Wrath of the Titans
Why does Sam Worthington do it? For that matter, why are names Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike and Bill Nighy on the cast list of this swords-and-sandals fantasy based on Greek mythology. A sequel to Clash of the Titans, which received less than stellar reviews from the critics, this new film perseveres in very much the same format, playing to a fan base whose main concern is big monsters rampaging across the screen in 3D. One critic described Clash as “there are titans, they clash,” and an equally succinct summary of Wrath is that “there are titans, they are very angry.” Worthington’s Perseus is the only person who can prevent the utter destruction of the world by the angry titans and various monsters.
The Lorax
Based on characters created by that genius of the nonsense fable Dr Seuss (real name Theodor Seuss Geisel), The Lorax is yet another in a line of high production value 3D animations. Judging from the initial response, the film looks likely to establish itself among the classics, along with Toy Story and Wall-E. With a voice cast that includes pop star Taylor Swift and actors Zac Efron and Danny DeVito, and animated by the same company that made Despicable Me, The Lorax manages to step out of the kiddy entertainment market segment and appeal to a relatively broad audience. The cute animal humor has mostly been done before, as has the cautionary ecological tale, but the whole thing has been put together with a degree of love and care for the material that makes it more than just the sum of its somewhat derivative parts.
The Intouchables
French movie about relations between a white paraplegic and his black carer that manages to pick up on the most egregious racial stereotypes and turn back the clock many decades on issues of racism. Created by writer and director Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, the film plays up stock gags of a boy from the projects taking pot shots at high culture, and Omar Sy, a fine actor and appealing screen presence, gets led into an unseemly Uncle Tom role. A score with plenty of catchy tunes and good acting give The Intouchables an appealing veneer, but that’s not enough to gloss over the ideological problems at the heart of the film.
2012 Taiwan International Children’s Film Festival (台灣國際兒童影展)
The 2012 Taiwan International Children’s Film Festival (台灣國際兒童影展) opens today with a diverse lineup of 89 animation, documentary, short and fictional films, as well as television programs, selected from 27 countries. Tickets cost NT$50 per film, available through FamilyMart (全家) FamiPort kiosks. Screenings will be at Vieshow Cinemas Taipei Xinyi (台北信義威秀影城).
On the Net: www.ticff.org.tw
The Billionaire (Top Secret: Wai Roon Pun Lan)
Described as a Thai version of The Social Network, The Billionaire tracks the rise of social misfit Tob Ittipat, a computer game addict compulsively trying out all kinds of get-rich-quick schemes. Parents, teachers and even his girlfriend give up on him, but then he stumbles on a recipe for making a seaweed snack that he distributes through 7-Eleven and strikes gold. The film makes the melodramatic most of Ittipat’s early life, failing in one venture after another, building up to the inevitable big payoff. Directed by Songyos Sugmakanan, the film is a slick production that packs a few surprises.
Vincent will Meer
German road movie about a young man suffering from Tourette’s syndrome who takes off with two other residents from the care facility at which they are staying. All three have their own unique problems, and it is from these quirks and tics that the movie derives much of its humor. Using mental illness as a source of comedy is a difficult path to take, and director Ralf Huettner tries to avoid giving offense by making his characters so one-dimensional that we don’t really care about them.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) invaded Vietnam in 1979, following a year of increasingly tense relations between the two states. Beijing viewed Vietnam’s close relations with Soviet Russia as a threat. One of the pretexts it used was the alleged mistreatment of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. Tension between the ethnic Chinese and governments in Vietnam had been ongoing for decades. The French used to play off the Vietnamese against the Chinese as a divide-and-rule strategy. The Saigon government in 1956 compelled all Vietnam-born Chinese to adopt Vietnamese citizenship. It also banned them from 11 trades they had previously
Jan. 12 to Jan. 18 At the start of an Indigenous heritage tour of Beitou District (北投) in Taipei, I was handed a sheet of paper titled Ritual Song for the Various Peoples of Tamsui (淡水各社祭祀歌). The lyrics were in Chinese with no literal meaning, accompanied by romanized pronunciation that sounded closer to Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) than any Indigenous language. The translation explained that the song offered food and drink to one’s ancestors and wished for a bountiful harvest and deer hunting season. The program moved through sites related to the Ketagalan, a collective term for the
Growing up in a rural, religious community in western Canada, Kyle McCarthy loved hockey, but once he came out at 19, he quit, convinced being openly gay and an active player was untenable. So the 32-year-old says he is “very surprised” by the runaway success of Heated Rivalry, a Canadian-made series about the romance between two closeted gay players in a sport that has historically made gay men feel unwelcome. Ben Baby, the 43-year-old commissioner of the Toronto Gay Hockey Association (TGHA), calls the success of the show — which has catapulted its young lead actors to stardom -- “shocking,” and says
As devices from toys to cars get smarter, gadget makers are grappling with a shortage of memory needed for them to work. Dwindling supplies and soaring costs of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) that provides space for computers, smartphones and game consoles to run applications or multitask was a hot topic behind the scenes at the annual gadget extravaganza in Las Vegas. Once cheap and plentiful, DRAM — along with memory chips to simply store data — are in short supply because of the demand spikes from AI in everything from data centers to wearable devices. Samsung Electronics last week put out word
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