Monsters
A low-budget feature debut by special effects wizard Gareth Edwards, Monsters is a post-alien invasion road movie that has a cynical journalist guiding an American tourist through an alien infested region along the Mexican boarder to the safety of the US. The film has earned high marks for making a little money go a long way in terms of the mood and feel of the picture, with the presence of the “monsters” more felt than seen. Although performances by Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able are merely adequate and the subtext about immigration and power relations between Mexico and the US lacks subtlety, Monsters is nevertheless a marvelously bracing antidote to the scourge of vapid megabuck Hollywood science fiction blockbusters.
The Boys Are Back
The most appealing thing about The Boys Are Back is the presence of Clive Owen, who plays a single parent dealing with two children of widely different ages going through the usual traumas of growing up. Based on journalist Simon Carr’s memoirs about being a single parent with two boys, the situations aren’t all that interesting, and though Owen does yeoman’s duty portraying a gentle, somewhat disengaged parent who is sometimes just as childish as the two boys he is nominally bringing up, The Boys Are Back fails to find a theme beyond a bland miscellany of irresponsible parenting. Directed by Scott Hicks, who brought us the powerful feature Shine (1996) and the fascinating musical documentary Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (2006).
Just Call Me Nobody (大笑江湖)
A parody movie in the manner of the Wayans Brothers films, Just Call Me Nobody makes fun of martial arts genre movies and TV series based on the works of Louis Cha (查良鏞, also known as Jin Yong), drawing heavily on cinematic quotes from many recent Chinese-language and Western movies ranging from Star Wars to Terminator. The movies of Wong Kar-wai (王家衛) also come in for a drubbing. Major talent in the form of Taiwan’s Jackie Wu (吳宗憲) and Kelly Lin (林熙蕾) provide some credibility, but the film’s format says all that really needs to be said, and the jokes are largely predictable jibes about the absurdities of popular cinema.
Night Market Hero (雞排英雄)
Billed as the first film in 16 years to star comedian Chu Ko Liang (豬哥亮), who has recently emerged from his life on the run from creditors, Night Market Hero features plenty of local comedic talent and a scenario that highlights Taiwan’s curbside culture. The setting is a community of night market operators, whose lives are filled with their petty rivalries and unspoken romances until they find common cause in resisting the incursion of a property developer who wants to turn their neighborhood into a residential complex. This is a film that revels in grass-roots Taiwanese-style humor, and is also a celebration of the return of one of Taiwan’s great comic talents to the big screen.
If You Are the One 2 (非誠勿擾2)
A sequel to the moderately successful film by Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛), If You Are the One 2 carries on the story of Xiao Xiao (played by China’s Ge You, 葛優) and Qin Fen (played by Taiwan’s Shu Qi, 舒淇), who spent the first movie trying and failing to get it on. Feng has gone for a blend of wistful longing mixed with gentle comedy, and tarted up the concoction with location shoots in various scenic locations around Asia. This last tactic is usually a good indication that the director has run out of things to do with his actors or that the story has nowhere to go. Ge is a fine actor able to straddle comedy and pathos, but his talents seem to be sadly wasted in this bland cinematic concoction. Still, Feng is one of China’s most versatile young directors — his film Aftershock (唐山大地震) is already out on DVD — and his efforts in comedy are worth a glance.
Arthur: The War of the Two Worlds
The third installment in a series of children’s films created by Luc Besson, Arthur: The War of the Two Worlds lines up the battle between Arthur (voiced by Freddie Highmore), a young child brought into the world of the Minimoys, and the arch villain Maltazard (voiced by Lou Reed). This final installment finishes a story begun in the previous two installments, and fan comment suggests that it does not stand particularly well on its own. It is primarily interesting for its English voice cast, which in addition to Reed, also has Iggy Pop and Mia Farrow.
Special Treatment (Sans queue ni tete)
French movie that makes self-consciously clever parallels between the work of a prostitute and that of a psychiatrist. The film stars Isabelle Huppert as the prostitute Alice, and Bouli Lanners as Xavier, a psychiatrist whose family life is in crisis. Although billed as a comedy, the laughs do not flow, and attempts at wit often fall flat. The presence of the grande dame of French cinema is not enough to lift this tawdry attempt to titillate into an enjoyable experience.
Recently the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its Mini-Me partner in the legislature, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), have been arguing that construction of chip fabs in the US by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is little more than stripping Taiwan of its assets. For example, KMT Legislative Caucus First Deputy Secretary-General Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) in January said that “This is not ‘reciprocal cooperation’ ... but a substantial hollowing out of our country.” Similarly, former TPP Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) contended it constitutes “selling Taiwan out to the United States.” The two pro-China parties are proposing a bill that
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It starts out as a heartwarming clip. A young girl, clearly delighted to be in Tokyo, beams as she makes a peace sign to the camera. Seconds later, she is shoved to the ground from behind by a woman wearing a surgical mask. The assailant doesn’t skip a beat, striding out of shot of the clip filmed by the girl’s mother. This was no accidental clash of shoulders in a crowded place, but one of the most visible examples of a spate of butsukari otoko — “bumping man” — shoving incidents in Japan that experts attribute to a combination of gender
Last month, media outlets including the BBC World Service and Bloomberg reported that China’s greenhouse gas emissions are currently flat or falling, and that the economic giant appears to be on course to comfortably meet Beijing’s stated goal that total emissions will peak no later than 2030. China is by far and away the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, generating more carbon dioxide than the US and the EU combined. As the BBC pointed out in their Feb. 12 report, “what happens in China literally could change the world’s weather.” Any drop in total emissions is good news, of course. By
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