Clear the thoughts
Calm the mind
Relax the body
Abide in breath and sound

That's what I've been telling myself finally to counter the onslaught of mental activity I've been experiencing during sitting. Let's see how long it works. The conscious train of random thoughts streaming through my mind is bad enough, but I've noticed in the past couple weeks that even in the few seconds when I have been able to dampen them, there's a whole background of "unconscious" chatter filling the void in my brain.

It's not unconscious in the psychological sense, since I wouldn't know about it if that were the case. But it's just always there in the background, under the background, it's just that I haven't noticed it. Or something's been amplifying it and bringing it to a level that I'm aware of it. It's disjunct "stuff"; niggling, indistinct remnants of partial thoughts, concepts and ideas still floating around and filling the space. With my tendency towards spiritual-cosmological tie-ins, it's like my brain's equivalent to the cosmic microwave background radiation that pervades the universe and is the earliest point in time scientists can identify going back to the Big Bang. It's something that's always there, humming away.

Also curious about this recent unusually distracted period of morning sitting is that it comes right after that brief triumphant revelation of successfully maintaining that "still point" for an extended period of time and finding it was something. It's felt like a backlash, like one step forward, two steps back, but in light years. My brain is becoming mush, no doubt fueled by work frustrations, alcoholism, no social life and insomnia, which has actually gotten a lot better in the past few days.

Speaking of cosmological tie-ins and cosmic microwave background radiation – I did mention that my brain is mush, right? – well, it also occurred to me recently what the Buddha did in expounding his dharma. Before his insight, his teachings weren't available to the general populace. They're not accepted by the general global populace now, but at least they're available now. It occurs to me how huge that is. The Buddha made a commitment to find "answers", and he did. Not everyone's answers, but for a certain class of seekers. His teachings are Universal, just . . . not for everyone. 

What the Buddha did was create a path of teachings that takes a practitioner to the threshold, the doorstep, the edge, the cosmic microwave background radiation of enlightenment. It's the fast track. Crossing that threshold is up to the practitioner. He definitely made it easier, his teachings are eventually a very clear path for the few who are "ready" for it (not to be condescending to other paths, also not to say that not many people are on the path in their multitudiness ways). Still, getting to the threshold is hard, crossing the threshold is even harder.

I've been loop-reading the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead for years now. By now, I've probably read this book more times than any other book, not that I recommend it to anyone who isn't ready for it. I actually constantly re-read a lot of books on Buddhism that I've noted enough to own. Most recently, I found the Burton Watson translation of the Lotus Sutra on my cousin's bookshelf and she let me take it. I have the Bunno Kato translation, but I think the Burton Watson translation may be better. It is a grand fictionalization of what I think was a non-fiction event – the Buddha's last great sermon on "Eagle Peak" in India. The basic ideas are what he preached, but the actual form of the Lotus Sutra, I think, was later embellishment by zealous followers who wanted to make the sermon more impressive to teach to living beings.

Anyway, all these different teachings, all these different books are the many paths up a mountain peak, or to the cosmic microwave background radiation. The more they converge at the peak, the more you realize how there is only one teaching, a singularity, at the peak, and that all the teachings are talking about the same thing. And if enlightenment was a black hole swirling at the peak, there's no guarantee a practitioner can cross the event horizon once the peak is approached.

Diary of an insomniac

I was hoping the insomnia was gone. Since grappling with it two weeks ago in Kaohsiung, I think I've actually been getting enough sleep in hours, but I haven't been getting enough rest. Waking up and being able to go back to sleep may have been counting towards hours, but not rest. I've been just clinging on by my fingernails to get enough sleep to function at work. Just enough to not quit. And I'm about to quit again for good.

I went down to Kaohsiung again this past weekend. I got my Taiwanese citizenship. And my sleep got disturbed again. It's 8 in the morning now after sleeping from 5 to 6:20. Yesterday I got a full sleep, but then slept all through the afternoon, went to work the part time shift, which starts later, and I was a complete zombie. I think I was even near hostile at some points. I don't remember much of it. Sleep, but no rest. But I'm a Taiwanese citizen now.

I'm sick of the bullshit at the job. It's not a matter of just being satisfied with what I've got, just being happy, which I can do. I'll jump ship if any other opportunity comes up. I wasn't hostile in any way that other people would call hostile. I felt I was hostile, but I think "direct" is a more objective way to describe it.

Something's definitely wrong. Something definitely has to be wrong. If something's not wrong, what the hell is going on? How can I be abusing my life in this way without something seriously wrong? At this point, I just want to make it to my U.S. trip and wrap things up over there. Dropping dead at any point is just fine with me.

Kaohsiung:

FRIDAY, MAY 22 - Actually undated and unlocated, but confidently extrapolated. Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera. Kodak BW400CN.

SATURDAY, MAY 23

World Games stadium.

2:52 p.m. - World Games stadium.

4:01 p.m. - Dali shopping center.

4:58 p.m. - Park Road.

Star Trek (2009, USA)

Dude, wow. How I hated to relegate my commentary on "Ip Man" to the second spot below, but dude, wow.

Background/bias: I grew up on "Star Trek", the original series. As a kid I asked my dad (I think, I don't remember ever asking my dad anything but it must have been the case) to record midnight reruns of "Star Trek". I even credit Star Trek for the early development of my awareness of using art to comment on social and political issues. If you watch the original series you can often find a message relevant to the times in the episodes.

I was a snob, so I dismissed initial episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" with disdain. It was a family drama set in space and unworthy of the Star Trek legacy. By my measure it wasn't until the 3rd season where TNG found its Star Trek soul and continued excellence to the end of the series run.

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" didn't do it for me, even though the later seasons got consistently rave reviews. Something about the space station not going anywhere – I want to move and boldly go where no one has gone before, I want to pee on the ceiling, not just sit at the mouth of a bloody, boring wormhole.

"Star Trek: Voyager" was up and down, hit and miss. It had worthy moments but I lost interest and from what I hear it kind of fizzled out in the end. I don't even remember the fate of Voyager even though I do remember asking someone.

I thought "Enterprise" had a lot of potential but TV programming is based on ratings, not integrity, so I thought "Enterprise" got cancelled before it was allowed to mature and develop. And yes, even if it was continued, the success of the series depends on the writing and who knows how that would have gone. It wasn't a sure thing and so it got cancelled.

"Star Trek" is a reboot of the original series. If it's a continuing movie series, it's doing my idea for a new Star Trek series, just in movie form. I agree with the glowing reviews that this is a great Star Trek movie, although I, we, may all be biased. Nostalgia got the better of me at times as my eyes glistened. Anyone familiar with the original series characters will have no problem relating to the reboot. Spock, played by Zachary Quinto is a bit more Skylar (from "Heroes") than Leonard Nimoy, but ultimately lives up to the part. He could've studied Leonard Nimoy's vocal inflections more closely, but that's just me. That could be said about the Kirk character, too, but this is a reboot, not a remake.

By no means is the movie anywhere near perfect and looks like there may be problems all over the place. I say "may be" because some percentage of those problems may actually be plausible given changes in the timeline. There's also a lot of sheer ridiculousness and "gimme a break" moments which is standard fare in action films now. The science is also really questionable. I know it's science fiction, but the Star Trek franchise is known for presenting pretty good science, so in that regard this film is a step away from the Star Trek "soul" I mentioned. It's one of several.

I think the main thing this film brings to the legacy of the original series is that it fleshes out the characters. After watching this film I realized how one-dimensional the characters were in the original series. They were presented and then they basically remained the same through the entire three season run. Of course that was the '60s and what was sophisticated on TV then is different from now. This film gives the characters depth, complexity and histories. Even the bridge characters who don't get in-depth past treatment, we're shown why they're there on the bridge of the Enterprise, the flagship of Starfleet – they are the best of the best. Where they were a bit campy caricature in the original series, they now kick ass in a pinch.

OK, maybe some spoilers now, so stop reading, skip to "Ip Man", good movie. I give "Star Trek" a fresh 8 out of 10 tomatoes.

I did read one review before I saw the movie because I had to for work. The review mentioned that 400 years of Star Trek history gets wiped out and I thought that was snarky hyperbole on some oversight on the part of the writers. It's not hyperbole. This movie wipes out 400 years of parts of Star Trek history. There are episodes in the original TV series that are now impossible. This movie does something radical to the Star Trek legacy! It creates a new timeline! And we find out the fate of Spock in the old timeline! Is that how Spock really ends up? Fascinating. But I guess we had the same reaction when we found out how Kirk ends up in the first TNG movie.



Ip Man (2008, Hong Kong)

This film is about the legendary martial arts Wing Chun master, Ip Man; perhaps more legendary due to one of his legendary disciples, Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee is so overshadowing in popular martial arts media that most people unfamiliar with martial arts (and even those who are) don't know who Ip Man was or the facts regarding his legend. It's hard to know what is fact and what is fiction, except that if he taught one of the most renowned martial artists of all time, he had to have been pretty darn good. This portrayal of Ip Man elevates the man to legendary status, depicting him as an unbeatable Zen-like god of martial arts, who has not only flawless and effortless martial arts, but is a paragon of character and moral judgment.

This is a simple, straight-forward martial arts film, but focusing on its strength – martial arts – it's a great martial arts film. It fictionalizes the details of Ip Man's life as he lives in his legend, defeats challengers and bullies without breaking a sweat, and then endures the humiliation and brutality of the Japanese menace during World War II, and, of course, survives.

It's not a perfect film. The Ip Man character is too one-dimensional, and the effort to complicate issues with the nagging, henpecking wife and petulant child contradicts the efforts to portray The Legend. It's an easy, simple, straight-forward martial arts film, but as such, it's definitely not bad. Donnie Yen in the title character is fantastic, even though I'm biased against Donnie Yen because he kinda looks funny and his name doesn't exactly command respect (think Osmond). Still, in the various Donnie Yen films I've seen, he is more than a worthy martial arts action film star, up with the best. Sammo Hung's action direction is also up to his best work.

I continue to find Asian portrayals of wartime Japan interesting. No one connotes modern Germany with Nazi Germany, but the Imperial Japanese military just can't shake its bad image which is even projected onto modern Japan. You hate the Japanese military from these portrayals, but somehow you get the sense that they're still commenting about Japan today. No doubt a large part of this is the continuance of the Japanese political establishment of honoring Japan's war dead at the Yasukuni shrine and the constant effort at revising history by justifying Japanese aggression and denying the "comfort women" war crime, which I also find to be a continuing source of disgust and outrage.

Germany has owned up to its Nazi past, decried it and has moved on. It's a crime in Germany to make displays of Nazi support. Until Japan has done the equivalent – and making world contributions in cuteness doesn't count – its military past will continue to be battered by Asian cinema. And the more cinema is created bashing Japan's military past, the more it will be documented for as long as film lasts.

8 out of 10 tomatoes.

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I don't know why I splurged on the iPod Shuffle after weeks of admiring it in the store counter. Something just snapped. But I can't tell you how cute the iPod Shuffle is. It's not perfect, it's not for everyone, so people criticizing it can just say it's not the kind of player that meets their needs and shut up. The voiceover feature is cool and cute, but not perfect. The sound clarity isn't great. 764-HERO is announced as "seven hundred and sixty-four hero" and I don't even want to guess what it was trying to say for Aereogramme. But how would it know? The Mandarin is good as far as I can tell.

I went on my second run and I need a new pair of running shoes. I got the ones I have now because they were really light, but that means not enough padding. They're good for sprints. And I am going to get a new pair of running shoes. If I have the cash, I'm going to spend it. I can't possibly go on living much longer despite having passed my second health check to get my Taiwan ID card. I don't even care if I'm spending beyond my monthly means now that I'm working again. I just don't care. I can't possibly live much longer. Although I don't know why my life consists of these opposite self-destructive parts (drinking, negativity) and healthy parts (exercise, mindfulness).

I'm supposed to get my ID card on Friday. I'm taking the all-night bus to Kaohsiung again after work Thursday. Work is going to start seriously hurting due to lack of copy editors, and I'm not going to do a thing to fill in the void. And my three-week vacation starting in mid-June is non-negotiable. If the other guy gets stuck, it's not my problem. I consider him the senior copy editor, so he's got the responsibility.

I don't know why I'm still awake. I'm going to see the early show of "Star Trek" tomorrow, my day off. If insomnia wakes me up, I'll go to the early show. If I get a full sleep, I can't complain about that and I'll go to an afternoon show.

Does anyone remember my idea for a new Star Trek TV series several years ago? The idea was to start shooting new original series episodes with a new cast. The original series is so iconic, but it's dragged down by its campiness and antiquated technology. So the idea was to reinvent the series, updating the technology so it fits with the technological timeline of later series, and releasing the characters' association with those specific actors. The new movie is not quite that idea, but I'm glad something on those lines got picked up.

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I say Summer finally officially got here on Friday. That was one long Spring for Taipei. Electric fan has already come on and will be on all the live-long day in Summer months. Aircon has yet to come on. I'm actually very tolerant of heat and I don't like the feel of air conditioning. Well, when it's really hot, cool air obviously feels really nice, but I don't like the "artificial" feel to air conditioning. I like natural air. And the electricity consumption doesn't feel good and I don't even directly pay for electricity.

Cold showers. Taipei is pretty cold in Winters, and until Summer hits cold showers are pretty unimaginable, but when Summer arrives cold showers are our best friend. No more long pants. I can't believe I wore long pants way into May this year. One thing to love about Taiwan is that it has embraced capris for men (called 3/4 pants), which makes so much more sense than friggin' Thailand where they insanely insist on wearing long pants even in Summer heat, and it's even hotter there. After two days I still haven't packed away my comforter, but I suppose that will happen pretty soon if it becomes certain that Summer is here. I've been sleeping on top of my covers for most part.

And, of course, lighter Summer shirts.

And lighter iPods.

I bought a 3rd gen. iPod Shuffle today. I know. Decadent. Maybe I was rewarding myself for two nights of what I nominally consider full nights of sleep. Yay me. Or not. I'm not sure I'm in the clear with the insomnia but the last two nights were promising. At best.

The Shuffle rules, though. It's nice to have my entire music collection on my 80GB iPod, but the way I listen to music I only need the Shuffle from day to day. The size is perfect because with carrying a bunch of cameras around, too, the 80GB can be cumbersome. And with over 13,000 songs in my collection and constantly adding more, the voiceover feature is nice to tell me what song is playing if I don't know it. It's really cute because I have Japanese songs in my collection and the voiceover announces them in a female voice. wtf? I'm curious to find what the voice is for Korean pop songs.

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Insomnia back this morning, but could've been worse. I got four hours of sleep and then another couple hours of fitful tossing and turning before getting up and sitting.

Sitting is the same, but I should emphasize that losing that still point is no failure. It's not something to strive for and definitely not something to try to force. In losing it, I just realize that I still have further cultivation to do, further mindfulness to cultivate; cut down the karma, the rampant mental stimulus which becomes habit and leads to rampant wandering thoughts and lack of focus and concentration, ie, still point.

It seems blogging is good for self-encouragement as I finally went to a drum practice room yesterday and practiced my index finger raw. This evening I finally went running which means I'll be walking around like macdaddy tomorrow.

Undated Taipei, Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera. Kodak BW400CN.

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After a couple nights of about 5 hours of sleep, last night I got a full night of normal sleep! I woke up to my alarm (for the first time in weeks) which failed to keep me awake, and after more than an hour of not being able to peel myself off my mattress (sleeping), I managed to get up and sit. The good thing about a night job is that there is a huge buffer of time before I have to be somewhere. The downside is that it's a whole bunch of time that gets wasted.

All winter I've been bemoaning not being able to get up in a spritely manner and being productive after my alarm goes off, usually around 11:00 a.m., but now I'm, like, bring it . . .zzzzz.

Diary of an insomniac

Yeehaw! I got at least 5 1/2 hours of sleep. I thought I got more, but then I remembered that it was getting light outside by the time I went to sleep so it was after 5:00 a.m. When I woke up I turned toward my clock expecting it to be 7:00 or 8:00, but it was just past 11:00 a.m. so that felt really good. Since then I've still been groggy and slow due to the accumulated sleep loss over the past week and weeks. Like I took in a roll of film to be developed and I set my bike outside the photo shop and I think, I don't remember, I didn't lock it because I would only be inside for a few minutes and I could see my bike at all times. I gave them my film, asked for no pictures and only a CD as I always do, paid, was told it would be ready at 7:00 p.m., and walked out.

I'm guessing that it was at this point that I was so out of it that I mindlessly locked my bike, just automatically doing the bike lock habit thing when I either get to my bike or leave it. I then put my backpack in the front basket, also habit, kicked up the kickstand and tried to move the bike only to find it locked. Puzzled and annoyed since I didn't think I locked it and don't remember locking it, I proceeded to unlock it and told myself to be more mindful. Then I took my backpack out of the front basket, started to wheel the bike backwards and . . . why the hell did I take the backpack out of the basket?

The weather has finally started heating up. I haven't been riding. Just not in the mood. I keep telling myself I'll go, though. Same with running. But I keep drinking, too. Come to think of it I've lost all motivation for music, too. After quitting the band I've been to a drum practice room exactly once. I've all but stopped carrying a shakuhachi around, which I attribute to sucky closures of certain parts of the riverside bikeways. Haven't touched my bass for months. I still sometimes pick up my guitar and warble a tune to myself. I think I'll have a drink.

I lost that 'clear point' in sitting that I mentioned before. That's a good thing really, because it shows that it wasn't just a fluke, something easy. It's not easy. And needs more work, but in touching it I know it's real. I need a new method, a new approach to it. I may have touched it but it was just a cursory glimpse, no real understanding of it. But since then my mind has been chattery and wander-y more than ever. It's a non-stop din, worse than before.

I've made plans to go back to the U.S. for 3 weeks starting in mid-June. It's a free ticket so I first go to Japan, then to San Francisco, and then to Newark. Coming back I go to Vancouver, Canada, then Incheon, Korea, then back to Taipei.

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Diary of an insomniac

Getting out of Taipei didn't help, and even in Kaohsiung insomnia reigned my nights. And talking about psychotic episodes, I found myself ravaging the kitchen in the wee hours looking for a corkscrew after I found several bottles of wine in a cabinet.

I was hoping to go to sleep early since I knew once I woke up to go back to Taipei, there wouldn't be any chance to wrangle much sleep before I had to go to work. At 1:40 a.m., I gave myself 20 minutes to get to sleep. At 2:00 I got up and studied an article of Chinese. I also found a can of beer in a drawer and stuck it in the freezer to cool it down. After 3:00, I gave myself another certain amount of time to fall asleep, and that didn't work so I got up and sat for 45 minutes and then started working on another article of Chinese and that put me past 5:00.

I also mercilessly killed at least 4 mosquitoes, which is my equivalent of going around stabbing people during a psychotic episode. Two of the killings were bloody. I must have gone through every single fucking drawer several times looking for a corkscrew. Why were there 3 bottles of wine without a single fucking corkscrew in the apartment (the wine was no doubt leftover from my cousin's wedding in January and otherwise there's no one to drink them, that's why)? So I snuck upstairs to my uncle's apartment in search of a corkscrew. This was after 5:00 in the morning and I noticed the elevator was on the 1st floor, so my uncle had already left to go swimming as he does every morning. I made my way around the kitchen drawers like a thief, but then I misestimated the length of a short drawer and it went crashing to the ground, so I gave up sneaking around and just turned on the fucking light. Luckily it didn't wake my aunt.

No luck. I ended up going out to a convenience store and buying a small flask of Jimmy Beam, and slugging that down in gulps finally put me out after 6 until about 10:30 when my uncle woke me for brunch, after which I was going back to Taipei by High Speed Rail at 12:06, arriving at 1:42. After getting home, I took a double shot of Dewars and slept dubiously for about an hour before I had to get ready for work. No incidents at work.

After work, my night was pretty much ordinary and I tried going to sleep at 4:30 a.m., only to wake up before 8:00. I lay in bed in a twilight daze for about another hour before I got up, sat for 45 minutes, gulped down a quarter bottle of gin and knocked myself out until just before 3:00 p.m. Less than 5 hours of alcohol-imposed sleep, I'm hoping that's enough to get me through work tonight.

The paper is running an article today about how in some northern latitudes, when there's constant sunlight during the summer months, there's a spike in violent suicides caused by insomnia.

Kaohsiung:

FRIDAY, MAY 8, 5:49 a.m. - Arrival in Kaohsiung by bus, too early for the KMRT so walking from the main station area to Formosa Blvd. Station to kill time.

5:57 a.m. - Even buildings leave impressions upon other buildings after they're gone.

5:58-6:02 a.m. - Formosa Blvd. Station.

4:22 p.m. - Along the Port of Kaohsiung where the old rail line has been converted to recreational paths.

4:34 p.m. - Shipping container art installations. Being located next to a port probably makes it easy to obtain discarded shipping containers.

4:41-4:42 p.m.

4:43 p.m. - Port of Kaohsiung

Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera. Kodak BW400CN.

SATURDAY, MAY 9

5:51 p.m. - World Games stadium from the KMRT station, but too late in the day to check it out. Earmarked for the next visit.

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Finding Shangri-La (2009, Taiwan)

This film is about a woman who is devastated by the death of her 6-year-old son and can't move on, and is still pursuing legal action against those responsible for his death even though they were acquitted in court (the legal aspects in this film are dubious and should be ignored). Her husband wants her to move on and their marriage has become strained (I'm reading a subtext of no sex for 2 years into it).

Her despair takes her from Taipei to a city in southwest China that was re-named "Shangri-La" last year to boost tourism (really, it was an actual news story the newspaper I work for covered). Hilarity ensues. Or not. If I recall correctly, the movie didn't get glowing reviews but it wasn't panned outright. I guess that's fair. I liked it but I can see how other people might be annoyed by it or think it trite.

It's not a stretch to guess that this movie is about finding peace, closure. It's not a Buddhist film although it has overt Buddhist elements and contains passing hints of Buddhist philosophy. The elements of karma in the film are of the pretty banal what-comes-around-goes-around type which is a patently incorrect reading of the concept. A Buddhist fable is referenced which portrays the Buddha as a supernatural being with powers to make things happen for truth and justice and the Buddhist way, but a legitimate teaching of the story should emphasize that everything's a matter of perception. The Buddha can't do anything transformative but only point the way to a path of transformation.

The director does put in an example of a Tibetan practice where you're always putting yourself in the place of other people in order to understand them and develop compassion for them. Everyone more or less does what they do for a reason. They may do something you don't like or annoys you or even harms you, but if you were in their shoes and with their background you might have done exactly the same thing. And without giving anything away, it's sort of the equivalent of a car crash that's witnessed by different people from different perspectives and they all have different accounts of who was at fault or what transpired.

I noted a film before for being a textbook for rolling out a classical narrative. Each character is introduced in due order with their roles plainly delineated. Events unfold logically and everything holds together very nicely. And I noted another film which deftly doled out information and cleverly back-referenced itself to good effect. This film is kind of the opposite. The narrative is disjunct and information is intentionally withheld and jarringly doled out. Back-referencing is rampant and one key flashback is cut up and spread out. I don't think it necessarily harms the film (the technique worked particularly well in 12 Monkeys), but it wasn't until the second viewing that many of the pieces came together and I could see what the filmmaker was doing. It just wasn't as clever or deep as the director may have been trying to be.

Still, the film captures emotions well. The plot suffers in more than one way and it depends on the individual if they can be forgiven or not. I noted but forgave them. There is a magical element in the film which I've seen before in other films with Tibetan Buddhism as a theme, but here it isn't clearly magical. There's a perfectly rational and psychological explanation. I thought that was curious and interesting having that option in interpretation.

I'm torn about how the people responsible for the son's death is handled. What a couple of bad eggs, but isn't forgiveness an essential point in Buddhism?

Fresh 7 out of 10 tomatoes.



Quantum of Solace (2008, UK)

There's really no point in reviewing a James Bond film unless its ridiculously sub-par like "Die Another Day". Otherwise a James Bond film is a James Bond film. Don't watch for plot or twists or plausibility. Watch for the cars, Bond girls, guns, shit blowing up, and the implausible but kinetic action. This film fits the bill well enough.

Bond goes up in a primitive propeller biplane and is attacked by an air force jet fighter, guess who wins. Bond is in a sputtering wood fishing boat against sleek muscle speedboats with mounted machine guns, guess who wins. That's hyperbole but you get my point.

I grew up on James Bond films so I'm one of the initiated. I even grew up on Roger Moore as James Bond so my bar was set pretty low.

Daniel Craig as James Bond is great. I like the gritty, hardened, no-nonsense tough-guy reboot of the character. He may even trump the other Bonds as a (perceived) legitimate secret service type, although I'm sure Sean Connery could pull it off, and probably better, too, if he were just starting in the role now. I think Sean Connery could have found a balance between the suave and the tough-guy, whereas Daniel Craig gets the tough and the cool down but not so much the likable (edit: Sean Connery's Bond in the first film, Dr. No, is a gritty, no-nonsense tough-guy).

This is a worthy James Bond film as long as you don't think too much, er, at all rather, about what's not making sense and what doesn't quite work or fit and just go along with the ride. Most James Bond films are episodic, meaning they have no relationship to one another, but this film has a direct link to the previous "Casino Royale". Having watched that quite a while ago and forgotten the details, there were elements in this film that I couldn't follow so a refresher viewing of that may be advised.

The action and pacing of the film is good, the good guys are OK, likable enough, although I would've liked the option of seeing one of them in future Bond films. I'm not so sure about the bad guys. The French bad guy was probably too easy. You make a bad guy French and it's almost a given that he's ridiculous and will be humiliated and gets no respect. And his dumb and dumber-looking henchman didn't help.

I have no problem recommending this film to James Bond or action film fans, although they probably wouldn't need my recommendation. As a film, it was watchable but not notable. As a James Bond film, I'll give it a fresh rating of 6 of 10 tomatoes.

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