Pride and Glory
Edward Norton and Colin Farrell are New York policemen and brothers-in-law and Jon Voight is Norton’s father and top detective for Manhattan. The story starts with a disastrous drug bust in which four police are slain, then pits family loyalties against propriety with an ethnic Irish angle. For these compromised, feuding men, there’s no genuinely happy ending; dare it be said that the title of the film is meant to be ironic? Lukewarm reviews carped about the familiarity of it all, though a strong lineup should attract the faithful. Either way, the bluster of Pride and Glory only reinforces the contention that the opening half hour of World Trade Center remains the most credible portrayal of NYC cops in recent years.
Big Stan
Rob Schneider stars, directs and flogs anal rape humor for all it’s worth in this comedy eventually set in a prison. Schneider is a real estate shyster who gets jail time, but not before undergoing a course in self-defense from The Master (David Carradine). Unreleased in the US (a shame, because a Roger Ebert review of the film would have been a corker), though it’s been wandering through European and Asian territories for a year looking for a home. Now it’s Taiwan’s turn, presumably thanks to the modest success of You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, which was made later. The elegant Chinese title of the film (“Fierce Men Rape Prison”) should snare exactly the local audience Schneider is looking for.
The Women
Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Jada Pinkett Smith, Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Cloris Leachman, Carrie Fisher, to name a few ... what a cast. The relationships of four friends — with each other and the unseen men in their life — are the basis for a very loose remake of the George Cukor favorite from 1939, itself based on a hit play. This post-Sex and the City, Taiwanese-financed yarn is being marketed as having no male actors whatsoever, which might have worked in the 1930s, but it all seems a little desperate today, and a lot of critics were unimpressed. Still, watching the films back to back might offer a fascinating exercise in how women’s mores have changed — and stayed the same — over 70 years, at least in Hollywood’s eyes (but can you imagine Joan Crawford doing a tampon gag?). Directed by Diane English, a writer-producer of Murphy Brown.
Quarantine
Apparently there is yet to be a simultaneous release of a non-English-language film and its English-language remake (though 1931’s Dracula and a Spanish-language cover with the same title were shot over the same period in the same studio), but Quarantine has gone some way toward making this possible. A quickly produced stateside version of the Spanish zombie flick [Rec], which was released here only five months ago, this version follows the leader and tries to scare and disorientate in equal measure as a building’s residents succumb to a horrifying virus — but the survivors can’t get out. What needs to be asked is how many more shakycam epics will be made before the plug is finally pulled on this audience-unfriendly gimmick.
The Wave
A teacher in Germany launches a sociological experiment in his class that spreads, gets out of hand and sets the dogs of fascism loose for a new era. Critics sniffed at the obviousness of some of the moralizing, but the film’s momentum and intriguing premise — based on a real experiment conducted in a California high school in 1967 — sound like something that would happen if Jane Elliott of The Eye of the Storm fame lost control of her campaign to destroy racism and prejudice and ignited an iris race war. It’s interesting to contemplate what Taiwanese schoolkids would make of this film, not to mention the tantalizing ramifications of a “green versus blue” experiment in local classrooms — were it not for the suffocating conservatism of Taiwan’s education system.
A Job to Kill For
In a week of too many new releases and an Ingmar Bergman festival, it’s a mystery why this Canadian made-for-cable entry from 2006 would be dressed up as a cinema product and expected to capture market share. But if the idea of a humorless boardroom version of To Die For by veteran TV director Bill Corcoran (21 Jump Street, Wiseguy) grabs you, rush to catch this one before it disappears in a week or so. Sean Young (a long way from Blade Runner) is an executive whose new female assistant really wants a promotion.
Taiwan Association for Human Rights Film Festival
Lots of good titles are featured in this timely showcase, including Let Him Have It from the UK, Small Soldiers on the child soldiers of Liberia and works on state terror relating to Taiwan, Cambodia, North Korea, Tibet and Chile, among others, as well as indigenous issues. All screenings are free, so get down to the Eslite bookstore on Dunhua South Road (tomorrow and Sunday) and the Chinese Taipei Film Archive (from Monday through next Saturday) in Taipei and the Kaohsiung Film Archive (Dec. 21 to Dec. 31). More details at udhr60.twbbs.org.
March 10 to March 16 Although it failed to become popular, March of the Black Cats (烏貓進行曲) was the first Taiwanese record to have “pop song” printed on the label. Released in March 1929 under Eagle Records, a subsidiary of the Japanese-owned Columbia Records, the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) lyrics followed the traditional seven characters per verse of Taiwanese opera, but the instrumentation was Western, performed by Eagle’s in-house orchestra. The singer was entertainer Chiu-chan (秋蟾). In fact, a cover of a Xiamen folk song by Chiu-chan released around the same time, Plum Widow Missing Her Husband (雪梅思君), enjoyed more
Last week Elbridge Colby, US President Donald Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, a key advisory position, said in his Senate confirmation hearing that Taiwan defense spending should be 10 percent of GDP “at least something in that ballpark, really focused on their defense.” He added: “So we need to properly incentivize them.” Much commentary focused on the 10 percent figure, and rightly so. Colby is not wrong in one respect — Taiwan does need to spend more. But the steady escalation in the proportion of GDP from 3 percent to 5 percent to 10 percent that advocates
From insomniacs to party-goers, doting couples, tired paramedics and Johannesburg’s golden youth, The Pantry, a petrol station doubling as a gourmet deli, has become unmissable on the nightlife scene of South Africa’s biggest city. Open 24 hours a day, the establishment which opened three years ago is a haven for revelers looking for a midnight snack to sober up after the bars and nightclubs close at 2am or 5am. “Believe me, we see it all here,” sighs a cashier. Before the curtains open on Johannesburg’s infamous party scene, the evening gets off to a gentle start. On a Friday at around 6pm,
A series of dramatic news items dropped last month that shed light on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attitudes towards three candidates for last year’s presidential election: Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It also revealed deep blue support for Ko and Gou from inside the KMT, how they interacted with the CCP and alleged election interference involving NT$100 million (US$3.05 million) or more raised by the
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