Buried
The technical exercise that is Buried, a film directed by Rodrigo Cortes from a script by Chris Sparling, has polarized critics who have either loved the way the director has met the challenges of the tight constraints he imposed on himself, or found the devices improbable and the ideological baggage that the film carries annoying. The only face we see in the film is that of Ryan Reynolds, who plays a non-military contractor working in Iraq. He wakes up to find himself buried alive in a coffin with a cellphone and a lighter, and the subject of ransom demands from terrorists. The marvels of modern communication technology are his only way out, if anyone can be bothered to listen to what he has to say.
Paranormal Activity 2
Following on from the first movie released in 2007, Paranormal Activity 2, which relies on many of the same techniques to shock — though not, unfortunately, to awe — suffers from sequelitis. A clever narrative device links this second film closely with the characters of the first, but although frights are delivered effectively, Paranormal Activity 2 seems to have little to add. The first film generated a huge audience response, and many reviewers have commented on how both the original and the sequel are effective as a communal experience, especially in nighttime screenings. There are plenty of creepy effects and a couple of megawatt shocks, but both in style and content, it’s just more of the same.
Happy Tears
An unhappy mix of social realism and offbeat comedy, Happy Tears attempts the difficult feat of presenting the lighter side of dementia. The subject of this condition is Rip Torn, father to two daughters of contrasting personalities. There is Parker Posey, as Jayne, a twitchy socialite, and Demi Moore as an older sister who is a resentful hippie. Then there is Ellen Barkin, a paid companion/lover to the gradually disintegrating father. The movie combines gross-out images, the bitterness of family dysfunction, a lack of narrative development and numerous unsuccessful attempts at light comedy in a sad mess of a film that does credit to none of its talented cast members.
My One and Only
A pageant of 1950s Americana that is made remarkably attractive by the presence of a back-to-form Renee Zellweger as a Southern belle who has walked out on a husband, played by Kevin Bacon, and with two children in tow, is looking for a new man. This is, essentially, a road movie that is lifted by its strong cast and effortless and deeply nostalgic re-creation of 1950s America, symbolized above all else by a 1953 Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible, the vehicle in which Zellweger sets off on her journey. The faintly feminist subtext is lightly worn, and the deft dialogue, beautiful costumes and sheer love of the theatrical make My One and Only a winner.
Letters to God
An inspirational film with a heavy-handed religious message that might inspire many not dedicated to the more evangelical fringes of Christianity to head for the door.
With its cardboard cutout characters, including a leading role for a child suffering from a rare type of cancer and an alcoholic postman who finds salvation through a child’s innocence, even critics writing for publications with an explicitly Christian agenda have been less than enthusiastic about this production by director David Nixon. For those who like to be battered into submission by their sermons.
Bearcity
And from the sacred to the profane. Bearcity is a rambunctiously gay take on Sex and the City, set in New York’s gay “bear” scene, frequented by heavyset hirsute men. Covering a wide range of emotional territory, Bearcity may be commendable for dealing with a variety of modern-day relationship issues, such as resisting peer pressure and weighing hedonism against commitment, but it tries too hard to seduce a mainstream, Sex and the City-esque audience, which blunts its appeal. Blurry gropes and sanitized bathroom sex are not enough to make Bearcity the bit of rough it wants to be.
Giulia Doesn’t Date at Night
(Giulia non esce la sera)
Italian art house drama that deftly walks the line between moody melodrama and formal cinematic exercise. The film follows successful writer Guido Montani, who suffers from writer’s block and strikes up a relationship with his daughter’s swimming instructor, whose personality, may, or may not, be overlaid with a veneer of Guido’s own literary imaginings. Whatever the case, the teacher, the Giulia of the title, has her own dark secrets, hinted at through a nuanced performance by Valeria Golino. A thoughtful and well-shot film with a low-key delivery that deserves to be seen.
It Begins With the End
(Ca commence par la fin)
Almost a caricature of a French art movie, It Begins With the End boasts some very beautiful cast members, including Emmanuelle Beart and actor/director Michael Cohen, engaging in very exotic sex, but their antics don’t bring them happiness. Variety describes It Begins as “overwrought,” which judging from the trailers, is something of an understatement. The film strives for la grande passion, but seems to end up with little more than a pastiche of passionate Gallic declarations and fraught erotic encounters.
Unstoppable
Directed by Tony Scott, the brother of Ridley Scott, Unstoppable packs plenty of big action, and even a big star in the shape of Denzel Washington, who continues his association with train-based action movies following the mediocre remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, also directed by Tony Scott. While Tony Scott is a major film industry player (mostly as executive producer), his record as a feature movie director does not rival that of his brother. Unstoppable, whose tale about a runaway train carrying toxic chemicals is supposedly inspired by real events, manages to achieve an artificial quality that gives the film a hollow ring more clanging than many purely fictional stories. For a proper film about trains heading for disaster, watch Andrey Konchalovskiy’s Runaway Train (1985).
The Incite Mill: Seven-Day Death Game
A Japanese film by Hideo Nakata, best known as the director of the Ringu series, and for cult classics such as Kaidan and Deathnote. The story is adapted from author Honobu Yonezawa’s novel of the same name, and features Nakata regular Tatsuya Fujiwara. Ten people, responding to a too-good-to-be-true job ad, find themselves in a Big Brother-type situation, but with weapons, and getting voted off is a terminal condition.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern