VIEW THIS PAGE Tropic Thunder
A bunch of neurotic Hollywood actors go on location in a Southeast Asian country to shoot the testosterone vehicle Tropic Thunder, but things go postal when some locals decide to start taking pot shots before the war flick wraps. While the central conceit seems borrowed from Severance, audiences and a lot of critics have been lapping up this irreverent flick. Laughs are guaranteed — at some point. Starring and directed by Ben Stiller, comic energy is added by Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Tom Cruise and especially Robert Downey Jr — as a pompous Aussie Oscar winner who has his melanin darkened to get inside his black character.
Blindness
A contagion of sightlessness breaks out in an unnamed city, and pretty soon it’s clear that nothing can stop it. A doctor (Mark Ruffalo, who was simply excellent as a serial killer-hunting cop in Zodiac) is infected and sent to a prison-based concentration camp for the newly blind. His wife (Julianne Moore) miraculously avoids infection, and the film concentrates on her tactical response to social breakdown and atrocities as she fakes blindness to stay with her beau. From Fernando Meirelles, director of The Constant Gardener, the film has not been so well-received, especially by those who have read Jose Saramago’s book. The Los Angeles Times blinked, calling it an “overly long car commercial crossed with a scare-mongering public service announcement.”
I’m Not There
Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale and three others (including the late Heath Ledger in his third-last role) star as a Bob Dylan-like character who travels through a wild variety of settings corresponding to major events in Dylan’s life or impressions thereof. Director Todd Haynes (Poison, Velvet Goldmine) is offering a sophisticated gift to music fans and particularly fans of Dylan with this one, though only the most devoted of the legendary folk singer’s following will understand what Haynes is getting at. Most of it.
Ca$h
This French production might be the first movie to send audiences running for the exits out of sheer confusion. But there are reasons to stay. Cash (Jean Dujardin) is a charismatic criminal whose nefarious colleagues — and even girlfriend — cannot be trusted, and that’s before cop Valeria Golino (Hot Shots!, Leaving Las Vegas) turns up in plain clothes looking for trouble. The ever-entertaining Jean Reno plays a top thug whom Cash turns to for his next vengeful enterprise, perhaps to his regret. Similar in visual style to the Ocean’s Eleven remake and its sequels, Ca$h aims to please.
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
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