Star Trek: Into Darkness
JJ Abrams (the TV series Lost, Super 8) did a magnificent job to revive the Star Trek franchise with his 2009 film Star Trek, and with Into Darkness he has created a film that defies the rules of sequel making. While the scale of the movie is markedly grander than the first, this has not been at the expense of developing a richly human drama. The presence of Benedict Cumberbatch (of the UK TV series Sherlock) as the rogue Starfleet officer John Harrison gives Into Darkness an added fillip, for not only does the actor prove once again an electrifying screen presence, but Abrams manages to shroud this character in mystery, making him much more than your typical sci-fi villain. Unlike many Hollywood re-boots of old properties, Into Darkness abjures self-referential snarkiness and opts for a vibrant pop romanticism, opening the franchise up to audiences outside Trekkie fandom.
The Call
With its two leading ladies both glittering with Oscar-luster, this workmanlike exploitation flick provides enough thrills and shocks for a joyful Friday night movie experience. Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball among many others) and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) provide solid performances, Breslin as the victim of a crazed killer and Berry as a veteran emergency telephone operator who gets a frantic call for help. Directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist), The Call is at once shamelessly transparent, manipulative, and far-fetched, and also impossibly suspenseful. Anderson borrows from the arsenal of well-honed suspense devices, and the MO of the psycho killer owes much to the much superior The Silence of the Lambs, but he manages to make The Call fresh enough to hit you at a visceral level.
Kon Tiki
The story of legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s epic crossing of the Pacific on a balsa wood raft in 1947, Kon Tiki is a rousing Hollywood adventure movie that is well made, well acted, and well written, but may be just a little bit too exciting for its own good. Directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg and starring Pal Sverre Hagen as Heyerdahl, Kon Tiki maintains a high level of excitement throughout, starting with the maritime mechanics of the expedition, and building as the journey takes the explorers to the limits of human endurance. What seems to be lacking is an insight into the egotistical drive that would make someone embark on such a journey in the first place, but this failing is easily forgotten in the sheer old-school excitement of the adventure.
The Numbers Station
A standard issue spy thriller in which a former black ops agent (John Cusack) and a female staffer (Malin Akerman) find themselves fighting for survival after a secret broadcasting station that sends out coded messages to agents around the world is compromised. An interesting idea quickly degenerates as director Kasper Barfoed defaults to intense replays of surveillance audio recordings, frantic strokes on computer keyboards, and standard-issue chases to build up tension. Lots of dimly lit action in a concrete bunker doesn’t help, and while the two stars are perfectly adequate, the material does not give them much scope to shine.
The Last Exorcism Part 2
For those with no particular investment in Satanism and the genre of supernatural thriller/horror films that have grown up around it, there is really no excuse for a film like The Last Exorcism Part 2. The first film, about a troubled evangelical minister who agrees to let his last exorcism be filmed by a documentary crew, had its moments of originality with its exploitation of voyeuristic titillation and some ambiguity about whether anything supernatural was actually going on. The sequel settles simply for getting an eyeful of Ashley Bell looking frightened in a state of undress. Director Ed Gass-Donnelly displays admirable restraint in his general eschewing of gratuitous gore, quick editing and flashy visuals, so even those looking for a few harmless thrills will be disappointed.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
By far the most jarring of the new appointments for the incoming administration is that of Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) to head the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). That is a huge demotion for one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tseng has one of the most impressive resumes in the party. He was very active during the Wild Lily Movement and his generation is now the one taking power. He has served in many of the requisite government, party and elected positions to build out a solid political profile. Elected as mayor of Taoyuan as part of the
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50