James and I enjoyed the new Bond flick "Casino Royale" the other day. Up 'till now I haven't liked most James Bond films. The bad guys are just too unreal, with their megalomanic plans to take over the world, and Bond is too slick. Daniel Craig in "Casino Royale" is more believable, and a decent actor, too. The plot is the usual thriller mixture of near impossible stunts and close escapes. Bond's love affair in the film is tender and amusing by turns and crucial to the story, not just a bit of sex.

I liked it.

Craig makes a splash as A hunk in trunks, but the beach scene only lasts a few seconds, alas.

Bond's swimmers are "Grigioperla" trunks from La Perla's Spring/Summer 2006 collection. They're overpriced and pretty ordinary, really. This is a case not where "clothes maketh the man" but the man definitely maketh the clothing.

I don't watch a lot of TV, but Inspector Rex is a regular weekly escape, as he always gets his man (or woman) "with canine cunning . . . and a ham roll". (Actually Extrawurst, apparently.) The Viennese setting is often interesting and Rex is always entertaining. But in seasons 4 to 7, he's in danger of losing star billing to good looking Gedeon Burkhard who plays Rex's human companion, Austrian homicide cop, Alexander Brandtner. One of Burkhard's ambitions is to play James Bond. He'd fit the job, methinks . . . imagine James Bond with an Austrian accent.

Brokeback Mountain, the movie, must be seen as an example of cinematic art, not a pro-gay (or anti-gay) polemic.

I read Annie Proulx's short story in the 1997 New Yorker original. (It's also in her collection of fourteeen short stories, Close range: Wyoming stories (Scribners, 2000).)

"Brokeback Mountain" is a spare story, economically written. It made me feel that the film story might be rather gloomy -- as it was in parts -- and I don't like gloomy movies. I was reluctant to see it. But I was completely convinced by its skill, beauty and economy as cinema, even while I felt dismay and frustration at the content of the story. The flat, dry, physical and spiritual emptiness of the plains towns and ranches where Jack and Ennis live with their families contrasts with the greenness and beauty of the mountainscape where they find each other's love.

One needs to separate the film's achievement as a work of fine film making from opinions of the morality or otherwise of the film's characters. Brokeback Mountain superbly portrays two men who are romantically and erotically attacted to each other (without once mentioning 'love') and their struggle to understand. But the film does not celebrate their adultery, unfaithfulness and lies. Rather, it shows the harm done and the social and emotional pressures that brought them to do these things in social circumstances oppressive of gay men.

I like Anthony Lane's review in the New Yorker (12 Dec 05).

The Advocate runs an interesting Associated Press interview with Annie Proulx about the short story and the film.

"I thought [the performances of Ledger and Gyllenhall] were magnificent, both of them. Jake Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist . . . wasn't the Jack Twist that I had in mind when I wrote this story. The Jack that I saw was jumpier, homely. But Gyllenhaal's sensitivity and subtleness in this role is just huge. The scenes he's in have a kind of quicksilver feel to them. Heath Ledger is just almost really beyond description as far as I'm concerned. He got inside the story more deeply than I did. All that thinking about the character of Ennis that was so hard for me to get, Ledger just was there. He did indeed move inside the skin of the character, not just in the shirt but inside the person. It was remarkable."

I've been reading reviews of
Lee Joon Ik's Korean movie hit Wangeui Namja ("The King and the Clown" ) in Bloomberg.com, Hancinema.net (the best written and most interesting), Korea Times, and Chosun Ilbo. With ticket sales of over 8 million, it is among Korea's most successful films.

Based on a play, Yi, the story takes place during the 16th century Joseon Dynasty. Jang-saeng (played by Kam Woo-seong right) is a clown in the Namsadang troupe who abandons his troupe after realizing that it had degenerated into a plaything for the aristocrats. With a fellow clown named Gong-gil (played by Lee Joon-ki), whom he loves deep in his heart, Jang-saeng leaves for Hanyang (now Seoul) for a new life. There he leads a show troupe and with his exceptional talent makes the troupe famous with a show that satirizes tyrannical King Yeonsan (played by Jeonng Jin-yeong left) and his favorite concubine, Nok-su (played by Kang Seong-yeon). The king likes with the performance and provides living quarters for the clowns in the palace. He soon starts to cast amorous glances at Gong-gil, however, which causes Nok-su to fall into a jealous rage and devise an evil plot.

The stills of Wangeui Namja look fabulous. Will we ever see it in Australia?

---

New York Times 31 March, 2006
Gay-Themed Film Gives Closet Door a Tug, by NORIMITSU ONISHI

SEOUL, South Korea - "King and the Clown" lacked a single top star from South Korea's booming film industry, or the other usual ingredients of a surefire blockbuster.

And in a country where homosexuality was removed from the Youth Protection Commission's list of "socially unacceptable" acts only in 2004, the film centered on a gay love triangle in a 16th-century royal court: a young male clown torn between his love for a fellow clown and an amorous king.

But to everyone's surprise, not least the director's, in mid-March the movie became the most popular ever in South Korea's history, seen by more than 12 million people, or one in four residents. In American terms, it would perhaps be the equivalent of "Brokeback Mountain" -- to which this movie has been loosely compared -- grossing as much as "Titanic."

As a cultural phenomenon, "King and the Clown" has led to sometimes confused, sometimes uncomfortable discussions here about the nature of homosexuality, something that was rarely discussed publicly until a few years ago.

At the core of the movie, which the producers hope to take to the United States, are two male clowns, a masculine one named Jang Saeng and a feminine, delicate-looking one named Gong Gil, who assumes the female part in skits. Itinerant performers who depend on handouts for their survival, they are condemned to death one day for a bawdy skit insulting Yonsan, a king remembered in Korean history for his tyranny. But after succeeding in making the king laugh, the clowns are pardoned and allowed to become court jesters.

The king becomes enamored of Gong Gil, and the ensuing relationship fuels Jang Saeng's jealousy. Physical displays of affection are subtle: the king kisses the sleeping clown in one brief scene; in another showing the two clowns sleeping next to each other, Jang Saeng gently tucks in his partner.

All tame perhaps, but many here consider the movie a taboo-breaker in its matter-of-fact portrayal of homosexuality. Popular culture had long ignored gays or, in more recent years, relegated them to caricatured roles.

"One or two films tried to describe gay relationships in a serious way, but were unsuccessful commercially," said Tcha Sung-Jai, one of the country's best-known producers and a professor of film at Dongkuk University. "That's why everyone in the industry was so surprised when 'King and the Clown' became a hit.

"I cried when I saw the movie," Mr. Tcha added, "and I'm a very strong heterosexual."

In addition to homosexuality, other previously taboo subjects, like human rights violations during South Korea's military rule and North Korea-related themes, have been broached recently in film. Movies have mirrored, and sometimes tried to stay abreast of, a South Korean society that has been socially and politically transformed in the last decade.

Until a decade ago, when a tiny gay rights movement was started by Korean-Americans on a few college campuses here, most Koreans had been completely unaware even of the existence of gays. Even though Seoul has long had two neighborhoods with small clusters of gay bars, Itaewon and Chongno, they remained hidden, and homosexuality went unmentioned.

Then, in 2000, the issue was tossed into the public area when a well-known television actor, Hong Suk Chon, became the first major figure to declare his homosexuality. Mr. Hong was immediately dropped from his show, and his career appeared over. But in 2003, in a sign of changing attitudes, the actor began a successful comeback.

"We feel that the last 10 years is the equivalent of a hundred years because so many changes occurred in such a short period," Oh Ga Ram, an official at the Korean Gay Men's Human Rights Group, said in an interview in the organization's office in Chongno.

No other public figure has come out of the closet, and most Korean gays remain hidden. But Mr. Oh said "King and the Clown" was a "positive step" because "there is a discourse now that did not exist before."

The discourse, though, was often confused, Mr. Oh said. Because the love triangle hinges on a feminine male clown, some viewers say the relationship is not a gay one at all. "In the minds of many Koreans now, 'pretty males' equal gay," he said.

The movie's title in Korean is more direct about the nature of the relationship: "The King's Man."

Still, its director, Lee Jun Ik, was hesitant to define his movie as a gay-themed one and played it down as breaking taboos.

"This is not homosexuality as defined by the West," Mr. Lee said in an interview. "It's very different from Brokeback Mountain. In that movie, homosexuality is fate, not a preference. Here, it's a practice."

Mr. Lee said he had been more interested in evoking the world of itinerant clowns, many of whom were involved in same-sex relationships.

One person the director consulted was Kim Gi Bok, 77, who is considered the last surviving itinerant clown. Mr. Kim was amused at the attention he had gotten because of the film.

"Before, we were treated as beggars, but now we are considered traditional artists," he said in an interview in Anseong, a town two hours north of Seoul, where a center to keep alive his craft was established.

Intense relationships developed among itinerant clowns, Mr. Kim said, because they worked in all-male troupes and traveled together all the time.

"It was also difficult to get a wife," he said. "We were beggars. Who would marry a beggar?"

As in the movie, a masculine clown and a feminine clown often became a couple. The masculine clown showed his love by buying his partner, called biri, a watch, Mr. Kim said.

"They would stay together all the time, sleeping in the same room, helping each other out," he said. "The biri would go into people's kitchens and even beg for food for both of them."

"Some of the biris were extremely beautiful - they had hair down to here," Mr. Kim said, pointing to his waist, as his eyes lit up at the memory. He added that some clowns who did manage to marry would sometimes leave their wives for fellow clowns.

Mr. Kim himself married and had one son. He said he, too, had biris during his life, though he said the relations had not been sexual.

"Relations between men were very sincere and genuine," Mr. Kim said. "It was an amazing, remarkable relationship, much closer than anything between a husband and wife."

All tame perhaps, but many here consider the movie a taboo-breaker in its matter-of-fact portrayal of homosexuality. Popular culture had long ignored gays or, in more recent years, relegated them to caricatured roles.

"One or two films tried to describe gay relationships in a serious way, but were unsuccessful commercially," said Tcha Sung-Jai, one of the country's best-known producers and a professor of film at Dongkuk University. "That's why everyone in the industry was so surprised when King and the Clown became a hit.

"I cried when I saw the movie," Mr. Tcha added, "and I'm a very strong heterosexual."

In addition to homosexuality, other previously taboo subjects, like human rights violations during South Korea's military rule and North Korea-related themes, have been broached recently in film. Movies have mirrored, and sometimes tried to stay abreast of, a South Korean society that has been socially and politically transformed in the last decade.

Until a decade ago, when a tiny gay rights movement was started by Korean-Americans on a few college campuses here, most Koreans had been completely unaware even of the existence of gays. Even though Seoul has long had two neighborhoods with small clusters of gay bars, Itaewon and Chongno, they remained hidden, and homosexuality went unmentioned.

Then, in 2000, the issue was tossed into the public area when a well-known television actor, Hong Suk Chon, became the first major figure to declare his homosexuality. Mr. Hong was immediately dropped from his show, and his career appeared over. But in 2003, in a sign of changing attitudes, the actor began a successful comeback.

"We feel that the last 10 years is the equivalent of a hundred years because so many changes occurred in such a short period," Oh Ga Ram, an official at the Korean Gay Men's Human Rights Group, said in an interview in the organization's office in Chongno.

No other public figure has come out of the closet, and most Korean gays remain hidden. But Mr. Oh said "King and the Clown" was a "positive step" because "there is a discourse now that did not exist before."

The discourse, though, was often confused, Mr. Oh said. Because the love triangle hinges on a feminine male clown, some viewers say the relationship is not a gay one at all. "In the minds of many Koreans now, 'pretty males' equal gay," he said.

The movie's title in Korean is more direct about the nature of the relationship: "The King's Man."

Still, its director, Lee Jun Ik, was hesitant to define his movie as a gay-themed one and played it down as breaking taboos.

"This is not homosexuality as defined by the West," Mr. Lee said in an interview. "It's very different from 'Brokeback Mountain.' In that movie, homosexuality is fate, not a preference. Here, it's a practice."

Mr. Lee said he had been more interested in evoking the world of itinerant clowns, many of whom were involved in same-sex relationships.

One person the director consulted was Kim Gi Bok, 77, who is considered the last surviving itinerant clown. Mr. Kim was amused at the attention he had gotten because of the film.

"Before, we were treated as beggars, but now we are considered traditional artists," he said in an interview in Anseong, a town two hours north of Seoul, where a center to keep alive his craft was established.

Intense relationships developed among itinerant clowns, Mr. Kim said, because they worked in all-male troupes and traveled together all the time.

"It was also difficult to get a wife," he said. "We were beggars. Who would marry a beggar?"

As in the movie, a masculine clown and a feminine clown often became a couple. The masculine clown showed his love by buying his partner, called biri, a watch, Mr. Kim said.

"They would stay together all the time, sleeping in the same room, helping each other out," he said. "The biri would go into people's kitchens and even beg for food for both of them."

"Some of the biris were extremely beautiful -- they had hair down to here," Mr. Kim said, pointing to his waist, as his eyes lit up at the memory. He added that some clowns who did manage to marry would sometimes leave their wives for fellow clowns.

Mr. Kim himself married and had one son. He said he, too, had biris during his life, though he said the relations had not been sexual.

"Relations between men were very sincere and genuine," Mr. Kim said. "It was an amazing, remarkable relationship, much closer than anything between a husband and wife."

Margaret Pomeranz of the ABS's At the Movies, reviewing Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, gives it four stars and says it's "It's a laugh out loud experience."

No it is isn't. The only time James and I laughed was at the end of the movie--because of the sheer ridiculousness of the thing. I'm still not sure whether it was very good or very, very bad.

"Robert Downey Jr, . . . is terrific as the film's hero and narrator." Well, yes, he was kinda cute.

I'm with AO Scott of the New York Times:

Shane Black's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is not an altogether bad movie. It's just a movie with no particular reason for existing, a flashy, trifling throwaway whose surface cleverness masks a self-infatuated credulity. . . .

As this shaggy-dog crime story hums along, you can almost convince yourself that something interesting is going on. And, in a way, something is, in that the film, as empty stylistic exercises sometimes do, offers its cast the chance to do some inspired, fast-paced riffing. [Robert Downey as Harry Lockhart and Val Kirmer as Perry van Shrike] engage in a lot of pixilated, hard-boiled banter, hurling one-liners, non sequiturs and riddles at each other with impressive speed and agility.

There are better ways to have spent 2 hours and $15 each.