Besides, masyado na akong matanda para maging biktima ng peer pressure.

I also bought two books. One is A Scanner Darkly, written by Philip K. Dick. I have not read a book of his and maybe it’s time.

I just noticed how often it is that 1 Corinthian 13‘s verse “Through a Glass, Darkly” seem to be used in a lot of media. I remember an episode of Daria and a Jostein Gaarder title paying homage to it.

Also, I bought Unwritten, a graphic novel. Since Gaiman‘s The Sandman, I have been cautious not to buy any serialized books but this one has a “1″ in the spine. So this leaves me no choice but to complete the series, or not. Hahaha! It is a nice read, but not the type of thing I am much interested in, because The Sandman IS good! great! better! the best! And I am not just acting like a fan boy, but because it is one freaking good comic series.

So in light of this wonderful opportunity, yesterday’s better-than-expected salary payout, and the extra day of not working in addition to two rest days, I bought DVDs. The most recent Naruto volume I could find. I have not seen Naruto for over a year, and I miss him; and 24 Season 1, for my parents who cannot seem to get enough of Jack Bauer.

I also bought some more DVDs. I got Batman Begins, because Meow has not seen it; Run Lola Run, because I heard it’s a good movie; Dogma, I liked it when I was in college; The Devil Wears Prada, because Meow liked the book; Taxi, because I want to see it again and I miss Luc Besson;   The Book of Eli, because I was not able to see the movie, and we wanted to see it then; and Contact, I have seen it, liked it, bought the book, liked it too, so I want a copy for myself.

I need to run errands as well. And I made a promise to myself to write. I will write about so many things.

Hopefully, I get to finish all of them. Starting today, I will try to save up. I won’t be buying anything anytime soon.

I am sorry for all you lovestruck people but it was a scary, spiteful movie.

For a country which prided itself with racial diversity, the American movie poked fun at Scotland’s rich culture, from kilts, to bands and bagpipes which they found irritating. With the expertise of Hollywood’s subtle touch for political correctness, it was crafted to not appear so. Or they think.

It just speaks of intolerance of other people’s way of living. It is one thing to have difficulty of cultural barriers but another to make fun of culture that’s been there for thousands of years, the least that we could say to a nation of young historical heritage. If I were American, I’d hate this movie. If I were Scottish, I’d be outraged (but of course I am  not Scottish).

You might be thinking I have this bias against American movies, I care less if you think so. I write what I think. Making fun of something as big as that is not very funny.

But enough about that, let us move on to why I hated it besides the cultural narrow-mindedness. Dempsey’s bestfriend makes him the maid of honor of her wedding. I know, it was supposed to be comical and to be the point of most fun, but instead they make more fun of life in another country. He is in love with her (big surprise). Very My Bestfriend’s Wedding. He maganimously accepts the honor, goes to Scotland and be the low-life snake.

With the coaxing of his friends to take her home, he goes. But he is the benevolent type and does not act on it except when he kisses her (like the types of people who cannot have physical contact with women without leading to sex) . That is way after the many jokes about Scotland. Sorry, I can’t get over it.

Unlike Julia Roberts in My Bestfriend’s Wedding, where Roberts was the villain with antihero qualities who seeks redemption, Dempsey is the benevolent and tragic hero who steals the bride with little consideration of all the people who would be affected by it. It is okay after all, in American romantic movies, nobody cares, it’s for love after all.

He does succeed at stealing her away (in front of the altar with a priest) on the wedding day. Touche!

My thoughts here. If I were humiliated by the likes of a sissy Dempsey in front of my family and friends (and I am filthy rich and all-manly), I will not go the high road by letting her go just like that, and by just hitting Dempsey. I’d plot revenge and have my relatives get Dempsey, black and blue, if they could. The son of a bitch.

Letting people go like that is just so convenient, isn’t it? And it makes everybody happy (or the characters that is supposed to matter anyway), that makes a really happy ending with the next scene moving to Dempsey’s wedding with the weak female lead.

Dempsey was a great actor before being M-m-mcdreamy², if I were him, I’d stick to the other roles he had, like an imbalanced guy or a mob boss. Leading men roles are boring.

All told, I could go on but I think that is enough. This is the type of story that people in the mood for selfish love could care about (or people who never experienced considerate love). In the world that we live in, things like that don’t happen. For romance movie lovers, sorry. Love can happen in reality, it is beautiful even in simple ways. It can be dramatic but not in a stupendous way like that, or it does happen but you have to be surrounded by disturbingly selfish assholes.

The goal of this post is not to solely talk about how I hated the movie, it is part of that, but I found it really sad and more often… irritating.

1. people are having sex there, left and right, in closets and other tackier places reminiscent of Penthouse Letters, only it is tasteful because they made it so
2. Grey’s Anatomy title

I have been pushing thoughts out of my head. Been at home for the past two days, maybe to relax, but the irritation of the hot weather is getting to me. I want to watch more movies.

I decided to watch a couple of DVDs at home. I found a DVD of Postgrad starring Alexis Bledel. I liked her when she was at Gilmore Girls, that chick TV show, understand that I had no social life some time in my youth (and it was a freaking good TV series). Much to my disappointment, the movie was awful.

Great first few minutes of the movie: she’s smart, naive, then seven minutes through, you wonder if it will end  up (worst-case) to run like the more superior Reality Bites, but it didn’t because it was crappy.

It had more cliches later: the lovesick boy bestfriend,  the more interesting and eccentric artist-of-a-man man-crush and all the works (too much even for me who can normally tolerate high-in-cliche Tagalog dramas. I actually waited for it to turn to Reality Bites-mode again when lovesick bestfriend will be performing a song dedicated to peachy protagonist, but lost faith when she forgot about the time because she was too busy being a bitch (but she isn’t because she is educated, sweet and loves books). I decided to turn off the TV coz it is getting quite unbearable. Even for me.

There are very few movies that make me happy. Maybe Alice in Wonderland, but again I expected more from Tim Burton. I think I like it when he works with his original ideas. Watching Alice is like watching an interesting fan fiction. Sure, you leave the theaters with a smile on your face, but it will be remembered just the same way I’ll remember “Return to Oz,” an old movie I liked as a kid but whose plot I quite forgot now.

I think the most fun in movies I had recently was watching Donnie Darko on DVD and Lesbian Vampire Hunters, not minding the title, it was actually funny for a Euro movie of tacky peculiarities. It beats the tacky American movies (with Carmen Elektra cameos) by a mile.

I am bored again, I will probably login to Facebook and just make fun of people with tackier lines.

It is nice to see an indie movie that is not gay-themed.

The actors were very natural and any hysteria was exaggerated for comedic relief. Nakakatawa talaga sya. Filipinos tend to be melodramatic even in real life. It reminded me of the many dead people I visited. Yung mga drama ng mga tao… it really captures how Filipino families are, despite the deliberate exaggeration.

The story is about the death of Lolo, in the words of Bobet (BJ Forbes), the young child of Charing (Reynes). The children are reunited and try to settle their differences in this occasion (it happens usually in real life).

How the actors enter, faint, cry war realistic  how ordinary Filipinos do when dealing with tragedy. In ways it is not just Filipino, it captures how we react to death and how we grieve. All actors have displayed that. While one of the heavy themes in the movie are the many superstitions many Filipinos have. Yup! Sinundan ng pelikula lahat ng kasabihan at iba pa na doon ko lang narinig…

In Junee’s (Paulate) words, “Sino ba sila?” in reply to “sabi nila bawal yan.”

It was funny and I think a Filipino critic of this movie is someone who has never attended an ordinary man’s wake.

The movie was funny as well as tragic. Death is a natural thing but we have problems dealing with it because of how final it is.

The movie ended with Bobet being a spectator to the drama, and while these good people are so wrapped up in their own drama, the child also misses his grandfather.

Clap! Clap!

I hate going to work. My shift now starts at 9 a.m., parang normal na tao. I hate waking  early when I am able to sleep. I hate the traffic.

So here I am. I tried to catch on my reading. And so many of the books I have, I still haven’t finished.

Last weekend, I saw Fight Club again. I don’t recall liking it that much when I first saw it (but I did like it). I guess I liked it more because I understood how it is like to be going to work and being there half conscious like a zombie. I am really having problems looking for the book.

This is one of my favorite movies now.  One of the few movies where I actually like Brad Pitt (if ever there was one).

I am a bit inspired to let go of my luxuries but I then realized that I don’t have much (ewan ko ba kung bakit iniisip nilang maluho ako) kung tutuusin.

I bought Snuff, a book by the same author who wrote Fight Club. It’s kinda amusing in Palahniuk’s typical style of making it weird and at times disturbing only to have a realization in the end that it’s a bit of a misunderstanding and all is sweet (if you think that necrophilia is sweet and being electrocuted alive).
I may reveal some plots here but I won’t give you the ending.

An aging porn star is retiring and wants to end it by breaking records of fucking 600 men. The book moves along in the perspective of three men and the young smartass talent wrangler (she’s the one with the clipboard making sure that all goes smoothly as those men are cramped, smelly, in a room).

There’s Mr. 600, another aging porn star who wants to do porn actress a favor.

We have No. 72, a young man who came in with roses, with a striking resemblance to 600 and aging porn actress.

We have now 137. The more observant character, not necessarily wise and I found most annoying. He then speculates that No. 72 is porn actress’s son. No 72 thinks so as well, was told by his foster parents that he indeed is her son.

He was really there to save porn actress. No. 600 says that he should continue fucking his mother because it is her last gift for him.

It was porn actress’ plan to die in the f*ckfest so that sales go up for all her work leaving her abandoned child filthy rich.

I will stop there now,  if in case you’d like to read the book. Gave too much info already.

———

I am really hungry now. No food to eat. Hope somebody wakes up now.

But that can’t happen now… sadly.

I told this to Meow and she told me I shouldn’t, I might end up like one of  the Murakami characters from his short story Sleep (the only story in the book I lent her that she almost liked). I told her that, at least, I’d have beautiful skin despite the emotional withdrawal.

#

I have finally seen The Watchmen movie, I have been hearing rumors that it has been loyal to the comic book but disappointingly, it was not as loyal as I wanted it to be. Sure, the idea was there but no giant, genetically modified octopus-like creature in the end. Just some explosion of some sort. Maybe I was asking too much for something as ambitious as The Watchmen movie. I am over it now.

At least they were successful in humanizing Dr. Manhattan and I am not sure if that’s a good thing.

#

Facebook

I have been using Facebook a lot lately.

NOTE TO MYSELF: Delete friends I don’t like. They’ll still  have Friendster.

I have been using the applications and I gotta say I enjoy taking those quizzes. And it works well for my Tumblr and Twitter account. Especially twitter, allows me to do synchronized status updates in one go.

And while on the topic Facebook, I really don’t like playing those social games like Mafia Wars, Farming stuff and such but on one occasion, I added the application Barn Buddy on facebook.  Di ko na lang sya pinanapansin kasi sila ang naglalaro nyan (my friends, that is) at minsan sinilip ko sya. Tiningnan ko yung recent activities, may nagnakaw ng eggplant ko! And I called you frrriendssss?!?! Kahit virtual vegetable yan, ayoko ninanakawan ako. At dahil dyan binura ko yung app at naglaro na lang ako ng Magic Farm sa computer ko. At least walang nagnanakaw sa akin ng mga virtual veggies ko.

For some reason, I found the Friends for Sale application disturbing with posts going like: 

I just bought Dominique as my newest pet on Friends For Sale.

$110,000, bargain!

Somebody needs to purify their minds… me, mainly.

If you intend to watch the movie. Stop reading right now coz I might spoil some really interesting parts here. One thing a person who has read the book (I own two, including the illustrated volume) are the amount of changes done in the movie. A friend told me in advance how it ended in the movie and was turned off, the book had a different ending which I immensely loved.But I love Michelle Pfeiffer (she looks really hot for someone her age, really HOT), so I still watched the movie. But let us understand that it is really tough to make the book shorter.

Short background on the story: Tristran Thorn falls in love with a girl named Victoria, promises to bring her the star that they saw falling in the sky, chases it and realizes that the star is a person named Yvaine (Claire Danes). It is unknown to him that he is not the only person looking for a star. There is a group of witches (called the Lilim) who wants the star’s heart (out while it is still beating) to restore their youth and the heirs (who is killing each other along the way) who need something from the star to be the king of the land called Stormhold. The book and movie had all the elements that made fairy tales how the are, but it was good what can I say, I am dork, sorry.

Observations, in the book the witch (Pfeiffer) was not named, in the movie she is called Lamia. Victoria (Sienna Miller), really gorgeous in this one, gave her a week to look for the star. Septimus (Mark Strong) had more humanity (I may have used the wrong word) in the book (although he is still the most cunning), he had no interest in immortality and the pursuit for the Lilim has something to do with an obligation to the bloodline. Captain Shakespeare (DeNiro) was no drag queen in the book. There are a lot of differences but there’s no need for me to enumerate them here.

Let me see what I think, I lowered my expectations for the movie after hearing all the alterations they made. But the treatment of the material is actually good. I wasn’t expecting that. It is good. Really good. Michelle Pfeiffer is really wickedly hot and was wonderful as Lamia, hands down, she was everything I imagined her to be, and did I mention that she was gorgeous in the film? Robert DeNiro was fun. He was fun, it is great to see the old man doing something as crazy like this, pero OK lang di naman sya nagmukhang tanga. And Danes, I like her although I really had a hard time envisioning her as Yvaine when I learned she was chosen for the role. I was thinking maybe if it was back in the Romeo + Juliet days of hers, she would have been great. But she’s a great actress and she carried it well. My female friends found that part where she is confessing her love to Tristran while he’s a mouse really touching, now that part I find cheesy. Baka di lang ako naka-relate. Hahaha!The special effects were great, the anticipation, like in the book is present. It’s very Hollywood, but I still like it.

I am now waiting for Beowulf. Me veri eksayted.

So, I will be recommending stuff that I really like. Little thinking required in writing the post.

Books

• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. One of the best Murakami books I have read and all Murakami books I have read, I really like. This is something I’d recommend if you’re not into the whole whiny feel (that I happen to like a lot, thank you) that is well-known in his books. Part-fantasy and part-postmodern (I am not really sure if the world scifi applies to this really cool book), it made me almost cry. The last part was breath-taking. I have no words to describe how cool it is. Go ahead, read it, relish it and spread his awesomeness. If you hate the book, you are stupid and you don’t have taste.
• The Sandman Vol. 2 The Doll’s House. It is the first from the volumes I have read and while browsing through a forum it said to be one of the best. And with little knowledge of the whole story arc at that time, I was immediately hooked. Some people don’t like the illustrations but I really did, it grows in you. It is the book that Gaiman says he has found his voice. It makes reference the bzou (if you are familiar with my online activity, you’ll get it). There’s a convention for serial killer and so much more. There are character’s here that you won’t easily forget.Costs around Php 900.00 though.

Anime

• Death Note. It’s good just plain good. The story was excellent and the animation was exceptional. The antihero (named Light) is immediately likable but I started to despise him when he started going megalomaniac, then like him again during the middle part, then loathed him again after he killed his arch nemesis. Basta ang galing! If you like the same characters that I do in fiction you are gonna go crazy over L (it doesn’t stand for Light) . His early departure made me want to cry.
• Basilisk. A story of 2 rival Ninja Clans. Two fall in love. It’s like Romeo and Juliet gone violent. A lot of killing that I really like, the action sequences were breathtaking. Episode 1 pa lang panalo na! And it does make a good observation about hate, prejudice and other aspects of being human. Did I mention? There was a lot of violence.

Movies

• Gattaca. I don’t know why I have just seen this only recently, may have missed it for reasons I don’t know. It’s just how I like my futuristic movies to be like. Sends an interesting message about on how our reliability on science let’s us overlook other stuff. It’s really nice. Not that I am anti-science, sometimes there are things like faith. Not that I now believe in you know what, I don’t think the movie also sends that message. It’s inspiring. Really.

Internet

• esnips. It’s a great means to do some file-sharing. E-books, pictures, music, etc. But you can make public or private.
• Utrackmovies. I have my librarything for my books and I have Utrack for my movies. I still haven’t finished updating my collection but you can visit it, click here and enter jeeper for password. By the way, my movies wouldn’t really be considered inside some of the categories it’s in kasi nga marami sa kanila nabili ko lang sa mga gilid-gilid ng St. Francis Square. Dapat natin bawasan ang pagbili ng pirated DVDs. Hehehe.

Music

I don’t listen much to modern music these days. I am listening to a lot of old songs right now, Stone Temple Pilot and The Carpenters. I am really amused by Karen Carpenter’s voice. Let me listen right now. Man! I can’t get over listening to Superstar.

PS

I am still working on my new domain, there were some problems with the SSL of my registrar. They said they’ll manually make some changes on it. So, yeah. I am still waiting for their email. I should have sent them a word earlier. And I was thinking,I may have done something stupid.