Pathology Horror fans and devotees of Naomi Watts miffed by this week’s canceled release of Funny Games, Michael Haneke’s scene-for-scene American remake of his brutal Austrian film from 1997, will have to make do with Pathology. The good news is that it’s getting a few good notices. Like the loopy Thai flick Sick Nurses, which opened here a few weeks ago, this gory story is set in a hospital and features a cabal of nasty medicos. This time, however, it’s in Washington, where the dissolute doctors challenge each other to identify the cause of death of the latest morgue delivery — after they’ve found someone to kill. In the middle of it all is a newly arrived doctor who plays the game but remembers his Hippocratic oath before it’s too late | |
Happily Ever After Here’s another Japanese film that takes a downbeat subject (domestic violence) and turns the tone upside down and inside out. Miki Nakatani (Ringu, Silk) stars as a woman who cheerily makes the best of things while surrounded by low-life men. Yet another manga adaptation, which partly explains its surprising approach. From the director of Memories of Tomorrow, a much more sober film that impressed audiences here last year. | |
Savage Grace Poor press is presumably the reason why this is being released in Taiwan before the US. It’s based on the true story of socialite Barbara Baekeland (Julianne Moore), a woman who married into a wealthy family empire built on the plastics industry and who was killed by her mistreated son Tony (Eddie Redmayne) amid a lifestyle of opulence and emptiness. Alternately described as melodramatic and unmelodramatic by critics, the film looks like a worthy contender to dethrone Mommie Dearest as a camp classic of child abuse, notwithstanding some brave performances. | |
What Happens in Vegas … A wild night in Las Vegas ends up with two strangers (Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher) wedded and bedded. The pair’s hangovers are alleviated somewhat when they discover that one of them hit the jackpot the previous night. Cue a vicious struggle for the loot and inevitable realization that fate may not have dealt the couple an ill-planned love connection after all. |
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built