Computers and cynicism have conspired to give us Hoodwinked, definitive proof that while classic fairy tales can't be counted on to charm and instruct 21st-century youngsters, the same holds true for their digitally animated deconstructions. Less sassy than shrill, more crass than clever, the maiden cartoon from the Weinstein Company turns the Little Red Riding Hood legend into a sub-Shrek bummer that appears to have been manufactured for the pleasure of tone-deaf kids with a thing for sarcasm, extreme sports, and Andy Dick.
Dick lends his voice to Boingo, a suspiciously perky rabbit caught up in the mystery of what really happened when Red (Anne Hathaway) paid a visit to Granny (Glenn Close) only to find a Wolf (Patrick Warburton) in drag and an ax-wielding Woodsman (Jim Belushi doing Arnold Schwarzenegger) crashing through the window.
Told in a jumble of flashbacks from multiple, improbable and equally unfunny points of view, the story is structured around a police investigation led by a frog detective named Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers), with backup from Chief Grizzly (Xzibit), among other silly creatures. Thus do we learn that Granny leads a secret life as the hard-core snowboarder Triple G, that the Woodsman is a failed actor, and that Wolf is no criminal but an investigative journalist who would rather be a film critic.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GROUP POWER
All of which may sound totally hilarious to dimwitted marketing executives and people who get a kick out of hearing Close say “fo shizzle.” But with visuals as stale as its writing, Hoodwinked won’t fool anyone else.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50