Herbie Hancock: Possibilities
A feature-length documentary from last year on the recording sessions and musings of the US jazz legend ahead of a new album/DVD of the same title. It includes footage of Paul Simon, Sting, Annie Lennox, Carlos Santana, Brian Eno, Christina Aguilera and many other artists.
Love My Life
If you came away from the Taiwanese film I Saw a Beast feeling like you'd been beaten around the head with a patronizing lecture on the evils of lesbianism (complete with sex scenes), then this Japanese manga adaptation might just be the tonic you need: a family-friendly lesbian drama. There are no torrid couplings, bouts of hysteria or religious naysaying as two clean-cut college students try to keep their relationship afloat in the face of multiple challenges.
Noriko's Dinner Table
Another disturbing story of teenage alienation and manipulation from director Sion Sono, who made Suicide Club in 2002. Filmed in 2005 and not nearly as timely now as it was then, this effort sees teenager Noriko run away from home and link up with a sinister group she met online. It includes the mass suicide of teenage girls from the earlier film as a plot point.
Second Kadokawa Film Festival
Rush to see five films from this Japanese production company. Adiantum Blue asks what you would do if your partner had a month to live. Veteran Kon Ichikawa's The Inugamis is a remake of his family drama from 1976. Tonari Machi Senso (The War Next Door) is a strange love story. Then there's A Hardest Night!! from 2005, (Japanese title: Nezu No Ban), a black and incredibly bawdy wake comedy that makes Frank Oz's Death at a Funeral seem terribly polite. Finally, Taiwan's legion of young baseballers should check out The Battery, an adaptation of a bestseller on kids growing up - with baseball helping them along the way. The films will show at the Spring Cinema Galaxy and the Changchun in Taipei until Oct. 18; then at the Vieshow in Hsinchu and the Shin Kong in Taichung until Nov. 1, then at the Ambassador in Tainan and the Vieshow in Kaohsiung until Nov. 15.
Web site: www.taipeiwalker.com.tw/pub/kadokawa2/mo2.htm.
Gitano
Already available on DVD, this exercise in "flamencorotica" from 2000 may be worth seeing on the DVD-projected big screen at the Caesar theater first. Gitano is the name for gypsies in Spain, and this restricted-category film noir about a Gitano excon combines dance, music, sex, revenge and murder. Just the ticket for audiences who fell asleep before the sex scenes in Lust, Caution.
Dracula
Also getting a DVD promotional run at the Caesar theater, Roger Young's version of the Count's wicked exploits is an Italian-German TV production from 2002, and stars Patrick Bergin (Patriot Games) as the immortal neck-muncher and always watchable Giancarlo Giannini (Casino Royale, Hannibal) as Valenzi the vampire expert. Trivia: Bergin also played Frankenstein in a 1992 TV movie.
Seven hundred job applications. One interview. Marco Mascaro arrived in Taiwan last year with a PhD in engineering physics and years of experience at a European research center. He thought his Gold Card would guarantee him a foothold in Taiwan’s job market. “It’s marketed as if Taiwan really needs you,” the 33-year-old Italian says. “The reality is that companies here don’t really need us.” The Employment Gold Card was designed to fix Taiwan’s labor shortage by offering foreign professionals a combined resident visa and open work permit valid for three years. But for many, like Mascaro, the welcome mat ends at the door. A
The Western media once again enthusiastically forwarded Beijing’s talking points on Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment two weeks ago that an attack by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Taiwan was an existential threat to Japan and would trigger Japanese military intervention in defense of Taiwan. The predictable reach for clickbait meant that a string of teachable moments was lost, “like tears in the rain.” Again. The Economist led the way, assigning the blame to the victim. “Takaichi Sanae was bound to rile China sooner rather than later,” the magazine asserted. It then explained: “Japan’s new prime minister is
NOV. 24 to NOV. 30 It wasn’t famine, disaster or war that drove the people of Soansai to flee their homeland, but a blanket-stealing demon. At least that’s how Poan Yu-pie (潘有秘), a resident of the Indigenous settlement of Kipatauw in what is today Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), told it to Japanese anthropologist Kanori Ino in 1897. Unable to sleep out of fear, the villagers built a raft large enough to fit everyone and set sail. They drifted for days before arriving at what is now Shenao Port (深奧) on Taiwan’s north coast,
Divadlo feels like your warm neighborhood slice of home — even if you’ve only ever spent a few days in Prague, like myself. A projector is screening retro animations by Czech director Karel Zeman, the shelves are lined with books and vinyl, and the owner will sit with you to share stories over a glass of pear brandy. The food is also fantastic, not just a new cultural experience but filled with nostalgia, recipes from home and laden with soul-warming carbs, perfect as the weather turns chilly. A Prague native, Kaio Picha has been in Taipei for 13 years and
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