The Last Airbender
Quite apart from its seriously silly title, this latest feature by M. Night Shyamalan begs the question of how he manages to obtain funding.
Shyamalan, who burst onto the Hollywood scene as a prodigious and versatile talent in 1999 with The Sixth Sense and Stuart Little, has done much to alienate audiences (both mainstream and art house) over the past decade, and by all appearances he has surpassed himself with his most recent offering. A fantasy tale based on a popular animated series for children, and upgraded to full 3D treatment, Airbender has some good effects. Its cliche-ridden story may still be a hit with the kids, but for anyone who hasn’t been living in movie purdah, you’ve probably seen it all before.
Predators
A new addition to the Predator franchise that first hit cinema screens back in 1987 as one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s less-successful action film vehicles, Predators does not go much beyond the original concept and now-famous tagline “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” A bunch of elite warriors are mysteriously brought to a planet where they, long accustomed to being predators, now become prey and have to dig deep to survive. A solid cast of tough characters is present and correct with the likes of Laurence Fishburne and Danny Trejo. The biggest surprise is Adrien Brody in the leading role.
Nobody to Watch Over Me
A hard-hitting movie about the relentless Japanese media machine and its power to destroy the lives of those it touches. Released in 2008, the film has picked up a Japanese Academy Award (Best Newcomer) for its young star Mirai Shida this year, and won the Best Screenplay Award at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2008. The story deals with a media feeding frenzy over police protection of a 15-year-old girl whose older brother is accused of the brutal murder of a young child. Innocent and guilty get tarred with the same brush as the massive power of Internet news and blogs gears up to demand “justice.” An edge-of-your-seat thriller that provides a thoughtful take on the 24/7 news cycle.
Chloe
Atom Egoyan is back with another signature work of love, lust and ambiguity. Chloe, a loose remake of a French film titled Natalie, explores the idea of trust, and how a desire for truth can destroy love. This is vintage Egoyan territory, and features veterans Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson as Catherine and David Stewart, a would-be perfect couple. Catherine begins to suspect her husband of infidelity and hires an escort to test his loyalty. This is Chloe, played by Amanda Seyfried, who is well out of her comfort zone and loving it. She also turns out to be much more than the Stewarts ever bargained for.
Paper Castles
Also released under the title 3some, Paper Castles is yet another low-rent European sex comedy so much beloved of local art-house distributors. Featuring principals whose distinguishing qualities are good looks and toned bodies, this Spanish film is being flogged in Taiwan with the suggestion that you will get to see these beautiful young things “fully naked.” With that as the main marketing ploy, it seems hardly necessary to get involved with the story, so suffice to say that it involves two young art students and a model who get caught up in a love triangle, providing plenty of opportunities for seductive titillation.
Detective Conan: The Lost Ship in the Sky
Based on the hugely popular Japanese manga series Meitantei Conan, this is the 14th anime film to chronicle the activities of Jimmy Kudo, a super-intelligent detective who has been transformed into a child because of the effects of a poison. The Lost Ship in the Sky has our young bespectacled detective trying to prevent the theft of a new super airliner. The manga, which began in 1994, continues to be serialized and is hugely popular in Taiwan.
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