Expecting no more than light chit-chat about ballroom dancing, reporters in Tokyo were startled when actor Richard Gere launched into a condemnation of Europe's plans to lift an arms embargo against China. After promoting his new film, Shall We Dance? in which he co-stars with Jennifer Lopez, Gere grabbed a microphone to denounce plans by the European Union to lift the embargo imposed after China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989.
The race-relations comedy Guess Who, starring Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher, debuted atop the US and Canadian weekend box office, according to studio figures released on Monday.
The remake of the Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn and Sidney Poitier civil-rights movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner earned US$21 million to see off the challenge of Sandra Bullock's sequel, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, which opened in second place with US$14.5 million.
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The Ring 2 dropped to third with US$13.8 million followed by the animated movie Robots and family comedy The Pacifier. Hitch was in sixth spot followed by the Bruce Willis thriller Hostage and Ice Princess.
John Travolta's Be Cool was in ninth place with Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby closing out the top 10.
Neopets, the wildly popular children's Web site that lets kids nurture digital pets, is making the move from the Internet to the big screen.
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According to the Hollywood Reporter Warner Bros has closed a deal with Neopets to make CGI-animated features using 50 different pet species from the kids Web site.
The report said that the studio and Neopets have already firmed a concept for the first film and have begun talks with an animation director they would not name.
Created in 1991, NeoPets has a global following of about 25 million members who log on regularly to create and care for their own virtual pets.
PHOTO: AP
Cable channel USA Network has unveiled its remake of the hit 1970s detective series Kojak, which featured actor Telly Savalas as a lollipop-sucking detective, with Ving Rhames, an actor who has appeared in hit movies like Pulp Fiction and Mission: Impossible.
USA Networks hopes its new series will be a hit domestically and around the world with Rhames in the starring role. Rhames, like Savalas, is bald.
The two-hour long premier aired over the weekend and featured the new Kojak on the trail of a serial killer of prostitutes. But although the tough detective eventually got his man, he was less successful in capturing positive reviews. USA Today said the show was "for suckers only," while the Chicago Tribune said the show goes from "bald to worse".
Actress Cameron Diaz, who is on a protracted break from movie making, is keeping in front of the cameras with a new eco-tourism show on MTV.
Trippin', which debuted Monday on the popular music channel, featured Diaz and celebrity friends like rappers DMX and Redman, actresses Eva Mendez and Jessica Alba and pro surfer Kelly Slater as they head to environmentally sensitive spots around the world and seek to discover ways to preserve them.
Orlando Bloom has been tipped to play a young James Bond in a movie series designed to endear the suave British master spy to younger viewers, according to press reports Monday.
The series, which is backed by Miramax and DreamWorks would be based on a new series of young 007 novels which began this year with Silverfin.
In the book set in the 1930s, a teenage James Bond spends a holiday at a remote castle where he soon comes upon a mystery involving killer eels and an arms tycoon conducting dangerous genetic experiments.
In a blow to Michael Jackson's defense, prosecutors in his child molestation trial can introduce evidence of "past sexual offenses" by the pop star involving five young boys, a judge ruled on Monday. The decision by Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville means that jurors will hear testimony about a 1993 case that Jackson settled out of court for about US$23 million.
The artist best known for pickling a shark and slicing up a cow admits he's had some pretty silly ideas over the years. But Damien Hirst, the aging enfant terrible of the British art world, is optimistic that museums will still be showing at least some of his work in 200 years' time.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
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