The Huntsman: Winter War
This was supposed to be Snow White and the Huntsman 2, but an affair between director Rupert Sanders and Snow White (Kristen Stewart) led to their departure from the film, and now we have a prequel sans the main character. Picking up the pieces with a still-impressive cast, and visual effects supervisor Cedric Nicolas-Troyan moving up to director, the story now revolves around Eric the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) as a young man trained from childhood to work for the Ice Queen Freya (Emily Blunt) alongside his wife Sara (Jessica Chastain), who was dead in the last film. Charlize Theron reprises her role Queen Ravenna, who happens to be Freya’s sister, and the two pose double the threat as the previous installment.
Eye in the sky
Drone warfare and its ethical dilemma is the theme in this British thriller by Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, Ender’s Game) which is one of the last two times we’ll see Snape (Alan Rickman) on the big screen after his passing in January. Helen Mirren leads as a military intelligence officer commanding from England an anti-terrorism operation in Kenya, who becomes caught up in the political firestorm regarding the use of drones to take out identified suicide bombers in other countries, and the ensuing civilian casualties that are bound to occur (in this case, a cute little girl selling bread). Eventually, the Americans get involved too. This film is about inaction as much as action, and we are not revealing what the final decision is.
Look who’s back
It is 2011 and Hitler has come back to life in a vacant parking lot in Berlin. Nobody believes he is the real thing, though, and he becomes a television comedic celebrity for his portrayals of, well, himself. And the extremist right-wingers hate him because they think he is making fun of the late dictator. Based on the bestselling novel by Timur Verme, the movie adds its own touch by throwing in unscripted scenes of Hitler (Oliver Masucci) interacting with German civilians on the street. He said people welcomed him, taking selfies, kissing him and even reportedly telling him to bring back labor camps. “I found it disturbing how quickly I could win people over,” he tells German newspaper Bild. “I mean, they were talking to Hitler.” The comedy is dark and biting here despite the silly premise.
All roads lead to rome
Can it get anymore cliched than this? Sarah Jessica Parker plays a just-divorced mother who takes her rebellious young daughter on a trip to Italy — supposedly to get her away from her drug dealer boyfriend — but they conveniently arrive in the same town where Parker’s former Italian lover lives. And l’amante is played by no other than Raoul Bova, who happened to romance another American recent divorcee 13 years ago in Under the Tuscan Sun. You know what you are getting with this film and you will watch it anyway despite all signs indicating a disaster.
Love
Before making the film, director Gaspar Noe proclaimed, “With my next film I hope guys will have erections and girls will get wet.” So here we are with an erotic drama revolving around aspiring filmmaker Murphy, who proclaims in a scene he wants to make films out of “blood, sperm and tears.” Sounds like Murphy is Noe (whose mother’s maiden name is Murphy) and the whole thing could be an egotistical romp. Much of the talk is about the movie’s unsimulated sex scenes, and not the fact that it really does not have a story at all. But Noe says what separates this film from porn is that feelings are involved, hence the title. On a side note, actor Karl Glusman almost ran away after Noe began the first day of filming with closeups of his genitals.
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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