Happy Feet 2
Dancing penguins and easy-to-digest messages about climate change and family values made the first Happy Feet movie a runaway family entertainment success. The second film is more of the same, but less so. The buoyant musical styling and bright, jolly visuals are still there, but as with many sequels, the introduction of new characters (in this case voiced by A-list royalty Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) only manages to overburden the slender narrative. Too much dialogue and not enough soul undoes Happy Feet 2, though it is still an amiable enough movie if you can stomach the rather shopworn humor.
The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall
For those who have not had the chance to see a first-class performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Phantom of the Opera, this cinematic version, based on recordings made from the 25th anniversary performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, is an invaluable chance to appreciate the musical at its very best. The show has been running so long that even productions in major European cities feature second or even third tier performers. The top-notch cast, including Ramin Karimloo as The Phantom and Sierra Boggess as Christine, is calculated to delight fans and introduce a new generation of theatergoers to this classic musical.
Love Crime (Crime d’amour)
Written and directed by Alain Corneau and starring Ludivine Sagnier and Kristin Scott Thomas, Love Crime has garnered ecstatic critical review for its clever mix of psychological thriller and whodunit. Love Crime references a whole genre of works about female nastiness, from All About Eve to Damages, and Thomas, as a high-powered executive who decides that her new aide is a toy with which she can indulge her whims, is wonderful to watch. Meticulous attention to the details of the plot and total command of their roles by the two female leads makes this a master class for the production of entertaining, thoughtful and, most importantly, thrilling cinema.
Tomboy
A prepubescent version of Boys Don’t Cry that takes most of the sting out of the gender switch, replacing it with a sweet joyousness of youth. The film follows the story of a Laure, a 10-year-old girl who is mistaken for a boy when she moves with her family to a new neighborhood, and then finds she has to live up to this new identity when various factors make it inconvenient for the truth to be revealed. The story is simple, but writer/director Celine Sciamma fills it with small yet telling detail that lifts the film out of a merely LGBT niche and into the wider world that celebrates the idiosyncrasies of childhood.
From Up on Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-zaka Kara)
Predictable teen romance set against the background of Yokohama’s frenetic preparations for the 1963 Olympic games from Japan’s anime powerhouse Studio Ghibli. Umi (voiced by Masami Nagasawa) is an earnest high school girl who becomes attracted to the older Shun (Junichi Okada), who is trying to save a dilapidated student-club building from the wrecking ball. Revelations about her birth threaten the relationship. Director Goro Miyazaki, son of anime legend Hayao Miyazaki, plays it by the numbers and shows none of his father’s narrative flair. The star of the show is the painstaking rendering of period detail.
Seeking Justice
Nicolas Cage often seems to be at the wrong end of a raw deal, and Seeking Justice is no exception. The film is straight out of the playbook of 1970s revenge thrillers, with Cage as Will Gerard, an idealistic young teacher whose wife is raped. He seeks assistance from a vigilante group, but then finds himself drawn into this dark world of bloody retribution. Cage provides little nuance to his character, and January Jones as the female lead and Guy Pearce as the villain are not really given enough material to work with. A big step down from Cage’s effort in The Bad Lieutenant.
The Kid With a Bike
A new work by brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have been described as the cinematic “poet laureates of working class marginalization and spiritual crisis.” A relatively simple story about a small boy who refuses to believe that he has been abandoned by his father, who has decided to start life anew. Cyril (Thomas Doret) is full of anger and determination, and is pulled every which way by his father’s rejection and the care of an occasional fairy godmother in the shape of young hairdresser Samantha (Cecile De France). A finely balanced mixture of fairy tale and realism that never takes refuge in easy sentimentality.
Allstars: Japanese and Korean Film Festival (日韓大牌檔2011巨星映畫祭)
A smorgasbord of Japanese and South Korean films presented by distributor Catchplay is a great opportunity to catch up on recent cinematic releases and classics from those two countries. The festival opens today and runs until Dec. 9. All screenings will be at the Vieshow Cinemas Taipei Xinyi (台北信義威秀影城), 18 Songshou Rd, Taipei City (台北市松壽路18號) and Shin Kong Cineplex (新光影城), 4F, 36 Xining S Rd, Taipei City (台北市西寧南路36號4樓). Details about the films and screening times can be found at www.catchplay.com.
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located