GI Joe: Retaliation
A sequel to the rather mediocre G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, G.I. Joe: Retaliation follows pretty much the same formula with predictable results. Lots of money has been spent on futuristic military hardware and big set-piece action sequences, and to its credit, those who like this sort of stuff do get their money’s worth. Directed by Jon Chu (朱浩偉), the story continues to follow an elite military unit in its battle with Cobra, but as a sequel, a predictable new ingredient has been added: “threats from within that threaten the unit’s existence.” Chu, whose directorial track record includes two films in the Step Up dance movie franchise, is also clearly plugged into the video game sensibility, and the 110-minute running passes reasonably quickly.
Hotel Deluxe (百星酒店)
Hotels are a great setting for films, as they provide a display case for people from all levels of society and from all walks of life, not least the hotel industry itself, which can also be a rich source of humor. Hotel Deluxe takes this setting and uses it as a stage for some of Hong Kong’s top comedic talent, who take the role of celebrity guests, bitchy hotel managers, clueless staff and so on, with each pretty much doing their own comic shtick with little attempt at a coherent story. The film was written and directed by Vincent Kok (谷德昭), a veteran of the Hong Kong comedy scene, who also performs, together with a bunch of his good friends including Ronald Cheng (鄭中基), Chapman To (杜汶澤), Sandrang Wu (吳君如) and Mo Teresa (毛舜筠), who all have a great time together.
Night Train to Lisbon
Adaptations of complex and intricately woven novels onto the silver screen are always difficult, and many of the usual problems emerge in director Bille August’s film of a novel of the same name by Pascal Mercier. Fortunately there is a good cast featuring the likes of Jeremy Irons and Charlotte Rampling, whose presence screams European art house. Nevertheless, these are veterans of this genre and manage to make the portentous situations and sometimes rather ponderous dialogue come alive to some extent. Irons is Raimund Gregorius, a buttoned-down Swiss Professor who stumbles upon a mesmerizing book by a Portuguese author that takes him on a journey of discovery. German production with English dialogue.
Populaire
French romantic comedy set in the 1950s, which provides plenty of opportunities for retro fashion. For the most part, it is the story of Rose (Deborah Francois), who is a terrible secretary but a demon typist. Her handsome boss resolves to turn her into the fastest girl in the world. There is, predictably, a thick vein of sexual humor, as the relationship between Rose and her boss changes in response to the stresses and strains of a typing competition. The acting and direction are adequate, but it is the set designer and costumer who are the real stars of this show.
What Love May Bring
Confusingly, this film has also been released under the title What War May Bring. This confusion is reflected in the film, which seems uncertain whether it is about war or love. Probably the latter given the rather lame battle sequences. The majority of the film is devoted to the story of Ilva Lemoine (Audrey Dana), a woman on trial for killing her husband, the wealthy Jim (Gilles Lemaire). Ilva has had a turbulent life, her hopes of happiness torn apart by two world wars. Her tale of numerous failed romances is woven together with that of her attorney, Simon (Laurent Couson), who has survived the horrors of the holocaust, and for reasons best known to director Claude Lelouch, believes that telling his life story to the court will be beneficial to his client’s case.
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