Review of Wonderland (1999) by Nickels K — 17 Dec 2006

[font=Franklin Gothic Medium][size=3]My 10th entry is here folks. 10 weeks or so of pure fun right guys?

When I was about to watch Wonderland I thought it was gonna be more about John Holmes's life after his adult film career, so I went in expecting Auto Focus, and what I got was Pulp Fiction meets Rashomon. It's the story of the drug related Wonderland murders as told by flashbacks and what could be real or fake testomonies from the people surrounding the case. Val Kilmer plays John Holmes, the legendary porn star who turned into a major coke head, and got mixed up with wrong people. I surpirsed to randomly see Lisa Kudrow in such dramatic role as the seperated wife of John Holmes, which she was great at. The rest of the actors were also great. The editing and camerawork is suberbly done, as is the writing. Overall it's a pretty good flick you should check out.

Now on to Casino Royale, which is the latest bond film, starring the new Bond Daniel Craig. Craig's good so don't worry bout that. From the black and white beginning you know your in for a new experience with this franchise. This one goes boldy where no Bond has ever gone before, actually being a decent film. This is really a thriller that actually keeps you on the edge of your seat because you have no clue what is coming next. The surprises are actually surprising, like I was surprised at some of the surprises they did. And the action is actually really tense and surprisingly violent which I think is very good for the pg/pg-13 franchise. Eva Green is the "Bond Girl" this time around which is both good and slightly ironic cause the last film I saw here in was the NC-17 Bertolucci film "The Dreamers" which she played Bertolucci's trademark "virgin intellectual" character, and she's stunning as Vespar Lynd in this film. Pretty much everything is vamped up in this film: the emotion, action, surprises, plot, hell even the opening credits are way more interesting than pervious Bond films. Another thing I like about it is that it's smart too, it can't be turned into a video game like the others. It's even smart about cliches, it sometimes uses cliches to trick you. And with being smart comes a lot more dramtic scenes, that arn't about the plot, but the characters (For instance a scene where Eva Green and Daniel Craig sit in the shower after Bond kills somebody in front of her). All you really should know about the plot is that it is the beginnings of Bond, and you learn a lot about his backstory, and why he turns out to be... well Bond. That being said the next Bond movie isn't gonna be as good as this one. Why? Because you can only begin once, so the next Bond is gonna just be another mission and the surprises won't be that important, because it just about the mission. Check this film out even if you think your too mature of a filmgoer (as I did) to see it, I know it's oscar season, but it's a shitty one so check out a good film that won't win shit (Even though Paul Haggis of Crash fame was part of the writing pool for this film).[/size][/font].