Taiwan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Sometimes before advance screenings, security guards will confiscate camera phones for the duration of the movie in order to prevent piracy. Most people's reaction is to question the likelihood of someone actually pirating a movie they record with their phone. Aside from the fact that few people could be interested in such a bad-quality product, there don't seem to be any phones capable of recording an entire feature-length film. Well, ludicrous reasoning never stops the MPA from enforcing their anti-piracy policies, and now at least one man is facing imprisonment for recording a few minutes of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift onto his phone. Either they've got some better phones in Taiwan or the guy had a ton of memory cards -- the police only confiscated one additional card to the one inside the phone -- and planned to include a significant amount of gaps on his end product. He now faces a large fine and the possibility of becoming a different kind of pirate in jail. Another man in an unrelated incident was also recently caught recording the same movie on his cell phone but he was not charged because he was either able to erase the recording or his phone broke and lost its memory.

For some reason the MPAA considers cell phones the same as camcorders when dealing with piracy, and now they apparently have an example to further suspect moviegoers with camera phones (which is probably most moviegoers nowadays). At least one way of dealing with annoying cell phone users (talkers/texters) is now to report them to management as alleged pirates. If enough witch-hunting occurs, maybe we could get people to fear bringing their phones into theaters altogether. Plus there could be a cash reward from the MPAA, too. Then later we can get unwanted co-workers fired by starting the rumor that they're terrorists. Or commies. Or witches. Or pirates. Or pod people. I'll let you continue the list ...

Mmm...odds and ends.

• According to none other than the nephew of Miles Davis himself (Yeah, nephews aren't necessarily that close, I know. So sue me - I'm trying to lend this thing a little credence.), Sony is currently "working on" a movie about Uncle Miles' life. Mr. Nephew claims that the studio is accepting scripts as we speak, and suggested that Antoine Fuqua might be directing Don Cheadle in the film. Whether Sony has even heard of this alleged project, however, has not yet been revealed.

• A travel agency in Taiwan is offering package holidays to Fort Macleod in Southern Alberta, Canada, the location that stood in for Wyoming in a little picture called Brokeback Mountain. (Needless to say, the advertising materials probably mention the movie once or twice.) Now, don't worry - people of any and all sexual orientations are welcome on the trip. That said, if you're gay and can prove it (disappointingly, there no indication of what that would entail), you get $200 off the regular price. Score!

• Remember the huge warehouse fire last fall that destroyed much of the history of Aardman Animation? Well, the company has finally receive their insurance money (over half a million pounds in total), and how the payment breaks down is fascinating. The ORIGINAL MODELS OF WALLACE AND GROMIT (that's history right there, kids), for example, were worth just £6000 pounds together, with Wallace coming in at £4000, twice the value of his trusty companion. Are these people mad? Why, Gromit's brain alone is far more valuable than everything Wallace is and owns. I mean, have insurers never seen the movies?
  

Okay, Brokeback Mountain shirts selling for $100,000 and scenes from the film being depicted with Legos is one thing; when the Taiwanese president starts using a movie about gay cowboys sheepherders in statements about diplomacy, I'm starting to think maybe people are taking this film a little too seriously. Actually, I started thinking that as I was policing the 84,000th comment on the Legos post, but this is really the final straw. The president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, speaking at a banquet, used Brokeback Mountain as an analogy for relations between the US and Taiwan. No, seriously.

Chen said the theme of the movie transcends the storyline of love between two men, and that it has important messages about  creating trust, dispelling prejudice and Taiwan and the United States together pursuing a "great new world" (presumably, one where the US and Taiwan are free to love each other and engage in trade without the religious right getting their shorts in a twist). Wonkette got into the game, pointing out that "Taiwan is definitely Jake Gyllenhaal" (you can guess why). Even The New Yorker is jumping on the politics and Brokeback bandwagon, with a cover depicting Bush and Cheney as Jack and Ennis. I can buy the Bush-Cheney analysis (guess that would make the American people the sheep being herded, eh?), but the Taiwan-US thing is a bit of a stretch for me. I guess if Crash can be the movie about race relations, though, Brokeback can be the movie about politics.

The past few years have seen a drastic decline in the productivity of the Hong Kong movie industry and, in turn, a similar decline in its profits. Whereas less than a decade ago Hong Kong was a thriving movie center, turning out 300-400 films every year, this past year saw the release of only 47 local films, which - as a group - earned less than $40 million.

According to actor/director Eric Tsang, much of the reason for the decline comes from the departure of action directors and designers for the cushy life in Hollywood. Though a handful of HK luminaries have recently returned home to work (John Woo, for example, and Chow Yun-Fat will both have Chinese language films coming out in the next couple of years), many have no interest in returning. In addition, no younger generation of filmmakers has yet emerged to take the place of those who are departing, or who are no longer working at the frenzied pace of years gone by.

Though many feel that a massive infusion of cash is the only answer to the crisis, Tsang sees an alternative: instead of maintaining distinct Chinese, HK, and Taiwanese industries, he suggests that the three Chinese-language industries pool their resources in order to produce a greater number of high-quality, high-earning films.

Whatever the answer, we'll certainly be keeping an eye on Hong Kong during 2006; it would be a tragedy to see such a creative, passionate industry fall off the world map.