Jack Reacher
The opening salvo in what producers probably hope will be a long running franchise, the release of Jack Reacher, could not have come at a worse possible time. The original material comes from a series of thrillers by writer Lee Child, who has already produced 17 Jack Reacher novels, in which the eponymous hero, an ex-MP who has chosen the life of a drifter, nevertheless ends up useing a mix of profound insight and physical strength to solve crimes. The fact that Tom Cruise has been cast as the hero might be a sufficient turn off for fans of the books. The fact that the first installment, based on a novel titled One Shot, about a sniper killing of innocent people heading home from work, resonates in all the wrong ways with the trauma created by the Sandy Hook shootings, might turn others off. For those who don’t care about either of these issues, Jack Reacher is a superior thriller that has both a good plot and solid action sequences.
Chinese Zodiac (十二生肖)
Jackie Chan (成龍) has produced some of the most memorable action features to come out of Hong Kong’s film industry, but now, with age and the impact of the Hollywood experience, his stunts have been toned down. Unfortunately, he has not grown as a filmmaker, and efforts to inject more drama and character interaction into his films has rarely been successful. Jackie Chan films were always primarily about Jackie being the wonderfully talented Jackie, and all the rest was just background for his star turn. Chinese Zodiac is a by-the-numbers story about a master thief who discovers his conscience and uses his skills to help recover treasures looted from the Summer Palace during the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Chan is a skilled operator, and some of the special effect scenes look good, but the story itself feels cobbled together, and the introduction of rather obvious wire work tells a story about Chan’s acrobatic abilities all by itself.
Wreck-It Ralph
The story of a video game villain who wants to be a good guy provides the pretext for a joyride through the world of arcade games that mixes up technical finesse with a solid dose of storytime sentimentality. Wreck-It Ralph doesn’t want to wreck things anymore, so he starts hopping through a multiverse of games, meeting up with all kinds of new friends from early version pixilated Pac-men to high-definition street fighters, and trying to save the world. Ralph is voiced by the talented actor John C. Reilly, and the absence of A-list stars from the cast is a bonus. It is a look back in wonder at the potency of games and the hold, like it or not, they have over our imagination. Tight pace, life affirming, uplifting and just a little bit sad, Wreck-It Ralph is festive season gold.
Ripples of Desire (花漾)
Following on from Spider Lilies (刺青), another lush historical romance from Taiwanese director Zero Chou (周美玲) featuring a cast of young local stars. Michelle Chen (陳妍希) and Ivy Chen (陳意涵) play a pair of courtesans, sisters with vastly different ideas about love and their prospective paths in life. They are protected and exploited by their madam, played by show host Sandra Ng (吳君如) as they navigate the dangerous shoals of love. A big budget production, but despite the lavish costumes and set pieces fight scenes, the acting retains too much the flavor of a TV soap opera.
Another Woman’s Life
Based on a French novel by Frederique Deghelt, starring Juliette Binoche and directed by Sylvie Testud, herself an accomplished actress (Sagan and Lourdes) and novelist in her own right, Another Woman’s Life is one of those high-concept films that sound superficially interesting, but which fail to either make sense or create believable drama due to an unwillingness to explain the central conceit. Binoche is an engaging young woman who falls asleep one day and wakes up a decade later with no memory of her intervening life. She has become a high-powered executive, pushed her marriage to the brink of divorce and become a mother. Suddenly she has no understanding of her new life, and this is used to generate some fish-out-of-water humor, but audiences are likely to be too confused to laugh.
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
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
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