Now You See Me
Louis Leterrier’s track record as a director includes the first two Transporter movies, which were good, but these were followed by The Incredible Hulk (the 2008 version with Edward Norton) and Clash of the Titans: not so good. With Now You See Me he has managed to get a hold of a magnificent cast and a clever idea, and it looks like he may have found form once again. The story is of four street magicians (played by Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Jesse Eisenberg) who suddenly make it to the big time by performing amazing tricks that involve magically removing huge sums of other people’s money from bank vaults halfway across the world. This act attracts the attention of Interpol, in the shape of Melanie Laurent, and the FBI, represented by Mark Ruffalo. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman also feature in the film as a benefactor and former magician, respectively. The film is packed with special effects, but the actors manage to create a chemistry that makes the film more than a spectacular piece of showmanship.
Epic
A new animated “epic” from Blue Sky Studios, the guys who gave us the Ice Age movies and also the eminently forgettable Robot. With Epic they have mistaken bigger for better, but no number of celebrity voices will put flesh on this desiccated piece of generic child-friendly filmmaking. There is Amanda Seyfried voicing the heroine, a teenage girl who is shrunken down to aid the miniature leaf men — the guardians of the forest — from an unexplained evil threat. Colin Farrell plays the leader of the leaf men, and Christoph Waltz his nemesis. There is a vaguely environmental message about the importance of the unseen world of nature, but this is never really given real heart in what is essentially an exercise in aggressively generic film that plays strictly by the numbers and is populated by stereotypes, comedy animal sidekicks and a yawning void when it comes to any thematic meat to bite into.
Hangover 3
After the second hangover, you would have thought the guys had had enough of writer/director Todd Phillips’ franchise. Bradley Cooper, now the man of the moment with such high-profile and “serious” performances as Pat in Silver Linings Playbook and Place Beyond the Pines, works his old shtick as Phil, together with buddies played by Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha. Since there is no bachelor party or wedding to attend, this time around the guys get caught up with their old acquaintance Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), who does a whole lot of chinky chonky humor that wasn’t funny before and doesn’t gain by its added exposure in Hangover 3. But for devotees of the franchise, all the elements are there, and you could probably do worse over beer and pizza on your home entertainment center.
Renoir
Directed by Gilles Bourdos working with Mark Lee (李屏賓), the Taiwan-born cinematographer who served as one of the shooters on the peerlessly beautiful In the Mood For Love, Renoir is as beautifully shot a film as you could hope to come across. Unfortunately, the low-key action makes the drama elusive, and no matter how beautiful the sunlight in the garden through the shower of a garden hose or the dappled light filtering into Renoir’s home on the Riviera’s Cagnes-sur-Mer, the story never builds to anything. The viewer is left with a sense of disappointment that something so beautiful could seem to mean so little. There is splendid acting, most notably by Michel Bouquet as the title character, but the lack of any clearly defined story arc makes the film a hard sell.
Shut Up and Play the Hits
Rock-doc about the farewell performance of synth-rock outfit LCD Soundsystem and frontman James Murphy. The style is intentionally rather chaotic, with jumpy handheld cameras and random bursts of feedback, but filmmakers Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern manage to provide a human and social dimension to what is seen and heard, managing to explore the prospects of fame and contemporary rock music’s lasting relevance. It is this that makes the film accessible even to those who know nothing about LCD Soundsystem.
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
On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
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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