Up
Just ahead of a Pixar exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (more on this next week) comes the latest feature from this groundbreaking animation studio. Carl, a curmudgeonly old man whose life is full of disappointment, decides to fly a balloon to South America, only to discover a youngster has come along for the ride. There they find an even older man, Muntz, and his aircraft whose adventures in another era inspired Carl to do what he does best. Voices include Ed Asner as Carl, Christopher Plummer as Muntz and Delroy Lindo. Critics ran out of superlatives for this movie, some calling it Pixar’s finest — that’s some compliment — which would make it one of the films of the year. Also screening in 3-D format in selected theaters — a version that Roger Ebert and Variety’s Todd McCarthy among others have warned audiences against seeing because of the significant dimming that 3-D glasses cause.
Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman is a gift sent from Heaven for movie lovers burnt out by Hollywood mega-productions that are as stupid and cynical as they are expensive. This film is Kaufman’s directorial debut after writing Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and other offbeat titles, and hopefully it will allow him to direct many more. Philip Seymour Hoffman is an ailing, miserable theater director whose latest project will be his defining work. And what a work it is: It lasts a lifetime, and as it develops the film morphs into something very strange, indeed. Critics were divided about this film’s complexity and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to thematic layering, but it remains a must-see because there’s nothing out there like it. Oddly, the gargantuan stage that recreates a segment of New York and takes up most of the latter part of the film is not a million miles away from the idea that resulted in Muntz’ aircraft in Up.
Management
An ambitious and able corporate saleswoman (Jennifer Aniston) stays in a nondescript motel in Kingman, Arizona, and is clumsily wooed by the owners’ lovelorn son (Steve Zahn from You’ve Got Mail and Sahara). But something between them catches fire, and Zahn finds himself in some odd situations as he accompanies his new gal to the other side of America, among them meeting Aniston’s former boyfriend, a yogurt tycoon (Woody Harrelson). Aniston’s performance has attracted real praise, offering complexity and subtlety that a cookie-cutter romantic comedy wouldn’t have time for.
Gomorra
Top prize winner at Cannes last year, this is a stone-cold-sober depiction of the Comorra crime empire in Italy based on an extraordinary book about the organization by journalist Roberto Saviano, who is now under permanent police protection. The film concentrates on the lower end of the crime empire — mundane daily activities and the mechanics of violence — within a squalid community in Naples, whose youth fantasize about Tony Montana and other Hollywood gangster icons, but whose association with criminals delivers next to nothing of genuine value. The title is spelled as Gomorrah in some territories.
Day of Disaster
Another made-for-German-TV production slinks its way into Taipei theaters with
this loose recreation of a ghastly accident known as the Los Alfaques Disaster in Spain in the 1970s, in which a tanker crashed into a camping ground, exploded and immolated hundreds of people, killing more than 200. Now this is a popcorn flick. Made in 2007, the original title is Tarragona: Ein Paradies in Flammen.
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
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
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