16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2009 • TAIPEI TIMES

FILM REVIEW OTHER RELEASES Compiled BY Martin Williams

Sing It! (唱歌吧!)

This Taiwanese documentary is being released with little warning or advertising, but the timing is crucial. A Bunun Aboriginal school principal, who cannot read music and has a sports education background, leads the local elementary school choir to national fame and a recording deal. As always, there are challenges along the way, including relationships with parents back home. But the events onscreen now have new currency given that the choir’s home village, Dongpu (東埔) in Nantou County’s Xinyi Township (信義), was badly hit by Typhoon Morakot — making this 64-minute film a valuable time capsule. Starts tomorrow.

G-Force

‘’ G-Force is a part- computer animated, contains all the things part-live action thrill Tarantino fans like, ride about a bunch of guinea pigs and other but its emotional rodents who team up to defeat an evil big core and bigness of businessman who spirit are new wants to take over the world using a bunch of malevolent gadgets. This is Jerry Bruckheimer territory, By STEVE PERSALL not Pixar, so expect exhaustion and kiddie crudity, not NY Times news service, St Petersburg reflective or genuinely emotional moments. Screening in 3D in selected theaters, and featuring the voices of , Penelope Cruz and Steve Buscemi.

Coco Before

This French biopic tracks the childhood and early adult life of Chanel founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, delving into how the fashion innovator who created an empire grew out of a cabaret performer and emotional recluse. As the grown-up Coco, (Amelie, The Da Vinci Code) has impressed critics with her latest big role, though some wondered if this After one viewing, and Tarantino movies demand Eli Roth, above left, and Brad Pitt, above right, star in Inglourious film’s sumptuous photography and overall elegance might more, I don’t think Chapter 4, detailing a parallel British not have been boosted by more emotional appeal. Basterds, directed by , left. photos: Bloomberg and Reuters mission, is necessary at this length. But it does provide another of those extended stretches of quietly delightful Tarantino as an audacious dude who’ll err, but never on tension. Inglourious Basterds will be loved and hated, Kabuli Kid the side of caution. sometimes in the same scene, eventually leading to at Divided into five chapters, Inglourious Basterds least grudging admiration. The “kid” of the title is Tarantino’s most linear work and at times his most Obsession with film propels Tarantino (and repels is a baby boy left static, with rewards. Take the opening sequence, a visit his detractors), spilling off the screen whether you get behind in a Kabul cab, to a French dairy farm by the film’s villain, Colonel the references or not, from Leni Riefenstahl and Emil the driver of which Hans Landa (, a mesmerizing presence). Jannings to a German Audie Murphy becoming a movie can’t seem to work Landa is known as “the Jew Hunter,” with keen instincts star. By the time the flammable nature of nitrate film out how to get rid of to find and kill them. becomes Tarantino’s key weapon against tyranny, you the creature. Steering Landa believes the farmer is hiding a Jewish family, can practically hear him cackling. Inglourious Basterds between realism and and toys with the man for 15 minutes, just sitting is flawed, yet proves that the former enfant terrible and — perhaps — a hint at a table. Tarantino loves writing deadly intimate now Wellesian myth still has impudence to burn. of black comedy, this confrontations, such as his True Romance face-off is a portrait of ordinary Afghans, the lives they lead and the between Christopher Walken and with mundane dilemmas they face — details obscured by the telltale tough talk and violent punctuation. The payoff international media’s focus on the wider conflicts in the is usually worth the wait, but Inglourious Basterds region and electoral woes. contains a handful of such conversations, bloating the obody has giddier fun making movies than 152-minute running time. Quentin Tarantino, and it’s contagious. Even The next chapter introduces the titular heroes, a Inglourious Basterds Sanpei the Fisher Boy when scenes run long and static, violent platoon of Jewish-American soldiers assigned to kill as spasms intrude or too many characters many Nazis as possible. Brad Pitt gets top billing for a DIRECTED BY: This live-action film are introduced, watching a Tarantino supporting role as Lieutenant Aldo Raine, a Tennessee Quentin Tarantino based on a classic flick unfold is one of American cinema’s stud leading the Basterds, demanding 100 Nazi scalps manga dating back to pleasures. You sense him behind the camera, giggling at from each soldier. Pitt juts his jaw and drops his “g’s” STARRING: the 1970s is director Nhis handiwork, winking conspiratorially. in a cartoon Southern accent, making mutilation sound Brad Pitt (Lieutenant Aldo Raine), Melanie Laurent Yojiro Takita’s follow- No exception is Inglourious Basterds, the neo- (Shosanna Dreyfus), Christoph Waltz downright friendly. up to this year’s grind house auteur’s rewrite of World War II with a (Colonel Hans Landa), Eli Roth (Sergeant Donny Chapter 3 leads to Nazi-occupied Paris, where Oscar-winning drama spaghetti western vibe, a bloody valentine to pulp war Donowitz), Michael Fassbender (Lieutenant Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) owns a movie Departures. Sanpei fiction: vengeance, resistance and a cinephile fantasy Archie Hicox), Diane Kruger (Bridget von theater showing German propaganda films. Shosanna is the grandson of that a movie theater could defeat Hitler. It is The Dirty Hammersmark), Daniel Bruhl (Fredrick Zoller) has a connection to Landa, who’ll be ordered to kill a master fisherman Dozen on crystal meth, Defiance without conscience, the Basterds, who’ll plan a war-changing mission at who is happy to pass on his skills and enthusiasm to the presented by a cocksure filmmaker for whom no project RUNNING TIME: the theater, as Tarantino pulls plot threads together, youngster. One day Sanpei learns about a possibly mythical is “only a movie.” 152 MINUTES disregarding history, logic and sometimes good taste. superfish — and immediately sets his sights on catching it, Even the film’s final line, “I think this just might An international cast speaking native languages veers along with another fishing ace. It’s hard not to imagine this be my masterpiece,” sounds like the writer-director TAIWAN RELEASE: toward authenticity until a screwy subtitle sneaks in TODAY as a Japanese Huckleberry Finn — energetic and brimming boasting through an actor. Inglourious Basterds (a German exclaims “Wunderbar!” with an identical with life, and there’s straw hats too. doesn’t deserve that mantle, but it does reaffirm translation beneath).

Diane Kruger: tailor-made for ‘Basterds’

hen filmmaker “Nobody in America or France Quentin Who better to play a German movie star working in France could ever pronounce or spell it Tarantino was than a German actress who was living in France? correctly,” she said. “I was sick looking for a of saying, ‘H-E-I-D ...’ When you German actress to play a 1940s say ‘It’s like Freddy,’ everybody By Zorianna Kit photo: EPA German screen siren-turned-spy in gets it.” his movie Inglourious Basterds, Reuters, LOS ANGELES Today, Kruger is grateful Diane Kruger knew she was that at least one person in the perfect for the part. where I’m the engine, the motor in the Elite modeling agency’s Kruger starred opposite Josh entertainment industry “gets” After all, she thought, who of the scene,” Kruger said. “Many Look of the Year contest and Hartnett, was technically her her: Tarantino. better to play a German movie times actresses are an accessory turned her attention to fashion first US-made movie, it was her “He took a leap of faith on Wstar working in France than a to a story line. To be handed and the catwalk. second feature to be released in an actress who has so far only German actress like herself who intelligent dialogue was nice. It was “All of a sudden I moved to the US. played Helen of Troy and did was living in France? a very new experience for me.” Paris and was learning French Troy, in which she co-starred National Treasure,” she said. “He Basterds follows a group of It was also an unimaginable and traveling the world,” Kruger alongside Pitt and Eric Bana was sees me completely different.” Jewish-American soldiers, led by experience for someone who once said. “Then I met my ex-husband released first in theaters, and the Kruger next stars with Jared Brad Pitt’s Lieutenant Aldo Raine, considered modeling and movies (French actor and director hype over Hollywood newcomer Leto in French filmmaker Jaco on a mission to take down the “completely out of my reach.” ) who was so Kruger playing the beautiful Helen van Dormael’s Mr Nobody. The Third Reich. “I come from a lower middle- influential in giving me confidence of Troy helped her land box office film debuts at the upcoming Kruger’s Bridget von class village in Germany,” said the to pursue acting.” hit National Treasure. , weeks after Hammersmark is loved by her 33-year-old. “It is impossible to Her first major acting role was That movie’s success spawned the release of Basterds. German countrymen, but is imagine that any of this was ever in Canet’s directorial debut, 2002’s the sequel National Treasure: “I feel Quentin gave me a secretly working as an undercover going to be in the cards for me.” Mon Idole. The two divorced in Book of Secrets and together the great gift,” Kruger said. “No agent with “the basterds,” as With dreams of becoming a 2006, but worked together once big-budget movies made Kruger matter what impact this movie Raine’s soldiers are known. ballerina, Kruger studied with the more in Joyeux Noel. a household name — after a little has on my career, or if it turns “This is the first time someone Royal Ballet School in London. Though 2004’s romantic adjustment, that is, because her into a box office hit or not, I feel gave me a part where I’m strong, As a teenager she was a finalist thriller Wicker Park, in which real last name is Heidkruger. like I won the lottery.”