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Moonrise Kingdom - Let It Be 2012!

I have never been psyched to watch this movie from none other than -  the indefatigable, the most charming of quirky - Wes Anderson.  If you noticed, his other movies The Darjeeling Limited, The Fantastic Mr. Fox almost has the same hue as this one. 

 

 

That's Just Geography.

I was watching Pretty Woman last night:

Vivian: People put you down enough, you start to believe it.

Edward: I think you are a very bright, very special woman.

Vivian: The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?

Midnight Train To Georgia.

I watched Eat, Pray, Love the movie at the Atlantic Station with fellow Pinoy friends from office and I have of course super high expectations about the movie and I ended up as usual, feeling good about it but not totally impressed (as it seems to happen on all book-to-movie adaptations except for LOTR). I'm so-so about that movie but I love Julia.  Will Julia ever get anything wrong? She acts with a heart and I could not have thought of anyone who can play Elizabeth best. Possibly Witherspoon but she's too southern for that role. 

Speaking of Southern, I'm here in Atlanta, in the land of McDonald's culture, spending a few weeks for work stuff. You know what scares me? The serving as usual. So huge. Doritos are like buckets, all drinks are refillable, and you buy your commodities in wholesale quantities. Obama is leading a kingdom of consumerism. You cannot get small servings because you're not 12 years old and below. You cannot buy it few because it's packaged large. So you're forced to buy stuff that's too much for you, and waste it.  So Obama then is not just leading a kingdom of consumerism, but a kingdom of wastefulness.  What's a girl like me to do?  I could not finish anything, and I totally won't apologize for it (although I still have a tendency to explain). 

I wish that the solution for everything is just allow people to order junior size or just freaking get smaller plates or package everything in "sakto" sizes.  All this talk and all this culture about excess, it's crazy, and it does bother me. 

It bothers me because I bought myself two pairs of shoes at good discount over at DSW in less than 45 minutes that I was in the store. There. Excess my foot. 

Oh but I got a good quote from Liz Gilbert's book (highly recommended to read the book):

When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face- first out of the dirt- this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.

Does it boil down to Colin Firth?

I decided to watch all these films this year - the best movies of the decade through the eyes of Roger Ebert. In whatever ways I can get my hands on them, I will resolve to watch these movies, legally, torrent-ially -- yes  I will do so. The article made me teary-eyed, it's crazy and strange - it's probably the most ho-hum article on first view, but I love that he made that list saying that these movies objectively or structurally  may not be the best movies, but they are the best to him based on how much emotion it brought him. 

Nice no? To each his/her own. What may be tasteful and artful for you  may not be for me and it's all good. Kind of like the mixtape of the 80s, you get to know a person in some way based on his/her favorites. 

I have seen 9 of the movies he listed and I would say 5 of those are on my best list too. For me, Roger is a critic with a heart. 

You'd be surprised but Love, Actually tops it for me.

The New No.

Best movie ever! Please watch Yes Man! I mean Jim Carrey is hilarious and Zooey Deschanel is charming but the story is so me, myself and I -- that movie is my hotdamn life goal! Watch it, please, pretty please! If you could step out from that ledge my friend....

You know how everything in life seems to happen for a reason? No such thing as coincidence says this motivational shit that I'm reading. I once downloaded this song "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" by She and Him and I kind of like it.  Quirky. I forgot about it when I bumped again on some blog this chillout sweet video by guess who, She and Him! Watch their take on You Really Got A Hold On Me, listen with your headphones on and I promise you, you won't regret this 4 minutes of your life.

What's the coincidence? Yes Jose, that's Zooey Deschanel, yes that's right! I didn't know she has a band and she write songs pala (incidentally she's engaged with the lead singer Ben Gibbard of one of my favorite bands ever - Death Cab For Cutie). That's when I decided to watch Yes Man, I've been thinking of watching it before pa, I decided to give in because I do believe in clues the universe gives us.  According to Jim Carrey in one of his interviews -- "they find you at certain times..."

Ros-E.

"I felt, I felt a moment of love. It was like, it was connective. It was that, for five minutes there...it was happy, it was nice. yeah."  - the unsuspecting commuter.

Two weeks ago, I was back-watching CNN (that's my new urban word for doing work with TV in the background - yeah totally against energy conservation, I forgot to turn it off) and a news got me.  They were reporting that some mass-dancing happened in Liverpool, UK, and they showed a video of commuters dancing inside a crowded train station.  It turned out to be a staged shooting for a commercial for T-Mobile, an improv where dancers came in dressed as everyday commuters, but the public didn't know.  For the rest who happened to be there, what do you expect, they pulled out their mobile phones and took pictures and some took videos, and for unknowing others, the event was too contagious that they ended up dancing!  This is the best conceptualized commercial ever -- how technology will work for us and how it will keep us connected.

I think I found it, this is what I really want to do, move and shake the world, but world not in its mammoth state, but two to three strangers will do. Maybe five, maybe ten, like that other beckoning. For the unknowing commuters, interviewed post-production -- they said it made them smile, had some jiggy with it, and what I like, totally changed their mood.

How effing good it is to get out of the matrix once in a while. Or for keeps.Check out The Making - what a great production.

--- oOo ---

Wall-E is super! I love it, it's the sweetest thing I've seen in years, where words  were just extras. While it is sweet, I think the most amazing for me is through animation, they were able to capture so much emotion in those first thirty minutes, you could imagine Wall-E's solitary confinement and the loneliness is palpable.  My favorite aww moment: When Eve and Wall-E introduced themselves - eeevaaa, eeevaaa with shoulders (if you call it that) raised for emphasis. Waaaaal-E. Wall-E!

I have not realized until this movie that there are several inflections you can make out of Wall-E, and basically that's your dialogue right there. My favorite, the sighing inflection: Waalleeeee.

--- oOo ---

Previous idea: This song for my funeral. Better idea: Same song when I will be giving birth, lamaze way. Haha!

Happy and New.

It's A Wonderful Life. If in any way you cannot start 2009 with the people you love, watch this Frank Capra's classic instead. I cried like a baby, and I wish to start the year like a baby - yung parating naka-nganga, always gaping, parang mangha mangha kahit nakatingin lang sa ilaw or sa mukha ng mga tao. I wish to open my mind more this year, more so my heart, that I judge less and understand more, be less reserved, but more embracing, be less cautious but a bit more reckless. If I really need to be specific, you are free to read my journal that allegedly will change my life. It includes resolutions like keep my work Outlook mailbox to 50Mb before I go to work this Monday, finally reply to those couchsurfers looking for a place to stay this February, a dance class - my god, the search for this has been going on for centuries (paging Aimee! We need to have a recital before you turn three-O!), call my friends more, hug tight my parents, gladly accept when sister offers to buy me something (haha!), pat strangers on the back, and all other things that adds up to my big picture. What's your big picture for 2009?

---oOo---

Maybe I'll start a tradition.  I'll welcome the new year with this earnest wish for everyone, a secret shared by one of the contributors of PostSecret:

Listening to: Anything by the classic James Taylor. He seems to be singing my theme song for the year.."even though we ain't got money...." He looks like Billy Crudup from Almost Famous cross Johnny Depp when he was young. 

Javier My Love & A Holiday Lampara

My mental state for this whole Christmas week..

What are my plans this Christmas vacay? Well let's see. Today, we're celebrating my mom's birthday. Yesterday I arrived in Bacolod, with no sleep, but I'm not complaining ;). Photo-finish again at the airport -- I asked the personnel what time the counter will close and he said, "4 minutes na lang Ma'am and we're closing the check-in counter na." Whew. For New Year's, I'll change this rush-to-the-airport-kind-of-lifestyle. As one person frankly told me, it's just irresponsible.  True, true.

--- oOo ---

I'm in love with one movie for the whole year. Um, no, not Twilight --  shit I haven't even seen that one yet. This movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which I love to death, made me fall in love all  over again with Spain, if it is not yet eclipsed with my love for Javier Bardem - my new Benicio del Toro.  It's a long vacation and I  highly recommend this so you won't even need to think twice on what your New Year's Resolution would be: but of course, traveling :).  The film uses Barcelona as its backdrop, well, not exactly.  As the title suggests, it became so easily the other major actor, with its foliage-colored scenery, alternating between sepia-orange-and-appealing-green and the color of ruins, the romantic kind. My heart stopped when I saw Barri Gotic, Nikki and I went biking around that place! Such familiarity haunts me.  I'll stop now because I'm not very good in giving reviews especially if I love the movie so badly. I usually end up just gushing about it and most likely exposing the whole plot. Please watch it, please pretty please. 

If you're over twenty, you will love it better than Twilight (haha!). 

--- oOo ---

I slept the whole day yesterday, interrupted by my dad who called from work to demand that we should go around and shop for a birthday gift for Mom.  I usually just buy christmas gift for her, since her birthday is so close to 25th. So I obliged -- it doesn't take a lot from me to say yes to shopping.  Dad was super excited about his idea of buying mom, get this...a lampara. While driving to Robinson's Place, he enthusiastically explained to me its features, this new version of a lamp doesn't grease (kind of like a torch that needs gas to light up) because it uses a different oil, and it's very bright and it will be very romantic. He insisted it would be useful especially during brownouts. Now I got confused, he bought a generator before when Bacolod behaved like a fourth world province, 6-hour brownout almost weekly.  I asked Dad, why this gift? Because "may symbolism, Beb. Isipin mo ano."  I asked What, totally not liking Dad now. He usually has tendencies to get carried away by those home TV shopping with all its ridiculous marketing and when he buys gift for mom, it usually is really for himself, as in. "Si mommy. Ilaw ng tahanan." And then he laughs again excitedly. Oh my god. Who here thinks he decided on the gift first before this whole symbolism thing? Sounds forced, dad.  We ended up buying it, me the whole time mocking the lamp.  Using my sister's credit card (she has to contribute! I mean, I took care of the concept!), I bought mom 4 crazily expensive but fluffy pillows, so she can sleep nice. My dad rolled his eyes with my choice. Well, let's see.  :)

Euro-Backpacking: What Subtitles?

Nikki and I are both movie freaks so there's no hair-pulling that just because we're in Europe, it's no excuse not watching a movie in this side of the earth.  I first heard of outdoor cinema in Rome, when we asked the tourist information if they're showing some movies and they mentioned that there's a film festival on-going and since it's summer, the reels are projected outdoors. I almost peed on my shorts. I love movies and to see it, the way it was seen when it was invented (it was outdoors, right?), just wow! Outdoors just made movie-watching so indie, like it's a community-project and it may seem you're with people you know.  We browsed through the brochure and we asked if the movies were in English, audio or subtitled -- either way we're okay. The tourist booth at the Termini station (this one huge stop of all train lines in Rome that is so humongous but so blah, in my opinion) told us haughtingly, the movies are in its original language and if it's foreign, then the subtitle is in Italian, "of course".  Of course.  Well, there's a Chinese movie and um, there's french..but, no we don't think so.  The subtitles would be in Italian and the only words we know are "gracie" and "prego" and this does not even count -- "ciao".

Previous week in Granada, Spain, we went to see Mamma Mia, dubbed in Spanish because hey, in that movie, only the songs matter and these were all sung in English. We figured maybe we could learn a little bit of Spanish in there, since we know the story already having seen the movie in Pinas.   The cinema in Granada is indoor and it was like in an Ever Gotesco Cinema or in SM North Cinema during the good old days -- sticky floors, with sound system like you're listening to a phone and yep, only 5 of us watching inside. Mamma Mia was a good appetizer since next town in our itinerary is Greece, and the movie was fully shot at the Greek Islands. Sitting there in the dark, I swell with pride: Pinoy-made Greenbelt Cinemas, you rock! Super!

It was in Greece that we really experience what it's like, and made us think that aside from the Trojan Horse, maybe the Greeks also invented outdoor cinema. It was so consistently classy having seen it in Athens as well as in Kamari town in Santorini.  In Athens, the walls are covered with crawling green plants, some seats have side tables in between with white projector in front and just past the left wall, is the magnificent view of the Acropolis -- get this, at night. It's so well-lighted and it's a beaut. Mouth-gaping. It was a starry night and it was beautiful, although the crappy picture below made the acropolis look like an old lampshade with the bulb about to go out. But please trust me, it was the best backdrop, although it was a bit on the left, hehehe!

We watched Rebel Without A Cause and for the love of Dionysius, I don't understand why they're saying it's a classic. I rebel! It's so simple the plot and James Dean looks like Luke Perry (or is it the other way around? harharhar!).  I do get distracted by the Acropolis view, I get dreamy whenever I look at it.

The love-of-my-life and I can live there forever but only at night because it's like an oven in the morning...opps wait, is James Dean's character still alive or has he hanged himself? The incredible portrayal of his self-worth and his needing to feel useful - it's so boring.  The black-and-white movie added to the ambiance though. 

In Kamari, my god, that outdoor cinema tops all the movie-watching experiences of my life. There were trees surrounding the area and the weather was so cool at night, you could feel the breeze on your cheeks and I couldn't help but hug my knees like I'm watching the movie at home. At the back of our seats, there's a bar if you want to buy drinks or just hang-out. Basta cool yung place.We watched Deception (in English, subtitled in Greek, same with Rebel Without A Cause, love the Greeks for being tourist-friendly hehehe!) and the movie sucked bigtime but Hugh Jackman is so gwapo, I give it 4 stars. If he sang with Ewan, I would have given it 5 stars. The Australians we were with in the taxi on the way home also agreed, it was a ho-hum movie.  Oh, I took a video panning view of the place here - for a potential business idea, yebah!

Experience outdoor cinema, check!

Listening to: One Last Summer - Mamma Mia Movie Soundtrack

Love and The City

[Spoiler Alert. Because I don't know how to comment without giving away the plot.] I really, really love Sex and The City - The Movie! I do! It was funny and poignant in all the right moments. It's the ultimate chick-flick and you would know it judging by the number of women in the theaters.  Saludos to men who went to see it by their own will ;).  I watched it with great friends, the ultimate fashion lavah, Cinds and Pogs. Even though it's opening night, Sureseats as usual is heaven-sent and we just grabbed sandwiches over at Figaro as a take-out because yes, we're such fans that we wouldn't even miss a trailer for this. Um, yes, do we need to say it,  we've been waiting for this movie. 

And I will behave like those embarassingly die-hard fans, I will lists what I like about the movie in bullet points, oh yes! The ending where Carrie and Big ran to hug each other in their soon-to-be-occupied apartment was cliche-touching. And because it's cliche it did not make it to my list of favorite scenes. Here's mine:

•  When Carrie opened the door to the closet Mr. Big constructed for her, Cinds and I both gasped!  As in, the audible gasp, the loud wahhhhhhhwwww! My god the lighting, the shoe rack! Was that a walk-in closet or was that a runway or was that a light show?
• All the quips by Samantha and Miranda. Love it. Too funny.
• The fashion of Carrie Bradshaw. Of all the four girls, hers is the most versatile, most experimental, most out-of-this-world, hence the most courageous.  First scene of Carrie in that white one-shoulder with a huge flower feels for me, like mothership has arrived. I am home again.
• Vivianne Westwood bridal gown did not disappoint. I love it, what kind of textile was that? Creases made it look good. And that blue headdress, that was a nice touch of color.  But you know that dress was more Charlotte than Carrie, don't you think? (Question addressed to appropriate people who can relate)
• There were only two scenes that brought me to tears because it's both funny and heartwarming: There's this extra special thing that Miranda and Steve did, when they walked the Brooklyn Bridge to forgive each other's past.  They hugged first before they kiss. Watching it, it was more intimate and conveys more had they kissed first.  Second scene that caused me to silently sob and laugh at the same time: Charlotte running away from Big and later confronting him at the sidewalk with The Speech. It was sweet and outrageous and that scene alone exudes my favorite ingredient in friendship: loyalty.

 

Makes me realize that what's stopping us from connecting is only because we fear getting hurt again. Side story: I arrived at Greenbelt two hours earlier because I need to do some errands which included shopping for pabilins/tugons from my sister. While looking for over-priced slippers for her,  I saw this beautiful bohemian ring and it spoke to me (in accordance to Pogs theory that things speak to us during shopping and it's not our fault if we overspend). I bought it and I requested the cashier not to pack it anymore since I'll wear it immediately. I raved about it and showed it Cinds and Pogs while waiting for our sandwiches to be packed. Fast forward two hours later, inside the theater while watching Sex and The City, I felt like weeping because there it is -- in a different accessory but with same message: Love. After the  movie I was yapping about it to Cinds and Pogs ("Is it a sign? Grabe pareho kami ni Carrie! We got Love!") which annoyed them to tears, prompting Pogs to snapped back, "shutup, shutup, shutup!"

One day, I will find that man who will give that Grand Gesture -- those out of comfort zone things you would do for love, like writing love letters when it's not your style, like forgiving when it's hard, and committing even when you don't know what's ahead.  I'm supposed to  lump this with my long-delayed review of Across the Universe and name this entry as Universe and The City or some lame title but that one is future-posted for later. I'll be away for almost a month and I'll future-posts some entries. Go see the movie!

Listening to: At My Most Beautiful - R.E.M.