Rated R, directed by Ridley Scott, with Josh Hartnett (Eversmann), Ewan McGregor (Grimes), Tom Sizemore (McKnight), Eric Bana (Hoot), William Fichtner (Sanderson), Ewen Bremner (Nelson), Sam Shepard (Garrison), running time: 143 minutes.
US troops, in Mogadishu, Somalia, as part of a 1993 UN peacekeeping detail plan to kidnap members of the inner circle of a Somali warlord. When their helicopters are brought down, the mission changes to a rescue operation. Unfortunately, much of the politics that lie at the heart of the true story are neatly overlooked in order to have the US boys (yes, Ewan McGregor sounds fresh off the farm) come across as pure as driven snow. Despite the strong cast, the dialogue seems to come straight from earlier Jerry Bruckheimer productions like The Rock. In fact, this could be Top Gun for infantrymen -- it's that slick. Even the bullet tracers seem coordinated to the film's color palette. Would that the US' involvement in Somalia had been as cleanly staged as Ridley Scott's take on it.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BUENA VISTA
Nov. 11 to Nov. 17 People may call Taipei a “living hell for pedestrians,” but back in the 1960s and 1970s, citizens were even discouraged from crossing major roads on foot. And there weren’t crosswalks or pedestrian signals at busy intersections. A 1978 editorial in the China Times (中國時報) reflected the government’s car-centric attitude: “Pedestrians too often risk their lives to compete with vehicles over road use instead of using an overpass. If they get hit by a car, who can they blame?” Taipei’s car traffic was growing exponentially during the 1960s, and along with it the frequency of accidents. The policy
While Americans face the upcoming second Donald Trump presidency with bright optimism/existential dread in Taiwan there are also varying opinions on what the impact will be here. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump personally and his first administration, US-Taiwan relations blossomed. Relative to the previous Obama administration, arms sales rocketed from US$14 billion during Obama’s eight years to US$18 billion in four years under Trump. High-profile visits by administration officials, bipartisan Congressional delegations, more and higher-level government-to-government direct contacts were all increased under Trump, setting the stage and example for the Biden administration to follow. However, Trump administration secretary
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A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made. The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent. Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day
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