Source Code
Following on from Inception and The Adjustment Bureau, there is now Source Code, which marries the brain-heist idea to the identity-seeking thriller a la the Bourne franchise, and injects the mix with a big dose of paranoia about the military industrial complex, and lots of running around by a good-looking lead — in this case Jake Gyllenhaal. The second film by director Duncan Jones, who made a spectacular debut with Moon (2009), Source Code requires plenty of work from the audience to fit the jigsaw pieces together.
Just Go With It
Yet another Adam Sandler romantic comedy with lots of jokes and eye candy for the boys. Starring Jennifer Aniston, who despite appearing in a string of reasonably successful movies, remains irredeemably a television actress. The plot of Just Go With It is dumber than most, as are the characters. Sandler is a world-famous plastic surgeon who has convinced his assistant (Aniston) to pretend to be his soon-to-be divorced wife so he can make things work with the new love of his life, played by Brooklyn Decker.
Hop
A cute Easter-themed action animation being screened for the Children’s Day national holiday weekend, Hop looks like a whole bunch of Pixar and Dreamwork pictures, with something of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory thrown in for good measure. EB, the Easter Bunny’s teenage son, heads to Hollywood, determined to become a drummer in a rock ’n’ roll band. In LA, he is taken in by Fred, an out-of-work slacker. The Easter Bunny sends his minions to get his son back, while fending off a coup instigated by a chicken. Features a mix of animation and live action, and British comedian Russell Brand as the voice of EB.
Gnomeo and Juliet
It’s hard not to feel embarrassed for the participants of the reworking of Romeo and Juliet played out by garden gnomes. These are James McAvoy and Emily Blunt as the title characters, and a supporting cast that includes Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Ozzy Osbourne and a host of other big names in an absurd and largely derivative animation that looks and feels similar to Over the Hedge (2006). Directed by Kelly Asbury, who wrote Beauty and the Beast (1991) and directed Shrek 2 (2004), this is an assured production in every respect, but seems to have very little in the way of original ideas to offer.
Insidious
Bringing together the creative team of James Wan and Leigh Whannell (Saw, Dead Silence) with executive producer Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Insidious is an effective haunted house film that suffers from an excess of ideas. A family moves into a new house and the son has an accident exploring the attic and falls into a coma. Very strange things start happening, and intervention by a psychic (Lin Shaye) brings demonic spirits out into the open — they were much scarier when hidden behind suggestion and innuendo.
Canine
Also released under the title Dogtooth, this film by Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos is not a movie for the faint of heart. It sets up a scene in which three teenage siblings, two girls and a boy, are confined to a country estate where they are taught to fear the outside world. Christina is the only visitor, brought in to slack the sexual urges of the son, but who soon find ways of exchanging sexual favors with the two girls as well. For all the weirdness, Lanthimos has complete command of the visuals and performances, and the film picked up the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes in 2009.
The Hairy Tooth Fairy 2 (El Raton Perez 2)
Low-budget CGI children’s film about a mouse who works nights as a tooth fairy, picking up teeth placed under children’s pillows, selling them on and giving the money to the children. The first installment was successful enough in the Spanish-speaking market to spawn a sequel. This time, the hero, the mouse Perez, meets up with a girl mouse, learns to dance and then the two must avoid capture by a fiendish circus manager who wants to exploit them as a money-spinner. Features a mixture of animation and live action.
Jane’s Journey
Documentary film by German director Lorenz Knauer that presents a worshipful but interesting examination of Jane Goodall’s journey from animal conservationist to environmental activist to global humanitarian. It mixes up everything from home movies of Goodall’s childhood to HD footage of the now 75-year-old primatologist and UN Messenger of Peace socializing with chimpanzees.
Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Moon Castle Space Adventure
Chinese feature animation based on a popular children’s television series that relates the adventures of a bunch of sheep and their archenemy the Big Wolf. This adventure takes the story into space. Although there is some cartoon violence, the film is aimed at the under 12s.
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
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