Real Steel
An adrenalin-fueled robot boxing movie that seems to have hit the spot. Set in the near future when boxing has shifted from people to massive fighting robots, struggling ex-boxer and small-time robot fight promoter Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) gets a shot at the big time after he unwillingly teams up with estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) and love interest Bailey (Evangeline Lilly). The human characters have not much more depth than the robots, but director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) manages to strike just the right balance between exciting fight sequences and the drama of Kenton’s rather schmaltzy and predictable tale of reconnecting with his son. As brainless movie entertainment, Real Steel is a knockout.
What’s Your Number?
However you categorize it, chick-flick or rom-com, the numbers for this film don’t add up. What’s Your Number? is yet another of those movies about finding the right guy by trawling through a casting list of dire date stereotypes. Anna Faris is Ally, a woman caught in a mid-life retrospective of her romantic history, wondering why, after all the guys she’s dated, she’s yet to find true love. She teams up with Colin (Chris Evans), who she helps to escape his own romantic difficulties, to track down the men who have been in her life. They become friends, then something more. Despite the quality of the two leads, What’s Your Number? never rises above sexual innuendo and tired cliche.
Lula, Son of Brazil (Lula, o Filho do Brasil)
This biopic focusing on the early life of Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (better known by his nickname of Lula) is reportedly Brazil’s most expensive film project to date. Based on a pro-Lula biography by journalist Denise Parana, the film sticks closely to a chronological progression, and though there are some good dramatic sequences of Lula’s early life and smart use of archival footage to give a sense of time and place, director Fabio Barreto falls into the trap of piling up incidents as a substitute for real insight into character. The film covers the period from Lula’s birth in 1945 to the death of his mother in 1980, prior to the start of his political career. Strong performances from three actors who take Lula from childhood to an adult, and also from Gloria Pires as his mother, a powerful influence on the future president and a major part of this story.
Princess Toyotomi
Mystery thriller based on Manabu Makime’s 2009 novel, a best seller that has been compared with Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code for its exploration of an historical mystery in modern times. The mystery in this case dates back 400 years to a conflict between the Toyotomi Clan and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who eventually united Japan under his rule. A group of accountants from the National Audit Bureau in Tokyo stumble upon a secret that suggests a bizarre situation in which Osaka, due to complicated arrangements made during the historical conflict, might actually be an independent country. Directed by Masayuki Suzuki, the film has a strong cast and tightly paced action, but the historical conundrum might be too specifically Japanese for wide appeal.
A River Runs Through It
A new digital print of Robert Redford’s 1992 adaptation of a classic story by Norman Maclean. The story is about two brothers and their Presbyterian-minister father, who learn about love, understanding and how fishing the Big Blackfoot River of Montana brings you closer to God. Set early last century, it depicts an America that has all but vanished, and there is plenty of very pretty cinematography. A review in the New York Times when the film was released said this was “one of the most ambitious, accomplished films” of that year, and that it “put [Redford] in an entirely new category as a filmmaker.”
Star Guarding Dog (Hoshi Mamoru Inu)
Canine tearjerker from Japan that goes straight for the heartstrings and does not let go. Directed by Tomoyuki Takimoto from a popular manga by Takashi Takimoto, Star Guarding Dog tells the story of Happy and his owner, played by Toshiyuki Nishida, from puppyhood and a happy family life to the discovery of the body of dog and owner in an abandoned car. A second story line follows the official assigned to investigate the case. As he uncovers the details that led Happy and his owner to their tragic ends, he recalls his own family life and the loyalty of his own dog.
Sector 7
Silly action films can be fun, but there is a limit, and Sector 7 pushes well beyond that, and is hugely derivative besides. This is South Korea’s first full-blown 3D release, and it will not win this much-reviled medium any new fans. The setup is ridiculous: pretty females make up the regular crew of an isolated oil rig, one that also seems to be equipped with a large supply of weaponry. The monster that has the oil crew fighting for their lives is a low-rent version of the creature from Aliens, rendered in some truly terrible CGI. The story seems to have borrowed heavily from that classic, with the leading female going head-to-head with the monster in the closing moments of the film.
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
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would