The Revenant
Coming off multiple Oscars for Birdman, Alejandro Inarritu’s sixth feature film is set in the Wild West in 1823, and is based on the life of trapper and explorer Hugh Glass, whose tale of survival and revenge after being abandoned by his companions has been retold ever since. Glass was a member of “Ashley’s 100,” whom General William Ashley recruited on a fur-trading expedition up the Missouri River. After being severely wounded by a bear, Glass is pretty much left for dead, and the story is about his struggle to survive. A revenant, in European folklore, is a corpse who comes back from the grave to terrorize the living, and that’s what many people called Glass back then. Leonardo DiCaprio portrays Glass, and reunites with Tom Hardy on the big screen for the first time since Inception.
The Dressmaker
Another film about a revenant, Kate Winslet stars as Myrtle Dunnage, returns to the town she was exiled from as a schoolgirl as a successful dressmaker to take care of her ailing mother. But this one seems like an over-the-top dark comedy, one which Jocelyn Moorhouse, returning to the director’s seat after almost 20 years, describes as “Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven with a sewing machine.” The town seemingly hasn’t changed much, full of morally questionable characters, and it’s up to Dunnage to stir things up, literally. The film won big at the Australian Academy Awards, including Best Actress and People’s Choice for Favorite Australian Film. It’s a pretty crazy patchwork of multiple genres that probably shouldn’t be taken seriously but it should be fun to go along with the ride.
Suffragette
The first film in history to be filmed in the UK’s Houses of Parliament, Suffragette is set during the time of the suffragette riots, when the women’s fight for the right to vote intensified with acts such as smashing windows and setting off bombs. Maud Watts, played by Carey Mulligan, is a young mother who is caught up in the struggle but later becomes increasingly involved as her life changes forever. It should be mentioned that even though Meryl Streep is on the the movie poster, she only appears in one scene as Emmeline Pankhurst, the famous leader of the suffragette movement. Fun fact: Helena Bonham Carter, who plays a fellow activist, is the great-granddaughter of H. H. Asquith, the prime minister at that time who was against women having the right to vote.
The Map of DNA (他媽2的藏寶圖)
Like many mainstream Taiwanese movies, just the description of this “magical romantic comedy” makes one feel dizzy. So there’s something about a swindler mother who gives her mute and introverted son a treasure map to get him out of his shell, and he meets a bunch of weird characters along the way, including the “goddess of his dreams,” and it probably gets more complicated from there. The trailer is equally frantic and schizophrenic, not to mention cheesy, and says absolutely nothing about the story. How does ventriloquy fit into all of this is also a mystery. Maybe it’s not as bad at it appears to be, as local movie trailers often undersell the product. It’s the second commercial film to be set in Changhua in the past five years, and definitely will give local tourism a boost.
Sisters
Okay, so this seems like pretty typical, low-brow stuff (a music box gets stuck up someone’s butt in the trailer) that’s sure to resonate with most of America, but when you have Saturday Night Live castmates Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and screenwriter Paula Pell working together, it really can’t be that bad. Fey and Poehler play two 40-something sisters with opposite personalities who return to their family home and decide to throw a huge party before their parents sell it. Unlike 2008’s Baby Mama, this time Poehler is the uptight one while Fey is the irresponsible party woman. But after they plan the party, they agree to switch roles so Poehler can get drunk and let loose. This type of all-night, destroy the house and alert the cops type of affair usually takes place in teen comedies, and this different angle could actually prove to be refreshing.
Japan is celebrated for its exceptional levels of customer service. But the behavior of a growing number of customers and clients leaves a lot to be desired. The rise of the abusive consumer has prompted authorities in Tokyo to introduce the country’s first ordinance — a locally approved regulation — to protect service industry staff from kasuhara — the Japanese abbreviated form of “customer harassment.” While the Tokyo ordinance, which will go into effect in April, does not carry penalties, experts hope the move will highlight a growing social problem and, perhaps, encourage people to think twice before taking out their frustrations
Two years ago my wife and I went to Orchid Island off Taitung for a few days vacation. We were shocked to realize that for what it cost us, we could have done a bike vacation in Borneo for a week or two, or taken another trip to the Philippines. Indeed, most of the places we could have gone for that vacation in neighboring countries offer a much better experience than Taiwan at a much lower price. Hence, the recent news showing that tourist visits to Pingtung County’s Kenting, long in decline, reached a 27 year low this summer came
From a Brooklyn studio that looks like a cross between a ransacked Toys R Us and a serial killer’s lair, the artist David Henry Nobody Jr is planning the first survey of his career. Held by a headless dummy strung by its heels from the ceiling are a set of photographs from the turn of the century of a then 30-year-old Nobody with the former president of the US. The snapshots are all signed by Donald Trump in gold pen (Nobody supplied the pen). They will be a central piece of the New York artist’s upcoming survey in New York. This
Oct. 7 to Oct. 13 The Great Dragon Flags were so lavish and intricate that it’s said to have exhausted the supplies of three embroidery shops. Others say that the material cost was so high that three shops quit during production and it was finished by a fourth. Using threads with pure gold, the final price to create the twin banners was enough to buy three houses in the 1920s. Weighing 30kg each and measuring 454cm by 535cm by 673cm, the triangular flags were the pride of the Flying Dragons (飛龍團), a dragon dance troupe that performed for Chaotian
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