August: Osage County
A drama about dysfunctional families do not get more star-studded than this. Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts and starring a super A-list of veteran performers, August: Osage County manages the transition from stage to screen with skill and sophistication, creating a work that will likely appeal to fans of the play as much as people approaching the work for the first time. The film takes a look at the lives of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Oklahoma house they grew up in. Predictably, things start to get violent, mostly verbally, but with some plate smashing in the background, as the strongly opinionated women and their accompanying men folk go for each other’s throats. The scene is darkly comic, as the likes of Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Margo Martindale, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch cross barbs, dredging up past and picking at current sources of contention. The result is explosive, if not exactly cheerful. A film that packs a solid dramatic punch.
Mr Peabody & Sherman
A 3D computer-animated adventure-comedy based on the characters from the “Peabody’s Improbable History” segments of the 1960s animated television series TheRocky and Bullwinkle Show. Mr Peabody & Sherman is a story that is bound to captivate young audiences. Directed by Rob Minkoff, who brought us the incomparable The Lion King, the film manages to preserve the kind of charm and innocence that is gradually disappearing from more sophisticated animated feature films with a firm eye on providing laughs and excitement for grownup audiences as well. The premise is that Mr Peabody, a talking dog and a super intelligent being adopts a child, Sherman, whose unconventional background brings him into conflict with other kids at school. Then he accidently-on purpose gets a little girl, Penny, sent back in time in Mr Peabody’s time machine, and dog and boy then have to embark on an adventure to bring back Penny and stop space and time from disintegrating. The likeability of the characters and the tight script hold together a film that is largely episodic in structure.
The Past
Following on from his Oscar-winning film A Separation, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has come out with yet another intense drama that looks at the themes of separation, loss and the difficulty, even impossibility, of people connecting with others once loved. The Past is a bravura performance by the director, showing off his skill at picking through the web of relationships, and some critics have suggested that in this new film he has taken the story past the verge of plausibility. As with much great tragedy, plausibility takes second place to the ability to tap into deep universal truths about people, and Farhadi has assuredly achieved this in The Past. The film is anchored by a mesmeric performance by Berenice Bejo as Marie Brisson, who has called her estranged husband from Iran back to Paris to participate in divorce proceedings and generally make an amicable departure from their children. The children are full of their own muddled emotions and the situation is made worse by the presence of Marie’s new partner. Bad decisions, good intentions and much else get dragged into a horrible tangle, and melodrama is never far off, but the clear eye of the director and fine supporting roles keep the film on track.
The Face Reader
Big-budget period drama from South Korea directed by Han Jae-rim knows what it is aiming for and manages to tick all the right boxes for its target audience. A mix of high stakes political intrigue, dastardly crimes, a flawed super sleuth, seductive women and the occasional battle scene gives The Face Reader a deceptive cinematic richness which dresses up a pretty conventional piece of period drama. It does break some ground in giving the starring roles to less mainstream characters, in this case Nae-gyeong (Song Kang-ho), a skilled physiognomist, who solves a crime that gets him noticed, then becomes embroiled in a palace feud as warring factions seek to discover traitors in their midst. The plot occasionally veers into incoherence, but a generally solid cast and the sure hand of the director give the impression that everything is under control. It isn’t really, but that hardly matters, as the film builds to a surprise finish, making its 139-minute running time almost worth while.
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
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
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built