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.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50