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Casino Royale (2006) Cast: Daniel Craig (James Bond, AKA Agent 007), Eva Green (Vesper Lynd), Mads Mikkelsen (Le Chiffre), Dame Judi Dench (M), Giancarlo Giannini (Rene Mathis), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter), Ivana Milicevic (Valenka) CASINO ROYALE is based on Ian Fleming's novel of the same name. Published in 1953, it was the first book in his 'James Bond' series. EON Productions' CASINO ROYALE produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli will mark the introduction of Daniel Craig (Munich/Layer Cake) as legendary secret agent, 007. Martin Campbell (GoldenEye/The Legend Of Zorro) is directing this film, the 21st in the 44 year franchise. CASINO ROYALE introduces JAMES BOND before he holds his license to kill. But Bond is no less dangerous, and with two professional assassinations in quick succession, he is elevated to "00" status. Bond's first 007 mission takes him to Madagascar, where he is to spy on a terrorist, MOLLAKA (Sebastien Foucan). Not everything goes to plan and Bond decides to investigate, independently of MI6, in order to track down the rest of the terrorist cell. Following a lead to the Bahamas, he encounters DIMITRIOS (Simon Abkarian) and his girlfriend, SOLANGE (Caterina Murino). He learns that Dimitrios is involved with LE CHIFFRE (Mads Mikkelsen), banker to the world's terrorist organizations. Secret Service intelligence reveals that Le Chiffre is planning to raise money in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro at Le Casino Royale. MI6 assigns 007 to play against him, knowing that if Le Chiffre loses, it will destroy his organization. 'M' (Judi Dench) places Bond under the watchful eye of the beguiling VESPER LYND (Eva Green). At first skeptical of what value Vesper can provide, Bond's interest in her deepens as they brave danger together and even torture at the hands of Le Chiffre. In Montenegro, Bond allies himself with MATHIS (Giancarlo Giannini), MI6's local field agent, and FELIX LEITER (Jeffrey Wright), who is representing the interests of the CIA. The marathon game proceeds with dirty tricks and violence, raising the stakes beyond blood money and reaching a terrifying climax.
This week's featured Asian film:
Charlene Choi in The Diary Diary Directed by the Pang Brothers, Diary is a psychological thriller that delivers heavily on the psychosis. Charlene Choi stars as Winnie Leung, an adorable perfume counter girl with a major problem: she suffers from delusions, with an option on full-blown schizophrenia. When we first meet her, she's preparing dinner for her boyfriend Seth, who never answers his phone and seems to be having a hard time finding his way home. Once the meal has grown cold, Winnie realizes the awful truth: Seth has left quietly, taking his belongings elsewhere rather than suffer another day from Winnie's claustrophobic attentions. Winnie commiserates with her pal (Isabella Leong in a rather small role) before looking all over the place for Seth, who still can't be found. Did the guy just drop off the face of the earth? No, because Winnie's account of her daily life is heavily flawed. Director Oxide Pang reveals early on that Winnie isn't mentally healthy; her delusional/schizophrenic tendencies are explained in a clinical voiceover, which accompanies a series of "A/B comparison" shots of Winnie reacting to stuff that may or may not be there. We see Winnie cowering in fear from nothing, gazing in wonder at the sky, and being startled in a completely empty room. Pang then repeats the shots with inserted CGI and sound effects; in Winnie's mind, she's cowering in fear from a black cloud approaching through her window, she's gazing at an imagined snowfall, and she's frightened by giant puppet clambering through her flat just a few feet behind her. We also see Winnie visiting Seth's workplace, where she's informed that he's quit. A few minutes later, the scene repeats in black-and-white, except this time the receptionist states that nobody named Seth works there. Clearly, Winnie's account of things cannot be trusted. However, the filmmakers can't be trusted, either. Oxide Pang does tell us that Winnie is a few miles south of reality, but he neglects to set up consistent rules as to what is trustable and what isn't. Winnie's delusions are seen in color, and reality in black-and-white, right? Maybe not, because many of the "real" shots appear in color, and some of the "fake" ones in black-and-white too. Winnie never finds Seth, but she does pick up Ray (Shawn Yu), a nice fellow who takes a shine to the emotionally-troubled girl. The two start a romance, but things seem disturbingly uncertain; Winnie keeps bringing up Seth, which sometimes pisses off Ray. Sometimes, while listening to Winnie talk about Seth or her feelings, Ray starts getting a noticeable "deer in the headlights" look, as if he just realized that he's dating that girl from Audition. However, at other times, Ray is sullen and morose, like a guy who's had the life sucked out of him by overexposure to EEG-funded sweetness. Well, nothing may be happening, because again, Winnie isn't telling the complete truth. One of her hobbies is writing in her personal diary, which purportedly contains the real truth -- or so we're led to believe. At one point, it's even suggested that Winnie's reality is being created by her diary musings. Cue massive lightbulb -- of course it is! Regardless if the truth in the diary is the real one, it's obvious that Winnie is the sole manufacturer of her daily experience -- ergo, the audience is getting a faceful of Winnie-created reality. Once the audience figures out that it's the world according to Winnie -- and they should fairly early -- Diary quickly becomes a game of "what's real and what's not." Was Seth real? Is Ray real? How about pal Isabella? These questions seem larger in the beginning, but as the film progresses it becomes fairly obvious what's being produced by Winnie's overactive imagination. The question then becomes where all this is headed. Diary's technical prowess is what prevents the film from becoming a total loss. The film is basically told with one set and a few minor locations, and it's impressive how much the crew can get out of such simple environments. The cinematography, art direction, sound, and general atmosphere all bring an artful edge to an otherwise minor production. Diary looks and feels like quality stuff, and Oxide Pang's direction goes a long way in making that quality almost real. There's a tangible tension and expectation built-up by the direction and the performances -- but the film unfortunately falters when it can't deliver anything beyond the obvious. Basically, everything that occurs demonstrates that Winnie is, indeed, quite disturbed, which we basically discovered only ten minutes into the film. The final twist takes us beyond her psychosis and into the realm of Sixth Sense-type audience manipulation, but the twist is pointless because it has absolutely no narrative impact, and could even be seen as pandering to the ultra-demanding Twins fanbase, who may not enjoy watching their idols in such dark and disturbing cinema. Those that do enjoy such twisted stuff may be happy with what Diary delivers -- that is, until the Pangs deliver their egregious screen credits midway through the film. Once "Directed by Oxide Pang" finally flashes on the screen, it's all downhill. (Kozo 2006)
Previously featured movies:
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard Director: M. Night Shyamalan (The Village, The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable Though set in a dingy apartment complex outside of Philadelphia, this is a fairy tale. As the movie begins, we are told with simple line drawings of a time in which another race of beings called the Narf were in contact with humans. But then humans became greedy and wanted to own the land and the Narf could not communicate with them any more. Heed (Gimatti) discovers something, someone swimming in the pool at night. It is a narf (Bryce Dallas Howard from Shyamalan's The Village). She has been called from her world to deliver a message to someone in the complex who is trying to write something. Her name is....Story. Heed asks around to figure out which resident is in need of the message. It turns out there are several writers on the premises, including a book and film critic named Farber, perhaps named for legendary critic Manny Farber (Bob Balaban). But the Writer sought by Story because his writing will change the world is....none other than our very own story-teller, writer-director Shyamalan as Vick Ran, who has been stuck in the middle of writing a book about his ideas. Does Story have a message for Vick? A story to tell him? No, it turns out one look from her is like a mega-dose of Ritalin; all of a sudden he is completely clear and focused and bangs that sucker out in a few hours. The rest of the film is about getting Story back home. All Heed has to do is persuade one of the residents, a Korean woman, to tell him the bedtime story she heard from her mother, which has all of the details about every obstacle the Narf will face and every kind of help that is available to her. The disparate residents of the complex may have been drawn there because they have exactly the talents she needs, but how to know who has what? Fortunately, no one wastes any time doubting Heed's story. Unfortunately, instead they waste their time trying to sell this flimsy, self-serving mush. Shyamalan promised that there would be no surprise twist ending this time. He is right. Although there are some good spooky moments and some surprisingly comic ones, you can tell where this one is going right from the start. But he is also wrong. The surprise twist is how far this is from what we know he can do. Shyamalan is a truly great story-teller. This is just a truly empty story.
Asaka Seto freaks out in Black Night Black Night If it worked once, then they'll try it again -- even if they're not the same guys who did it the first time. Black Night is a PanAsian production that falls in the very obvious footsteps of Three and Three...Extremes; the film consists of three separate horror tales helmed by three directors from three different Asian territories. The main difference is that the featured directors are less accomplished. There are no Fruit Chans, Peter Chans, Park Chan-Wooks or Takashi Miikes here. The three directors of Black Night have done some decent work before, but you'd be forgiven if you said "Who?" after hearing their names at your local cinephile wine and cheese gathering. Still, filmmaker fame should not be the primary deterrent when selecting a film for your viewing pleasure. Film quality, on the other hand, should get top consideration. That's where the problems for Black Night begin. Director Patrick Leung (Task Force, Born Wild) starts things off with "Next Door", a fairly simplistic tale about one guy, two girls, a pair of handcuffs, and a pissed off ghost kid. Young rocker June (Annie Liu of Ah Soh) arrives back in HK after an extended leave to find her estranged boyfriend Joe (Taiwanese TV star Dylan Guo) involved with her next door neighbor Hosie (Race Wong). But something ain't quite right with Hosie. She's always dripping wet and belches water at the drop of a hat. Plus there's a naughty ghost kid hanging around, who likes to leave marbles in unfortunate locations, i.e. someone could slip on one and end up hurting themselves pretty damn bad. The result of these seemingly disconnected elements? Bad karma, and plenty of it. "Next Door" is probably the best made of the three shorts, sporting excellent cinematography and production design, and a workable if not too-novel story. The big problem with "Next Door" is it does very little to unnerve besides a couple of shock scares, most of them involving a white-faced kid or Race Wong looking like she's about to catch pneumonia. The characters themselves are hardly worth caring about, as they're either possessive, duplicitous, or dead and seeking revenge -- none of which are particularly sympathetic traits. The story has a few decent hooks, and the leads are certainly nice to look at it, but there's not much more beyond that. "Next Door" is okay for time-killing, but it's not scary and ultimately very forgettable. Takahiko Akiyama's "Dark Hole" does "Next Door" one better. Besides having low scare factor and being very forgettable, "Dark Hole" is also astoundingly pointless. Asaka Seto (Bullets of Love) stars as Yuki, an aquarium employee who starts seeing a raincoat-wearing ghostly kid hanging around pointing at her. She also sees visions of her dead mom and ex-boyfriend, both of whom died rather suspiciously. Her current boyfriend (Takashi Kashiwabara) wants to help, but her analyst Dr. Kawai (Tomorowo Taguchi, in possibly the year's most boring performance) uses the power of psychobabble to explain that there may be more going on with Yuki than chronic jumpiness. Dr. Kawai posits that Yuki herself may be capable of rather dark deeds, but Yuki believes it may be something else. Who's right about the string of murders surrounding Yuki? Director Akiyama reveals the answer in the most uninteresting way possible: through exposition. Dr. Kawai lays out everything via dialogue, with the only nonverbal revelation being that he's totally wrong about his diagnosis. The mystery of "Dark Hole" is screamingly obvious, and there is little suspense in the short's climax. Akiyama's use of dissolves, double-exposures, and jerky moving camera screams cheesiness, and the film's washed-out look makes it seem like crappy TV fodder from the seventies. Asaka Seto's character is shrill and downright insipid, and the male characters aren't much better in that they basically are begging to be offed. When the final shock cut happens, the horror that occurs may be the realization that "Next Door" is award-worthy when compared to "Dark Hole". Yawning may also occur during the first half of the "The Lost Memory". Directed by Thanit Jitnukul (Bang Rajan), "The Lost Memory" tells the tale of a broken family that's about to get a lot more broken. Prang (Pichanart Sakakam) lost a portion of her memory after a terrible car accident, such that she can't remember why she's estranged from husband Wit (Kajonsak Ratananisai) and old female friend Praew (Nutsha Bootsri). She now lives alone with her son (Athipan Chantapichai), but the freak out begins when she starts getting paranoid. First she imagines that kidnappers are after her son, and then she imagines a dripping wet and green-skinned version of Praew hanging out in her family room. Prang seeks out the root of her problems and discovers that maybe the problem is a little closer to home, e.g. maybe it's living in her home. Or maybe she's just paranoid. "The Lost Memory" features one decent reveal, but after that it's all downhill. Director Jitnukul attempts mystery with his horror short, but the mystery is mainly created by a disjointed narrative and images that only make sense after you've seen the whole film. There's some decent emotion in "The Lost Memory", and the themes presented certainly matter a lot more than those in the previous shorts. But they don't matter enough to make what happens more terrifying. In the end, bad things happen, and the likely reaction is, "Woohoo! I never liked any of those people anyway!" "The Lost Memory" is better than "Dark Hole", but that's like saying Steven Seagal is a better actor than Jean-Claude Van Damme. Basically, you're probably right, but nobody really cares. In the end, the most intriguing thing about Black Night is that all three shorts have something to do with water. People die near water, in water (e.g. during rainstorms), or because of things in water. Furthermore, ghosts leave behind water, and people work near water. Occasionally, they even spit water. Maybe they should have called this film Black Water. But they didn't, and the consequence of that is...absolutely nothing! Seeing as how Asian horror is a crowded playing field, Black Night should probably be bumped from your viewing list in favor of actual good motion pictures. Or you could A-B repeat Leon Lai getting hit by a car in Three: Going Home for ninety-eight minutes instead. It would be time better spent. (Kozo 2006)
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