Assassination Classroom
Given that Assassination Classroom is a Japanese manga adaptation, it’s not that surprising that the film is based around a yellow tentacle monster with a smiley-face globe as a head who has destroyed 70 percent of the moon (turning it into a permanent crescent) and now threatens to destroy Earth in one year’s time — unless someone kills him first. But what happens next completely defies logic: the monster inexplicably takes a job as the homeroom teacher of a troubled high school class. The government tasks the students with killing the monster before he destroys the world, but another problem arises: the monster is actually the best teacher these kids have ever had. Wondering what you just read there? It seems like it’s one of those films that you have to just go watch to understand.
Diary of a Chambermaid
French director Benoit Jacquot has large shoes to fill. Written in 1900 and hitting the big screens in 1916, 1946, 1964 and now 2015, Diary of a Chambermaid tells the story of Celestine, a young and sensual chambermaid who finds work with a wealthy couple in rural France. Critics say that out of all the adaptations of Octave Mirbeau’s book, Jacquot’s version comes closest to the source. Celestine knows how to use her charms to move up the social ladder, but at her new job she has to deal with the sexual advances of her master, the demands of his bitter and jealous wife, and a growing obsession with the longtime groundskeeper. Through the eyes of Celestine, we take a peek into the dirty secrets of the upper class, the political, social and sexual climate of the times and the mistreatment of servants and women.
The DUFF
With a title that is an acronym for “Designated Ugly Fat Friend,” The DUFF sounds like a disaster in the making, something you wouldn’t go see unless you’re a teenage girl who actually goes to the theater to take selfies of herself watching a movie. But surprisingly, most reviews of this latest drama about surviving high school are positive. Quirky protagonist Bianca is not a DUFF in the literal sense — she’s just perceived as an approachable gateway to her two more attractive best friends. The cliche elements are all there — Bianca sets out to improve her social standing, and of course she has a popular jock for a childhood friend who she obviously ends up falling for. Yet, critics say the events are displayed in a brutally honest way that’s still lighthearted and funny. Let’s see if this film makes John Hughes proud.
Phoenix
Like the three films described above, Christian Petzold’s Phoenix is also a book adaptation, but one that seems to captivate in its storyline alone. Nelly is a former singer and concentration camp survivor disfigured by a bullet wound. Her surgically reconstructed face is different enough that her former husband Johnny (who may have betrayed her to the Nazis) doesn’t recognize her, yet sees enough resemblance that he enlists Nelly to pretend to be Nelly to claim her inheritance. She decides to play along as she embarks on an obsessive journey of disguise and deceit. There are layers and layers of duplicity here (who’s fooling who?) with enough twists and turns that fancy camerawork isn’t needed. Yes, it may be a bit hard to believe that Johnny doesn’t recognize his former wife, but at least it makes for a good drama and character studies.
Poltergeist
We have on our hands yet another remake, this time of the 1982 film of the same name, where a family moves into a house haunted by evil spirits who abduct their youngest daughter. Technically it’s a reboot, since the original film spawned two sequels. Widely considered among the scariest movies of all time, it isn’t sure why the original Poltergeist needed a remake. This year’s version is adapted to modern day life and themes, complete with “updating” the family from being financially successful in the original to having them move into the house due to financial struggles. Whether a remake was warranted or not, the film appears to be scary and entertaining enough. Also, be glad that technology hasn’t changed SO much in 33 years that the director was able to keep the classic scene of the daughter talking to voices inside a television (albeit a much larger flat-screen) and saying, “They’re here.”
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