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.
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