Larry Crowne
Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts show that even mega-stars have their off days. Larry Crowne, co-written by Hanks, tells the story of Larry, a blue-collar worker laid off as a result of recession, who embraces the crisis in his life, goes back to school, and rediscovers a multicultural America full of lovable ethnic types, and of course finds love all over again. The film is described by Variety magazine as both “condescending” and “clueless” in its portrayal of the American workingman up against a horde of economic woes. The lack of any real chemistry between the two leads sinks this bland romantic comedy.
Valhalla Rising
The tale of a one-eyed killing machine who escapes from Viking captors and after an orgy of bloodletting, discovers his humanity. A movie from Nicolas Winding Refn, a Danish director whose contributions to the renaissance of British independent filmmaking include An Education and The Damned United. His film Bronson (2008) walked the line between unbearable pretension and groundbreaking originality. With Valhalla Rising, he’s melded the blood-and-war-hammer B-movie Viking epic with a story about self-discovery and redemption. It is likely to annoy and captivate in equal measure.
Loose Cannons
A film from director Ferzan Ozpetek, who came onto the international scene with the highly regarded Steam: The Turkish Bath, an ode to love and the city of Istanbul. With Loose Cannon, Ozpetek has taken the route of the romantic comedy, telling the story of a big Italian family in Southern Italy whose son Tommaso has made the fateful decision to come out of the closet. Before he can get the news out, he finds himself taking over the family business and falling unwillingly into the life of his conservative Catholic family. A visit by his lover and a host of gay friends from Rome makes for a hilarious house party in which many other family secrets are revealed.
Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence
Yet another installment in the Detective Conan series of films based on the hugely successful manga series by Gosho Aoyama about the teenage Jimmy Kudo, who often helps the police solve difficult cases. This is the 15th film in the series, and fans of the boy detective should know what to expect.
Chopin: Desire for Love
Biopics of great classical composers have achieved notable success in the cinema, but the Polish production of Chopin: Desire for Love falls far short of Bernard Rose’s Immortal Beloved about Beethoven and Milos Forman’s Amadeus. The portrayal of Chopin, by Piotr Adamczyk, is unsympathetic, and his love affair with the early feminist writer George Sand, played by Danuta Stenka, fails to ignite more than rather bombastic passions. Major events in the composer’s life are ticked off, but don’t expect any deep understanding of Chopin either as a man or as a composer.
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
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
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s