13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
We’re done talking about recent movies being based on books these days. For now, original stories are the anomaly in mainstream cinema, and that’s a given fact. This Michael Bay-produced and directed war movie is based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s book of the same name, which chronicles 13 hours of the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, where Islamic militants attacked an American compound in Libya and killed US ambassador Christopher Stevens. The film focuses on a group of CIA security contractors who try to defend the compound. Though the film bills itself as a true story, it’s been criticized by many, including those involved in the incident, as being historically inaccurate, but if you just take it as a pretty cool action movie, it should prove to be entertaining.
Anomalisa
Don’t bring your kids to this animated film, folks. This surreal Charlie Kaufman dark comedy, based on his 2005 play of the same name, has made history by being the first R-rated film to be nominated for Academy and Golden Globe best animated feature awards as well as the first animated film to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. The story follows an inspirational speaker who arrives in Cincinnati to promote his book. Kaufman wrote the original play under the pen name of Francis Fregoli — in which the surname refers to the psychological condition where a person is under the delusion that different people are actually the same person who is able to alter his or her appearance. Incidentally, the protagonist checks into the Fregoli Hotel in the film, and … well, this is a Kaufman film, which, like Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York, are quite hard to explain in one paragraph.
The End of the Tour
Based on (see, told you) the 2010 memoir Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky about his five-day road trip with troubled and immensely talented author David Foster Wallace during the promotional tour of Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which eventually put him on the literary map. The book is literally a transcript of Lipsky’s conversations with Wallace, which he published after Wallace committed suicide in 2008 (the Rolling Stone profile was never published), which is where the film begins. Director James Ponsoldt, who is a huge Wallace fan, says this film is not a biopic — he stresses that it’s first and foremost based on Lipsky’s book and how Wallace was in a very short time period in the company of Lipsky. “This is something that is deeply subjective,” Ponsoldt says in an interview with Indiewire, “which seems like a much more honest approach to taking on someone’s life.”
Jeruzalem
The found-footage horror craze has reached Israel — and guess what the “z” stands for? That’s right, zombies. This movie opens with a line from the Talmud: “There are three gates to hell: one in the desert, one in the ocean and one in Jerusalem.” It features two Jewish-American tourists who are ready to party in Tel Aviv but instead meet a dashing dude who convinces them to go to Jerusalem, where the gate of hell opens and the city is thrown into chaos. Much of the film is seen through one of the tourists’ smart glasses (she loses her prescription glasses and has to wear the smart glasses all the time,which provides a convenient excuse for continuous found footage). The film bills the disaster as a Biblical apocalypse — but do zombies appear in the holy book? Some say they do.
Galaxy Turnpike
This is Japanese weirdness at its finest. The trailer for this science-fiction comedy set in the year 2265 opens by introducing in rapid-fire succession about 15 characters and then throws in a few wacky sequences and abruptly ends, and we can only imagine how frenetic the actual movie will be. Anyway, the synopsis gives us a few more clues: much of it is set in a 150-year-old space burger restaurant on Route 24666, which connects Earth to a colony between Saturn and Jupiter, and all those characters in the trailer are probably either the proprietors or alien customers. It’s completely over-the-top, ridiculous stuff that will probably leave you wondering “what the hell did I just watch,” but that’s kind of the appeal of wacky Japanese comedies.
Oct. 14 to Oct. 20 After working above ground for two years, Chang Kui (張桂) entered the Yamamoto coal mine for the first time, age 16. It was 1943, and because many men had joined the war effort, an increasing number of women went underground to take over the physically grueling and dangerous work. “As soon as the carts arrived, I climbed on for the sake of earning money; I didn’t even feel scared,” Chang tells her granddaughter Tai Po-fen (戴伯芬) in The last female miner: The story of Chang Kui (末代女礦工: 張桂故事), which can be found on the Frontline
There is perhaps no better way to soak up the last of Taipei’s balmy evenings than dining al fresco at La Piada with a sundowner Aperol Spritz and a luxuriant plate of charcuterie. La Piada (義式薄餅) is the brainchild of Milano native William Di Nardo. Tucked into an unassuming apartment complex, fairy lights and wining diners lead the way to this charming slice of laid-back Mediterranean deli culture. Taipei is entirely saturated with Italian cuisine, but La Piada offers something otherwise unseen on the island. Piadina Romagnola: a northern Italian street food classic. These handheld flatbreads are stuffed with cold
President William Lai’s (賴清德) National Day speech was exactly what most of us expected. It was pleasant, full of keywords like “resilience” and “net zero” and lacked any trolling of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Of course the word “Taiwan” popped up often, and Lai reiterated the longtime claim of his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a claim that now dates back 30 years on the pro-Taiwan side. But it was gentle. Indeed, it was possible to see the speech as conciliatory, leaving room for the PRC to make a gesture. That may have been one of its purposes: if
In the tourism desert that is most of Changhua County, at least one place stands out as a remarkable exception: one of Taiwan’s earliest Han Chinese settlements, Lukang. Packed with temples and restored buildings showcasing different eras in Taiwan’s settlement history, the downtown area is best explored on foot. As you make your way through winding narrow alleys where even Taiwanese scooters seldom pass, you are sure to come across surprise after surprise. The old Taisugar railway station is a good jumping-off point for a walking tour of downtown Lukang. Though the interior is not open to the public, the exterior
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