Still nursing that Valentine's Day hangover? Date Movie is the cure for you.
The brain- (and lower-placed organs-) child of two members of the Scary Movie writing team, Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, this travesty of romantic comedy conventions benefits, apparently, from no Wayanses in the room.
The humor is revulsion-based and depends on the most super-ficial familiarity with pop culture, just like the horror-spoof franchise. But maybe because Seltzer (who directed) and Friedberg (a producer) are a wee bit more sophisticated than the rest of the Scary gang, or maybe just because movie love stories offer a lot more to thrash than already self-parodying fright flicks do, Date Movie gets more laughs per mile out of obvious jokes.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FOX MOVIES
One other thing helps, too. Alyson Hannigan, who went this way in a number of American Pie movies, is a talented deadpanner whose likability glows through even the crudest indignities. And boy, is that star quality put to the test here.
She stars as Julia Jones (think Bridget Roberts), a grotesquely overweight and hygiene-challenged love monkey who isn't about to let her physical repulsiveness stand in the way of finding Mr. Right. The rest of the world is on a different wavelength, though, and after a combined Extreme Makeover/Pimp My Ride sequence, she's ready to win The Bachelor -- Desperate Edition sendup.
Then it's time for the film to stop making fun of reality TV and take on some movies. Though the newly hot Julia and her yummy fiance Grant Funkyerdoder (game British newcomer Adam Campbell) are clearly made for each other, there are, of course, complications.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FOX MOVIES
She comes from a family so multicultural that every member of it, including each biological child, is a different race. His parents are Jewish caricatures played by the incalculably gentile Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge. Great as it is to see someone make fun of the cheap ethnic humor that fuels such unaccountable hits as My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Meet the Fockers, you kind of wish that Date Movie would attack this offensive stereotype-mongering with the same wicked zeal that it does with its dirty-toenail and projectile zit-popping gags.
Anyway, the parent problem is nothing compared to Grant's, um, best friend and former lover, a pneumatic blond man-eater named Andy (Australian pop star Sophie Monk). Julia and Andy's rivalry leads to sabotage, fake impromptu sing-alongs and totally off-target-genre Kill Bill parodies.
OK, maybe Date Movie isn't that much better than the Scary ones. Maybe I just hate dumb movie romances more than I do bad fright flicks. Whatever, I laughed a lot at this thing. And I didn't feel as stupid for doing it as maybe I should have.
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,
RSS