High-Rise
Tom Hiddleston stars in this movie about a luxurious apartment complex that contains a supermarket and even a school — basically all the essentials so the only reason people would go outside is to work. Needless to say, there is always something sinister about closed utopian communities, as newcomer Tom Hiddleston finds out as things quickly descend into chaos. The film is based on science fiction writer JG Ballard’s 1975 novel of the same name, which has been subject to numerous screen adaption attempts (most notably by Nicolas Roeg) that never materialized before the husband-and-wife team of director Ben Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump of Kill List fame finally completed the task. Fortunately, Wheatley, who was a huge Ballard fan growing up, says he did not know about Roeg’s attempt, otherwise he could have been too intimidated to take on the task.
99 Homes
Who knew a real estate drama could sound interesting? 99 Homes follows Dennis (Andrew Garfield), a family man who carries out evictions and other deeds for the shady real estate operator who evicted his family from their house in the first place. His goal is to eventually buy back the house he lost, but he also faces the dangers of getting lost in this world of greed. Director Ramin Bahrani has dedicated this film to late critic Roger Ebert, which is fitting as Ebert hailed Bahrani as “director of the decade” and his film Chop Shop as the sixth-best film of the 2000s. Michael Shannon, who has played some pretty evil people (General Zod and Richard Kuklinski to name a few) gets to take things up a notch as the morally corrupt real estate agent, who stares blankly at the brains of a tenant who killed himself during an eviction. At least General Zod had lofty dreams of reviving his people.
Friend Request
It was just a matter of time before they started making social media horror movies (see last year’s Unfriended), and this is German director Simon Verhoeven’s take on the genre. It is unclear if it is just a coincidence that the main character in both films are called Laura — but the storylines are quite different. While Unfriended may be a cautionary tale about cyber-bullying, the moral in this film, if you have not guessed by the film name by now, is do not accept random friend requests on Facebook. This version of Laura does — and gets more than she asked for as the tale turns from stalker thriller to poltergeist hell. Enjoy these films while the genre is still fresh — soon you will be rolling your eyes at the latest Twitter slasher flick.
Fifty Shades of Black
Director Michael Tiddes and screenwriters Marlon Wayans and Rick Alvarez reunite again after the incredibly juvenile slapstick-laden A Haunted House series to produce this black (we mean African-American here) spoof of last year’s bondage romance drama based on arguably the worst book ever written. Hopefully this film is better than the trio’s previous efforts, especially since it is really hard to screw up any kind of parody of Fifty Shades of Grey, which is full of cringe-worthy moments that make it feel like a parody itself. So how do you parody a parody? Unfortunately, Wayans and company take the lazy route again with pretty dumb poop, genital and head-caught-in-elevator gags along with plenty of racial humor. What is shown in the trailer seems to follow the original film quite closely — so there is not even a fresh storyline. It is not clear why this movie exists.
The Clan
Argentina’s entry to the Oscars and Silver Lion winner is about the Puccio family, who turned to crime after the patriarch, Arquimedes, loses his job. They are known for kidnapping four people and murdering three in the 1980s while maintaining the appearance of a normal family. Pablo Trapero (White Elephant, Carancho) helms this drama, which marked the strongest opening ever for an Argentine film. A bit of background here — government kidnappings were common during the military dictatorship from 1974 to 1983, and Arquimedes was a state intelligence officer who was reported to be involved. And he did not stop after the country’s return to democracy, leading to the events of the movie, somehow getting his entire family involved — and the dynamics between the members play a big part in the film. Set to a classic rock soundtrack, this is dark stuff that almost veers toward comedy.
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
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