Category: movies

here comes the bride

– Oh, how wonderful to find a Pinoy comedy film with an actual plot and witty dialogue and punchlines I actually find funny. I could have wept.

– I love Chris Martinez na.

– Angelica Panganiban is a revelation.

– Jaime Fabregas speaks cute Ilonggo, hee.

– Basta! Excellent cast!

– Cyril: “Angelica does babaeng bakla better than Ruffa Mae.” TRUE.

– I didn’t like the maarte fonts of the subs, but I know how to forgive.

– John Lapus looks like The Dawn’s Jett Pangan.

– “Bonggang-bongga. Bougainvillea.”

– Bongga talaga ‘te. Manood ka na.

date day, night

I hate it when a national holiday falls on my day-off. How come other people get to enjoy a workless day and have the weekends off? I work on Sundays! I don’t get a long weekend and I still need to share the train with them? No fair.

But April 9th treated me well. Met with Eula after er months – and we went shopping! Typical. After lunch we went around Market! Market! and finally got what I wanted – big, chunky, clunky rings. I LOVE IT. There were rows and rows and rows of stalls selling costume jewelry and semi-precious stones inside the mall. I mean it. We actually got LOST at one point. It was amazing. Eula said she saw Imelda Marcos shopping there once. You should go to there. Seriously.

Here’s Eula and I showing off our rings while inside CBTL in High Street. (We were hiding from the heat. Gah.)

I also bought necklaces and earrings. They’re selling ’em quite cheap anyway. Next time, I’ll buy bracelets. Let’s do this again, Eulaaaaa. ;)

* * *

Met up with Jake that evening, then off to Trinoma to meet up with Carl and his friend and see Date Night.

THIS MOVIE HAS TINA FEY AND STEVE CARELL HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU GO WRONG. (The sex robots are just a bonus.)

Watch it.

Dinner at Tokyo Cafe with the rest of the HGC gang. I’ve avoided Tokyo Cafe for the longest time because I thought the food’s crazy expensive. Okay naman pala. Next time we go there I’ll order the parfait.

So there. How was your –

No. I won’t ask you about your weekend, because most likely you had a long weekend, so yeah yeah you had an extra day to watch DVDs. Hmp.

vacation, or this incredible heat

Bulacan till Easter Sunday. Halu-halo. My mother’s caldereta and kare-kare, yum. Sex and the City. How I Met Your Mother. Some Big Bang Theory. One story, done, but needs re-reading and edits. One story, edited, final read, done (hopefully). Silly computer games, like Diner Dash, to kill time. Jollibee with my brother. Re-read Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Drank Mint Choco Bailey’s with my father while watching a godawful action film.  Made my brother watch The Ruins, and of course he hated me for it, hehe.

The heat was torture. I’d take a long cold shower when I wake up and in a few hours I’d be swimming in my own sweat. I’d take a shower in the afternoon, and I’d start sweating while wiping myself dry. How can we live like this?

I hate the summer. I love beaches, the feel of the sand, the look of the water and the sky, but I hate the heat. Hate it hate it hate it. If asked to choose between an airconditioned hotel room and swimming at the beach under direct sunlight, I’d choose the hotel room in a heartbeat. I’m a worthless tourist like that. Seriously, we should hold tours at night, and swim only when it’s dark. (Boy, I sure hope the sun would hide behind thick clouds during the Bohol trip with Jaykie and Friends next month.)

Anyway, met up with the boyfriend after Lent. It was so hot during the commute back to the metro that I was SERIOUSLY this close to punching a stranger. Seriously. Seriously. So I had a shower first in my airconditioned room. Airconditioning. It is bliss.

Went to UP. Lunch at Choco Kiss (airconditioning!), had the Chicken Kiev. Some The Office. On Tuesday we planned to stay indoors, but ahoy rotational blackouts. Even a moron wouldn’t want to stay indoors in this heat, so off we go to UP, which also experienced a blackout (fuck – it’s as if it’s following us), played cards with Mark who happened to be at the HGC tambayan, then off to the mall.

We watched this! (Mark mentioned that Jme wanted to watch it on Saturday I’m sorry Jme it was hot and I was miserable and I wanted to laugh please don’t hate me for dragging Jaykie and watching it ahead of you guys. T_T)

As I was saying –

Photo from Filmofilia.

I love this film. (Despite the fact that the children speak with an American accent while the adults speak with a Scottish accent – despite the fact that they’re all supposed to be Vikings.) It’s  one of those few 3D films that you won’t mind paying extra to watch through the funky glasses.  (Now, if I can find me a theater where your chair tilts as the dragon spins and descends…)

3D tech has been abused lately, but in this case, it’s quite effective.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I was sweating while we’re waiting in line to buy our tickets inside the mall?

I was sweating. Inside. The mall.

It was seven p.m. when the film ended, so it was safe to venture out since the sun’s finally disappeared from the sky. But before we went home we tried eating at this Vietnamese restaurant (whose name I can’t remember! The heat’s killing off my brain cells!) for dinner. I enjoyed the salad. The vegetable’s really fresh, and the dressing’s light and tasty.

All in all, great vacation. (But still – the heat’s a real fucker.)

* * *

In other news, my story “Once They Were Gods” will appear in is in the April issue of Expanded Horizons soon. Watch this space.  Go click and read! :)

I’m also looking forward to the Summer Komikon and the Philippine Speculative Fiction V book launch this month. Yay!

synecdoche, this place

Synecdoche, New York

Photo from Amazon

Quotes from IMDB

Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, which was enough to make me want to see this film. Just dove into it not knowing the story, and not knowing how to see the story. A mistake.This is a film where the edges blur, where dream and reality merge and interact. I was a stubborn viewer; I kept insisting that everything I saw onscreen was literal. And so the images came and I just filed them away as frustrating and inaccessible. One character lives in a house that is eternally on fire, and I kept thinking “fireplace gone awry” and “arson” and finally, “what the fuck?” Only after I saw the film did I realize I was looking at it the wrong way. It is a dream. It is a view of a life that looks in places other films avoid – from a bloody stool to a man’s many neuroses. It is a synecdoche – a part for a whole, a life representative of other lives. (“What was once before you – an exciting, mysterious future – is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone’s experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone’s everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen.”)

Only in looking back did I fully realize how brutal this film is, how big and incredible and haunting and ambitious. And frightening. And sad. It is a story of a life (“As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving – not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are…Gone.”) – a life I didn’t want to have, but probably had or will have (for don’t we live many lives, don’t we suffer and un-suffer from many crippling sadnesses?), even for just a moment or two.

In the Loop

A comedy about the bureaucracy and sound bites and leaks and spins, and  how a single word in an interview (“unforeseeable”) can lead to war . Ah, politics. Also says something about climbing the mountain of conflict, like a Nazi Julie Andrews. Really smart writing.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Stupid film. Didn’t even bother to finish this.

stories galore

It’s true: gorgeous stories can save us from the atrocious heat. (I went home to Bulacan this weekend, and several rice fields had turned brown. Depressing. I’ve never seen anything like it in the twenty or so years I’ve lived in the province. At home I had one glass of halu-halo after another. Bless my parents.)

Up in the Air

Saw the film weeks ago. (Late review is late.) Watched it knowing absolutely nothing about the story. And what pay-off.

Julie & Julia

Great food, but Meryl Streep’s performance is exceptionally delicious. Amy Adams does loss and despair quite well. Oh those sad eyes.

According to the film, Julia Child (Streep’s character) didn’t even know how to boil an egg when she got married. So I can study this stuff? So I have hope? :D

Princess and the Frog

I watched this one with my siblings. How lovely (and clever) to set the story in New Orleans! Great music, and hello 2D glad to have you back. Lookin’ good. :)

Avenue Q

Exactly what I needed to start the week! Princeton (Felix Rivera) wonders what he can do “with a B.A. in English” and ends up renting a place on Avenue Q as he tries to figure out what to do with his life. Sesame Street on meth, y’all. (Seriously: puppet sex = day is made.) Frenchie Dy (Christmas Eve) at times finds it hard to maintain the Japanese accent, but I still enjoyed the performances. “Special” is one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack (I heard the songs first before seeing the musical – seeing it is waaaay better), and thank you Rachel Alejandro (Kate Monster/ Lucy T. Slut) for nailing it. Bravo! :D

Also starring Aiza Seguerra, Joel Trinidad, Calvin Millado, and Thea Tadiar. Showing at the Carlos Romulo Auditorium inside the RCBC Plaza.

Here’s a few photos with Felix Rivera and Lucy T. Slut’s boobies. :)

Later, dinner at Thai restaurant Oody’s and Cold Rock ice cream at Greenbelt. I loved Oody’s food. Flavorful, and inexpensive. I’d eat there again.

old alice and old boy

Alice in Wonderland

I remember Alice in Wonderland as a series of bizarre vignettes, but dammit, Tim Burton wants a plot. And so spacey young lady Alice runs away from her engagement party and falls down the rabbit hole. Again. Or maybe not? Some of the creatures of Wonderland insist she is “not the right Alice”. What is going on? Burton uses the safe and familiar structure of evil monarch + rebellion + prophecy of an outside champion + slaying of a monster + rightful monarch + return. Newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice is surprisingly effective, and Helena Bonham-Carter (“Her name is Um! IDIOOOOT!”) and Johnny Depp are just marvelous. Also, Anne Hathaway cracks me up as the White Queen. Love the music, the costume, the colors, the look. It’s quite an enjoyable take on the tale.

Photo from cgnews

Oldboy

We see a drunk man in a police station annoying the hell out of the officers keeping an eye on him. A friend bails him out. The man uses a phone booth to call his daughter and wish her a happy birthday. His friend takes the receiver as the man waits outside in the rain. After the phone call, his friend steps out of the booth, only to find that the man has disappeared from the sidewalk.

The man is named Oh Dae-Su. He finds himself imprisoned in a room. How long, he asks  a stranger who slides his food through a hole in his door. He has been kept there for two months, he says. How many months more?

He is kept inside that room for 15 years.

Why?

So many things happening in a little under two hours. Boy, this is an exhausting watch. I  like the story and the frenetic pace of the film, but I don’t think I can watch this again. You’ll know what I mean, once you see this.

those basterds!

Finally saw this film. Absolutely entertaining, love the dialogue, a Nazi film couldn’t be more enjoyable, blah-blah-blah, I’ll bore you with my praises. Didn’t realize how much I missed Tarantino’s crazies until I saw this.

Didn’t care much for Brad Pitt (I enjoyed Casey Affleck’s performance more in The Assassination of Jesse James – and Pitt here is basically playing James again it seems, accent and dirty clothes and all), but good grief Christoph Waltz!

His performance is divine. I want to see more of this actor. Just so I can stop saying, “He’s my favorite Nazi”.