moments — or rather, to let them unfold in front of the camera. This is important, she says. “We’re inundated with images of Uganda that only relate to desperation and victimization. We only see images that relate to war and poverty and AIDs.” Her movie reminds us that it’s the little moments that show life’s beauty and vitality.