Linkin Park, whose distinctive metal sound is infused with electronica and hip-hop, will hold a one-off concert at Zhongshan Soccer Stadium next Friday
By Noah Buchan
When Linkin Park's Chester Bennington fell off the stage and broke his wrist four songs into a performance less than a month ago in Australia, band members were afraid that that was the end of the concert. But a few bandages later and Bennington managed to rock on for another hour before calling it quits.

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Tickets for Beyonce's concert have been discounted 30 percent
By Ron Brownlow
It's time to get "Bootylicious."

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By Bradley Winterton
Taiwan is currently seeing a spate of productions aimed at widening audiences for Chinese opera by amalgamating its styles with those of other traditions. Last weekend saw The Firmiana Rain (梧桐雨), a work musically reminiscent of Debussy and marked by a refinement which, though it may win plaudits from critics, is unlikely to significantly expand ticket sales.

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Compiled by Noah Buchan
The competition between Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) and Jay Chou (周杰倫) heated up this week with the Mando-pop king claiming that Tsai's record company is over-stating sales of her recently released Agent J (特務J) to, well, increase sales. The two alleged ex-lovers have been battling it out for years over which is Taiwan's top pop star.

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By Ian Bartholomew
Next Hour (雙姝怨) by Mr Wing Theater Company (人力飛行劇團) is the final installment of New Idea Theater's (新點子劇展) Love Is ... (愛情說) series and ends its exploration of love.

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By Ron Brownlow
Earlier this year, Michael Burkett, singer for San Francisco punk band NOFX, called Kevin Lee of Consider the Meek and asked if he thought their bands, who were preparing to tour together in Japan, should play a show in Taiwan. As the founder of one of the country's more active expat bands, Lee had seen lots of overseas groups visit Taiwan and knew it could be hit or miss. "If you're happy to play in front of 300 people, I think we could do that," he remembers telling Burkett.

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By Tom Leeming
The Halloween massacre is over. Back to basics. Who is throwing quality parties and playing exceptional tunes? With many punters feeling that Taiwan nightlife is getting a little staid these days, is there a new cat in town making the effort to introduce something a bit different to the scene?

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By A.O. SCOTT
That Hairspray is good-hearted is no surprise. Adam Shankman's film, lovingly adapted from the Broadway musical, preserves the inclusive, celebratory spirit of John Waters's 1988 movie, in which bigger-boned, darker-skinned and otherwise different folk take exuberant revenge on the bigots and the squares who conspire to keep them down. The surprise may be that this Hairspray, stuffed with shiny showstoppers, Kennedy-era Baltimore beehives and a heavily padded John Travolta in drag, is actually good.

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This movie follows a family immigrating to the US in what appears to be an historical allegory
By Peter Bradshaw
Emanuele Crialese is an Italian director with a passion for Sicily, where he has family connections. His 2002 movie Respiro was set there, and had an arresting, if curious flavor. It was harsh and strange, like the island's famously rugged landscape, yet sentimental too. His excellent new film gives us the fierceness without the syrup: a solidly constructed film with a brilliant visual sense, tremendous performances and an eloquent, dreamy sense of time and place.

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By Peter Bradshaw
Earlier this week, a poll nominated Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen as having the worst "screen chemistry" in movie history for their wooden non-relationship in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. But they have been pushed down to the silver medal position by a new non-sparking duo: Marina Hands and Jean-Louis Coulloc'h as Lady Chatterley and her gamekeeper in this French adaptation of DH Lawrence's famous novel, directed by Pascale Ferran, and actually taken from an early version of the book called John Thomas and Lady Jane.

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By Ho Yi
Director Hung Hung breaks away from the realism of Taiwanese cinema with his sci-fi romance 'The Wall-Passer'

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By Barbara Munker
Hollywood's senior liberal, Robert Redford, gets down to business on three fronts in his latest movie, the political drama Lions for Lambs.

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By Ian Bartholomew
The Sun Also Rises (太陽照常升起) is Jiang Wen's (姜文) third directing project, and follows his award-winning Devils on the Doorstep (鬼子來了).

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AGENCIES
After the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began its strike against Hollywood studios Monday, production ceased on TV shows such as Two and a Half Men, Back to You and The Office, and hundreds of crew and cast members from those series began receiving layoff notices.

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Compiled by Martin Williams
The Game Plan

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Highlight

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Album chart compiled from G-Music (www.g-music.com.tw), based on
Oct. 26 to Nov. 1

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By Ron Brownlow
Address: 1F, 27, Ln 13, Pucheng St, Taipei (台北市浦城街13巷27號1F)

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By Ian Bartholomew
Anzu (杏子)

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