Scream 4
A fourth installment to the Wes Craven franchise Scream, which began in 1996. It’s been 10 years since Scream 3, which failed to live up to high expectations generated by the first two films. Preliminary comments on the Internet suggest that Craven has got his mojo back, and there are rumors that this might be the first in a new trilogy. The story picks up 10 years after the events of the last film. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to her hometown of Woodsboro on the 15th anniversary of the first Woodsboro murders during a tour for her new self-help book. Her visit heralds the re-emergence of the white masked killer, and the body count begins.
Hanna
Following in the tradition of Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne and Angelina Jolie’s Evelyn Salt, Hanna ramps up the action with Saoirse Ronan as Hanna, a clueless teenager brought up by former CIA black ops operative Erik (Eric Bana) as a super soldier trained to take out the CIA chief (Cate Blanchett). Ronan proves a strong actor in both the action and little-girl-growing-up sequences, and Bana and Blanchett show real professionalism in staying on top of the sheer absurdity of the story. This is a departure for British director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice), but he has managed to inject his action hero with a starry-eyed innocence that makes Hanna a little more than the usual action-driven spy thriller.
Barney’s Version
Based on a 1997 novel by Mordecai Richler that has been compared to Saul Bellow’s Herzog, Barney’s Version tells the life story of Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti), an alcoholic, chain-smoking, opinionated, inconsiderate and often rude TV producer who, for all his faults, is appealing for his passionate embrace of love and life. The women in his life include Minnie Driver and Rosamund Pike, who seem to love him despite his many foibles, and his father is played by Dustin Hoffman. This brilliant cast, and an outstanding performance by Giamatti, give this film depth, sympathy and a little mystery.
Cold Souls
Released in conjunction with Barney’s Version, Cold Souls provides another chance to enjoy actor Paul Giamatti at the height of his form. Giamatti plays an actor called “Paul Giamatti” who decides to have part of his soul removed and put in cold storage as part of his preparations for a production of Uncle Vanya. Things don’t work out as planned, not only because the absence of soul makes Giamatti a terrible actor, but also because he finds it difficult to get his old soul back. Director Sophie Barthes plays this satiric sci-fi completely straight, allowing the ideas to generate the humor.
Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux)
This critically lauded film about the fate of a group of Trappist monks in Algeria during a rising up of Islamic fundamentalist sentiment manages to deal with the extremes of Islamic and Christian faiths with sympathy and understanding. Based on actual events, the fate of the monks is well known, but director Xavier Beauvois focuses on the reasons for why things happened the way they did, rather than what happened. He explores a tragedy as an ineluctable part of the belief system for which the monks stand for, and elicits a powerful ensemble performance from a cast that includes veteran actors Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale.
I Spit on Your Grave
A remake of Meir Zarchi’s crudely effective 1978 film of the same name (aka Day of the Woman), director Steven Monroe has ramped up the violence on an already bloody film, producing a technically slick torture porn feature that makes the fundamental mistake of taking itself too seriously. Sarah Butler plays Jennifer, an urban hipster who gets away to a rural cabin and is then brutalized and raped by a gang of hicks. They leave her for dead, but she returns to hunt down her tormentors and exacts revenge in scenes of brutal, graphic, improbable and interminable scenes of torture.
Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
It is unlikely that anything will keep Justin Bieber fans from the cineplex for this hagiography and clever marketing ploy for the teen star. Others, who have had more than enough of his very modest talents as a singer and dancer, are unlikely to want to immerse themselves in 3D intimacy with the star. Made by Jon Chu, who also directed the dance flicks Step Up 2 and Step Up 3D, the film is divided more or less equally between concert footage and backgrounders about the childhood and rise to fame of this 16-year-old pop phenomenon.
Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy 3D (3D肉蒲團之極樂寶鑑)
The original Sex and Zen was released in 1991 and was sufficiently popular around the world that even Roger Ebert reviewed it, giving it three stars and describing it as a superior example of the soft porn genre. It had lots of flesh, but it also had a sense of humor and a desire to tell a story. A 3D sequel 20 years on somehow does not seem particularly promising, especially with its promotional focus on bringing together Japanese AV star Saori Hara, busty Hong Kong model Vonnie Lui (雷凱欣) and Shanghai model Lan Yan (藍燕), also known as Crazy Leni. Still, if softcore porn is your thing, this is big budget fare and has all the trappings of a professional production.
Rubber
An 83-minute horror parody by director Quentin Dupieux that relates the adventures of a car tire that comes to life to wander the highways of California on a murderous rampage. The action is watched by an audience within the film, and we watch the watchers as the tire makes people’s heads explode. It isn’t supposed to make a whole lot of sense, but there is plenty of quite clever film school humor and the movie is short enough to keep it fun.
Great Day (天天好天) and Tiger Woohoo (大日子)
Malaysian films about small-town family life. In a mixture of Chinese dialects and Malay, both movies, though by different directors, are shot in a similar style and deal with the absurdities of the human condition and the joys and tribulations of family life in rural Malaysia. Provides an interesting, if exaggerated and melodramatic, picture of Chinese communities in Malaysia.
Midnight FM
South Korean suspense thriller with an A-list cast including Soo Ae as late-night radio DJ Sunny, who is stalked by a crazed fan played by Yoo Ji-tae. A strong female lead makes this film notable, for Sunny is forced to take things into her own hands as she engages in a bizarre cat and mouse game with her assailant. Director Kim Sang-man keeps the tension high and manages a few unconventional twists in a well-worn genre.
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located