Review: ‘Bangkok’ disappoints, ‘Bottle Shock’ quietly shines

Directed by: Danny and Oxide Pang

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Charlie Young, Panward Hemmanee, Nirattisai Kaljareuk

Rated: R

There’s a new delivery system in the world of movies, one that, when the kinks are worked out, will give benefits to the viewer as well as the studios.

The format is called Digital Cinema Projection, and the first thing the viewer will notice is there are no scratches or dirt or splices in the film print. That’s because there’s no 35mm film involved. The movie is delivered to a theater either by a high-speed computer linkup or sent on a hard drive and loaded into the system. Since films cost about $1,200 a print and a fair amount to ship, this will save the film studios a lot of money. According to industry analyst Screen Digest, studios currently spend nearly $1.4 billion a year to print and distribute films worldwide.

Wehrenberg Campbell 16 Cine recently acquired one of the digital units. While there were some problems at the first showing (not the theater’s fault but the movie company’s), it’s an interesting format, and as costs for the units come down, it will surely become the norm.

That doesn’t mean the quality of movies’ content will go up. This is evidenced by “Bangkok Dangerous,” the Pang brothers’ remake of their 1999 Thai action film of the same name. It was the first digitally projected movie shown at Campbell 16.

Nicolas Cage, with furrowed brow and lethargic demeanor, plays an American assassin-for-hire known only as Joe. Joe has four rules for his work: Don’t ask questions; have no interest in anyone outside work; erase every trace; and know when to get out.

With No. 4 in mind, Joe has decided to take just a few more assignments, all in Bangkok.

When he arrives, he hires a flunky/man Friday named Kong, who wants to learn the assassin-for-hire game.

Joe also falls in love with a deaf-mute librarian. And he learns that Thai food is spicy. That’s an excruciatingly long scene that’s supposed to be humorous.

Joe and Kong take care of the first three assignments, but when they learn of the final hit, a moral dilemma develops. This leads to getting on the wrong side of the people who hired Joe.

At about the third act, the digital media loaded into the projector failed. The movie company told the folks at Wehrenberg there were some problems with several of the drives filled with “Bangkok Dangerous” and would replace it. The projectionist had loaded the projector and watched the movie the night before with no problems.

So, I don’t know how it ends. But really, there are artistic problems the producers need to worry about that are worse than the technical ones when it comes to movies like “Bangkok Dangerous.”

“Bottle Shock”

Directed by: Randall Miller

Starring: Bill Pullman, Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, Freddy Rodriguez, Rachael Taylor, Dennis Farina

Rated: PG-13

Fans of “Sideways” and wine aficionados will surely like “Bottle Shock.”

Based on a true story, it tells the tale of Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman), a wine purveyor living in Paris in 1976 who has the idea to hold a blind taste test, putting French wines head to head (or glass to glass) against the finest wine offered from Napa Valley, which was not taken seriously in wine circles at the time.

To that end, he travels to Napa to select entrants for the contest.

Here we meet Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) and his son Bo (Chris Pine), who run a struggling winery called Chateau Montelena. Also on hand is a friend of Bo’s, Gustavo, an employee of Montelena, and a pretty young intern named Sam.

Spurrier visits Chateau Montelena and wants to take a few bottles of their best Chardonnay, as well as wines from several other wineries in the valley for consideration in his taste test.

Tragedy strikes when the entire batch of the Chardonnay is found to be brown in color. Jim assumes all is lost and decides to give up and go back to his old law firm. But then fate takes a hand.

Spurrier and Gustavo (he went on to open his own winery) are real people, and the contest did actually take place in 1976, putting Napa and its wine on the vintage map.

While not as good as “Sideways,” “Bottle Shock” is a quietly enjoyable little film.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.