Red Riding Hood
A distinctly modern and adult take on the well-known children’s story that ups the sexual chemistry and throws in a werewolf and other supernatural elements. From Twilight saga director Catherine Hardwicke, Red Riding Hood stars Amanda Seyfried (who played Sophie in Mamma Mia!) as the red-capped beauty in question, and despite the medieval setting, teen romance is written all over this movie, a mood that is further underlined by the percussive rock score. Red Riding Hood is caught between the love of brooding outsider Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and wealthy and good-looking Henry (Max Irons). As Solomon the werewolf hunter, Gary Oldman looks like he has walked off the stage of a provincial Shakespeare revival. He leads an inquisition within the village that reveals too many secrets.
World Invasion: Battle of Los Angeles
As much pleasure as the obliteration of Los Angeles may give to some, it is probably not sufficient to get excited about World Invasion: Battle of Los Angeles, a big-budget, big-effects alien invasion movie. An asteroid shower turns into an alien invasion by intergalactic types who seem intent on wiping out the human race. Both human and alien hardware is well rendered, and the desperate struggle of a marine platoon to save itself manages moments of genuine excitement, but in general this is just another generic apocalyptic tale.
Blue Valentine
Blue Valentine met with a polarized reception at Sundance last year and scored highly with the hard-core cinephile set at Cannes. It was dismissed at the Oscars, probably for reasons similar to the cold shoulder given to Winter’s Bone. The film is a sexually and emotionally frank film about a working-class American marriage, and uses its two stars, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, to go places that mainstream films seldom visit. Although the topic is rooted in American culture, the intense, Method-based character construction and its ventures into hyper-real color saturated cinematography give it the feel of the European art house. Love it or hate it, Blue Valentine does not leave much middle ground.
Mysteries of Lisbon (Misterios de Lisboa)
This movie is not to be undertaken lightly. It is a Dickensian narrative that follows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman and an orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil and encompasses themes of prostitution, murder, romance, war and spiritual malaise. It does this over a running time of 272 minutes, but according to Variety magazine, which describes it as “a period drama of contemporary import — and of the highest order,” both the narrative and the imagery are captivating. Based on a book by 19th-century novelist Camilo Castelo Branco, Mysteries of Lisbon is directed by Raoul Ruiz and manages to be engaging and accessible even when everyone in the film is embroiled in secrets and lies.
Undertow (Contracorriente)
Undertow is a ghost story combined with a tale of gay romance in rural Peru that has proven a huge success on the festival circuit through its ability to transcend narrow genre tags. While taking on psychological and metaphysical themes related to love, loss and true identity, the story is rooted in the daily lives of its characters, who reside in a small Peruvian village. The ghost of fisherman Miguel’s deceased lover lingers on in the corporal world, and while Miguel had managed to keep the affair secret when it was happening, now his lover is dead and the story begins to seep out.
And Soon the Darkness
Two pretty girls on the road in the backwoods of Argentina get into all kinds of trouble with nasty locals who have only one thing on their mind. The camera work is competent, the backdrops nice, the two stars, Amber Heard and Odette Yustman, are fine to look at, but And Soon the Darkness doesn’t have any real drama. The film’s whole torture porn angle is way too tame to appeal to audiences looking for a Saw or Hostel experience.
Taiwan’s politics is mystifying to many foreign observers. Gosh, that is strange, considering just how logical and straightforward it all is. Let us take a step back and review. Thanks to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), starting this year people will once again have Christmas Day off work. In 2002, the Scrooges in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said “bah, humbug” to that. The holiday is not actually Christmas, but rather Constitution Day, celebrating the enactment of the Constitution of the Republic of China (ROC) on December 25, 1947. The DPP and the then pan-blue dominated legislature
War in the Taiwan Strait is currently a sexy topic, but it is not the only potential Chinese target. Taking the Russian Far East would alleviate or even solve a lot of China’s problems, including critical dependencies on fuel, key minerals, food, and most crucially, water. In a previous column (“Targeting Russian Asia,” Dec. 28, 2024, page 12) I noted that having following this topic for years, I consistently came to this conclusion: “It would simply be easier to buy what they need from the Russians, who also are nuclear-armed and useful partners in helping destabilize the American-led world order.
If you’ve lately been feeling that the “Jurassic Park” franchise has jumped an even more ancient creature — the shark — hold off any thoughts of extinction. Judging from the latest entry, there’s still life in this old dino series. Jurassic World Rebirth captures the awe and majesty of the overgrown lizards that’s been lacking for so many of the movies, which became just an endless cat-and-mouse in the dark between scared humans against T-Rexes or raptors. Jurassic World Rebirth lets in the daylight. Credit goes to screenwriter David Koepp, who penned the original Jurassic Park, and director Gareth Edwards, who knows
July 7 to July 13 Even though the Japanese colonizers declared Taiwan “pacified” on Nov. 18, 1895, unrest was still brewing in Pingtung County. The Japanese had completed their march of conquest down the west coast of Taiwan, stamping out local resistance. But in their haste to conquer the Republic of Formosa’s last stronghold of Tainan, they largely ignored the highly-militarized Liudui (六堆, six garrisons) Hakka living by the foothills in Kaohsiung and Pingtung. They were organized as their name suggested, and commanders such as Chiu Feng-hsiang (邱鳳祥) and Chung Fa-chun (鍾發春) still wanted to fight. Clashes broke out in today’s
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