Though the Lunar New Year break is a slightly sedate affair, the real fun and games begin during the Lantern Festival
By Ian Bartholomew
The actual Lunar New Year holiday is a time for families, and it is not until the Lantern Festival that the truly celebratory aspect of the festival becomes apparent. Local governments have gone all out to put on a show, and the events taking place in Taipei and Kaohsiung this weekend are likely to be spectacular. If that's not enough, the "Taiwan" lantern festival, sponsored by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, will be stirring up a storm in Tainan next weekend. Apart from displays of lanterns, for those looking for greater excitement, there is the delightful spectacle presented by the Pingsi International Lantern Festival (台北縣平溪國祭天燈節), as well as the more energetic celebrations of Taitung's Bombing of Master Han Dan (炸寒單) and Yenshui's Beehive Firecracker Festival (鹽水蜂炮).

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While the sheer size of the Chinese market has made co-productions with China almost a necessary part of filmmaking for many Asian countries, the country's censors appear to becoming even more rigorous recently
By Andrew McCathie
It is shaping up to be a critical year for Asian cinema as it struggles to fulfill recent expectations and to come to grips with intense competition.

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By Noah Buchan
Hong Kong's entertainment industry likes to know that its celebrities are willing to do anything to get in front of the camera. Anything, that is, provided the studios are taking the pictures. If, however, a celeb moves behind the camera and begins filming another celeb in compromising positions, then the whole industry develops a prudish morality overnight. This is vigorously supported by a media that condemns the actor, all the while publishing the very photos they are condemning under the bogus excuse that it's the public's "right" to know.

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By Ian Bartholomew
Matsu, goddess of the sea, protector of seafarers, and Taiwan's preeminent folk deity, will be going on tour at the end of the third Chinese lunar month, as she does every year. As far as religious events in Taiwan go, this is definitely the biggy, considerably expanded because there are in fact three major Matsus, not just one, each with major festivals devoted to its worship.

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By Diane Baker
Kaohsiung City Ballet (KCB, 高雄城市芭蕾舞團) founder Chang Hsiu-ru (張秀如) took a chance five years ago that people in southern Taiwan were interested in seeing more homegrown ballet. She also wanted to provide the best dancers in her company with more opportunities to perform and to give Taiwanese choreographers a platform for their work.

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Classical Music

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By Ron Brownlow
When Pat Reid took to the stage at Bliss late last year to play a set of acoustic folk, he faced a tough crowd. Most people in the audience were there to see the Originals, a rock 'n' roll cover band that plays rowdy mashups of pop songs and always brings a lot of friends to its shows. When the band left the group's friends seemed to leave with them, as did anyone else who was there to hear loud rawk, not the kind of earnest sentimental ballads Reid specializes in. The people who stayed, however, seemed pretty into it, and before long more had arrived and Reid found himself playing to a decent-sized audience - not a packed house, but a more intimate crowd of couples and individuals who seemed to hang on every word he sang.

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By Tom Leeming
As the house music matriarch clings tenaciously to power, the Vinyl Word this week is giving drum 'n' bass, the oft-maligned ginger stepdaughter of electronic dance music, some air time.

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BY TAIPEI TIMES STAFF
1 .Aska Yang (楊宗緯) and Dove (鴿子) with11.05

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By Ian Bartholomew
Winter weather calls for bubbling pots of meat and vegetables, and Taipei has innumerable establishments offering variations on this theme, ranging from the elegance of Japanese-inspired shabu-shabu to the sultry fieriness of chili hot pot. There are good reasons to go upmarket, from authenticity to refinements in the broth to the quality of the ingredients.

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By Diane Baker
The Cha for Tea chain offers a contemporary teahouse alter-native to the onslaught of Starbucks, Dante and Ikari coffee shops that have spread across the country in recent years.

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If teleportation seems the stuff of Hollywood science fiction flicks, then think again. There are, of course, a few caveats
By Dennis Overbye
In a battle waged with popcorn, floodlights, chalk and star power, science and art squared off in a lecture hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology one recent evening.

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Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey didn't impress in 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.' Here, same thing again, but this time the plot is more complicated
By A.O. scott
In Fool's Gold Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, as golden as a pair of rotisserie chickens, squabble and cavort in a tropical paradise. How nice for them, and for those in the audience who want nothing more from a midwinter trip to the movies than to gaze upon the tawny limbs and perfect belly-buttons of the stars.

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By Bob Strauss
Jumper is about a couple of young men who have the miraculous ability to teleport themselves and stuff anywhere in the world, instantly.

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The Berlin Film Festival might be the first major event on the global movie business' calendar for the year with the Oscars hard on its heels a week later.

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City cinema weekend box office takings (Feb. 9 and Feb. 10)
Source: Group Power Entertainment Corp
CJ7 (長江七號) NT$12,495,202

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