The Silent War (聽風者)
Directed by Infernal Affairs director Mak Siu-fai (麥兆輝), who has teamed up once again with The Lost Bladesman director Felix Chong (莊文強), The Silent War creates a big-budget story set during the war between China and Japan in the lead up to World War II. Great costumes worn by consummate professionals Tony Leung (梁朝偉), Zhou Xun (周迅) and Mavis Fan (范曉萱) ensure that there is plenty to hold the attention.
Contes Des Quatre Saisons
For fans of the moral parables of Eric Rohmer, this is a dream come true. A mini-festival at the Wonderful Theater (真善美戲院) which includes four classic films: Conte d’automne, Conte d’ete, Conte d’hiver and Conte de printemps. For fans of the glories of French cinema, it doesn’t get any better. Tickets are NT$180 each or NT$720 for all four films. Until Nov. 4.
Westgate Tango (西門町)
Feature debut by notable film critic Wang Wei (王瑋). The film takes Taipei’s trendy Ximending district, best known for its mix of alternative lifestyles, youth fashion and the antimony of adolescent life, and provides an upbeat story of damaged young people finding their purpose in life. The film’s upbeat tone may appeal to some, but the complexity of the background is obliterated by rom-com stereotypes.
Remember the Italian Auteurs
This second installment of the festival celebrating the best of Italian cinema puts the filmmaker Frederico Fellini in the spotlight with five of his films to screen at the Blossom Cinema (梅花數位戲院): Juliet of the Spirits, Otto e Mezzo, La Dolce Vita, Il Bidone, and I Vitelloni. Until Sept. 20.
The Watch
It’s profane, its juvenile, and its dumb; but sometimes that’s just what you are in the mood for. The Watch, with its strong cast of funnymen including Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade, manages to provide pretty much what is advertised on the poster.
Starbuck
Nothing to do with the overpriced coffee chain, Starbuck is a Canadian production (in French) by director Ken Scott that works off the now well-worn trope of children conceived by artificial insemination discovering their biological father. Think The Kids are Alright without the A-list cast.
The Ghost Tales (變羊記)
Taiwanese director Zuo Shi-qiang (左世強) makes a stab at creating a Taiwanese horror film. The story is inspired by a classic Chinese ghost story, aims for supernatural chills rather than horrific gore, and features veterans such as Tsai Chen-nan (蔡振南) to bolster a young cast.
Seven Something
A 7th anniversary production by Thai film studio GTH featuring three well-known Thai directors and a cast of top-shelf Thai celebs.
Attack the Block
Funky British sci-fi comedy by director Joe Cornish, of the critically acclaimed UK TV series The Adam and Joe Show from the late 1990s. Some of the same chaotic sensibility is on hand in this tale of a south London teen gang defending their block of an apartment complex from alien invasion.
Desperate dads meet in car parks to exchange packets; exhausted parents slip it into their kids’ drinks; families wait months for prescriptions buy it “off label.” But is it worth the risk? “The first time I gave him a gummy, I thought, ‘Oh my God, have I killed him?’ He just passed out in front of the TV. That never happens.” Jen remembers giving her son, David, six, melatonin to help him sleep. She got them from a friend, a pediatrician who gave them to her own child. “It was sort of hilarious. She had half a tub of gummies,
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend
The wide-screen spectacle of Formula One gets a gleaming, rip-roaring workout in Joseph Kosinski’s F1, a fine-tuned machine of a movie that, in its most riveting racing scenes, approaches a kind of high-speed splendor. Kosinski, who last endeavored to put moviegoers in the seat of a fighter jet in Top Gun: Maverick, has moved to the open cockpits of Formula One with much the same affection, if not outright need, for speed. A lot of the same team is back. Jerry Bruckheimer produces. Ehren Kruger, a co-writer on Maverick, takes sole credit here. Hans Zimmer, a co-composer previously, supplies the thumping
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