New York, I Love You
Admirers of the anthology Paris, Je T’aime from three years ago will rush to see this loosely connected battery of 10 short films by different directors, including China’s Jiang Wen (姜文). Such productions usually struggle to live up to the promise of all the directing and acting talent on show, but even in a below average collection there are better segments to savor. Even so, critics thought this effort didn’t stack up against its Parisian predecessor.
Gokusen: The Movie
Manga-adaptation time again, though Gokusen offers the relative novelty of a female yakuza boss-in-waiting responding to her better angels and working as a schoolteacher with a classful of reprobates. Ergo, this is one teacher you do not want to cross or talk back to, even if she is into impossibly cutesy antics. Subtitle “The Movie” refers to the fact that the film is a crossover from the popular TV version of the comic. Trivia: Nakama Yukie, who plays the teacher with a crime pedigree, has largely been a TV actress, but one of her earlier film roles was the evil Sadako in the prequel Ring 0: Birthday.
Ex
Released in other overseas markets as Many Kisses Later, this Italian box office champ is a comedy with a cast of thousands and good spirit to spare. The action centers on a half-dozen couples between Christmas and Valentine’s Day and how their romantic histories affect their relationships. Massively popular, though its depth is perhaps reflected in the fact that it was nominated for nine Davids (the Italian Oscars) and won none. A remarkably similar American film called Valentine’s Day opens here in two months.
Like a Star Shining in the Night
A French entry in the deadly-disease-threatens-blissful-romance genre, this one has the male of the couple (Nicolas Giraud) come down with Hodgkin’s disease and waste away, but not without the love and carnal loyalty of his fiancee (Salome Stevenin). It’s the latter of these that gets this DVD preview a release from tomorrow at the Baixue theater in Ximending, but the upside is its positive message of love — and desire — come what may.
Give Me Your Hand
Held over at the last minute last week, this European co-production involving two brothers and a pretty road trip starts at the Baixue tomorrow. Original title: Donne-Moi la Main.
Albakiara
Missed this one last week. An Italian drama about randy youth, Albakiara was released last year. If disaffected youth, sex, drugs and rock music is your cup of espresso, get in quick to see it before it finishes tonight at the Baixue. Or wait for the imminent DVD release.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and