‘Joy Ride’ Review: A Hilarious but Heartfelt Female Buddy Film That Hits All the Right Notes

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer A judge on Monday blocked the Santa Fe district attorney from appointing a new prosecutor in the “Rust” case, marking another setback for the prosecution. Mary Carmack-Altwies, the elected D.A., said at a hearing Monday that the office is in “dire straits” due to a manpower shortage, and needs an outside lawyer to help prosecute Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed for the October 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. But Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled that the D.A. could not appoint a “special prosecutor” unless the D.A.’s office plans to recuse itself entirely from the case.

Richard Kuipers The third feature directed by Vietnamese superstar Ngo Thanh Van — better known to western audiences as actor Veronica Ngo in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “The Old Guard” — lives up to its title with a furious display of female revenge set in the seedy streets of late-’90s Ho Chi Minh City. Despite a routine plot and some abrasive tonal shifts, this tale of a motherly mentor turning three damaged young women into deadly assassins is packed with exciting action and boasts fine performances from four killers bound by blood, bullets and all manner of deadly weapons. Following a series of rowdy screenings in SXSW’s Midnighters section, “Furies” will stream worldwide as the first Vietnamese Netflix original feature on March 23.   

to evade constitutional protections for accused criminals, “this was this global war on terror where we were allowed to open this gulag.” “They were torturing people there to try to make them say that Iraq was involved,” Reid continuing, by which she meant involved in the 9/11 attacks. “And they weren’t.

The stars of Joy Ride will receive at Comedy Ensemble of the Year Award at CinemaCon next month. Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu will be honored April 27 during the confab’s Big Screen Achievement Awards at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Saudi Arabia is launching soft money schemes worth a total $234 million available to both local and international companies over the next three years in its ongoing effort to launch a local film and TV industry almost from scratch. The Saudi Cultural Development Fund officially unveiled its so-called Film Sector Financing Program during the Ignite the Scene event dedicated to the film industry held in Riyadh last week. In an interview on Monday with Variety Najla AlNomair, who is the cultural development fund’s chief strategy and business development officer, said that the Saudi soft money pot is split into two parts: one allocated for loans that amounts to $154 million, and the other for investments, amounting to $80 million.

Saudi Cultural Development Fund (CDF) has officially launched its Film Sector Financing Program (FSFP) offering financial support to local and international film companies that want to get involved in the country’s burgeoning cinema industry.

Adele Lim’s debut film, Joy Ride, will make you cry your eyes out, in addition to showing the audience that women know how to party hard.

When it comes to R-rated comedies, no other film festival can hold a candle to SXSW. The Austin-based film festival is often the jumping-off point for some of the year’s highest-profile comedies; previous premieres have included films like “Knocked Up,” “21 Jump Street,” “Keanu,” and the work-in-progress debut of “Bridesmaids.” This means a stop at SXSW is an absolute no-brainer for any film resulting from the Judd Apatow producing tree.

The stars of Joy Ride are hitting the red carpet!

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In 1993, “The Joy Luck Club” made Hollywood history, proving to a skeptical — and let’s face it, racist — industry that there was mainstream demand for a culturally sensitive Chinese American ensemble drama. Three decades later, along comes “Joy Ride,” throwing sensitivity to the wind en route to obliterating any remaining barriers. Like “Girls Trip” with an all-Asian-American cast, the Seth Rogen-produced, hard-R road movie follows small-town besties Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) to Beijing, where they tackle everything from taboo tattoos to a devil’s threesome with all the gusto you’d hope or expect from “Crazy Rich Asians” co-writer Adele Lim’s directorial debut.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor When Teresa Hsiao (“Family Guy”), Cherry Chevapravatdumrong (“Family Guy”) and Adele Lim (“Crazy Rich Asians”) set out to write “Joy Ride,” the aim was to develop a story that they wished they could have had seen in their twenties. “Joy Ride” sees Lim transition from writer to director in this “Girls Trip” meets “The Hangover” ride of a film where Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola, and Sabrina Wu follow Ashley Park’s Audrey across the world on a business trip to Asia. Things go awry when she has to track down her birth mother to close a huge business deal. The writers wanted a film that would show young Asian women having fun and being messy, smashing past narratives of Asian women as exotic fetishes. This was a story they wanted to tell on their terms.

Joy Ride is definitely one of our most anticipated movies of the year!

'Ashley Park and 's Sherry Cola seek the answer to that question in their raunchy new comedy,, which makes its premiere at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas, on Friday. In the film, directed by  co-writer Adele Lim, Park stars as Audrey, a young woman who was adopted from China as an infant. When she sees a business trip to Asia as the opportunity to find the birth mother she never knew, she recruits help from a few unlikely allies -- her foul-mouthed hot mess of a BFF, Lolo (Cola), her college friend-turned-Chinese soap star, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), and Lolo's eccentric cousin, Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) — to turn the experience into an epic journey.The comedy — which features some explicit translation errors, a drug-addled train ride and the group disguising themselves as K-pop stars — also stars Ronny Chieng.

Can friends make a miserable experience better? Audrey is about to find out in Lionsgate’s new comedy “Joy Ride.” The film sees its lead character — played by “Emily in Paris” star Ashley Park — on a business trip gone bad. She goes to a childhood friend, a college pal, and a cousin to make it through.

How could a trip to the motherland go so hilariously, disastrously wrong? The quartet at the heart of Adele Lim’s “Joy Ride” – Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu – have no idea what they’re in for at the top of the trailer, which Lionsgate released Friday ahead of the film’s premiere at SXSW.The trailer begins with the origin story of Audrey (Park) and Lolo’s (Cola) friendship, when they meet at a park as young kids. Lolo punches a white boy in the throat after he calls Audrey a racist slur, sealing the deal on their lifelong friendship.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Lionsgate has released the first trailer for Adele Lim’s “Joy Ride,” a comedy feature starring Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu, Ashley Park, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu. Premiering March 17 at SXSW, the film is set to be released in theaters July 7. “Joy Ride” tells the raunchy and fun story of how four best friends embark on a once-in-a-lifetime international adventure. In the film, Audrey (Park) has to go to Asia on a business trip to close a massive deal. Things go drastically wrong when she searches for her birth mother with her childhood best friend Lolo (Cola), her college friend turned Chinese soap star Kat (Hsu) and Lolo’s eccentric cousin Deadeye (Wu). They also nearly end up in a Chinese jail for doing drugs.

Broadway revival of “Parade,” Jason Robert Brown’s sorrowful if flawed musical about the 1915 anti-Semitic lynching of Leo Frank, is youth.Playing husband and wife Leo and Lucille Frank, Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond come across strikingly young (and at 23 years old, Diamond really is), like a faded photo of your great-grandparents that you discover in a drawer. The subjects neither smile nor frown, but behind their neutral stares is so much promise and fear.2 hours, 30 minutes, with one intermission.

Charna Flam The so-called “crackberry” is back. IFC Films has released the first official trailer for the upcoming comedy-drama film, “BlackBerry,” which provides a peek into exactly how the handheld device revolutionized the cell phone industry. Director Matt Johnson, along with co-screenwriter Matthew Miller, adapted Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry” for the big screen. Johnsonplays BlackBerry co-founder Douglas Fregin in the film, alongside Glenn Howerton as chair and co-CEO Jim Balsillie, Jay Baruchel as co-founder Mike Lazaridis and Cary Elwes as Palm CEO Carl Yankowski. The cast also includes Saul Rubinek, Michael Ironside, Rich Sommer, Michelle Giroux, Mark Critch and SungWon Cho.

In the pantheon of DC superhero movies, David F. Sandberg’s “Shazam!” still stands out as something special: an emotional, character-driven film with good humor and an actual point to make that never let flashy spectacle get in the way of telling a wonderful, personal story.It would be nice to report that the sequel, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” follows in that tradition.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor in the “Rust” case, resigned on Tuesday, saying she did not want questions about her dual roles as a legislator and prosecutor to “cloud” the issues. The move is another setback for the prosecution of Alec Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who are accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021. The prosecution previously dropped a five-year sentencing enhancement against both defendants, after discovering that the law did not apply at the time of Hutchins’ death. Reeb was hired last August by Mary Carmack-Altwies, the Santa Fe district attorney, to lead the prosecution. A longtime prosecutor from Clovis, N.M., Reeb was elected in November as a Republican member of the state House of Representatives.