The Jungle Book
All right, a remake is probably warranted when it has been 49 years since the original. Director John Favreau (Iron Man, Cowboys & Aliens), says this new 3D live-action version is not a musical — but really, it would be a crime to do a Jungle Book movie without the classic tunes a la Trust in Me and Bear Necessities. Fortunately, Favreau delivers — with renditions by cast members Scarlett Johannson, Christopher Walken, Bill Murray and newcomer Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli. There are some pretty big shoes to fill here, as the original was the last film that Walt Disney personally worked on before his death, which was in turn based on Rudyard Kipling’s popular 1894 novel. The CGI is pretty cool, but many films who try to mix real actors with animated characters just end up feeling unnatural. Judging from the trailer, though, that will not be a problem with this film.
Criminal
Let us take a moment of silence for screenwriter Douglas Cook, who worked on this film with writing partner David Weisburg (the duo is best known for 1996’s The Rock) for eight years but died before it premiered. Reuniting on screen for the first time since 1991’s JFK are the geriatric (okay, maybe not that old yet) heroes of Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman and Kevin Costner — but their usual roles here are jumbled a bit, with Oldman playing a CIA chief who orders a neuroscientist, played by Jones, to transplant a dead CIA operative’s memories into the brain of a dangerously violent criminal — this is the weirdest part — played by Costner. The premise sounds rather weak, but Costner in a buzz cut starts out pretty convincing as a psychopathic killer who feels no human emotions — but not for long as he just has to play the good guy.
The Brand New Testament
God is an abusive jerk who tortures humans via his computer in an apartment in Brussels that he shares with his much-maligned wife and daughter (and son JC, who has inexplicably turned into a statute). In this world, he is directly responsible when buildings burn, trains crash ... and when whatever line you stand in moves the slowest. Tired of her father’s ways, the daughter releases the date of everyone’s death to the world, and chaos ensues — or does it? Belgium’s entry to this year’s Oscar’s is the brainchild of Jaco Van Dormael, who brought us the critically acclaimed Mr Nobody in 2009. This sounds like wacky, satirical goodness that is sure to piss off certain people — but who cares. A movie that dares to go this far must be awesome.
White Lies, Black Lies (失控謊言)
Finally, a Taiwanese movie that is not overtly cute or sappy — well, it is by Lou Yi-an (樓一安), who brought us the dark and absurd Losers (廢物). This film is based on a widely-publicized murder case that took place in Wanhua District (萬華) in the 1960s, where a mannequin factory owner kills his wife and apprentice and encases the bodies in the cement floor. The strangest part about the case is that the wife of one of the factory’s clients abandoned her five children and ran off with the killer — which became a main focus of the case as the media published letters from her children pleading for her to come home. The film stays roughly true to the case — with the addition of a reporter following the case and digging up more than she was looking for — but it focuses on the psychological rather than the murder itself as the three are dragged deeper into a tangled web.
Dheepan
After a number of Cannes winners over the past few months, we finally get to see the film that took the highest honor — the Palme d’Or. This French production, partially based on Montesquieu’s The Persian Letters detailing the experience of two Persian noblemen in France, follows a Tamil Tiger soldier-turned-refugee who decides to leave Sri Lanka to start a new life in Paris. He soon finds that life is not that much easier in the French housing projects. What is cool is that the lead actor, Antonythasan Jesuthasan really fought for the Tamil Tigers as a teenager in the 1980s before fleeing to Hong Kong, living as a refugee for five years before illegally landing in Paris, where he eventually became an acclaimed writer and actor. According to Jesuthasan, the film is “50 percent biographical.”
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
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In the aftermath of the 2020 general elections the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had crushed them in a second landslide in a row, with their presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) winning more votes than any in Taiwan’s history. The KMT did pick up three legislative seats, but the DPP retained an outright majority. To take responsibility for that catastrophic loss, as is customary, party chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) resigned. This would mark the end of an era of how the party operated and the beginning of a new effort at reform, first under