Red Riding Hood
A distinctly modern and adult take on the well-known children’s story that ups the sexual chemistry and throws in a werewolf and other supernatural elements. From Twilight saga director Catherine Hardwicke, Red Riding Hood stars Amanda Seyfried (who played Sophie in Mamma Mia!) as the red-capped beauty in question, and despite the medieval setting, teen romance is written all over this movie, a mood that is further underlined by the percussive rock score. Red Riding Hood is caught between the love of brooding outsider Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and wealthy and good-looking Henry (Max Irons). As Solomon the werewolf hunter, Gary Oldman looks like he has walked off the stage of a provincial Shakespeare revival. He leads an inquisition within the village that reveals too many secrets.
World Invasion: Battle of Los Angeles
As much pleasure as the obliteration of Los Angeles may give to some, it is probably not sufficient to get excited about World Invasion: Battle of Los Angeles, a big-budget, big-effects alien invasion movie. An asteroid shower turns into an alien invasion by intergalactic types who seem intent on wiping out the human race. Both human and alien hardware is well rendered, and the desperate struggle of a marine platoon to save itself manages moments of genuine excitement, but in general this is just another generic apocalyptic tale.
Blue Valentine
Blue Valentine met with a polarized reception at Sundance last year and scored highly with the hard-core cinephile set at Cannes. It was dismissed at the Oscars, probably for reasons similar to the cold shoulder given to Winter’s Bone. The film is a sexually and emotionally frank film about a working-class American marriage, and uses its two stars, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, to go places that mainstream films seldom visit. Although the topic is rooted in American culture, the intense, Method-based character construction and its ventures into hyper-real color saturated cinematography give it the feel of the European art house. Love it or hate it, Blue Valentine does not leave much middle ground.
Mysteries of Lisbon (Misterios de Lisboa)
This movie is not to be undertaken lightly. It is a Dickensian narrative that follows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman and an orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil and encompasses themes of prostitution, murder, romance, war and spiritual malaise. It does this over a running time of 272 minutes, but according to Variety magazine, which describes it as “a period drama of contemporary import — and of the highest order,” both the narrative and the imagery are captivating. Based on a book by 19th-century novelist Camilo Castelo Branco, Mysteries of Lisbon is directed by Raoul Ruiz and manages to be engaging and accessible even when everyone in the film is embroiled in secrets and lies.
Undertow (Contracorriente)
Undertow is a ghost story combined with a tale of gay romance in rural Peru that has proven a huge success on the festival circuit through its ability to transcend narrow genre tags. While taking on psychological and metaphysical themes related to love, loss and true identity, the story is rooted in the daily lives of its characters, who reside in a small Peruvian village. The ghost of fisherman Miguel’s deceased lover lingers on in the corporal world, and while Miguel had managed to keep the affair secret when it was happening, now his lover is dead and the story begins to seep out.
And Soon the Darkness
Two pretty girls on the road in the backwoods of Argentina get into all kinds of trouble with nasty locals who have only one thing on their mind. The camera work is competent, the backdrops nice, the two stars, Amber Heard and Odette Yustman, are fine to look at, but And Soon the Darkness doesn’t have any real drama. The film’s whole torture porn angle is way too tame to appeal to audiences looking for a Saw or Hostel experience.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not