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16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES FILM REVIEW OTHER RELEASES COMPILED BY IAN BartHOLOmeW Taiwan International Children’s Film Festival Organized by Taiwan’s Public Television Service Foundation, the TICFF, now in its fourth edition, combines films about children, for children, and even a Kids as Directors segment that puts children at the helm. The opening films are Poetic Bye-Bye Morakot, a four- part documentary which chronicles the young victims of the typhoon that caused extensive damage in Taiwan in August last year, and Mai Mai Miracle, a Japanese animated story about a child living in Japan’s Heian period. The festival closes with justice the Asian premiere of Little Nicholas, a French comedy about children that will also be getting a mainstream cinema release after the TICFF ends. In between there’s a huge range of films for every taste; visit www.ticff.org. tw/schedule.html for the full schedule. NT$50 tickets are available through ERA ticketing or at the two screening venues, Eslite Xinyi Store (誠品信義店) and Vie Show Cinema, Xinyi District (信義威秀影城). Runs until Sunday. Clash of the Titans In its relentless lingers over an almost impossibly Keats’ brief romance with search for beautiful English countryside and material, Fanny Brawne gets the treatment it so captures the claustrophobic spaces Hollywood has of the rented house in Hampstead richly deserves in ‘Bright Star’ rediscovered the shared by Keats, Brown and the treasure trove of Brawne family. BY IAN BartHOLOmeW Greek mythology STAFF REPORTER Bright Star is a movie and settled on the that allows love its mystery. story of Perseus ostume drama is a perilous In between meeting and parting Campion has captured the mood for this fantasy gold mine of cliches, but forever, Fanny learns a little about of Keats’ poetry, its elegiac action adventure with Bright Star Australian poetry, and Keats finds a muse who sorrow and deep passion, C starring Sam Worthington as the demigod Perseus, director Jane Campion seems is almost in every way different and filtered it through into a Ralph Fiennes as Hades, god of the underworld (and to have hit the vein that she had from what one might expect. story that manages to link real chief villain), and Liam Neeson as Zeus, chief god been searching for in The Piano For Fanny is a no-nonsense type people with the expression of of the heavens. The story has been given the full (1993). Intense and atmospheric, of girl who comes of a good, but transcendent emotion without Hollywood treatment, including the belated addition of it avoids the pitfalls of fancy dress not particularly wealthy family, ever compromising their flesh-and- 3D to some scenes to provide maximum visual bang. It and transports the audience to who has a positive opinion of her PHOTOS COURTESY OF CATCHPLAY bone humanity. is a remake of the 1981 film of the same name, and the another world, whose logic is not own talents and the place in the improvements in CGI and other technologies make this of this one. world and esteem of others that who value physical intimacy. The version a vast improvement, with the trailer sporting It takes as its starting point the this entitles her. She is a skilled closest that Bright Star gets to some amazing effects. Depending on one’s taste, this poet John Keats and his meeting seamstress with aspirations to a bedroom scene is a flirtatious may or may not make up for the overwrought acting and with, quite literally, the girl next being a fashion designer, and she exchange in which Fanny suggests simple-minded plot. door, Fanny Brawne. What follows has no qualms about telling Keats, that Keats might be sleeping in BRIGHT STAR is a brief moment of romance, who is a virtual pauper living on the bed she at one time used. It which in our historical knowledge the charity of friends and admirers, Campion does not take the easy is just a whiff of sexuality, but in DIRECTED BY: Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard of its transience is like a haiku. that it is at least a skill with which route of having her lead actors Campion’s hands, it is potent stuff. JANE CAMPION Luc Bresson, who has Keats died at age 25 having written she can make a living. throwing themselves into each The passionate relationship is both director and writer some of the best-known and The part of Fanny Brawne is other’s arms at every opportunity. leavened by a skillful performance STARRING: credits on this children’s best-loved poems of the English well conceived and executed by She allows them to grow into love, by Paul Schneider as Charles BEN WHISHAW (JOHN KEATS), adventure animation, Romantic movement. Abbie Cornish, who produces so that when that love becomes an Armitage Brown, Keats’ friend, AbbIE CORNISH (FRANCES enjoys pushing the Biopics, especially those of a performance of magnificent accomplished fact, the impossibility fellow poet and champion. He first ‘FANNY’ BRAWNE), KERRY FOX boundaries of what it writers, have a tendency to trip restraint, holding behind her very of any kind of union is all the more dismisses Fanny, then flirts with (MRS BRAWNE), PAUL ScHNEIDER means to be commercial. themselves up with voice-overs correct deportment and speech a heartbreaking. “Attachment is such her, then tries, in his own way, to (CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN), This little franchise taken from their written works, veritable flood of passion. There a difficult thing to undo,” says Mrs separate the two. His love of Keats EDIE MARTIN (MARGARET ‘TOOTS’ BRAWNE), THOMAS SANGSTER began life with Arthur which are crowbared into the are no naked bodies and bodice- Dilke, Keats’ landlady, who is full of is a rough and earthy thing, but his (SAMUEL BRAWNE) and the Minimoys in narrative. Campion deals with ripping scenes beyond the abilities kindness and good sense, shaking admiration of the poetry is sincere, 2006, when 10-year-old the problem by making Bright of Ben Whishaw’s Keats, who her head over an affair that she and he resents Fanny’s intrusion RUNNING TIME: Arthur discovers a race Star itself an ode of sorts, with seems barely to have strength knows can only end badly for into their relationship. 119 MINUTES of cute (if you like glam an elusive texture full of fleeting enough to force his way through a all involved. This trio is supported by a fine punk) plastic doll figures, hints of emotion hidden behind a field of daffodils. Although propriety is observed, ensemble cast, most notably Kerry TAIWAN RELEASE: who eventually help him formal exterior of early 19th-century In a movie industry that harps Campion does not let us forget that Fox as Fanny’s mother, and some TODAY prevent his grandfather’s English life. almost manically on eroticism, these are flesh-and-blood beings fine camera work that by turns house being demolished by nefarious real estate interests. This time the Minimoys are in trouble, so Arthur plunges back into his fantasy world to save them. Features an improbable cast of voices that range from Lou Reed and FILM REVIEW Snoop Dogg to Mia Farrow and Freddie Highmore. A third installment, Arthur and the Two Worlds War, has already had its European release and will doubtless be coming to We are who we are these shores soon. Future X-Cops ‘Phoebe in Wonderland’ sensitively probes the perils of parenthood and how kids learn to live with each other Directed by Wong Jing (王 晶) and featuring A-list eye candy Barbie Hsu (徐 BY IAN BartHOLOmeW quarters of the way through 熙媛) and Fan Bing-bing STAFF REPORTER making the film, the director (范冰冰) and starring Andy In a week overloaded with thought he might not have got his Lau (劉德華), Future X- releases for children, the small point across, and suddenly had to Cops is by the standards three-feature festival at SPOT reach for the loud-hailer. of Hong Kong cinema titled Children and the World a mega-buck prestige Film Festival might easily get NOTE: Ten percent of ticket release. Even so, some of overlooked given both its size and revenue from Phoebe in the costumes manage to also the rather peculiar selection Wonderland will be donated to look like RoboCop hand- of its lineup. the Taiwan Tourette Family me-downs, and the plot, This would be a pity if it Association. Phoebe in which features a futuristic means missing out on Phoebe in Wonderland is part of a mini super-cop going back in Wonderland, which is packaged film festival screening at SPOT time to save a scientist together with Small Voices (2008), a — Taipei Film House (台北光點), who could change the documentary that follows the lives 18 Zhongshan N Rd Sec 2, Taipei world, is not exactly of post-Khmer Rouge Cambodian City (台北市中山北路二段18號). The new. Big oil are the bad children struggling to survive on festival includes Small Voices and guys, and they get to use the aid of the Cambodian Children’s 8. Schedule times can be found at cyborg assassins. And Fund, and 8, a portmanteau movie www.spot.org.tw. isn’t Lau, who is pushing with segments by eight directors 50, getting a bit old for these action roles? With the almost (including heavy hitters such simultaneous release of his cop shop comedy romance as Jane Campion, Gus van Sant Beauty on Duty (美麗密令) in China, Director Wong Jin is and Wim Wenders) to address Elle Fanning stars in Phoebe in Wonderland, directed by Daniel Barnz.