Rated PG , directed by Tom Shadyac, with Kevin Costner (Joe Darrow), Joe Morton (Hugh Campbell), Ron Lifkin (Dr Charlie Dickenson), Linda Hunt (Sister Madeline), Susanna Thompson (Dr Emily Darrow), running time: 90 minutes.
The tagline for Dragonfly is ``When someone you love dies, are they gone forever?'' After watching Tom Shadyac's hollow heartstrings-puller, you'll wish Kevin Costner's answer would have been a resounding ``Yes!'' Costner plays Joe Darrow, a physician whose physician wife is killed while on a Red Cross mission in Venezuela. Deeply mourning her loss, Darrow starts to think his dearly departed is trying to reach him through his patient's tales of near-death experiences and all the things that go ``bump'' in his house at night. After a metaphysical revelation, he flies off to Venezuela in search of an emotionally satisfying end to the film. Fans of Costner will find Dragonfly mildly diverting, others will wish they'd gone to the theater before Memento disappeared from Taiwan's screens.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BUENA VISTA
Last week saw the appearance of another odious screed full of lies from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian (肖千), in the Financial Review, a major Australian paper. Xiao’s piece was presented without challenge or caveat. His “Seven truths on why Taiwan always will be China’s” presented a “greatest hits” of the litany of PRC falsehoods. This includes: Taiwan’s indigenous peoples were descended from the people of China 30,000 years ago; a “Chinese” imperial government administrated Taiwan in the 14th century; Koxinga, also known as Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), “recovered” Taiwan for China; the Qing owned
In Taiwan’s politics the party chair is an extremely influential position. Typically this person is the presumed presidential candidate or serving president. In the last presidential election, two of the three candidates were also leaders of their party. Only one party chair race had been planned for this year, but with the Jan. 1 resignation by the currently indicted Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) two parties are now in play. If a challenger to acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) appears we will examine that race in more depth. Currently their election is set for Feb. 15. EXTREMELY
Jan. 20 to Jan. 26 Taipei was in a jubilant, patriotic mood on the morning of Jan. 25, 1954. Flags hung outside shops and residences, people chanted anti-communist slogans and rousing music blared from loudspeakers. The occasion was the arrival of about 14,000 Chinese prisoners from the Korean War, who had elected to head to Taiwan instead of being repatriated to China. The majority landed in Keelung over three days and were paraded through the capital to great fanfare. Air Force planes dropped colorful flyers, one of which read, “You’re back, you’re finally back. You finally overcame the evil communist bandits and
They increasingly own everything from access to space to how we get news on Earth and now outgoing President Joe Biden warns America’s new breed of Donald Trump-allied oligarchs could gobble up US democracy itself. Biden used his farewell speech to the nation to deliver a shockingly dark message: that a nation which has always revered its entrepreneurs may now be at their mercy. “An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms,” Biden said. He named no names, but his targets were clear: men like Elon Musk
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