Story selling

The placement of Chinese products in Hollywood blockbusters is a growing business, Liu Wei and Wong Lok Yee meet the woman who is putting brands on the silver screen.

Genre films blooming at box office across China

With horror flick after road movie, China's domestic filmmaking seems to have found new inspiration for its box-office rivalry with Hollywood.

James Brown biopic Get On Up revels in drama

At first Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer thought she was seeing early concert footage of James Brown but then was told it was a screen test by Chadwick Boseman to play the "Godfather of Soul" in the new biopic Get On Up.

With a little help ...

Li Yang, a college student in Wuhan, Hubei province, has loved writing poetry since childhood, and he always wanted to publish his works.

The Home Place a strong debut for Carrie La Seur

Carrie La Seur's finely crafted debut chronicles a woman's complicated relationship with her hometown of Billings, Montana, her relatives who stayed behind and her ancestral history. La Seur's graceful prose in The Home Place complements her incisive character studies of a family that has managed to keep most of its problems behind closed doors.

Poet nurse recounts life with mentally ill patients

Soon after the Wenchuan earthquake in May 2008, An Xuerong and some of her colleagues went to a quake-hit town in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province, to bring some 80 mentally ill patients to their hospital - Chengdu No 4 Hospital, one of the largest hospitals for people suffering from mental illnesses in Southwest China.

Just one kiss

As Chinese Valentine's Day approaches, a French author and filmmaker brings his tale of the possibilities of love to China's readers, Xing Yi reports.

Thumbing through the US

John Waters was safely ensconced in his New York apartment, which is unexpectedly tasteful - Oriental rugs, carefully arranged books - for the filmmaker known as the "Pope of Trash", thanks to movies like Hairspray and Pink Flamingos that traffic in camp, gore and, ahem, bodily functions.

IN BRIEF (Page 20)

Don't you love me anymore?

Just like people, dogs get upset when their masters share their affection elsewhere, a new study finds. Xinhua reports.

Changing shipping routes could help save blue whales

Blue whales off the US west coast like to feed in areas that are heavily used as shipping lanes, a practice that puts their survival at risk, researchers said last week.

How bats use a compass to find their way at night

A European bat type can use the scatter patterns of sunlight to program its internal compass for hunting after dark - the first mammal known to do so, researchers said last week.