Green Zone
Although the names have changed, Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone starring Matt Damon might be titled “Bourne Does Baghdad.” Built up in much the same style as the Bourne trilogy, the story is very, very loosely based on journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Although Green Zone tackles the ongoing issue of those hard-to-find weapons of mass destruction and therefore has a high degree of topicality, it is cut in much the same gun-and-run style as the two Greengrass Bourne films. Which is no bad thing: This is a high-quality action conspiracy flick made by people who know exactly what they are doing.
Brothers
English-language remake of the 2004 Danish film Brothers, the movie takes a look at the domestic fallout from the Afghanistan/Iraq wars. Directed by Ireland-born director Jim Sheridan, the film has been recast to deal specifically with the American experience of the conflict, and follows the lines of the original quite closely. The films tells the story of two brothers, one an upstanding soldier, the other a no-good drifter. When his brother goes missing (presumed dead) in Afghanistan, the bad apple reaches out to his brother’s wife. Strong script and an A-list cast that includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire keep the film from getting too sudsy, and it has earned critical acclaim for its fine-textured presentation of family relationships under stress.
Dalai Lama Renaissance Vol. 2: A Revolution of Ideas
Following on from Khashyar Darvich’s 2007 documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance, which screened in Taipei in June last year, this second part carries on the fascinating dialogue that the first began. Though the film centers around some very earnest talk among innovative thinkers — such as Fred Alan Wolf, a theoretical physicist, Vicki Robin, co-author of Your Money or Your Life, Harry Morgan Moses, a motivational corporate trainer, and Thomas Forsthoefel, an associate professor of religious studies — there is a philosophical humor and quirky pragmatism in the dialogue, more often than not injected by the Dalai Lama himself, which keeps the film from becoming overly sanctimonious.
Des Illusions
A film written and directed by Etienne Faure, Des Illusions is one of those talkie would-be romances in the mold of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) diptych. In the case of Des Illusions, the exotic location where the protagonists meet is Ibiza, providing plenty of lovely scenery if you get tired of looking at the two extremely attractive stars. Florent (Aurelien Wiik), a successful writer, meets Sylvie (Catherine Wilkening). Through long walks and talks, a romance springs up between the two, but then
their lives outside Ibiza gradually begin
to pull them apart. So sad, so romantic,
so French.
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker do themselves no favors in Did You Hear About the Morgans?, which has received stinking reviews as about the least funny and least comic films you are likely to see this year. Grant continues his endless stint as a congenial moron, which was so much fun in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) but which is long past expiration. Jessica Parker trots out her Carrie Bradshaw persona, which is also becoming rather shopworn. They are a high-powered Manhattan couple forced to slum it in a rural setting after witnessing a murder. Sound familiar? Remember For Richer or For Poorer (1997)? Some relief to be found in the roles of Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen, but not enough to make The Morgans interesting enough to care about.
Snakes and Earrings
Japanese flick adapted from a novella by Hitomi Kanehara, Snakes and Earrings tries to be the voice of a new depraved generation, featuring plenty of body modification, sadomasochism, death fantasies and soulless sex. The English title conveys a more artistic shading than the Japanese title, which refers directly to a body-mod fetish for splitting the tongue to make it fork like a snake’s. Lots of pain and discomfort are meted out and received in the name of erotic gratification, giving the film a blend of art house and soft porn.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would