16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2009 • TAIPEI TIMES

Other releases

Compiled by Martin Williams

17 Again Teen heart melter Zac Efron leads the cast in a pastiche of Click and all those body switch/time travel movies of the mid-to-late-1980s (Big, Back to the Future and the eerily similar title 18 Again!, for example). In this one, Zac’s loser adult manifestation (Matthew Perry) is sent back in time by a weird janitor to ... the late 1980s. There, in the irritatingly dissimilar body of spunky Zac, our hero gets his chance to straighten out his life, but not before some uncomfortable propositions. Younger male moviegoers are advised to skip this and see Splinter instead (see below). Older males might wish to see ...

Two Lovers Joaquin Phoenix has taken a strange turn lately with a bizarre new appearance and manner and an attempt at a career in rap. Hopefully it’s a trick, because movies like Two Lovers, Walk the Line and 8MM show that Phoenix the actor should never be underestimated. This film by James Gray was made Not much to glean from before Phoenix grew the beard; in it he is a troubled New Yorker enticed by two women (Vinessa Shaw and Gwyneth Paltrow). The emphasis here is on dialogue, character and complexity.

The Lark Farm A movie about the Armenian genocide directed by Italy’s famed Taviani brothers sounds WolverineWolverine unmissable — unless you’re a Turkish nationalist, of course. ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ fills in the blanks on Logan’s backstory, but with a slapdash script The story follows the misfortune of a well-to-do family brought undone by massacres and and an overreliance on special effects that aren’t that special expulsion. But Variety expressed disappointment at how the epic approach clouded characterization. Still, the subject By Ian Bartholomew matter alone may intrigue audiences dimly aware of this Staff Reporter little understood historical outrage.

Night Train Danny Glover continues to dabble in low budget genre fare

photo courtesy of 20th century fox with this nocturnal horror flick. Weird passengers and Glover’s conductor start behaving very greedily and/or bloodily when a strange box activates their worst instincts — starting with the theft of diamonds from a dead fellow passenger. Sadly, Night Train is apparently still looking for a release in the indestructible soldier, though a pastiche through the story, picking up whatever is US. This and the next three titles are being released in Taipei of conflicts from the American Civil fashionable or convenient, trying to make by distributor CatchPlay as a horror festival of sorts. War (he fought with the Confederates, everything look good, but without ever he backstory of the character which may or may not be significant) committing to a deeper vision either of Wolverine from the X-Men to Vietnam. Then he gets drafted into a the narrative or the characters. Splinter T franchise was always tantalizing in secret military unit of people with special Jackman’s hairstyle is a minor, if Any low budget horror opus that its vagueness, hinting at hidden sorrows powers doing very nasty things in the irritating, quibble. Far more serious is gets killer reviews from Variety, and terrible anguish buried deep beneath developing world to ensure continued Hood’s failure to make a big budget X-Men Origins: the Village Voice and Fangoria Hugh Jackman’s sculpted physique US military dominance. But Logan has a chase, featuring a stylishly retro magazine is probably worth and impassive expression. With X-Men conscience, and he walks out. Of course, motorcycle racing against heavily armed Wolverine seeing. The central plot device Origins: Wolverine, the story of Logan, this is the kind of unit from which no one Humvees and a helicopter, exciting. The borrows a bit from From Dusk a clawed and virtually indestructible walks away. money has clearly been spent, but Arnold DIRECTED BY: Gavin Hood Till Dawn: a couple are forced to end a night’s camping, and killing machine, is presented in all its There is a vague feeling that director Schwarzenegger made a more exciting STARRING: Hugh Jackman (Logan/ on the way to a motel they are held at gunpoint by another expositional glory, in a process that strips Gavin Hood, who won an Oscar for his entrance on a motorbike in Terminator: Wolverine), Liev Schreiber (Victor couple. But all nefarious plans are abandoned when a much it of whatever evocativeness it might have film Tsotsi (2005) about gangland life in Judgment Day, and that was released in Creed/Sabretooth), Danny Huston more dangerous foe emerges — a creature that exists and had for fans of the series. Soweto, is grasping for some degree of 1991. Hell, even Steve McQueen in The (William Stryker), Lynn Collins (Kayla infects through splinter-like spines — and the luckless Experience shows that prequels rarely topicality. Unfortunately, he has been Great Escape (1963) cut more of a dash Silverfox), Kevin Durand (Frederick J. foursome are besieged in a gas station. Gory, fun, scary and measure up to the original’s standard and burdened with a behemoth of a narrative on a motorcycle than Jackman, for all the Dukes/The Blob), Dominic Monaghan smart; not many horror films can claim all these. X-Men had already entered a terminal and there simply isn’t enough time to get sequence’s big special effects. Not only (Chris Bradley/Bolt) decline with its third incarnation, X-Men: through everything and still leave space was there no tension, there was no style. The Last Stand, in 2006. It is nevertheless for extended car chases and fight scenes. It was just a lot of bang. RUNNING TIME: 107 MINUTES Dante 01 good in X-Men Origins to see Hugh Logan escapes from the military into Liev Schreiber, who showed a In the future, humans will Jackman fighting the good fight, though it a lumberjack’s life in the high mountains wonderful talent for playing a character TAIWAN RELEASE: Currently showing be sent to a prison in space, is his battle against the slipshod and slack of Colorado, living in a wooden shack who straddles the divide between good where they can be quietly narrative rather than the machinations on an improbable cliff edge with a and evil way back in 1996 with Scream, done, but there is certainly nothing that experimented on and killed of his nemesis Colonel William Stryker girlfriend who is able to handle the fact is back with more of the same. He has hasn’t been seen before. Special effects by state medicos. If this grim that give rise to praise. He works like that her bedmate sprouts knives from honed his role in the recently released in Hood’s hands are very much a blunt French mixture of science a yeoman, but sadly his best saturnine his hands when he has nightmares. It is Defiance (2008), and seems hardly to instrument used to bludgeon audiences fiction and Kafka sounds like a cross between the third growls are not enough. also comforting to know that whatever have changed costume when stepping into submission. and fourth Alien installments — but with human cruelty The story told in X-Men Origins will the hardships of living in such a remote across the lot for his performance as Such is the nature of the cinematic replacing the Alien — then there may be good reason. It was be partially known to anyone who has location, Jackman has the services of a Sabretooth in Wolverine. comic book franchise that the fraternal directed by Marc Caro, a member of the team that made seen the previous X-Men outings, and professional blow-drying unit, for nothing Even more so than with X-Men: The relationship between Wolverine and Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, and whose this film merely fills in the blanks. We see else could account for the billowy coiffure Last Stand, characters with special Sabretooth is used as a peg on which a partner directed Alien: Resurrection. Logan as a child discovering his paternity he sports when emerging from his rustic talents seem to have been introduced into sequel to this prequel may be hung. Given and his special powers in a murderous eyrie into the dawn. the narrative for no other reason than the very pedestrian quality of Wolverine, bout of domestic violence back in the The trouble starts right here, with to contribute to the variety of special all that remains is to hope that whatever The Guard Post early 19th century, and follow him, the a feeling that the director is cruising effects on offer. These are all stylishly may come after goes straight to DVD. It was an idea whose time had come: a gory horror movie set in a gloomy military station on the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. The Thing meets Event Horizon as a military investigator on a tight schedule probes a massacre A French pastoral at Guard Post 506. But the forces of evil that triggered the killings couldn’t care less about his superiors’ deadlines, and ‘Modern Life’ is a stunning coda to a photojournalist and filmmaker’s trilogy about a dying way of life start playing havoc with his own team of soldiers after awful weather traps them inside. Also known as GP506. By Ho Yi presence of this strong-willed through the uneasy body language Staff Reporter woman from the outside world. of the farmers. His sympathy for Born into a family of farmers Other subjects include middle- them is deeply felt and delivers Fist of the North Star: The in Haute-Loire, a remote region aged Daniel Roy, the only child a sense of geniality without Legend of Kenshiro of southern France, Raymond Modern Life from a family of six who stays on which the film would have been This is the final episode in the Depardon went to Paris at the the farm, though he constantly uncomfortable to watch. recent animated revival of the age of 16 to escape his destiny DIRECTED BY: Raymond and inarticulately expresses his Though it is impossible to popular futuristic Japanese as a farmer’s son. The Pulitzer Depardon displeasure towards farming life. overlook the film’s fatalism, the manga — and is actually a Prize-winning photojournalist and Depardon resists sentimentality, veteran filmmaker commendably prequel to the manga’s storyline, filmmaker has since traveled the STARRING: Brothers Marcel and and his respect for his subjects resists the temptation to paint an filling in the missing year that resulted in so much of the Raymond Privat as themselves, world. More than a decade ago, Marcel and Germaine Challaye shines through patient camera elegy on the demise of family farms warrior Kenshiro’s deadly motivation and torment, including however, he felt the urge to return as themselves, Daniel Roy as work. Long takes frame farmers and the ancient way of life. Rather the murder of his girlfriend. This film was released last year to his origins and began filming himself, Amandine Valla as in the same manner as classical than generalizing and formulating on the 25th anniversary of the manga’s creation. the dairy farmers who cling to herself Director Raymond Depardon views his portraiture would, where taciturn clear-cut issues and messages, their fading way of life in the subjects with respect and empathy in men and women are given space Depardon quietly sits with the Tamagotchi: Lost Child in isolated highlands. RUNNING TIME: 90 MINUTES Modern Life. photo courtesy of Flash Forward to pause, breathe and sit mute. The farmers and allows them to speak The end result is Depardon’s filmmaker doesn’t interrogate, nor for themselves. Space!? austere yet rewarding triptych Language: in French with role. Octogenarian brothers Marcel attempt to milk stories to support a Last year’s winner of the Prix That Japanese toy pet fad from Profils Paysans. Modern Life Chinese subtitles and Raymond still tend sheep and thesis. Simple questions are asked. Louis-Delluc, the prestigious award some years ago may have died (La Vie Moderne) serves as the cattle, though the herds diminish Sometimes there are answers, that honors the best French film of out for kids (and kids at heart) masterful coda to the series. TAIWAN RELEASE: Currently and their health declines. The sometimes nothing but silence. the year, Modern Life is another in most markets, but now the showing Drifting through the seasons, the arrival of Cecile, their nephew’s Depardon’s less-is-more piece of resonant and poignant franchise’s first movie is here stunning traveling shots take both Profils Paysans: L’Approche (2001) new wife, further complicates approach reveals as much about work of Depardon’s distinctive to get your little’uns addicted all over again. A chaotic story the audience and filmmaker back to and Le Quotidien (2005). The Privat matters as the unmarried brothers what is being said verbally as its filmmaking suffused with humanism puts our child heroes into Tamagotchi land before they end the aging inhabitants who appear in family once again plays a central feel uncomfortable with the does about what is being conveyed and compassion. up in space and are threatened by a black hole.