The Martian
High hopes are in order for the latest film by Ridley Scott, who has brought us beloved classics such as Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Alien while staying relevant with recent hits (or not) such as Prometheus. The Martian stars Matt Damon as an astronaut who is presumed to be dead and left behind on Mars by his crew. He must find a way to survive while ground control debates on whether to rescue him or not. So what makes this film stand out from other survival movies such as fellow space epic Gravity and last week’s Everest? For one, critics say that this film is actually quite humorous, though falling on the darker side (dude hates disco yet it’s his only source of entertainment, making the perfect excuse for a 70s-themed soundtrack). They also say that it gives plenty of narrative to mission control back home and his crewmates, avoiding the one-person monologue often seen in films where someone is trapped somewhere. We also hear that Damon is quite spectacular.
A Most Violent Year
This crime epic has been out in the US since 2014, but is only premiering in Taiwan this weekend. Its title refers to 1981, which is statistically the deadliest year in the city’s history up to that point with more than 120,000 reported robberies and 2,166 murders. The story follows a first-generation immigrant (Al Pacino, wait, no, Oscar Isaac) and his Brooklyn mafia daughter wife (Jessica Chastain) who fight to protect their American Dream and expand their heating oil business while dealing with corruption and mob violence. Isaac’s character is faced with raising cash while under investigation for fraud while his company trucks keep getting attacked by an unknown source. Determined to succeed, the film follows the protagonist slowly plunging deeper and deeper into midst of things and doing what he needs to do, whether he likes it or not.
Absolutely Anything
Let’s take a moment of silence, as this is the late Robin Williams’ last film — OK, he doesn’t actually appear in it, he provides the voiceover for the protagonist’s talking dog. It’s also Terry Jones’ (of Monty Python fame) first directorial feature in 20 years, and features all living Monty Python cast members. The film is based on a pretty weak premise, however, with a group of aliens bestowing upon an unhappy schoolteacher the power to do, well, absolutely anything, just to test his moral compass. If he succeeds, he joins their council, if he fails, they destroy Earth. It’s really hard to see how anything original or interesting can be made out of such a tired plot, even with the combined funny firepower of Monty Python and Williams involved. Unfortunately, most critics seem to agree.
Cooties
What happens when you try to combine the disturbing psychological horror of Saw with the cheesy, happy teeny-bopper dramedy of Glee? This zombie comedy is literally the answer, as it is a collaboration between their respective creators. The film takes place in a town called Fort Chicken where the children are turned into the living dead after ingesting, uh, infected chicken nuggets. Elijah Wood plays the teacher who, instead of developing his students’ minds, needs to keep his brains from being eaten. Critics say the unlikely pairing actually works, resulting in a ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek product that’s not really scary, pretty funny, pretty gross and pretty entertaining if you aren’t offended by adults bashing their way through hordes of brain-hungry children.
Knock Knock
A dude can only dream of two attractive women showing up at his door, making themselves at home and finally seducing him for a threesome in the bathroom. For Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves), a happily married architect who encounters the exact scenario while his wife and son are on vacation, it’s only the beginning of a nightmare that probably will never end. It’s a modern, glossier update of the campy 1977 exploitation film Death Game, which features two hippie chicks instead. Webber initially refuses the women’s advances but slowly gives in as the whole thing turns dark, sadistic and deadly. It’s hard to see how this will end well for the chap.
Feces, vomit and fossilized food from inside stomachs have provided new clues into how dinosaurs rose to dominate Earth, a new study revealed on Wednesday. Scientists have discovered plenty about dinosaurs — particularly about how they vanished off the face of the planet 66 millions years ago. But “we know very little about their rise,” said Martin Qvarnstrom, a researcher at Sweden’s Uppsala University and the study’s lead author. Dinosaurs first appeared at least 230 million years ago, fossils have shown. But they would not become the world’s dominant animal until the start of the Jurassic Period some 30 million years later. What caused this
The Mountains to Sea National Greenway (山海圳國家綠道) draws its name from the idea that each hiker starting at the summit of Jade Mountain (玉山) and following the trail to the coast is like a single raindrop. Together, many raindrops form life and prosperity-bringing waterways. Replicating a raindrop’s journey holds poetic beauty, but all hikers know that climbing is infinitely more appealing, and so this installment picks up where the last one left off — heading inland and uphill along the 49.8-kilometer Canal Trail (大圳之路) — second of the Greenway’s four sections. A detailed map of the trail can be found
“Bro, I can’t wait for my first dead body,” wrote an 11-year-old boy on Instagram in Sweden, where gangs recruit children too young to be prosecuted as contract killers on chat apps. “Stay motivated, it’ll come,” answered his 19-year-old contact. He went on to offer the child 150,000 kronor (US$13,680) to carry out a murder, as well as clothes and transport to the scene of the crime, according to a police investigation of the exchange last year in the western province of Varmland. In this case, four men aged 18 to 20 are accused of recruiting four minors aged 11 to 17
Dec 2 to Dec 8 It was the biggest heist in Taiwanese history at that time. In the afternoon of Dec. 7, 1982, two masked men armed with M16 assault rifles knocked out the driver of a United World Chinese Commercial Bank (世華銀行) security van, making away with NT$14 million (worth about NT$30 million today). The van had been parked behind a post office at Taipei’s Minsheng E Road when the robbers struck, and despite the post office being full of customers, nobody inside had noticed the brazen theft. “Criminals robbing a
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