VIEW THIS PAGE Tropic Thunder
A bunch of neurotic Hollywood actors go on location in a Southeast Asian country to shoot the testosterone vehicle Tropic Thunder, but things go postal when some locals decide to start taking pot shots before the war flick wraps. While the central conceit seems borrowed from Severance, audiences and a lot of critics have been lapping up this irreverent flick. Laughs are guaranteed — at some point. Starring and directed by Ben Stiller, comic energy is added by Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Tom Cruise and especially Robert Downey Jr — as a pompous Aussie Oscar winner who has his melanin darkened to get inside his black character.
Blindness
A contagion of sightlessness breaks out in an unnamed city, and pretty soon it’s clear that nothing can stop it. A doctor (Mark Ruffalo, who was simply excellent as a serial killer-hunting cop in Zodiac) is infected and sent to a prison-based concentration camp for the newly blind. His wife (Julianne Moore) miraculously avoids infection, and the film concentrates on her tactical response to social breakdown and atrocities as she fakes blindness to stay with her beau. From Fernando Meirelles, director of The Constant Gardener, the film has not been so well-received, especially by those who have read Jose Saramago’s book. The Los Angeles Times blinked, calling it an “overly long car commercial crossed with a scare-mongering public service announcement.”
I’m Not There
Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale and three others (including the late Heath Ledger in his third-last role) star as a Bob Dylan-like character who travels through a wild variety of settings corresponding to major events in Dylan’s life or impressions thereof. Director Todd Haynes (Poison, Velvet Goldmine) is offering a sophisticated gift to music fans and particularly fans of Dylan with this one, though only the most devoted of the legendary folk singer’s following will understand what Haynes is getting at. Most of it.
Ca$h
This French production might be the first movie to send audiences running for the exits out of sheer confusion. But there are reasons to stay. Cash (Jean Dujardin) is a charismatic criminal whose nefarious colleagues — and even girlfriend — cannot be trusted, and that’s before cop Valeria Golino (Hot Shots!, Leaving Las Vegas) turns up in plain clothes looking for trouble. The ever-entertaining Jean Reno plays a top thug whom Cash turns to for his next vengeful enterprise, perhaps to his regret. Similar in visual style to the Ocean’s Eleven remake and its sequels, Ca$h aims to please.
Recently the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its Mini-Me partner in the legislature, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), have been arguing that construction of chip fabs in the US by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is little more than stripping Taiwan of its assets. For example, KMT Legislative Caucus First Deputy Secretary-General Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) in January said that “This is not ‘reciprocal cooperation’ ... but a substantial hollowing out of our country.” Similarly, former TPP Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) contended it constitutes “selling Taiwan out to the United States.” The two pro-China parties are proposing a bill that
March 9 to March 15 “This land produced no horses,” Qing Dynasty envoy Yu Yung-ho (郁永河) observed when he visited Taiwan in 1697. He didn’t mean that there were no horses at all; it was just difficult to transport them across the sea and raise them in the hot and humid climate. “Although 10,000 soldiers were stationed here, the camps had fewer than 1,000 horses,” Yu added. Starting from the Dutch in the 1600s, each foreign regime brought horses to Taiwan. But they remained rare animals, typically only owned by the government or
Institutions signalling a fresh beginning and new spirit often adopt new slogans, symbols and marketing materials, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is no exception. Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), soon after taking office as KMT chair, released a new slogan that plays on the party’s acronym: “Kind Mindfulness Team.” The party recently released a graphic prominently featuring the red, white and blue of the flag with a Chinese slogan “establishing peace, blessings and fortune marching forth” (締造和平,幸福前行). One part of the graphic also features two hands in blue and white grasping olive branches in a stylized shape of Taiwan. Bonus points for
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
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