Father Geek here in Texas with another springtime Hawaiian Film Fest report by our man on the scene Albert Lanier...

Danny Boyle's latest feature MILLIONS about two young boys who find a bagful of money and ONE MISSED CALL, the first out and out horror film directed by wonderfully bizarre Miike Takashi were screened to capacity crowds in Honolulu on Friday, April 1st, the official first night of the 2005 Hawaii International Film Festival Spring Showcase on Oahu.

The Spring Showcase-essentially a smaller scale film festival with a limited program of motion pictures on tap-technically began on Thursday, March 31st with the World Premiere of the lackluster low-budget sub thriller PHANTOM BELOW starring Adrian Paul, Catherine Dent and Matthew St. Patrick.

PHANTOM BELOW attracted a healthy sized crowd when it was shown at Downtown Honolulu's 1400 seat Hawaii Theater on Thursday night.

However, MILLIONS and ONE MISSED CALL-shown at 6;30 and 10 p.m. respectively-packed them in like sardines at two smaller 400 seat theaters at the Showcase's major venue- Regal Cinema owned Dole Cannery Stadium Theaters.

MILLIONS and ONE MISSED CALL were two of 4 opening night films shown on Friday, April 1st. The others ere Rebecca Miller's latest indie effort THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE, and THE WORLD, the latest drama from Chinese director Shi Je who's previous efforts include the acclaimed film PLATFORM.

I got to see MILLIONS, THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE and ONE MISSED CALL on opening night.

MILLIONS focuses on two young boys-the diminutive Damien and his older brother Anthony who are elementary-school age.

Damien and Anthony's mother has died and both boys make the move with their dad from the English urban streets of Liverpool to a suburban neighborhood moving into a modest home in what could hopefully be called a community (though the local policeman doubts it could be really called that).

Damien-to borrow the vernacular of the film THE SIXTH SENSE-sees dead people. Actually, they're Saints and Damien is absolutely besotted with Saints- he's a walking compendium of hagiography -as his imagination runs rampant and he "sees" Saints in his mind's eye and holds fruitful conversations with them. One such conversation takes place with a chain-smoking Saint in a sort of a tiny station built of cardboard boxes that Damien has erected close to the nearby train tracks (so that he can bounce along inside his "station" as a result of the reverberations caused by speeding trains. All of a sudden a large black duffel bag crashes onto Damien's cardboard conglomeration. The youngster pokes through to the surface and sees that the bag is stuffed with money-dozens of pound notes. Damien fetches Anthony-a pragmatic and as it turns out fiscally prudent lad-who is more than pleased with the sudden windfall of riches totaling up to over 229,000 pounds.

Damien sees the money as a miracle and a sign from God to do good by helping the poor. Anthony sees the cash as a sign that he should buy property and make sound investments that will result in mutually beneficial rates of return on the initial investments. However, there is a bit of a snag. The pound is scheduled to be phased out as official currency in favor of the Euro or the singular currency of the European Union in 12 days. There are also other explanations and developments in MILLIONS by I don't want to spoil the fun by giving spoiler tagged plot points away.

MILLIONS is a film imbued with great joy and happiness as well as a naive through extremely potent belief in the goodness inherent in human beings. Danny Boyle proves with MILLIONS that he is a first-rate director. Here he mixes heartwarming comedy and fantasy with a bit of cynicism and wry humor. Though Boyle is aided with a fine script by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Boyle and his fine cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle deserve the lion share of praise for making MILLIONS a visually arresting and compelling film. Take for example, Boyle and Mantle's use of overhead shots and wide establishing shots as well as panning and pulling back the camera at moments giving us a child's eye view of the suburban world that Damien lives in as well as sense of delight and discovery at talking to the imaginary Saints he "encounters".

Boyle also gets fine performances from his cast including Alexander Nathan Etel who plays Damien with such wide-eyed boyish wonder and enthusiasm and Lewis Owen McGibbon good here as the more grounded and rational Anthony.

MILLIONS is a terrific film that will put a smile on your face and a spring in your step-and coming from a confirmed cynic like me that's saying something.

I will review THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE separately but before I sign out, I did want to briefly give my take on the late night flick ONE MISSED CALL or CHAKUSHIN ARI which screened to a full house at 10 p.m.

CHAKUSHIN ARI story consists of calls to cell phone users consisting of screams and other shrieks of terror uttered at the precise day, hour and minute of their death which is usually a couple of days in advance in the future.

I missed the first half hour of ONE MISSED CALL so I can't give a full scale review here out of fairness but I must say that Miike Takashi's first foray into horror is a confident, largely well-done film filled with some wicked humor and some great sequences.

Will Yumi-the main protagonist cheat her own scheduled death and find out her friends ended up disconnected forever?

I know the answer of course but I am afraid I will have to hang up for now from Hawaii.