The Cove
A documentary about an industry that kills thousands of dolphins every year that combines elements of the heist movie with agitprop. National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos makes his filmmaking debut with this Oscar-winning movie in which a team infiltrates a cove on the coast of Japan where dolphins are captured for sale to aquariums, or slaughtered for meat. Beautifully photographed using military-grade surveillance equipment, and features Richard O’Barry, the dolphin-trainer from the Flipper TV series who is now a passionate dolphin activist.
Venerable Jian Zhen (鑑真大和尚)
This animation, produced by DaAi Television (大愛電視台), a Buddhist broadcaster affiliated with the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (佛教慈濟慈善事業基金會), has already received a huge reception in pre-release screenings, admittedly mostly among the faithful. The story is interesting and little known, dealing with the Tang Dynasty monk Jian Zhen (鑑真), who is credited as one of the most important transmitters of Buddhist teaching to Japan. His epic six attempts to get to Japan, in which he lost his sight and a number of close followers, is regarded as second only to the journey of Tripitaka to India in the annals of great sojourns made by Buddhist monks. The production is based on five years of painstaking research, and features more than 130 characters, many based on original descriptions, all in an effort to give as accurate an historical account as possible. In addition to bolstering Buddhism as part of Japan’s religious establishment, Jian Zhen is credited with inspiring the formation of Japan’s Ritsu school of Buddhism and introducing many aspects of Tang Dynasty science and culture to Japan.
Ricky
A film about a child who sprouts wings might sound like a comedy, but in the case of Ricky, by art house director Francois Ozon, it is anything but. With Ricky, Ozon, who has created dense and thoughtful work such as 8 Femmes (2002) and The Swimming Pool (2003), pushes further off into the deep end. The director’s attempt to blend a gritty, realist portrait of working-class parenthood and an allegorical tale of a child who is forever taking off for the freedom of the skies is not without some very grave problems, yet its sense of ambiguity and some fine acting makes Ricky appealing.
Hot Tub Time Machine
This week sees a number of comedy releases, but not many laughs. The best of the bunch is probably Hot Tub Time Machine, which might get the votes of the type of audience members who got off on The Hangover. Hot Tub Time Machine returns to the 1980s, and nostalgia for the clothes, haircuts and music of that period could work for the over 30s revisiting their misspent youths. John Cusack, among others, gets to do just that, as the filmmakers exploit virtually every paradox and social awkwardness that can be generated from a well-worn time travel scenario. This is far from the height of Cusack’s generally strong track record, but for a buddy movie over a couple of beers, you could do worse.
The Backup Plan
Jennifer Lopez is still trying to make it back into mainstream cinema, but this new release reveals that she is in more need than ever of a backup plan to kick-start her celluloid career. The whole concept of The Backup Plan, which presents J-Lo as a single woman who finalizes her artificial insemination plans on the same day that she meets the man of her dreams — in this case Australian hunk Alex O’Loughlin — seems off-puttingly gynecological, and is only made worse by a script and acting that has made-for-TV written all over them. Some good supporting performances, but no chemistry in the lead roles.
Furry Vengeance
More attempts at comedy, this time with animals and Brendan Fraser. In a throwback to Over the Hedge (2006), the film follows a bunch of animals trying to survive in the face of human encroachment into their natural habitat. This time the animals are real, though much assisted by CGI technology, and they do not talk. That’s left to Fraser and Brooke Shields, who are planning to build a green community, at the expense of most of the green and the animals in the area. The humor in Furry Vengeance seems to largely rely on Fraser coming off worst in increasingly absurd run-ins with various species of animal. Children over 5 are likely to find their intelligence insulted.
The slashing of the government’s proposed budget by the two China-aligned parties in the legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has apparently resulted in blowback from the US. On the recent junket to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, KMT legislators reported that they were confronted by US officials and congressmen angered at the cuts to the defense budget. The United Daily News (UDN), the longtime KMT party paper, now KMT-aligned media, responded to US anger by blaming the foreign media. Its regular column, the Cold Eye Collection (冷眼集), attacked the international media last month in
On a misty evening in August 1990, two men hiking on the moors surrounding Calvine, a pretty hamlet in Perth and Kinross, claimed to have seen a giant diamond-shaped aircraft flying above them. It apparently had no clear means of propulsion and left no smoke plume; it was silent and static, as if frozen in time. Terrified, they hit the ground and scrambled for cover behind a tree. Then a Harrier fighter jet roared into view, circling the diamond as if sizing it up for a scuffle. One of the men snapped a series of photographs just before the bizarre
Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 More than three decades after penning the iconic High Green Mountains (高山青), a frail Teng Yu-ping (鄧禹平) finally visited the verdant peaks and blue streams of Alishan described in the lyrics. Often mistaken as an indigenous folk song, it was actually created in 1949 by Chinese filmmakers while shooting a scene for the movie Happenings in Alishan (阿里山風雲) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), recounts director Chang Ying (張英) in the 1999 book, Chang Ying’s Contributions to Taiwanese Cinema and Theater (打鑼三響包得行: 張英對台灣影劇的貢獻). The team was meant to return to China after filming, but
Power struggles are never pretty. Fortunately, Taiwan is a democracy so there is no blood in the streets, but there are volunteers collecting signatures to recall nearly half of the legislature. With the exceptions of the “September Strife” in 2013 and the Sunflower movement occupation of the Legislative Yuan and the aftermath in 2014, for 16 years the legislative and executive branches of government were relatively at peace because the ruling party also controlled the legislature. Now they are at war. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holds the presidency and the Executive Yuan and the pan-blue coalition led by the