Jo Koy

2022 - 8 - 4

Post cover — Image courtesy of "IndieWire"

'Easter Sunday' Review: Comic Jo Koy Stars in a Slapdash Filipino ... (IndieWire)

It's the first major studio comedy about a Filipino-American family featuring a nearly-all Filipino cast, and was shepherded to the screen with the help of ...

Although Joe is burdened by his mother’s hectoring disapproval and Eugene’s terrible business schemes (in this case, a “hype truck,” a phrase that’s repeatedly bellowed by Cordero) and his son’s irritation with his work-related absences, the characters in “Easter Sunday” go out of their way to express the greatness of Joe, and by extension Jo Koy. “Easter Sunday” suffers from various other maladies, minor and major: a bland visual palette and a bafflingly stilted editing rhythm, both of which can’t completely be explained away by the COVID production; an inexplicable car chase, which seemingly exists to highlight the visual comparisons between Koy and Vin Diesel (they’re both bald, you see); and a halfhearted emphasis on shortsighted industry racism, complete with pulled punches and stale details. At one point, “Easter Sunday” stops dead for Joe to launch into a stand-up routine at his family’s church that’s so uproarious, at least judging by the (real and possibly foley) laughter, that people empty their wallets into the collection plate. These include Joe and his cousin Eugene (Eugene Cordero) trying to pawn a pair of stolen Manny Pacquiao’s gloves while evading their maniacal owner, a feud between Valencia’s mother and his aunt Tita Theresa (Tia Carrere, notably playing a Filipina for the first time in a career spent playing different ethnicities), the strained relationship between Joe and his son (Brandon Wardell), and a potential sitcom deal that might collapse if Joe doesn’t agree to play a role with a stereotypical accent. Now, he has lent his perspective to “ Easter Sunday,” a new comedy starring Koy as Joe Valencia, a version of himself, who returns to the Bay Area for the eponymous holiday to deal with his extended Filipino family. Billed as a “love letter to the Filipino-American community,” “Easter Sunday” certainly earns its bona fides for elevating a historically underrepresented community to the big screen.

In Easter Sunday, Jo Koy makes a rough transition from stand-up to ... (The A.V. Club)

The stand-up makes significant representational strides with this big-screen, Filipino-focused comedy, but crime subplots undercut its cultural insights.

This deserved to be a big theatrical event, but this particular holiday will all too easily be forgotten. The movie’s commitment to actually being funny always feels right around the corner, instead relying too frequently, and lazily, upon the overlapping, well-established and yet under-explored threads of family drama that give the film structure. Instead, the film invests screen time in an increasingly absurd subplot involving Joe’s cousin Eugene (Eugene Cordero), who invested start-up funds from Joe into what Eugene calls a “hype truck,” rather than the taco truck that the two of them agreed upon.

Jo Koy's 'Easter Sunday' puts Filipinos front and center (The Journal)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - For a comedy, Jo Koy's new movie “Easter Sunday” had a lot of waterworks. The film was no ordinary job for the comedian and the rest of ...

“The relationship between a mother and son is the same no matter what ethnicity,” Koy said. He envisioned a mix of Ice Cube's “Friday” and the holiday flick “It's a Wonderful Life.” A producer, too, Cheng wrote it in 2020 during lockdown. “There's this responsibility that they put on their shoulders when they make it to this country,” Koy said. Chicago's Kasama became the only Michelin-starred Filipino restaurant in the country. “A lot of that is how enthusiastic everyone was about building a movie around Jo.” For example, he wanted a scene in “Easter Sunday” showing the family packing customary balikbayan boxes. Hollywood is populated with notable half-Filipino actors like Vanessa Hudgens and Darren Criss. But Koy is the one leaning into his heritage in his work. Filipino culture and history have been gaining more mainstream visibility in recent years - mostly because of decades-long activism by Filipinos. “Some of them I wanted to call them and be like ‘Hey, man! The film was no ordinary job for the comedian and the rest of the cast. The production comes at a time when Filipino American food, history and advocacy are increasingly emerging into the zeitgeist. Koy, who is half Filipino and half white, is making his feature film debut in a movie largely inspired by the material from his Netflix stand-up specials.

'Easter Sunday' Review: Jo Koy's Family-Centric Bigscreen Debut ... (Variety)

The typically funny Filipino American standup's smart and loving observational comedy falls flat in inoffensive PG-13-rated "Easter Sunday."

A subplot revolving around Joe’s hustling cousin Eugene (who turned his food truck into a “hype truck”), the Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao’s boxing gloves and a local hood by the name of Dev Deluxe (Asif Ali) is great on the communal reverence for the PacMan but winds up being silly. For all the food jokes, the bickering family scenes, a winking cameo by Lou Diamond Phillips and a divinely spooky Baby Jesus statuette, it was not to be. Instead of character and chemistry, the film employs a series of running gags meant to support the star’s likability and not compete with his wisecracks. Although his R-rated comedy is great, that “Easter Sunday” is more sweet than tart isn’t the issue. Joe takes the bait, the mic and delivers a homily that has them chuckling in the pews. When we meet him, Joe has an important audition for a TV show, one that could take him to the next level.

'Easter Sunday' Video Interviews with Jo Koy, Jimmy O. Yang and ... (Cinema Blend)

The cast of Easter Sunday including Jo Koy, Jimmy O. Yang, Tia Carrere, Lydia Gaston, and Director Jay Chandrasekhar joined CinemaBlend to discuss their ...

Jo Koy: There would be no Easter Sunday if he listened to Netflix (NOW Magazine)

Lydia Gaston and Jo Koy bring that Filipino mother-son energy in Easter Sunday. 2022 is the year of the Asian tiger mom. First there was Sandra Oh voicing an ...

And I know you’re not going to be able to do that with your kids, so my kids are better than yours, which makes me better than you.” Imagine the pressure that happened to me when I became a comedian. Or they make sure when you’re on a road trip, you say a rosary when you leave the gas station and before you get to the diner for lunch. That’s exactly it: the racism that she had to endure during her time and her come-up, the horrible roles that were described for her to go audition for, even though she was so extremely talented. She didn’t want to tell anyone I was a comedian. “It’s like I was not able to be that, but I’m going to make sure my kids are. They wanted me to cut it because they said it was too specific to Hawaii and that people that aren’t from Hawaii are going to turn it off because the’re not going to get it. And the person I want to sell it to already said no. You know how many times that’s been said to people in Hollywood. And the person they say it to goes: “All right, well, I guess I’ll just go back to college again.” There’s a lot of people that went through that. Then I bring it to them: “I know you said no, but can you just watch it? So when they said no to me on Live From Seattle – they said, “we don’t want it” and they passed – I took out my own money and made it myself. If I took their “no” for an answer, I wouldn’t be speaking to you right now. But they carry around a plastic doll of the Virgin Mary, wrapping it in blankets to treat it with care.