rt house director Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮) ended the 62nd Cannes Film Festival’s main competition on Saturday with a display of stunning visuals in his latest movie Face (臉).
It was a fitting end to the Cannes festival’s race for the coveted Palme d’Or, which was due to be awarded early this morning Taiwan time and has included some remarkable visual moments from human longing through to futurism as well as sweeping vistas displaying the force of nature.
“The image is extremely important to me. The image is central in my films,” said Tsai at a press conference held on Saturday to mark the Cannes premiere of Face, which is about a Taiwanese director making a film at the Paris Louvre museum, based on the story of Salome.
Tsai assembled his usual group of actors including Lee Kang-Sheng (李康生) for Face.
However, he has also added leading French actors Jean-Pierre Leaud and Fanny Ardant as well as French model-turned actress Laetita Casta to tell his story of Salome and the first century AD King Herod.
Tsai’s Face is one of a slew of Asian movies included in Cannes’ main competition with six of the 20 films competing for the Palme d’Or from Asian filmmakers.
They also touch on a range of themes such as gay desire, a father seeking revenge and a priest-turned vampire along with gangland terror in Manila.
Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn has called off his divorce from Robin Wright Penn for a second time, not long after seeking legal separation. Weeks after saying he and his wife of 13 years will separate on the grounds of irreconcilable differences, Penn has withdrawn a court application filed in Marin County near San Francisco, the New York Daily News reported, citing court records.
Actor George Hamilton has had his right knee replaced. His publicist, Jeffrey Lane, said the elective surgery was performed on Thursday in Chicago. He said the 69-year-old Hamilton, who sports a permatan, first injured his knee while starring in Chicago on Broadway, and decided to have his knee replaced after he injured it a second time when he competed on the second season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars in 2006.
Hamilton is expected to return to Los Angeles this week.
Britain’s unlikely singing sensation Susan Boyle, the frumpy church volunteer who wowed the world with her angelic voice, has been voted into the next round of a TV talent show that propelled her to global fame.
The 47 year old, who lives alone with her cat Pebbles in one of Scotland’s poorest regions, was due to perform in a live show yesterday [today Taiwan time], weeks after her surprising performance of I Dreamed a Dream from the musical Les Miserables shocked judges and charmed tens of millions of people worldwide.
Boyle’s performance last month on the American Idol-style show Britain’s Got Talent has been viewed almost 60 million times on YouTube, and saw the shy Scot feted by celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Demi Moore.
Boyle, who says she’s never been kissed, was greeted with giggles from a skeptical audience and eye rolls from the show’s famously sardonic judge Simon Cowell when she appeared last month — but startled viewers with her soaring voice.
Bookmaker William Hill makes Boyle a runaway favorite to win the final on May 30.
“She had a tremendous reaction because of the phenomenon that is YouTube — it’s now all over the world and she’s coping rather well,’’ said the singer’s brother, Gerry Boyle. “But I think some of the reality is now starting to sink in.’’
The youngest of nine children, Boyle grew up in Blackburn, a community of 4,750 people located 32km west of Edinburgh, in Scotland — a district blighted by unemployment and crime.
As an adult, she’s struggled for work but had been a regular on her local karaoke circuit and performed in church choirs.
Sara Lee, a spokeswoman for Britain’s Got Talent said that Boyle’s performance will be available almost instantly on Internet, allowing her international fans a chance to watch the singer’s latest appearance.
The Taipei Times reported last week that housing transactions fell 15.3 percent last month, to under 20,000 units. However, the market boomed for the first eight months of the year, and observers expect it to show growth for the year as a whole. The fall was due to Central Bank intervention. “The negative impact of credit controls grew evident for the third straight month,” said Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) research manager Tseng Ching-ter (曾敬德), according to the report. Central Bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) in October said that the Central Bank implemented selective credit controls in September to cool the housing
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