Source Code
Following on from Inception and The Adjustment Bureau, there is now Source Code, which marries the brain-heist idea to the identity-seeking thriller a la the Bourne franchise, and injects the mix with a big dose of paranoia about the military industrial complex, and lots of running around by a good-looking lead — in this case Jake Gyllenhaal. The second film by director Duncan Jones, who made a spectacular debut with Moon (2009), Source Code requires plenty of work from the audience to fit the jigsaw pieces together.
Just Go With It
Yet another Adam Sandler romantic comedy with lots of jokes and eye candy for the boys. Starring Jennifer Aniston, who despite appearing in a string of reasonably successful movies, remains irredeemably a television actress. The plot of Just Go With It is dumber than most, as are the characters. Sandler is a world-famous plastic surgeon who has convinced his assistant (Aniston) to pretend to be his soon-to-be divorced wife so he can make things work with the new love of his life, played by Brooklyn Decker.
Hop
A cute Easter-themed action animation being screened for the Children’s Day national holiday weekend, Hop looks like a whole bunch of Pixar and Dreamwork pictures, with something of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory thrown in for good measure. EB, the Easter Bunny’s teenage son, heads to Hollywood, determined to become a drummer in a rock ’n’ roll band. In LA, he is taken in by Fred, an out-of-work slacker. The Easter Bunny sends his minions to get his son back, while fending off a coup instigated by a chicken. Features a mix of animation and live action, and British comedian Russell Brand as the voice of EB.
Gnomeo and Juliet
It’s hard not to feel embarrassed for the participants of the reworking of Romeo and Juliet played out by garden gnomes. These are James McAvoy and Emily Blunt as the title characters, and a supporting cast that includes Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Ozzy Osbourne and a host of other big names in an absurd and largely derivative animation that looks and feels similar to Over the Hedge (2006). Directed by Kelly Asbury, who wrote Beauty and the Beast (1991) and directed Shrek 2 (2004), this is an assured production in every respect, but seems to have very little in the way of original ideas to offer.
Insidious
Bringing together the creative team of James Wan and Leigh Whannell (Saw, Dead Silence) with executive producer Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Insidious is an effective haunted house film that suffers from an excess of ideas. A family moves into a new house and the son has an accident exploring the attic and falls into a coma. Very strange things start happening, and intervention by a psychic (Lin Shaye) brings demonic spirits out into the open — they were much scarier when hidden behind suggestion and innuendo.
Canine
Also released under the title Dogtooth, this film by Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos is not a movie for the faint of heart. It sets up a scene in which three teenage siblings, two girls and a boy, are confined to a country estate where they are taught to fear the outside world. Christina is the only visitor, brought in to slack the sexual urges of the son, but who soon find ways of exchanging sexual favors with the two girls as well. For all the weirdness, Lanthimos has complete command of the visuals and performances, and the film picked up the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes in 2009.
The Hairy Tooth Fairy 2 (El Raton Perez 2)
Low-budget CGI children’s film about a mouse who works nights as a tooth fairy, picking up teeth placed under children’s pillows, selling them on and giving the money to the children. The first installment was successful enough in the Spanish-speaking market to spawn a sequel. This time, the hero, the mouse Perez, meets up with a girl mouse, learns to dance and then the two must avoid capture by a fiendish circus manager who wants to exploit them as a money-spinner. Features a mixture of animation and live action.
Jane’s Journey
Documentary film by German director Lorenz Knauer that presents a worshipful but interesting examination of Jane Goodall’s journey from animal conservationist to environmental activist to global humanitarian. It mixes up everything from home movies of Goodall’s childhood to HD footage of the now 75-year-old primatologist and UN Messenger of Peace socializing with chimpanzees.
Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Moon Castle Space Adventure
Chinese feature animation based on a popular children’s television series that relates the adventures of a bunch of sheep and their archenemy the Big Wolf. This adventure takes the story into space. Although there is some cartoon violence, the film is aimed at the under 12s.
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
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
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your