An American Haunting is scary all right, but not for anyone in the audience. Nor does anything in it quake the boots of Rachel Hurd-Wood, who, in the role of Betsy Bell, pretends to be slapped around, moaned at and generally terrorized by an invisible ghost. No, the terror here is suffered exclusively by Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek; their participation can be explained only by some unfathomable deal with Satan.
It is possible, given his hairdo, makeup and costuming, that Sutherland simply wandered over on his lunch break from Pride and Prejudice” and was tricked into the role of John Bell Sr, patriarch of a beleaguered clan of 19th-century Tennesseans. After a land dispute with a neighbor ruins his reputation, John finds his house visited by a mysterious spirit with a penchant for pulling hair and knocking over furniture.
Lucy (Spacek), his wife, is powerless to stop this supernatural silliness until, in the surprise denouement, she isn't. At which point An American Haunting exchanges bottom-barrel metaphysics for even cheaper psychology.
Written and directed by Courtney Solomon, best unknown as the man who brought Dungeons and Dragons to the big screen, An American Haunting purports to be based on a documented event, although most of its inspiration has been drawn from the empty well of The Exorcist and its progeny.
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
One of the most important gripes that Taiwanese have about the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is that it has failed to deliver concretely on higher wages, housing prices and other bread-and-butter issues. The parallel complaint is that the DPP cares only about glamor issues, such as removing markers of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) colonialism by renaming them, or what the KMT codes as “de-Sinification.” Once again, as a critical election looms, the DPP is presenting evidence for that charge. The KMT was quick to jump on the recent proposal of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to rename roads that symbolize
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
In an interview posted online by United Daily News (UDN) on May 26, current Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) was asked about Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) replacing him as party chair. Though not yet officially running, by the customs of Taiwan politics, Lu has been signalling she is both running for party chair and to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. She told an international media outlet that she was considering a run. She also gave a speech in Keelung on national priorities and foreign affairs. For details, see the May 23 edition of this column,
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