Month: June 2013

monsters university

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

When I heard that Monsters, Inc. is going to have a prequel, I wondered what the epiphany (this is Pixar – characters always reach an epiphany) will be in Monsters University. How could Pixar make this prequel enjoyable, when the characters – Mike Wazowski and James Sullivan – have yet to realize that power (literal, in their world) comes not from a place of terror, but a place that gives you delight and laughter? Will Monsters U end with the protagonists understanding how to effectively scare children shitless? That’s going to take a dark turn pretty quickly.

BUT: the filmmakers found a way to end this without making us squirm in our seats. (An animated film for children telling children that the monster in the closet is real is bound to make you feel dirty.) Monsters University fleshes out the characters, injects it with humor (“I can’t go back to jail!”), and tells a university story (Harry Potter, anyone?) with an unpredictable plot. It made me nostalgic, actually. You see that guy with multiple limbs chugging down multiple cups of coffee on exam day? Yeah.

So many things to love in this film. Do watch it.

PS The short film, The Blue Umbrella, isn’t the best Pixar short in terms of storyline but the animation is gorgeous. The details! The color! I can’t wait to see the next Pixar film animated in this way.

PPS Monsters University has a working website.

rustic charm, or learning how to cook at home to save money and maybe eat a little bit healthier

Here’s the thing: we’ve been eating out nearly every night for dinner last week, either due to laziness, or the need to make the end of the work day seem a little bit more special. (We eat poached chicken for lunch and oatmeal for breakfast – it gets old.) This is not healthy, and eating out regularly is expensive, so on Saturday we did a proper grocery run with ground meat and seasoning and all and promised to only eat what we could make in our kitchen. That same night J had an intense craving for pizza, but I said a firm no. We really need to save some money and keep our poor, abandoned kitchen company.

What we cooked over the weekend: beef giniling (ground beef simmered in beef stock and tomato sauce), nilaga, microwave cake, and a Juicy Lucy (burger with the cheese inside).

They’re not all successful (my microwave cake was a bit dry and the burger was too thick), but we’re learning. (Note: J cooked most of these dishes! I’m the dishwasher.)

20130622_200611
Chocolate cake batter with Goya White Chocolate with Red Peppermint Crunch
20130622_201004
Yummy, but dry in parts.
20130622_223122
J’s Juicy Lucy. Yum!

Know some easy recipes? (More microwave desserts?) Do share. :)

‘a bottle of storm clouds’ – now available online

Something has been brewing in the Flipside Publishing headquarters (publisher of my previous ebooks, Lower Myths and The Viewless Dark), and here’s a preview:

storm clouds

Continue reading ‘a bottle of storm clouds’ – now available online

movie reviews

Man of Steel

man-of-steel-flies-past-the-competition-with-record-june-opening--heres-your-box-office-roundup

Superman/Clark Kent is a boring character. He is corny. His main disguise is a pair of glasses. His weaknesses are kryptonite and super!feelings about alienation and identity. You can’t always use kryptonite to bring this guy down, so the best way to tell his story is to focus on his loneliness and confusion.

The Clark Kent in Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan’s Man of Steel is relatable, and it helps that Henry Cavill is actually a good actor. I believed him as the still bewildered and vulnerable Superman; Brandon Routh, on the other hand, looked like a talking piece of wood and bored me to tears. This version of the origin story flows with better logic than the origin story we’re used to (the one where he meets Lois Lane in The Daily Planet). Cavill is also supported by a top-notch cast: Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Russell Crowe (and I am reminded by his turn as Jor-El that he is a good actor; damn his singing in Les Miz), and Michael Shannon, who is just menacing and perfect as General Zod. (You should watch him in Revolutionary Road and Take Shelter, if you haven’t already.)

My quibbles: fight scenes that go on so long that they feel repetitive, shaky camerawork.

Overall, still a good watch.

Deliverance

deliverance

Some Spoilers. This is your typical adventure-goes-horribly-wrong story, with a beautiful reversal of roles in the end (the macho becomes the weakling, and vice-versa). A group led by outdoor fanatic Lewis (Burt Reynolds) goes on a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River, which will soon be flooded by the construction of a dam. The most memorable images to me are the abandoned houses, the tiny church that is driven down the road on the back of a truck to take it away from the flood. “I just want this town to die in peace,” says the sheriff in the end, and it is sad and beautiful and just the perfect line. And the actors (esp. Jon Voight) are fantastic here.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

dear-zachary

I won’t tell you anything about this documentary, which is both tribute and a true crime tape, but I’ll say this: this is the single most devastating film I have ever seen in my life. It is incredibly heartbreaking. And I don’t think I can watch it again.

Hi! Just squeezing in a blog post before

Hi! Just squeezing in a blog post before the rain falls again.

I bought more Nyx SLMC! I love Milan, a “mid-toned blue-toned pink“, the quieter sister of my Addis Ababa tube. This is probably more wearable in the office.

collage

I also bought San Paulo, plummy-pink, a pink that sits between these two shades, but I haven’t swatched it yet. Here are some nice swatches on Shen’s Addiction.

Oh wait, here you go:

20130621_132450
I ended up on Taste Central again and got a bar of Trader Joe’s PB & J Milk Chocolate Bar. It’s a chocolate bar with creamy peanut butter and raspberry jelly filling. This is the best, and doesn’t feel very heavy. Just don’t eat everything in one sitting. (I did and I’m very sorry.) It sells at PhP 75.

20130618_174015

I bought some gifts for my mother at the Beauty Bar, and got these little samples for free. I do love the Burt’s Bees Intense Hydration Night Cream. It leaves my skin feeling supple and soft. I might just get that when I run out of night creams.

I have used Cure twice already, but I can’t vouch for the exfoliation effects just yet.

20130618_070732

20130618_070847

I also saw some tins of Steam Cream at the store, but I controlled myself. Yay? Here’s the Vain Jane gushing about it.

Author and editor Carrie Cuinn has compiled a list of 90-plus authors of Asian descent, with links to their websites and a free sample story. I’m delighted to find my name, and the names of authors I admire, in this list. Click the link and discover some tales!

Meanwhile: The rains are here. Have a green tea cupcake and coffee, dear.

20130613_204303

guest post on rocket kapre: why we read horror

I have a guest post up on Rocket Kapre, manned by fellow writer Paolo Chikiamco.

guest

I posted an announcement about my new collection of dark fiction, Unseen Moon, the same month two pressure cooker bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon. The following month, three women escaped from a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, freeing themselves from a decade of sex slavery and confinement. In the face of real-life tragedy, who needs horror stories?

Read more here.

It was the country’s Independence Day yesterday, June

It was the country’s Independence Day yesterday, June 12. We stayed inside and fed ourselves home-cooked meals that J experimented on, like this very tasty tuna sisig:

20130612_191358

A can of tuna sauteed in a skillet with chopped garlic, chili, and onion. Add mayonnaise and calamansi after. Soy sauce, calamansi and chili for sawsawan. Pair with steamed rice. Sarap!

Book Giveaway Alert: Chris Mariano of Ficsation is giving away a signed copy (with a special bookmark) of Unseen Moon! Contest runs until June 22. Head over here to read the details. Go, go, join, join! :)