Arthur
It should come as no surprise that Russell Brand is not Dudley Moore, the original alcoholic rich kid Arthur, who just wants to have fun but whose lifestyle comes under threat when told he must marry. There is a good deal less innocence and much more sexual humor in this new incarnation. Brand effectively swaps Moore’s whimsy for comic camp, and Helen Mirren takes over from John Gielgud in the role of Hobson the butler, and proves that she is anyone’s match in doing British unflappable stiff upper lip. While far from being a laugh a minute, the joyfulness of this reinterpretation of a comic classic gives this predictable reworking its own charm.
The Lincoln Lawyer
Based on a novel by veteran crime writer Michael Connelly, the film, with Matthew McConaughey in the title role of Mick Haller, a somewhat sketchy lawyer who does his business from the back of a chauffeur-driven Lincoln town car, may annoy Connelly purists. Nevertheless, it is a better adaptation of the author’s work than Clint Eastwood’s 2002 Blood Work. McConaughey exudes a nice mixture of sleaze and suavity, and is backed by a strong cast that includes Marisa Tomei, John Leguizamo, Michael Pena and William H. Macy, who all help give depth to a fairly straightforward take on the theme of a sleaze-ball who discovers his conscience.
Katalin Varga
Filmed in Transylvania by first-time British director Peter Strickland, Katalin Varga is an unsettling film about a woman’s journey through the Carpathian Mountains to face the man who raped her, and thus caused her to be ostracized by her family and her community. Strickland’s film, which won the Silver Bear in Berlin in 2009 and earned Strickland Most Promising Newcomer in the Evening Standard British Film Awards last year, combines haunting cinematography, a memorable score and a fascinating story that puts a human face on inhuman actions.
Beautiful Lies
Also released under the title Full Treatment, this film by director Pierre Salvadori, starring Audrey Tautou, is a quintessentially French romantic comedy about a young hairdresser who desperately wants her mother to get over her father’s involvement with a woman 20 years his junior. She writes an anonymous love letter to her mother to cheer her up, with predictably disastrous results. Beautiful Lies does not depart from the genre’s conventions, but it is high-spirited and elegant.
Oscar and the Lady in Pink (Oscar et la dame rose)
Films about children facing death tread dangerous ground, and Oscar and the Lady in Pink does a reasonably good job in avoiding the worst pitfalls of sanctimony and lachrymosity. This is largely due to the efforts of Michele Laroque, the Lady in Pink of the title, a straight-talking woman who befriends Oscar, who is distressed that his imminent demise has caused all the grown-ups in his life to lose every trace of joy, humor or any other positive feeling. The film shifts from domestic drama to fantasy in an all too familiar fashion, and has a strong “positive message” throughout, but for those looking for unmediated uplift, it is far from being the worst recent offering.
Remember the Italian Auteurs
Starting today and running until May 5, this mini film festival at the Blossom Digital Cinema (梅花數位影院), 2F, 63, Heping E Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市和平東路三段63號2樓), is an opportunity to revisit the films Rocco and his Brothers (1960) and The Innocence (1976) by Luchino Visconti, which both made an indelible impact on the art of cinema and helped make the name of actors such as Alain Delon, Giancarlo Giannini and Jennifer O’Neill. The works of Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni will be featured in subsequent installments of this festival.
Deliver Us From Evil (Fri os fra det onde)
A film that has drawn comparisons in theme and style, though not in quality, to Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, Deliver Us From Evil looks at the effects of murderous provincialism and xenophobia in a small town in Denmark. The film, by director Ole Bornedal, is undermined by some heavy-handed exposition and social commentary, and the acting is mostly pedestrian.
Choy Lee Fut 蔡李佛
Big-budget fight flick following on from the enormously successful Ip Man (葉問) movies and starring such seminal figures from the martial arts scene such as Sammo Hung (洪金寶) and Wah Yuen (元華), and featuring members of Jackie Chan’s (成龍) stunt team. This is a major banquet for martial arts fans, featuring the fighting talents of Kane Kosugi and Sammo’s son Sammy Hung (洪天照). There are plenty of exciting and technically accomplished fight sequences that range from semi-slapstick bar fights to straight-up tournament fights, though an overuse of slo-mo and other technical trickery might mar the experience for purists. The plot, involving two close friends and two rival schools of martial arts, has been done to death.
The Unborn Child (Sop Dek 2002)
From the veteran Thai director Poj Arnon, who created the violent gay gangland epic Bangkok Love Story. The Unborn Child picks up on the trendy topic of abortion in Thai culture, treating it from the perspective of the horror genre. The figure 2002 in the Thai title of the movie refers to the number of illegally aborted fetuses recently discovered in a Bangkok temple, and sees Poj Arnon following a well-trodden path in Thai movie-making that finds inspiration for films in newspaper headlines.
The Fantastic Water Babes 出水芙蓉
Silly romantic flick masquerading as a sports movie, The Fantastic Water Babes is a swimming movie about good-looking female pop idols trying to snare good-looking male pop idols pretending to be swimming instructors. The film has a reasonably experienced cast starring Gillian Chung (鍾欣桐) and Alex Fong (方力申), but overall there is no real attempt at acting.
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.
Thomas and Friends: Misty Island Rescue
Feature film based on a UK cartoon about a train engine. Those who know the series will be familiar with the format, which is perfect for young audiences, though the increased use of CGI has smoothed out the effects for a series that drew much of its appeal from animation technology.
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and