Victor Frankenstein
What, another Frankenstein movie fresh off the heels of last year’s I, Frankenstein? (Yeah, we’re pretending that Frankenstein vs the Mummy never existed.) While the former featured the monster as the protagonist, this one has Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy teaming up to tell the origin story of the film’s eponymous scientist who strived to create life from death. What is there new to tell about this way, way overtold story? Okay, so it’s told through the eyes of Igor — Frankenstein’s assistant — played by Radcliffe, who makes an appearance in the official trailer to make sure people know that it’s a “new twist on a kind of legendary tale.” Judging from the rest of the trailer, there doesn’t seem to be anything we don’t know, except for more action and explosions. Aside from the rehashing, it does have potential to be entertaining, and we can only hope that Radcliffe delivers on his promise. This film takes home the cake for the most uninspired title translation ever: guaiwu (怪物, which simply means monster).
Our Brand is Crisis
Why would two rival Bolivian politicians hire two rival American political consultants (especially when they’re played by Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton) to help them best each other in the upcoming presidential election? Because it actually happened in 2002, when Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada hired Greenberg Carville Shrum to help him defeat Evo Morales. These events are chronicled in the 2005 documentary of the same name, upon which this George Clooney-produced fictionalized comedy version is based on. Of course, the Hollywood version can’t just be about Bolivian politics, so it reinvents itself to focus on the bickering Americans and their funny journey to self discovery — and they just happen to be in Bolivia during turbulent times, a convenient backdrop to throw in some ethics and morality to make the whole affair more noble. In real life, after taking office, Sanchez didn’t turn out to be such an awesome dude, which makes us wonder how the movie version of him is like.
Kidnapping Freddy Heineken
Just two weeks after the release of Legend, we have another movie that’s based on a book about true criminal events. Anthony Hopkins plays Freddy Heineken (yes, of the beer fame), who was nabbed in front of his Amsterdam office along with his driver in November 1983. Dutch journalist Peter de Vries wrote the book from actual interviews with the kidnappers, and even went as far as tracking down in 1994 another one of the masterminds who had escaped to Paraguay. But this movie isn’t about de Vries, whose life probably warrants a movie of its own — it’s simply about the crime, where honestly not much seems to transpire if you are familiar with the incident (which is probably why the film is only 95 minutes long). Well, at least there’s Hopkins. Just four years ago, a Dutch film was released about the same incident (starring Rutger Hauer, who sort of resembles Hopkins and starred alongside him in The Rit). The kidnappers filed an injunction to block that film from being shown, but failed. They probably didn’t try to mess with Hollywood.
Clearstream Affair
The local version of the movie poster adds a Taiwan-shaped trace of blood behind the man in the foreground, so it cannot be any more obvious that the country is featured in the film. It’s about the 2001 Clearstream affair, which involved shady bribery and money laundering between a French defense company and Taiwan’s military. It’s locally considered the biggest scandal in Republic of China Navy history and is linked to the murder of captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓), still unsolved today. The murder is featured in the film and the captain is played by Yin Chao-de (尹昭德), the late captain’s … wait, they’re not related. Enough about Taiwan, as the film is mostly based in France, and the focus here is hard-nosed investigative journalist Denis Robert, who revealed the affair in his book, Revolution$. We all know what wealthy, evil corporations are capable of doing to people who have wronged them, and Robert is about to find out.
Asphalte
French director Samuel Benchetrit, who grew up in housing projects, weaves an amusing, slice-of-life comedy featuring three separate stories with six downtrodden characters who all live in a run-down apartment block. Two of the stories came from Benchetrit’s semi-autobiographical book, Asphalt Chronicles. The film seems to be focused on human interaction, and despite its depressing setting, the stories each feature two lonely people striking up unlikely interactions with each other. This is heartwarming stuff, prompting one to feel that the projects aren’t so bad after all. Benchetrit’s son Jules plays Charly, the Parisian teenager who is the protagonist of the book and appears in one of the film’s stories. Oh yeah, there’s also Isabelle Huppert, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Michael Pitt, who plays an astronaut.
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
It’s only half the size of its more famous counterpart in Taipei, but the Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Nature Science (NMNS, 國立自然科學博物館植物園) is surely one of urban Taiwan’s most inviting green spaces. Covering 4.5 hectares immediately northeast of the government-run museum in Taichung’s North District (北區), the garden features more than 700 plant species, many of which are labeled in Chinese but not in English. Since its establishment in 1999, the site’s managers have done their best to replicate a number of native ecosystems, dividing the site into eight areas. The name of the Coral Atoll Zone might
Nuclear power is getting a second look in Southeast Asia as countries prepare to meet surging energy demand as they vie for artificial intelligence-focused data centers. Several Southeast Asian nations are reviving mothballed nuclear plans and setting ambitious targets and nearly half of the region could, if they pursue those goals, have nuclear energy in the 2030s. Even countries without current plans have signaled their interest. Southeast Asia has never produced a single watt of nuclear energy, despite long-held atomic ambitions. But that may soon change as pressure mounts to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, while meeting growing power needs. The
On Monday morning, in quick succession, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) released statements announcing “that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) have invited KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to lead a delegation on a visit to the mainland” as the KMT’s press release worded it. The KMT’s press release added “Chairwoman Cheng expressed her gratitude for the invitation and has gladly accepted it.” Beijing’s official Xinhua news release described Song Tao (宋濤), head of the Taiwan Work Office of the CCP Central Committee, as
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