Johnny Depp has been bran-ded an eccentric for playing a recluse with scissors for hands and a delusional Don Juan. This time his own son is calling him a weirdo for his role as crazy candyman Willy Wonka. The Hollywood heartthrob said he invited his children to watch him dress up in his slick jacket and top hat to shoot Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the latest film version of British writer Roald Dahl's kids classic. Depp, in Tokyo yesterday ahead of the Japanese release of Tim Burton's movie, said his three-year-old son was asto-nished and told his dad, "You are really weird."
Reality TV has taken Malaysia by storm, but instead of eating bugs or cavorting nude in jacuzzis, contestants in the mostly Muslim country observe a "hands-off" policy and face spot checks on the direction of Mecca.
Influential deputy prime mini-ster Najib Razak has complained that the shows "borrow extensively from Western culture" which he fears could "threaten Eastern values and lead to moral decadence." But cult phenomenon Akademi Fantasia, which is based on a Brazilian talent search, has kept record audiences around the country glued to their screens, suggesting that the criticisms do not reflect society standards.
PHOTO: AFP
Featuring a group of ambitious young men and women confined in a house and given voice and dancing lessons, Akademi culminates in a concert finale after most of the contestants are voted out weekly via SMS text messages. The conclusion of its third season recently attracted 12 million SMS votes, no mean feat for a country with a population of 25 million. Its winner, 24-year-old Asmawi Ani, drew a cult following, and his popularity among the show's largely Malay audience was mainly due to his clean-cut image, religious background and past experience in Koran recitals.
However, Najib was incensed that some contestants were shown hugging each other tearfully as their peers were voted out. "No hugging please, we are Muslims," he was quoted as saying. "This is about religion. It is forbidden in the religion."
A documentary tackling an anti-Jewish lie that spread around the world after 9/11 screened at a French film festival celebrating American film on Saturday. The filmmaker, Marc Levin said he hoped his movie The Protocols of Zion would help dispel the myth -- widely believed in Arab countries and elsewhere -- that no Jews died in the attack on the World Trade Center because the outrage was part of some Zionist conspiracy.
"Light is the best disinfectant," said Levin, a New York-based US Jew who has made a number of documentaries for US television and fictional features based on real events. The documentary, which opened the documentary section of the Deauville film festival, gets its title from an anti-Jewish booklet that has circulated for over a century and which alleges that Jews have a secret plan to rule the world.
Australian actor Heath Ledger has conquered hearts at the Venice Film Festival with his lighthearted portrayal of the city's most famous ancestor in Casanova, given a comic spin at the hands of Swe-dish director Lasse Hallstrom.
Hallstrom's witty romantic comedy, starring Ledger alongside Sienna Miller, Lena Olin and Jeremy Irons, gives the story of the amorous adventurer a more modern slant, having him fall for a woman who promptly gives him the cold shoulder. In order to make a fun film, historical fact had to take a hike, Hallstrom admits. "Obviously this is a romp, this is a comedy. We've taken a lot of liberties but we've tried to stay true to the atmosphere of Venice at the time," he told reporters in Venice.
Allegations of corruption against three heavyweight politicians from the three major parties are big in the news now. On Wednesday, prosecutors indicted Hsinchu County Commissioner Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a judgment is expected this week in the case involving Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former deputy premier and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is being held incommunicado in prison. Unlike the other two cases, Cheng’s case has generated considerable speculation, rumors, suspicions and conspiracy theories from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Stepping inside Waley Art (水谷藝術) in Taipei’s historic Wanhua District (萬華區) one leaves the motorcycle growl and air-conditioner purr of the street and enters a very different sonic realm. Speakers hiss, machines whir and objects chime from all five floors of the shophouse-turned- contemporary art gallery (including the basement). “It’s a bit of a metaphor, the stacking of gallery floors is like the layering of sounds,” observes Australian conceptual artist Samuel Beilby, whose audio installation HZ & Machinic Paragenesis occupies the ground floor of the gallery space. He’s not wrong. Put ‘em in a Box (我們把它都裝在一個盒子裡), which runs until Aug. 18, invites
Last Sunday’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) national congress was the most anticipated in years, and produced some drama and surprises. As expected, party chair President William Lai (賴清德), his New Tide (新潮流系統, usually abbreviated to 新系) faction and his allied “trust in Lai” (信賴) coalition of factions won majorities and control of the party, but New Tide did not do as well as expected due to an unexpected defection (two previous columns — “The powerful political force that vanished from the English press,” April 23, 2024 and “Introducing the powerful DPP factions,” April 27, 2024 — provide indepth introductions
Some people are afraid of sharks, but sharks have a good reason to fear humans even more. Throughout the world last year, there were just 69 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks on people, and a mere 14 fatalities. By contrast, it’s estimated that humans kill between 80 million and 100 million sharks each year, with a quarter of those deaths representing threatened species. On July 13 last year, The Conversation reported that “71 percent of oceanic shark and ray populations have been depleted in the last half-century and one third of all 1,199 shark and ray species are now threatened with extinction…