Angels and Demons
Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard return with this frenetic sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Hanks’ Harvard professor turns from irritant to savior for the Catholic Church as he rushes through Rome trying to solve the murders of cardinals — by the Illuminati this time, not Opus Dei — as a new pope is prepared to be named. Hanks’ selfless service to the Holy See didn’t stop those noted movie buffs at the Vatican from banning location filming in Rome’s churches, however. There’s a whiff of National Treasure about the direction the sequel has taken, which for most viewers would likely be more reason to see it. Likewise, early notices are calling this a distinct improvement on the first film.
The Haunting in Connecticut
The wonderful Virginia Madsen (Sideways, Candyman) and indie film fave Martin Donovan star as the world’s most set-upon parents: Dad has an alcohol problem and their son suffers from cancer. Oh yeah ... and their new home has unfriendly ghosts and a brutal past. Based on a true story, as they say, though the vomitous apparition on the poster seems a bit familiar ... maybe the producers saw Poltergeist II: The Other Side? By the way, the Hartford Courant reported that the house’s current family of 10 years’ standing love their home and that “Nothing strange ever happened here.”
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame
An Iranian film set in Afghanistan is a novelty, to say the least, but that’s where the appeal for this award-winning film from 2007 by the famed Makhmalbaf family of filmmakers might end. The title refers to the ancient cliffside statues known as the Buddhas of Bamyan that the Taliban destroyed in 2001. The film is set in that very same place; it focuses on a young girl determined to receive an education but who is beset by all manner of social obstacles. Variety was not so impressed; for its reviewer the narrative collapsed out of obviousness.
Chameleon
A scam artist finds the tables are turned on him when he and his cohorts record a kidnapping connected to powerful politicians and his friends start to disappear. This relatively stately action-revenge flick from Japan, which stars heartthrob Tatsuya Fujiwara of the Death Note films as the scam artist, is an update of a script written 30 years ago.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
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