X-Men : Days of Future Past
Possibly the most ambitious X-men movie yet, director Bryan Singer pushes the level of narrative and character complexity to the limit. Sometimes the film is teetering on the verge of falling apart under the weight of plot points, but Singer always seems to have a neat special effect, a well-timed gag or an action set piece around the corner, chivving the action along and keeping the audience engaged. The story whips back and forth across two separate time periods as the characters from the original X-Men film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from X-Men: First Class in an epic battle that must change the past to save the future, Terminator style. The large cast of characters is taken on by some very talented actors, but even at 130-minutes there is hardly enough time to give them all enough space to really shine. Singer pushes things along at a frenetic face, and while there is a treasure trove of superhero lore waiting to be picked up by the fanboy crowd, the sheer scale of the story is likely to leave newcomers to the franchise more bewildered than entertained.
Walk of Shame
Don’t let the presence of the redoubtable Elizabeth Banks fool you. Banks is an amazing actress who can perform miracles on screen, but even her very considerable efforts cannot breathe life into Walk of Shame. A reporter’s dream of becoming a news anchor is compromised after a one-night stand leaves her stranded in downtown LA without a phone, car, ID or money — and only eight hours to make it to the most important job interview of her life. The concept has plenty of promise, and should provide plenty of opportunities to skewer the way women are perceived based on appearance, but instead opts for generic racial and gender gags. The screenplay by director Steven Brill repeatedly presents scenes that defy credibility, and the humor never says anything remotely fresh about human nature or the world we live in.
Cutie and the Boxer
Ushio Shinohara flirted briefly with fame as a visual artist in the 1960s. Now in his 80s, he continues to work in his own highly esoteric style, living on the edge of poverty in a second-floor Brooklyn walkup with his wife, Noriko. Their relationship is not easy, and while Noriko has been a faithful companion, subordinating herself to his ambitions, she has grown to want more as an artist with her own individual voice. Director Zachary Heinzerling’s documentary chronicling their relationship, the sacrifices they have made for each other and for art as a way of life, was five-years in the making, and its painfully intimate look at the aging couple’s struggle to survive amid personal and financial strain is both heartbreaking and intricately profound. More than a film about an artist, it is about husbands and wives and how they can live together.
Golden Cage
Also released under the title The Golden Dream, this Mexican film by director Diego Quemada-Diez titled La jaula de oro tells the story of four youths from Guatemala making the dangerous journey to the land of opportunity in the north. While there is some bonding between the characters, and one at least is much changed by the experience, this is not a Disney-esque road movie about youthful discovery through adversity. The lives of the four start out pretty grim, and their journey puts them in all kinds of danger. The film gets off to a slow and confused start with Quemada-Diez eschewing any formal introduction to his characters, who are themselves not particularly easy to like. The four principal actors have tough faces and surly attitudes and they are convincingly awkward as they face terrors from corrupt cops, ruthless bandits, kidnappers and border patrols. The kindness of strangers is sometimes touched on, but on the whole the journey is grim and an unpleasant death hangs close over the foursome. Quemada-Diez is relentlessly unsentimental with his characters, making this a sometimes tough film to watch, but it is never gratuitous in its horror nor does it strain to find some higher meaning in the adventure.
Cuban Fury
Light-hearted romantic comedy that does what you expect. Cuban Fury runs to a well-honed formula and it is the actors — Nick Frost, Rashida Jones and Chris O’Dowd, all very much in their comfort zones — that gives the slender storyline its appeal. Bruce Garrett (Frost) is out-of-shape and unloved, trapped in a downward spiral of self-pity, repression and fast food. Only Julia (Jones), his smart, funny, gorgeous new American boss, gives him reason to live. But she’s out of his league, or so he imagines. Luckily for him, she also has a secret passion, salsa dancing. With Drew (O’Dowd), his alpha male colleague who also has his eye on Julia, Bruce puts on his dancing shoes and sets out to get his girl on the dance floor. Frost and O’Dowd build a buddy/rival chemistry that works well, and is rather similar to the kind of male relationships glorified by films like Wedding Crashers with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The humor is light and as a date movie Cuban Fury cannot be faulted, but a little more heart and a little less formula could have easily made this a much better film.
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