American Ultra
The dude from The Social Network and that chick from Twilight form an unlikely team in this stoner action comedy that promises as many bloodbaths as bong hits. Since marijuana is illegal in Taiwan, we’re assuming people will watch this movie sober, which undoubtedly will result in many questions about the premise of Mark Zuckerberg actually being a slacker who works at a convenience store who is actually a secret sleeper CIA agent, who, unbeknownst to himself, has immense butt-kicking powers that, once awakened, allows him to turn the spoon he was using to eat ramen with into a deadly weapon. And as for why Bella Swan has forsaken handsome vampires and charming werewolves to take care of this loser, even though he eventually turns into a lethal weapon … wait, something just doesn’t sound right ... Just forget about those two — Connie Britton, Topher Grace, John Leguziamo and Walton Goggins make up the main supporting cast, which is, like, pretty cool.
The Intern
No, it’s not The Internship, which featured Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn as 40-something year old Google interns, but the premise of The Intern is similar, with an even older Robert de Niro taking on the lowly position as part of a “senior internship program.” He starts working at an online fashion company run by a seemingly tough Anne Hathaway with mostly younger employees. It’s pretty much pure lighthearted dramedy, as the 70-year-old intern charms his coworkers, imparts his wisdom and spends more and more time with his boss (one scene shows her teaching him how to use Facebook), who eventually runs into trouble at her company and at one point in the trailer declares the intern as her best friend. It’s not explained in the trailer why de Niro would take such a position, which, in an age where the trailer often explains the entire plot, actually makes you want to watch the movie and find out.
Iris
Speaking of old age, this documentary takes it to another level with an 88-year-old director and 93-year-old protagonist, both icons in their own right. This is documentary pioneer Albert Maysles’ second-to-last film, as he died in March, reportedly shot with no plan and no script. It stars New York fashionista Iris Apfel, a self-styled “geriatric starlet” always eccentrically dressed with her signature giant round spectacles. It explores her personal world, her wit, wisdom and grit, her shopping expeditions and her house full of collected (hoarded?) items that she shares with her 101-year-old husband Carl. It appears to be an honest portrayal of a old woman who won’t slow down and only knows how to be one thing: herself, even showing a scene where she flirts with Kanye West. It’s hard to believe how such a fascinating woman, while well known in the scene, never became a public name until New York’s Metropolitan Museum put together an exhibit of her outfits in 2005. Maybe it’s because, as she has said, she never wanted to do a documentary until she met Maysles.
What We Did On Our Holiday
This British feel-good comedy may appear to be a bit cheesy, but the trailer shows genuine warm-heartedness and laughs and the reviews are mostly positive. Writer-directors Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin are known for their sitcom Outnumbered, whose unique feature is its semi-improvised dialogue from cute yet precocious children. The film contains those beloved elements and more, following a separated couple who journey with their children to Scotland to visit the husband’s ailing father on his birthday. The couple are determined to lie about their relationship, and instruct their children to do so too. There’s also the husband’s uptight rich brother, which provides another source of comedic relief. Yet, the fun-loving father just wants a birthday free of family drama, while everybody bickers on. The children provide spontaneous energy to counter the adult’s troubles, and critics call the resulting product an refreshing and endearing film.
Riding the Breeze (南風)
This appears to be another one of those “passion of youth” bicycle movies that highlights the scenery of Taiwan in a thinly-veiled tourism promotion campaign. Actually, forget about the thinly-veiled part — the film was awarded the Taiwan Tourism Contribution Award (臺灣觀光貢獻獎) by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Luckily, we live in a beautiful country that’s hard to get sick of looking at. A collaboration between Japan and Taiwan, the film features a 26-year-old Japanese woman facing both love and career crises who comes to Taiwan to interview a well-known cyclist and ends up on a journey around the country with the 16-year-old daughter of a bicycle shop owner who harbors a dream of becoming a model. Of course things go wrong, and the highway adventure picks up from there.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless