The Martian
High hopes are in order for the latest film by Ridley Scott, who has brought us beloved classics such as Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Alien while staying relevant with recent hits (or not) such as Prometheus. The Martian stars Matt Damon as an astronaut who is presumed to be dead and left behind on Mars by his crew. He must find a way to survive while ground control debates on whether to rescue him or not. So what makes this film stand out from other survival movies such as fellow space epic Gravity and last week’s Everest? For one, critics say that this film is actually quite humorous, though falling on the darker side (dude hates disco yet it’s his only source of entertainment, making the perfect excuse for a 70s-themed soundtrack). They also say that it gives plenty of narrative to mission control back home and his crewmates, avoiding the one-person monologue often seen in films where someone is trapped somewhere. We also hear that Damon is quite spectacular.
A Most Violent Year
This crime epic has been out in the US since 2014, but is only premiering in Taiwan this weekend. Its title refers to 1981, which is statistically the deadliest year in the city’s history up to that point with more than 120,000 reported robberies and 2,166 murders. The story follows a first-generation immigrant (Al Pacino, wait, no, Oscar Isaac) and his Brooklyn mafia daughter wife (Jessica Chastain) who fight to protect their American Dream and expand their heating oil business while dealing with corruption and mob violence. Isaac’s character is faced with raising cash while under investigation for fraud while his company trucks keep getting attacked by an unknown source. Determined to succeed, the film follows the protagonist slowly plunging deeper and deeper into midst of things and doing what he needs to do, whether he likes it or not.
Absolutely Anything
Let’s take a moment of silence, as this is the late Robin Williams’ last film — OK, he doesn’t actually appear in it, he provides the voiceover for the protagonist’s talking dog. It’s also Terry Jones’ (of Monty Python fame) first directorial feature in 20 years, and features all living Monty Python cast members. The film is based on a pretty weak premise, however, with a group of aliens bestowing upon an unhappy schoolteacher the power to do, well, absolutely anything, just to test his moral compass. If he succeeds, he joins their council, if he fails, they destroy Earth. It’s really hard to see how anything original or interesting can be made out of such a tired plot, even with the combined funny firepower of Monty Python and Williams involved. Unfortunately, most critics seem to agree.
Cooties
What happens when you try to combine the disturbing psychological horror of Saw with the cheesy, happy teeny-bopper dramedy of Glee? This zombie comedy is literally the answer, as it is a collaboration between their respective creators. The film takes place in a town called Fort Chicken where the children are turned into the living dead after ingesting, uh, infected chicken nuggets. Elijah Wood plays the teacher who, instead of developing his students’ minds, needs to keep his brains from being eaten. Critics say the unlikely pairing actually works, resulting in a ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek product that’s not really scary, pretty funny, pretty gross and pretty entertaining if you aren’t offended by adults bashing their way through hordes of brain-hungry children.
Knock Knock
A dude can only dream of two attractive women showing up at his door, making themselves at home and finally seducing him for a threesome in the bathroom. For Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves), a happily married architect who encounters the exact scenario while his wife and son are on vacation, it’s only the beginning of a nightmare that probably will never end. It’s a modern, glossier update of the campy 1977 exploitation film Death Game, which features two hippie chicks instead. Webber initially refuses the women’s advances but slowly gives in as the whole thing turns dark, sadistic and deadly. It’s hard to see how this will end well for the chap.
Feb. 9 to Feb.15 Growing up in the 1980s, Pan Wen-li (潘文立) was repeatedly told in elementary school that his family could not have originated in Taipei. At the time, there was a lack of understanding of Pingpu (plains Indigenous) peoples, who had mostly assimilated to Han-Taiwanese society and had no official recognition. Students were required to list their ancestral homes then, and when Pan wrote “Taipei,” his teacher rejected it as impossible. His father, an elder of the Ketagalan-founded Independence Presbyterian Church in Xinbeitou (自立長老會新北投教會), insisted that their family had always lived in the area. But under postwar
The term “pirates” as used in Asia was a European term that, as scholar of Asian pirate history Robert J. Antony has observed, became globalized during the European colonial era. Indeed, European colonial administrators often contemptuously dismissed entire Asian peoples or polities as “pirates,” a term that in practice meant raiders not sanctioned by any European state. For example, an image of the American punitive action against the indigenous people in 1867 was styled in Harper’s Weekly as “Attack of United States Marines and Sailors on the pirates of the island of Formosa, East Indies.” The status of such raiders in
On paper, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) enters this year’s nine-in-one elections with almost nowhere to go but up. Yet, there are fears in the pan-green camp that they may not do much better then they did in 2022. Though the DPP did somewhat better at the city and county councillor level in 2022, at the “big six” municipality mayoral and county commissioner level, it was a disaster for the party. Then-president and party chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) made a string of serious strategic miscalculations that led to the party’s worst-ever result at the top executive level. That year, the party
As much as I’m a mountain person, I have to admit that the ocean has a singular power to clear my head. The rhythmic push and pull of the waves is profoundly restorative. I’ve found that fixing my gaze on the horizon quickly shifts my mental gearbox into neutral. I’m not alone in savoring this kind of natural therapy, of course. Several locations along Taiwan’s coast — Shalun Beach (沙崙海水浴場) near Tamsui and Cisingtan (七星潭) in Hualien are two of the most famous — regularly draw crowds of sightseers. If you want to contemplate the vastness of the ocean in true
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