Victor Frankenstein
What, another Frankenstein movie fresh off the heels of last year’s I, Frankenstein? (Yeah, we’re pretending that Frankenstein vs the Mummy never existed.) While the former featured the monster as the protagonist, this one has Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy teaming up to tell the origin story of the film’s eponymous scientist who strived to create life from death. What is there new to tell about this way, way overtold story? Okay, so it’s told through the eyes of Igor — Frankenstein’s assistant — played by Radcliffe, who makes an appearance in the official trailer to make sure people know that it’s a “new twist on a kind of legendary tale.” Judging from the rest of the trailer, there doesn’t seem to be anything we don’t know, except for more action and explosions. Aside from the rehashing, it does have potential to be entertaining, and we can only hope that Radcliffe delivers on his promise. This film takes home the cake for the most uninspired title translation ever: guaiwu (怪物, which simply means monster).
Our Brand is Crisis
Why would two rival Bolivian politicians hire two rival American political consultants (especially when they’re played by Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton) to help them best each other in the upcoming presidential election? Because it actually happened in 2002, when Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada hired Greenberg Carville Shrum to help him defeat Evo Morales. These events are chronicled in the 2005 documentary of the same name, upon which this George Clooney-produced fictionalized comedy version is based on. Of course, the Hollywood version can’t just be about Bolivian politics, so it reinvents itself to focus on the bickering Americans and their funny journey to self discovery — and they just happen to be in Bolivia during turbulent times, a convenient backdrop to throw in some ethics and morality to make the whole affair more noble. In real life, after taking office, Sanchez didn’t turn out to be such an awesome dude, which makes us wonder how the movie version of him is like.
Kidnapping Freddy Heineken
Just two weeks after the release of Legend, we have another movie that’s based on a book about true criminal events. Anthony Hopkins plays Freddy Heineken (yes, of the beer fame), who was nabbed in front of his Amsterdam office along with his driver in November 1983. Dutch journalist Peter de Vries wrote the book from actual interviews with the kidnappers, and even went as far as tracking down in 1994 another one of the masterminds who had escaped to Paraguay. But this movie isn’t about de Vries, whose life probably warrants a movie of its own — it’s simply about the crime, where honestly not much seems to transpire if you are familiar with the incident (which is probably why the film is only 95 minutes long). Well, at least there’s Hopkins. Just four years ago, a Dutch film was released about the same incident (starring Rutger Hauer, who sort of resembles Hopkins and starred alongside him in The Rit). The kidnappers filed an injunction to block that film from being shown, but failed. They probably didn’t try to mess with Hollywood.
Clearstream Affair
The local version of the movie poster adds a Taiwan-shaped trace of blood behind the man in the foreground, so it cannot be any more obvious that the country is featured in the film. It’s about the 2001 Clearstream affair, which involved shady bribery and money laundering between a French defense company and Taiwan’s military. It’s locally considered the biggest scandal in Republic of China Navy history and is linked to the murder of captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓), still unsolved today. The murder is featured in the film and the captain is played by Yin Chao-de (尹昭德), the late captain’s … wait, they’re not related. Enough about Taiwan, as the film is mostly based in France, and the focus here is hard-nosed investigative journalist Denis Robert, who revealed the affair in his book, Revolution$. We all know what wealthy, evil corporations are capable of doing to people who have wronged them, and Robert is about to find out.
Asphalte
French director Samuel Benchetrit, who grew up in housing projects, weaves an amusing, slice-of-life comedy featuring three separate stories with six downtrodden characters who all live in a run-down apartment block. Two of the stories came from Benchetrit’s semi-autobiographical book, Asphalt Chronicles. The film seems to be focused on human interaction, and despite its depressing setting, the stories each feature two lonely people striking up unlikely interactions with each other. This is heartwarming stuff, prompting one to feel that the projects aren’t so bad after all. Benchetrit’s son Jules plays Charly, the Parisian teenager who is the protagonist of the book and appears in one of the film’s stories. Oh yeah, there’s also Isabelle Huppert, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Michael Pitt, who plays an astronaut.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
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