IN THE DESCENDANTS KING KAMEHAMEHA’S DESCENDANTS ARE ALL HAOLES, RACIALLY & CULTURALLY! Director Alexander Payne has miscast major characters in his adaptation of the 2007 novel by part-Hawaiian Kaui Hart Hemmings. Matthew King (played by George Clooney), trustee of an estate that owns many acres of undeveloped land on Kaua‘i, is about to sell the […]
VICTIMS OF AN ARROGANT WALL STREET MOGULGET EVEN IN TOWER HEIST A rich executive, Arthur Shaw (played by Alan Alda), swindles the life savings of a few dozen employees of a high-class condo in New York, claiming that he could triple their pensions with his investment savvy while actually pocketing millions. Victim Josh Kovacs (played
THE WOMAN KNIGHT OF MIRROR LAKE FEATURES CHINA’S FIRST FEMINIST When Qiu Jin (played by Huang Yi) was in infancy in 1881, she refused footbinding three times as too painful. But that started her thinking about the need for women’s liberation, which could only occur if centuries of dynastic rule were toppled for a more
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Placid Gang In-ho (played by Yoo Gong) reports for a position as art instructor at a school for the deaf in Gwangju Province, Korea, and soon discovers that the children are being sexually molested and viciously punished by an instructor and the twins running the school. After reporting what he sees to human rights activist
KAWASAKI’S ROSE OPENS A GENERIC SKELETON IN THE POST-COMMUNIST CZECH CLOSET During the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, the authorities often sought to reeducate prominent dissidents after their arrest, and those who resisted were sometimes tortured or even exiled. Others were bullied into secretly compromising their integrity. Embarrassing secrets, thus, might inevitably emerge after the end
ANONYMOUS PRESENTS AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF SHAKESPEARE When Anonymous begins, a prologue actor says that the actor William Shakespeare only had a grammar school education and no original manuscripts of his works have ever been discovered with his signature. The actor then promises filmviewers an alternative history in which the supposed writer, Edward De Vere,
THE MILL AND THE CROSS EXPLAINS WHAT BREUGEL PUT ON CANVAS In 1555, Flemish-speaking Hapsburg ruler Charles V abdicated. Philip II of Spain became king. Mercenaries in Spanish uniforms then entered Flanders to enforce the Inquisition. Those who spoke French were already Catholics, but Jews and Protestants were targeted for death. Many escaped to provinces
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KILLER ELITE EXPOSES BRITAIN’S ROLE IN OMANBUT MOSTLY IN CREDITS In 1980, a sheik in Oman (played by Rodney Afif) holds Hunter (played by Robert De Niro) hostage until Danny Bryce (played by Jason Statham) arrives to accept a $6 million contract to assassinate British Special Forces personnel who killed his three sons during the
THE ROAD TO FREEDOM IS PAVED WITH CAMBODIAN BLOOD Dedicated to courageous war correspondents and victims of the Khmer Rouge, The Road to Freedom begins slowly, with cinematography of rural Cambodia as credits roll. In approximately 1974, a Khmer gentleman, Lim Po (played by Nhem Sokun) approaches a bearded European, Francias (played by Tom Proctor),
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IN TIME TRIES TO MAKE A STORY OUT OF A CLEVER PLOT The premise of In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol, is that money could be abolished and replaced by minutes of one’s life expectancy. Today, the affluent live much longer than those below the poverty line, but the film’s science fiction premise is that