Wowza! Steven Yeun and Lauren Cohan do this amazing photo shoot for Los Angeles magazine. What if Glenn and Maggie met in the post World War II era and did an engagement photo session? Bam! Feast your eyes below.
The Walking Dead is starting in mere minutes. Last weeks episode left us with a unconscious Glenn. The previews have him joining a mad max crew. Glenn and Maggie have to get back together!
郊遊 (Stray Dogs) is being released in Taipei this weekend. Tsai Ming-liang movies are general pretty hard watches for me. I generally am on a different wavelength than him. I'll be skipping this based on the typage inspired trailer.
The 2014 Winter Olympics are back! Pretty old news since it started almost 2 weeks ago and ends this weekend. I love the Olympics. The summer ones more than the winter, but love it nonetheless. My two daughters are taking ice skating now, so I've had my share of it these past few nights. With the newly introduced team event, Ice Skating started the day before the opening ceremonies just to get through the qualifying rounds. I have a feeling Russia will be winning this for the first 2-3 times based on their team strength. I think Canada and the USA will flip flop the 2nd and 3rd slots.
I live in Los Angeles so I get coverage of from NBC and when I have time, I'll watch the non-edited NBC Live streams on my tablet. Too much to do in one day to just sit around and watch olympics.
Ice skating has a lot of Asians in it. They may not be on top of all the events, but they are scattered throughout the 4 different events. Most represent the Asian country they come from. But the USA and Canada team reflect their immigrant culture with many Asian-Americans and Asian-Canadians. Which give my two daughters an example if they ever decide to pursue this. If they do. If not, they will still be motivated by them.
The Walking Dead is onto its Fourth Season and it's pretty dang good. The mid-season premiere (episode 9) did not feature Glenn played by Steven Yeun in the main scenes. Glenn only showed up in previous and upcoming stuff.
BUT this week, we'll find out what he's up to and what happened to the bus. Donde esta es Maggie! What?! No Maggie sightings so far.
Beijing Love Story (北京愛情故事) is being release in the US market this weekend. Seems to be anthology of lives that find their love in different ways. I wouldn't mind checking it out. I like these types of movies because the bang for your buck is high with so many characters. Most likely, these characters in and in themselves would not be able to carry a whole movie, but in shorten form, we take it the extremes of the story and don't have to invest so much time.
I will try my darndest to catch it in the local movie theatre. But current showtimes are not favorable to my schedule.
Elysium (極樂世界) is an 2014 film. The movie stars Matt Damon. The movie is made by Neill Blomkamp, who helmed District 9 (第九禁區) a few years ago.
In the far future, the earth has rundown and polluted. The "haves" built a paradise in space called Elysium that orbits the earth. The "have nots" remain on earth and try to survive. Damon plays Max, a ex-con trying to do right in life by going straight and having a stable job on the line making robots. Max's childhood is with Frey, who leaves the "hood" for greener pastures. The run into each other at the hospital when Max has a boo boo. Frey patches him off and sends him on his way, not wanting to re-kindle anything. Max heads back to work, but is accidentally exposed to radiation and has 5 days to live. Not wanting to die, he tries to get to Elysium where technology can actually heal of "anything". The spiders are a group of hackers that he makes a deal with and off he goes. When he gets to Elysium, the hit squad there try to stop him and society itself is affected.
Wow. Big concepts in the movie. Just like District 9 (第九禁區), Blomkamp paints desolation in the masses and the rich taking advantage. The rule keepers are ruthless but eventually end up on the wrong end of the stick. Social commentary on South Africa's apartheid past seem to reign supreme in the "commentary" of the Elysium citizens vs. the earthlings.
Riddick (超世紀戰警:闇黑對決) is an 2013 film. The movie stars Vin Diesel. Some other people make up the cast of misfits. The movie is the third in the series.
We find Riddick buried and hurt badly on a planet that's very dessert like. Riddick survives and heals himself. Once he conquers the land, we see him find a mercenary base to call himself in. 2 merc groups come to collect on his bounty. The two groups have different agendas. The first is purely for the money. The second is there for answers. Riddick doesn't care, he just needs a ride off the planet. Slowly, the rigors of the planet and Riddick cause the groups to fall.
This movie was a pretty fun watch. Seemed like a low budget film that was very character and story based. Yet it is on another planet and has a space armada feel to it. I liked the film because I like Vin. He's a likable guy and the world of Riddick is fun.
Man of Steel (超人:鋼鐵英雄) is an 2013 film. The movie stars Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, and Russell Crowe round out the supporting cast. The movie is produced in part by Christopher Nolan. The movie reboots the Superman franchise.
Krypton, on the way to imploding, send its last son into space. On Earth, we start with Clark Kent making his way up to the north pole and working his way. When he finally makes it there, the government is there with a discovery or aircraft deep below the ice. A reporting by the name of Lois Lane is also there. A no nonsense report that gets the story and the truth. Lane bumps into Clark and sees some of his powers as he's in search of his origin. Back in Metropolis, Lane writes a story of a Superman that is dismissed, but leaked out to the world. Kent returns home to explore his origins. However, some prisoners from Krypton find their way to earth and battle Kent for the earth.
How do you redo a story that almost every fan of sci-fi would know. A alien being with super powers rescues the earth. The Superman story is part of the fabric of American culture. Just like The Monkey King is in Zhong Guo. In this telling, the film makers went with realism and gut wrenching character development.
If your new to the supermen mythologies, you'll like this. It does break down Krypton, the sun giving Kent super powers, and Lois Lane. This time around, Lois Lane is no nonsense and very much a part of the fabric of the story. Not an after thought.
As much as the movie was well made. I didn't like it that much. I don't even think I'd stop to watch this a 2nd time if I was flipping through channels. Worth at least one watch.
The Housemaid (下女) is an 2010 film out of Korea. The film stars Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Jung-jae, Seo Woo, and Yoon Yeo-jeong. The movie is a remake of a film with the same storyline from 1960.
Jeon plays Im, a recent hire as an housemaid to a wealthy family. The patriarch, Hoon, is played by Lee and Hae-ra is his wife, played by Seo Woo. The lead housemaid, Byeong-sik, played by Yoon. Im is responsible for lots of things around the house, but her primary responsibility is to take care of Hoon and Har-ra's daugher, Nami, I guessimate to around 9 years old. Hoon takes to her after seeing her a few times in situations that seemed to draw his interest in Im. One night, while Hoon is semi-drunk, he goes to Im's room and they have an affair. All hell breaks loose when Byeong finds out and reveals this to Hae=ra's mother. A snowball effect happens when Im is pregnant. Leading to a very tragic ending.
This movie was a bit hard to watch. The rich play rich and the movies portray them as gods among men. Which might be the cast, I am not rich, I have no reference point other than movies. Maybe I know a absurdly rich person? Most likely not. So, I only have the movies to tell me. Each country presents them in different ways. In this case, its in Korea. Some of the things were not immediately placable in my experience thus, I was lost and didn't understand some things. In other cases, it made perfect sense. With that in mind, I didn't quite get the whole movie.
I saw this film via Amazon Prime a few months ago. I was on and off on it due to time constraints. Thus, I had to remember quite a few times what was going on. Maybe that played into not liking the film much.
UPDATE: February 14, 2014 - The White Haired Witch Of Lunar Kingdom's release date has been moved to April 24, 2014. Thus, no HK or Zhong Guo films are set to release for this month. Interesting.
Check out the new release(s) for the Hong Kong region for the rest of February 2014. At the moment, very light month. Partly due to the lunar new year holiday the first week of the month.
大稻埕 (Twa Tiu Tiann) was released in Taipei over the weekend. The movie comes from the creators of night market hero from a couple summers ago. Back with some lovely faces and a time traveling story. Looks quite interesting.
The only problem is the whole movie is in Taiwanese. I'll need some subtitles.