In the romantic comedy Shall We Dance? Jennifer Lopez, in full sizzle, minces no words in evoking what ballroom dancing is all about. Instructing Richard Gere in the rumba, she defines it as "a vertical expression of a horizontal wish." And in the too-brief sequence in which they meld as an iconic dance-floor couple, they approach the swooning grace of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, whom the movie holds up as ultimate dancing partners afloat in pure rapture.
The director Peter Chelsom (Serendipity) and the screenwriter Audrey Wells (Under the Tuscan Sun) understand that dance movies, to sustain their giddy spell, must remain feverishly on their toes, even when there's no swooping and gliding in sight.
PHOTO: AP
Shall We Dance? is an Americanization of a popular 1996 Japanese film and is an old-fashioned, feel-good fantasy that piles on the euphoria.
Instead of a quiet rebel against the straitjacket of Japanese conformity, its hero is a suburban paragon instinctively rushing to the spice rack to add more flavor to his life. By the time the movie ends, you've been doused with so much cinnamon, nutmeg and Hollywood tinsel that it might as well be Christmas.
The movie returns Gere to the site of his hoofing triumph in Chicago. His character, John Clark, is a mild-mannered estate lawyer, happily married with two teenage children. Vaguely discontented, John, on an impulse, starts taking evening classes at Miss Mitzi's Ballroom Dancing Studio, the pink lights beckon to him each day as he passes it on the train to work.
Lopez's character, Paulina, whom he has noticed standing at the studio's window, is an instructor who takes a special interest in John's progress while he trains for a contest.
The movie saves us from the embarrassment of watching John and Paulina pursue a May-to-December fling. The romantic lightning flickering between them in their final practice session is sublimated desire that generates far more heat than any messy bedroom tussle. The movie also goes out of its way to give Gere's colorless John at least half a dozen broad comic foils.
Shall We Dance? remains blissfully untethered to reality. Dance in the movies has always been synonymous with transcendence, as characters step out of their mundane lives into a wonderland where time stops.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist