Friday, November 24, 2006
Casino royale
Story
Casino Royale starts at the beginning, as James Bond (Craig) takes his first baby steps as a Double O agent. His first assignment is to track down a terrorist cell in Madagascar, but he's a bit of a loose cannon, and things quickly go awry. Bond's superior M is soon regretting giving the arrogant Bond the promotion. Nonetheless, Agent 007 takes it upon himself to follow a lead to the Bahamas and discovers that all nefarious dealings point to Le Chiffre, a nasty fellow who has money ties to terrorist organizations.
Le Chiffre is planning to raise money in a high-stakes poker game at the Le Casino Royale in Montenegro and Bond gets in to beat him at his own game. Along with a hefty bankroll, M also sends the beguiling accountant Vesper Lynd to keep Bond in check. They are skeptical of each other at first, but as the danger escalates, it becomes apparent there is a growing attraction and affection between them. Can these two crazy kids make it work immersed in the cutthroat world of international intrigue? Well, this is Bond after all and we know how he ends up.
DirectionCasino Royale, the first book in the Ian Fleming series, is basic Bond 101. Director Martin Campbell, who so successfully re-invented Bond with the introduction of Pierce Brosnan in 1995's, with the new Bond comes a new feel to the franchise.
Casino Royale is also rare in that it shows how Bond became THE James Bond, the one we've seen in countless movies over the years in the stylish tuxes, drinking the martinis, driving the Aston-Martins and bedding all the beautiful women. Casino Royale breathes new life into the franchise, and one can only hope they can keep up the good work without once again lapsing into the ridiculous.
FX's ReviewEven from the first few seconds of Casino Royale it's clear how things have changed. For a start it begins in black and white. There's Bond in the shadows, ready for the kill. It's moody film noir stuff, but an effective opening.
The new bond series attempts to deviate away from the age-old traditional Bond movies with all the far-fetched gadgets and over-the-top action sequences, leaving just good, clean action devoid of any fancy invisible cars, armored Russian tanks and the such.
Of course, there are action scenes aplenty in far-flung locations - Madagascar, Miami and Montenegro to name just three. The Bond girls are as stunning as ever.
Maybe the starkest change is Bond himself. Daniel Craig is undoubtedly the best-looking 007 yet with a well-built physique. At times he's like MI6's answer to The Terminator - crashing through walls and leaping from buildings with superhuman strength. During one scrape he pulls out a large nail that's embedded in his shoulder and tosses it nonchalantly aside.
But he bleeds too. Craig spends much of this film a bloodied and bruised mess. It really is hard to imagine any of the previous Bonds being quite this muscular and, well, bloody.
As for acting, Craig absolutely gets it. Whatever doubts people may have had when Craig was first announced as the new Bond are washed away in the first few minutes of the film.
This is a different Bond. The British actor plays him not as the icon we've come to know but as a flawed man, warts and all, who flies by the seat of his pants, isn't necessarily refined and yes, can even fall in love. The bad guy, Mikkelsen is quite effective as the main baddie, with a particularly gruesome physical malady.
There are several scenes that I liked about the show and several others that made me grimace. Firstly I really liked the wits! The mind games that Bond and Vesper Lynd on the train were addictive as they verbally tussled with each other and the tension at the poker table was like a dark atmosphere heavy with tension as Mikkelsen and Bond play high-stakes mind games with each other toying with tens of millions at stake on the table.
The first hour of the film is full-on action, including an exhilarating chase sequence across a building site where Bond chases a bomb-maker with full parkour scenes! Never-before seen in a Bond movie requiring Bond to use so much physical strength and agility. I doubt if Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery could carry out those parkour moves. The bad-guy had some cool tricks! Like jumping off a crane, kong-vaulting across a table, tic-tac-ing down a lift-shaft. Horizontal-crossing a door-opening, reminding us of scenes from “Banlieu 13” and “Yamakasi”.
It was one scene after another as Bond raced around the world in slick, uninterrupted sequences. That's the typical bond for you as he pits his wits against his brawn, from Madagascar, he gets the bomb-makers phone, leading him to a stylish resort, then to Miami and more.
Then it was a non-stop explosive episode at Miami airport where bond thwarts a bomb heist to blow up a new plane prototype. (That plot was rather lame), but it brought it to the casino scenes, which are genuinely tense, with plenty of incident both on and away from the poker table. Le Chiffre has more to lose than Bond. He's blown someone else's millions and he has to win them back.
The show takes a few twists and turns, but all in all, it was a rather shallow plot with predictable outcomes. You have multiple-multiple betrayals and twists where he finds out he was betrayed by fellow agent in Montenegro and then again by Vesper Lynd as she transfers the 150million into another account which then leads him to Venice and shooting of Mr White.
The Venice finale is not the film's strongest act. Amid the predictable mayhem it's Bond's love for Vesper that is the real focus. He lamely writes a resignation letter and says he loves Vesper lynd?! (What was with that?) Loose ends are not neatly tied up as he shoots “Mr White”, - mysteries remain - we are left wanting more.
The redemption of the movie would be the action sequences, the mind-games played, the deviation from traditional Bond-gadgetry and commendable acting by Craig. Plot was shallow and predictable, though protagonist character development was exceptional, the other actors failed to get enough airtime.
Casino Royale, the latest installment to the 007 series. A worthy watch, 3.5 out of 5 stars.
FX
7:03 PM
Saturday, November 18, 2006
I spent today fixing the main computer, because it's starting to get really sluggish and it's time to do a format to restore the shared folder and printer functions. Headed to sls to get a new 160gb hdd, now the main server has got two 160gb hdds on RAID1. Full redundancy backup. It was main easier because the Abit KV8 mobo has a built-in RAID chip and both hdds are IDE.
Cleaned out all the dirt and dust from all the fans, installed another 120mm 0.16A fan to cool the hdds, now the hdds are at a cooler 34.9 degrees Celsius. Dual 120mm fans for the intakes and a 80mm + 120mm for exhaust. Now the system is up and running smoothly again.
Just when I thought it's all over, suddenly my other FXPC failed to boot due to a corruption. Is it my unlucky day or what? It's all because of one damn driver .sys file. A nvatabus.sys file couldn't be found, okay, so it seemed like a simple problem, go boot up in winxp recovery console, and copy the file from the driver cd-rom in dos into the C: drive.
Okay so I thought it was going to be that simple, but turned out, Ms-dos doesn't read NTFS. Which both drives are, to make things worst, they're 250gb sata in ntfs file format. So I am damn ‘suay', (unlucky). I tried a ms xp recovery installation but that gave me a drive cyclic error.
So now I am doing backup on a reinstalled non-sp2 winxp pro, hopefully I can get another working copy of a winxp pro sp2. That's 250gbs of data to backup. Sigh. Talk about Preventive Maintenance.
10:37 AM
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Today marks the last day in 65/06 Air-force Service Term AFST. Today was our senior bar presentation, we're now being promoted from a junior cadet to a senior cadet (3bars) and will be holding this rank for a long time all the way to commissioning. But now as we put on our new epaulettes it has been very fast. In a blink of an eye, 7 more weeks in ocs has passed. The future ahead is pretty much decided in terms of weeks.
As of next week, we'll be going to spend 27 weeks at Air-Force School (AFS) at Paya Lebar Airbase. The first 6 weeks being Basic phase, then followed by 21 weeks of weapons phase, which will make out our pro-term at OCS. Then we'll be returning to OCS for the last 2 weeks of parade rehearsals before the actual commissioning. That'll be my 9 months of training in OCS as an OCT.
We had our Senior Bar presentation Parade in the morning, overseen by Major Loh, covering Deputy Comd Air. Then as everyone got over the jubilation of being a senior cadet with 3 bars on their shoulders, we prepared for area-cleaning, inspection and de-kiting, it's like we'll be leaving this place for good, not knowing when we will be returning, if we ever return here at all.
After that, we headed home to unpack and wash-up and it was time for our End-Of-Course-Dinner with dearie at Pan Pacific Hotel.
The dinner was great! 8-course dinner at pan pacific with everyone dressed for the occasion. =) We even had lucky draws and I got a toaster oven.. hmm, am I lucky or what? Prize presentation, as expected Zhi Jian got Best Trainee, Tat Chong got Best knowledge and there were sports trophies presented as well.
Well, it was a great night and a day to remember. The End of AFST 65/06 and the start of OCS Pro-Term next week.
10:16 AM
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Saturday, today is our Live-Range P226 pistol shoot. I scored 40/50. Two guys got perfect. Damn, a few shots were wasted and I were damn sure some went right through the target! But still it was fun. Then we booked out late at 3pm (only for those who scored above 70 for EXAM2) and the rest had to book out late for fatigue work.
After that, I met up with dearie, and we went to town to watch THE COVENANT.
THE COVENANT
It's a supernatural thriller about descendants of powerful New England families. The sons of Ipswich are legendary at Spenser Academy, the local boarding school. Handsome and popular, these four teenage friends can trace their roots to the founding families of the Ipswich Colony, settled in the late 1600s. For years these Massachusetts families have harbored the secret that they possess supernatural powers. Their descendants--Caleb (Steven Strait), Reid (Toby Hemingway), Tyler (Chace Crawford), and Pogue (Taylor Kitsch)--have inherited magical powers that first manifested themselves when the boys turned 13 years old. In a nutshell, they can do anything. As they approach their 18th birthdays, they are preparing to "ascend," which means their powers will grow stronger. The downside? The magic is seductive and addictive, and causes premature aging with each use.
Ringleader Caleb tries to keep his friends from using magic recklessly, but as the school year begins, strange events and a strong gut instinct convince Caleb that someone is using very powerful magic. Meanwhile, Caleb is exploring his newfound affection for transfer student Sarah (Laura Ramsey). To Caleb’s dismay, Sarah becomes a pawn in a power struggle with a descendant of the fifth founding family of Ipswich, a line thought to be lost during Salem’s witch trials. Is Caleb strong enough to maintain his power and keep his family and friends safe, or will he yield to this new threat and sacrifice himself? The film draws interesting parallels between the luring, addictive power of magic and the addictions real teenagers face. The sufficiently creepy setting echoes New England and sets the stage for supernatural phenomena.
Great show with great special effects, 3.5/5.
10:13 AM
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Whew, it's been a long time, but the past two weeks have been really hectic and I did'nt get the chance to update. But here's a quick snippet of what's been happening though details have been elaborated in my paper SAF diary. On the 4th of November is Hiddah's Hari Raya Open House, but I couldn't make it because of my guard duty.
We were both disappointed, but it couldn't been avoided. Then the following Monday, 6/11/2006 was EXAM2. Our last and final exam in Airforce Service Term 65/06. I did okay, I was one of the few who got above 70. =)
Then the next few days were spent feverishly working on the Military tech presentation slides. Wednesday 8/11/2006 was our final AFST IPPT Test. I've improved my pull-ups, being able to pull 16 pull-ups now.
We had a SIG SAUER P226 Pistol Technical Handling Test. I breezed through it. It was fun! So far because of my NPCC background, I've always preferred handguns compared to big rifles. I am more comfortable with a pistol. And the SIG SAUER is a good reliable pistol with 15 rounds magazine capacity. It’s fun playing with a new weapon after handling the m-16, Taurus revolver, Smith & Wesson .22 and .38 caliber revolvers, the SAR21, the Ultimax100 SAW, m203 grenade launcher and GPMG.
The following night we were given the luxury of a nights off, and I caught STEP UP with dearie.
STEP UP
Fans of DIRTY DANCING and FAME will dig the moves in this tale of a sullen young thug named Tyler (Channing Tatum) who winds up doing community service at the Baltimore High School for the Performing Arts. At first he's just smirking and mopping the floors, but then Nora (Jenna Dewan), a talented dancer and choreographer, loses her partner to a fractured ankle mere weeks before the big showcase, and Tyler steps in as her partner. At first he doesn't take it too seriously but then again, he's never had a real chance in life. His best friend from the street (Damaine Radcliff) gets jealous and forces Tyler to decide which side of the tracks he thinks he belongs on. Meanwhile, romance heats up between Tyler and Nora, and there's some side business with the school's hip-hop composer (Mario) falling in love with Nora's hot friend Lucy (Drew Sidora), who is going out with an older man--a successful artist who cheats on her.
The movie rocked, I give it a 4/5. We enjoyed it tremendously. After that we had to book in back before 10pm.
10:10 AM
