Melancholia
Lars von Trier takes on the end of the world and shows that he can bring the art house into the multiplex, a trick that has been tried many times, but which has seldom succeeded. Whether or not Von Trier has pulled it off is arguable, but he has certainly wowed the critics with his Zen-like assurance and intellectual scope. The mind-blowingly massive cast, which spans Hollywood aristocracy such as Kirsten Dunst and Kiefer Sutherland to art house eccentrics like Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charlotte Rampling, play at the top of their form. There are plenty of big set pieces, sumptuous costumes, and dense art references that include an eight-minute melody of surreal tableaux set to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and images referencing Shakespeare and echoing the dreamlike photos of Gregory Crewdson. This is cinema with a capital C.
Zookeeper
Not to be confused with the excellent film The Zookeeper (2001) starring Sam Neill and set against the inhumanity of the Balkan conflict, Zookeeper is your standard Hollywood comedy that needs cute talking animals to make up for the fact that it doesn’t have any proper gags. Stars Kevin James, a B-list comedian probably best known for the forgettable TV series The King of Queens. He plays Griffin Keyes, a nice guy who can’t get the girl, Kate (Rosario Dawson), because he is a zookeeper. But then the animals step in and give all sorts of silly animal advice that gets Griffin into all kinds of “funny” situations. Only you saw them coming a mile away and when they happen, you forget to laugh.
Black Butterflies
Biopic about the life and suicide of the South African poet Ingrid Jonker (Carice van Houten), who found world recognition 30 years after her death when one of her poems was read by Nelson Mandela at the opening of parliament. As she is considered to be “a South African Sylvia Plath,” you know that this will not be a happy film. Director Paula van der Oest handles Jonker’s complex relationship with her father (who was South Africa’s minister for censorship, played here by Rutger Hauer) and her destructive relationship with fellow writer Jack Cope (Liam Cunningham) with considerable sensitivity, managing to avoid pigeonholing her as a glib stereotype of the highly strung poet.
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
Released in 2008, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is a self-conscious and stagy production of a film script written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Jodie Markell. Williams skirts dangerously close to self-parody, spiced as the film is with lashings of overblown Southern Gothic. There’s the arrogant debutante, the studly suitor, the alcoholic father, the insane mother and a powerful spinster aunt who controls the family fortune. To make matters worse, the film, directed by TV actress-turned-director Markell, doesn’t have the production value to support its period drama pretensions.
Ninja Kids!!!
Another product from the twisted but fecund mind of Japanese director Takashi Miike, though this time he takes his fantastic musings on Japanese samurai movies in a decidedly child-friendly direction, which is very much at odds with the ultra-violence of cult classics like Ichi the Killer. Ninja Kids!!! tells the story of a bunch of children studying at a ninja academy, and the rather chaotic film is made up of a relentless barrage of gags parodying genre cliches. There are delightful moments, but not quite enough to sustain the film’s 100 minutes.
The Cinderella
Thai horror film by director Sarawut Intaraprom. When a young actor dies after an on-set argument with the movie crew, his mother resorts to black magic to avenge her son. Soon members of the crew start to die. There are some Thai hotties who meet unpleasant deaths and an online teaser suggests some startlingly horrific gore.
Doraemon: Nobita and the New Steel Troops
Nobita and the robotic blue cat Doraemon feature in a remake of a 1986 movie of the same name. Nobita inadvertently creates a giant robot called Zanda Claus who turns out to be a powerful weapon against the robot army that’s about to invade Earth. For fans and young children.
SuperShow 3 — Super Junior 3rd Asian Tour Concert
The title pretty much says it all. This is a film of South Korean boy band Super Junior’s concert in Seoul’s Olympic Stadium, in August last year, which began its 3rd Asian tour. You’re either already a fan or you’re not.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and