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.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your