2012

A rumor, brewed from the West, reached our village. The world would end. And the giant one would tell us how. It was a long and heated debate. Friendships were lost. In the end the elders decided to send three villagers to the giant and report back how the world would meet its fate. I was one of those three.

Thus, on Tuesday, the 17th of November, we journeyed south to the giant. The journey was hard. We braved strong winds and heavy rains in order to reach the giant. It was as though a force hidden beneath the winds and rains wanted us not to know how our world would end. But we were determined. We were brave.

The sun has long since hidden itself by the time we reached the giant's place. The moon shone brightly without a hint of the heavy rains during our journey.

The rumors were real. The giant one knew the world was about to end. And he knew how it would happen. But beneath the amazing detail of his story, a ray of hope. Some would survive. The world would be destroyed, but not completely. It was good knowing there would be survivors, even as I know none would come from our village.

We journeyed home. I presented our report to the elders. The elders presented it to the village. We said our goodbyes.

Okay, above was a writing exercise. Below are my thoughts on the movie 2012.

It was surreal watching the planet being destroyed swiftly and in a detailed way. As I watched the monk being swept away as he tolled his last gong, I said to myself, Charlie was right to stay put. There's not a lot that anyone can do. I saw no Filipino aboard those arks. And a computer simulation showed the Philippine archipelago getting buried underwater. I suppose there's nothing I could do in that situation. I'd just wait for the gigantic tidal waves to approach me and tweet my last: I see the waves coming towards me. I guess this is goodbye. #apocalypse. But by then, the fiber optic lines connecting the interwebs would have been destroyed long before I'd get my first glimpse of the giant waves. I'd see in my TweetDeck Twitter Status: Problem with all feeds. In the end, when the waters have long subsided and future archaeologists study a solid state drive once belonging to a startup called Twitter, they'd see my actual last tweet to be: Woke up early to the news that America has started evacuations. I see the sun outside. Hope the waves never come.

Paper cut

I didn't plan to see this movie. For this week, I was keen on seeing only two movies, and both have numbers in their titles: 2012 and 500 Days of Summer. I saw 2012 last Tuesday. And I saw New Moon late last night. And it was only because several friends from the office wanted to see it, and being in bench I have nothing better to do, so I said what the heck, count me in.

I was not a fan of the first movie, Twilight. But I'd say that it was a better movie than this sequel. A year ago, I wrote that Twilight was really a love story more than it was a vampire story. The first one tells a story. This one doesn't tell much. It was all about setups. And I'm not sure if it was trying to setup a story or just an audience reaction. But considering the events that took place in the movie, I lean towards the latter.

The very first setup, said it all. And set the tone for the whole movie. I've never seen a paper cut produced that amount of blood before. And certainly not from opening a wrapped gift. For one thing, gift wrappers aren't notorious for giving paper cuts. They're very easy to tear apart. That's what makes them gift wrappers. If they're hard to tear, then we'd just call them paper and won't bother coining a term for them. But Bella, for some reason, got a nasty paper cut, spilled blood, made Edward ran away from her to protect her from, well I don't know, more paper cuts, perhaps, which resulted into a very long act of Jacob and Bella getting closer, which made me check my watch and wonder where the heck was Edward? Seriously, the Jacob-Bella plot got so long and tired that I really asked myself, where the heck was Edward? And not because I'm a fan, but I knew that in order for the movie to end, he needed to show his face again. And indeed, he showed his face again and the movie ended--- in an allusion to Romeo and Juliet, the title of the book shown at the bed of Bella Swan at the opening of the movie.

New Moon. Not much story. All setups. And it all started with a paper cut.

Trip to Sumilon Island

Sumilon Island

We were always meant to say goodbye

Every morning we walk in strides

There's the sun, the sky, and your smile

But today there's only the sun and the sky

We were always meant to say goodbye

I see you and me enjoying life's ride

Till the Earth and moon collide

But I knew even as the sun still shines of bright

We were always meant to say goodbye

You make my world come alive

In my heart your voice brings delight

Now I long for those beat through the night

We were always meant to say goodbye

We were always meant to say goodbye

Guess I need to learn to just cry

Always I dream of you by my side

But we're always meant to say goodbye

***

For Liz and Chen. Here's hoping they become best friends again. I don't believe that they were always meant to say goodbye.

Adieu, ile Maurice (or Going Home)

In a way I feel sad. There are a lot of things that I'm going to miss about Mauritius. Above everything else is the very beautiful beach situated just a short walk away from where we were housed. Some colleagues who went touring the south on my final Sunday here in Mauritius couldn't understand why I preferred to stay behind and commune with the beach. They said I missed a lot. But I doubt it. I don't like the beach just because it is picture perfect. I like everything about it. The sounds that the waves make as they hit the shore. The smell of the sea. The cool breeze. The texture of the sands against my bare feet. Sugar Beach in Flic en Flac is truly magnificent. And it's nice that it's a public beach here in Mauritius. Back in the Philippines we have to pay a lot just to gain access to a beach this beautiful. And the trip going to them would be quite long. It's a stroke of luck that our company houses short-term assignees in Flic en Flac. I thank God for the opportunity to be here. I'm a bit sad that I'm going home already. But at the end of the day I know that deep within me I'm glad to be going home. Not much has changed than when I was first asked by a colleague in Cebu after my first couple of weeks here whether I like it here or not. My answer then was that it's not nicer compared to the Philippines, but it's not also less nice. I feel neutral about it then; that it was nothing more than just a different place. And that at the end of the day, there's no place like home. Now that I'm finally going home I still feel the same way. There's no place like home.

Adieu, ile Maurice in 1 day

(I have no internet connection over the weekend so I'm posting three days worth of goodbyes to Ile Maurice.)

I will remember Flic en Flac and its nice cold weather. I will remember how I could just sleep all day under this weather.

I will remember Flic en Flac with its wonderful misty rains. I will remember how light the rain were and how beautiful they were to look at.

I will remember Flic en Flac with its public beach and its perfect sunset. I will remember sitting on the sand looking at the vast waters in front of me as I wait for the sun to go down.

Trois. Deux. Un.

Adieu, ile Maurice.

(Wow, corny na kaayo ko. Pasabot nga pauli na gyud ko sa Pilipinas. Pero mingawon gyud ko sa beach. Unta naay sama ka nindot nga beach na walking distance sa akong gapuy-an sa Cebu.)

Adieu, ile Maurice in 4 days

Quatre jours.

I will remember Flic en Flac where Le Latanier stands. I will remember the serene nights of sleep with hundreds of frogs singing the lullabye in unison.

Adieu, ile Maurice.

Adieu, ile Maurice in 5 days

Cinq jours.

I will remember Flic en Flac with its vast empty fields where sugar canes once stood. I will remember how the fields make the landscape we see on our way to work and our way home more picturesque than when I first got here.

Adieu, ile Maurice.

Adieu, ile Maurice in 6 days

Six jours.

I will remember Flic en Flac with its long stretches of beaches. I will remember its waters, brilliant and green, and its sands, fine and white.

Adieu, ile Maurice.

Adieu, ile Maurice in 7 days

Sept jours.

I will remember Flic en Flac with its vast sugar cane plantation. I will remember the sugar canes that wave us off to work and greet us back home everyday.

Adieu, ile Maurice.

Winter weather

If there's one thing that I'm going to miss in this place it would have to be the weather, specifically the winter weather (I've heard summers here can go as high as 35 degrees Celsius). If I'm permitted to miss other things, then I'll also miss the friendly people and their peculiar use of handshake as an everyday-greeting as opposed to what I'm used to back in the Philippines. There the handshake is reserved for the initial meeting. The beach, particularly the public one in Flic en Flac, is another thing that I'll miss. For three months I lived within a walking distance to one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever been to (not that I've been to many). Coming in here with the tall sugar canes lining up the majority of roadsides, I thought the roadsides here are picturesque. But now that most of the crops have been harvested, the view of wide empty spaces of land is even more breathtaking. The mixture of rural structures and urban structures that I see on the way to work is a welcome change to the short ride over a few city blocks in Cebu that I used to travel to go to work.

But at the end of the day, the notion that there's no place like home still ring true. My country, my city is just as beautiful. This place just happens to be different.

Work, life

Beaches and mountains
Stonewalls and sugar canes
Run and walk
Silence and talk
Smile and tears
Laughter and fears
Clicks and presses
Songs and dances

I can see the light that beacons me home. Two months on and with a month to go here in a different country in a different continent, and over two years of living in a city far from home back in the Philippines, maybe, just maybe, I now understand the phrase there's no place like home. I can't help but feel I'm walking in circles. That in the end I'll stop where I started. That the only thing I don't know right now is how big a circle it's going to be.

Star Trek

We had two choices last Friday night. Either we go to Angels and Demons on opening day or go to Star Trek on its second weekend. In the end we decided to avoid most of the crowd by going to the latter. And boy did we chose the right flick. I heard from some colleagues who went to Angels that it wasn't that good.

The young and fatherless James Tiberius Kirk was growing up to be a troublemaker. One night at a bar he got into a fight with some Starfleet cadets. It was the night that changed his life forever. Though if you knew at least some general knowledge of the original TV series, the night actually steered his life towards what was always his destiny, which is to say as the captain of the USS Enterprise.

This is a very well-written, well-directed, well-acted reboot of a popular old franchise. I have never seen (that is to say, completed) a single episode of the original TV series when the reruns were shown in a local station (RPN 5 in Cagayan de Oro) in the 1980's. I thought it was boring. I never got around to watching any of the 10 movie adaptations that came before this new one. I don't know much of the characters except for some of their names. But this new movie was awesome. I want to watch it again. JJ Abrams and his Fringe-writing team wrote a very adventurous, action-packed, and funny reboot of the Star Trek story and with lots of lens flare and camera-shake. This is not to be missed in theaters.

***

How about that win by Roger Federer of the Madrid Open 2009? He beat Rafael Nadal on his home turf and on his favorite surface. The French Open just became interesting. Many say it was because Nadal was tired. Excuses. Right. Pretty much what they said of Hatton, and of De La Hoya, when they were pulverized by Pacquiao. Just as they can't accept the fact that Pacquiao was the better fighter in those two fights, Nadal fans can't accept that Federer was the better player in the recent match.

Almost a full circle

Next month marks the fifth year that I would be in Blogger and a blogger. So I'm changing a few things around the blog to reflect its original name. The Smaller Picture. It better represents what this blog was all about from the get go. It is meant to keep for posterity the small thoughts that occasionally pop up in my mind. With this changes I hope to save more small thoughts here. I used to put poems and reflections here along with the occasional movie, tv, and book reviews. Lately it had been mostly about the latter stuffs. But I hope to change this in the coming days. This probably wouldn't mean that I'll be posting more frequently, but rather that I'd be striking a balance between using this blog as a life journal (which is what is currently happening) and a place to keep creative writing exercises. Of course, I'm not known to keep goals I set out for this blog in the past, but that doesn't mean that I should stop trying.

Right. Now off to sleep.

T2, Harry Potter

T2

I watched T2 with my co-workers last night. Earlier that day another co-worker told us it was not scary at all, so if we went there for the scare, we'd be disappointed. But we weren't there for the fright. We went there because we wanted to see a movie, any movie, and relax after a week's work. By the time we arrived at the theater "T2" was the only option, with the other movies being 30 minutes into their last full show already. "T2" at least was just 10 minutes into its last show.

Claire worked for an organization whose goal was to reunite orphan children with their relatives. By the time we took our seat she'd already reunited a boy to his far-flung relatives in most likely a very northern town of Luzon some thousand miles away from Manila. On their way home, she and her driver/assistant encountered a roadblock, forcing them to stay at a convent that happens to have an orphan ripe for delivery to her long lost aunt in Manila. The long lost aunt lived in a building called "T2", of which there's something more than meets the eye. The journey to Manila quickly became a journey full of bizarre events that were supposed to lead to a climax of scary events to occur when they arrive at building T2.

Ultimately, the bizarre events during the journey was so visually disconnected to those in building T2, and the "creatures" so visually different from those in the scare-o-building. It felt like the script was being written and the costume and makeup being designed while filming was in progress. You'd be forgiven to think that the "journey home" was an unnecessary setup for the events in "building T2". Remove the "journey" act and you'd still have a movie and you lose nothing but 40 or so minutes of footage.

Harry Potter

The full trailer to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has just been released. Can't wait to see it.

Susan Boyle

Afternoon, April 14, Tuesday. I took a logical break from work and checked what's trending in Twitter. People are twittering about "24". I clicked. Immediately I was bombarded with spoilers from the latest episode, which I planned to watch that evening. The episode was spoiled, but the spoilers made me anticipate watching the episode even more. After checking out other familiar stuffs that are trending in Twitter, I went on (like I usually do) to check the unfamiliar trends, things that don't ring a bell. One of those trends that afternoon was "Susan Boyle", a 47-year old hopeful in the regional auditions for Britain's Got Talent and in the tweets are links to the same Youtube video. Video streaming is blocked at work. So I sent an email to my personal email account containing the link to the video so that I could check it when I went home. "Susan Boyle" wasn't really trending very high then, and I figured she wouldn't be trending anymore by the time I check twitter trends at home. I couldn't have predicted how unnecessary that was. It's Saturday already and "Susan Boyle" is still one of the top trends in Twitter.

That audition clip, uploaded to Youtube, which as I wrote this has 19.6 million views, was truly one of a kind. It got all the elements working for it: Susan Boyle's life story and the perfect song choice. I have seen my fair share of American Idol episodes, and in that type of competition, song choice often made or break you. Boyle couldn't have chosen a better song to sing in that audition. She was there in the auditions to try to lived her dream of becoming a professional singer. And she chose to sing I Dreamed A Dream from the musical Lés Miserables. The orchestral accompaniment, which the editors have used as background music in the post-audition interview and the "three yesses" and then in Boyle's exit of the stage, where she blew a kiss to the audience was perfect. All these elements coming in together made for some very dramatic moments that rivaled any scripted TV. It's the best feel-good moment I have seen from any reality series or competition so far (at least from those that I watched).

Of course, song choice was just one factor. She still had to have the voice. And her voice was amazing. Some people would say it was nothing extraordinary. That maybe, she herself admitted on television that there's room for improvement, but I have heard several versions since I watched her Youtube clip, and her's is still the best that I have heard. A recording she made in 1999 for her local town's charity cd (only a thousand copies were produced), in which she sang Cry Me A River surfaced on Youtube recently. And it, too, was brilliant. I could just imagine what it would have been like if she was "discovered" at the age of 20. She would have by now 27 years of singing career under her belt. She would probably have been one of the judges in Britain's Got Talent. Although, considering how beautiful her voice still is at 47, she'd probably be busy touring the world to judge a talent competition.

Easter 2009

It's day 9 of the very long weekend that I talked about in my previous post. It's the last day of that weekend, which means I go back to work tomorrow, which means I'm sailing back to Cebu tonight. I wasn't able to do much of the things that I thought I could do during the long hiatus from work. I didn't read any book, didn't watch much TV or DVDs, didn't buy a digicam, didn't write anything at all, and didn't even surf the net that much. I did watch some TV and surf some, but certainly not as much as I did the previous long hiatus from work back in December. Odd thing was that every night (except for a couple ones), I actually slept one to two hours earlier than I normally do back in Cebu. And I didn't compulsively check my work emails, only quickly went through them once every day (mostly at the end of the day and only if I happen to go online that particular night) unlike the previous long hiatus where I checked my emails everytime I went online. I made an effort to give myself a real break and I believe I achieved it.

Happy Easter!

A very long weekend

It's the Friday before the Holy Week. It's the prelude to a long weekend for the working class. At least to those who managed to sneak a vacation leave on the only two working days next week. Around me there's a prantic almost deliberate sense of doing nothing. In the hearts and minds of the working class, the long weekend is about to start. And we anticipate it like we do Christmas, but to a lesser, more subdued extent.

What does a member of the working class do for a weeklong break?

Should I read books? Be transported to a world so different or so similar to my own. Should I watch a lot of TVs? And just sit around and eat and doze off. Should I watch lots of movies? And still sit around and eat and doze off. Should I buy a digicam? And shoot pictures to my heart's content. Should I write a lot (and not just blog posts)? Create a world where I'm in total control of the fate of the characters. Where happy endings are a sentence away.

Whatever I end up doing, so long as it isn't work. So long as I'm near my parents. So long as I am home. I need this rest and somehow I feel I deserve it.

***

I wasn't very busy when I started writing this earlier Friday.  And then I got busy. Thus, the late post.

Watching Watchmen

We were going to the videoke after work one Friday evening. But I got a bit stuck at work and they went ahead. I told them I'll just try to catch up. But I didn't. Those of us who had to work late decided that we could see a movie instead. And so we ate our late dinner and immediately went to the cinema to catch the day's last full show of Watchmen.

It was also a Friday sometime in 1985 (if I remember correctly), that a comedian was killed in New York. He was a "superhero" in his heyday, though he, just like the rest of his troop except for one, didn't have superpowers. A "superhero" friend of his decided to investigate the murder, wrote the details in his diary, and we got ourselves a story. The heart of the movie was his investigation, though its flesh were the lives of these so-called ordinary superheroes described in details as he went along his investigation. In the end, he found out what happened and suffered the truth's consequence.

Was it worth missing a videoke session to see this movie? I love videoke and to me there can never be a movie worth missing a videoke session. But I didn't regret going to it. It was well worth the admission price, the story was intriguing, and it was well-made. But the ending was kind of bleh and had some revelations that made you feel that all aspects of which were hidden from you throughout the movie until right before the movie needed to end. The ending was so disconnected to me. It felt so foreign. Half-the world was blown to pieces, millions probably died, mostly civilians because the targets where city-centers not military installations just so the Russians and the US kiss and make-up. And we're suppose to nod our heads and agree that it was a great idea, that it was ingenious.

Perfect snogging

Who name their movie, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging? Answer. Those who adapt it from the book Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging. From the writer-director of Bend It Like Beckham comes a modern English fairy tale involving teenagers and their most serious of problems: mainly hooking up and snogging. It was almost like any other teenage movie off Holywood, except that it had a decidedly English flair. The story was nothing spectacular and, at times, was familiar and predictable. But the beautiful English mixed suburban-country side setting made it fresh. And it's not really a fairy tale. It just felt like it was, with its ending and all.

***

There was this scene in the movie where one of the characters didn't seem to mind being under the rain all the while wearing the school uniform. It reminded me of Night Owl from Watchmen. No umbrellas. Let the rain pour. It's been a while since I last took a walk or played under the rain. There was this one rainy day in elementary (it rained a lot in my home city) where I'd wear a raincoat going to school, but walked all the way home without it. Good time, care-free times.

Dollhouse and Role Models

Dollhouse

It's a new scifi drama series created by Josh Whedon (creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Firefly", and "Angel") about an organization called Dollhouse whose main products are so-called "actives", human beings who have no personality and therefore can be imprinted with anything their clients want. In short the "actives" will be anything the client wants them to be. It's an intriguing story, but the second episode seemed like an episode fit for a mid-season run already. Someone's not very confident with the show. That's probably the reason why it's on a Friday, the day of the week with the least number of primetime viewers in the US.

Role Models

It's a comedy film starring Sean William Scott and Paul Rudd. The two main characters work in the marketing department of an energy drink. They got into trouble and broke some laws. However, instead of a 30-day stay in jail, they're sent to 150 hours of community service. The community service happens to be the comedy world's answer to Jedi master-apprentice thingy. The two become unwilling mentors to two unwilling child mentees. And of course, half-way through the movie the two unwilling mentees got a change of hearts. They now like their mentors. In the end, the mentors finish their community service and nobody went to jail.

I'd say it's a light comedy, with not too many laugh out loud moments. It's a straight-to-video material and it probably was.

You changed my life.

Another one of those Tagalog movies, with a song title as its title that's remotely connected to the story. So what else is new? But I still went to see it anyway. We were supposed to be doing videoke, but then as the boring Friday at the office went on the consensus, somehow, shifted. And 13 of us from the office ended up watching "You Changed My Life". And I'm the only one in the group who hadn't seen the first one ("A Very Special Love"). These songs are forgettable in themselves and sadly so are the movies that were forced upon them to represent by the Pinoy movie industry.

I've read somewhere that the first movie was the top-grossing Pinoy film of 2008, and some say this could be the top-grosser for 2009. Contrast that to the 2008 top-grossers of Hollywood: "The Dark Knight", "Iron Man", "Indiana Jones 4", "Hancock", and "WALL-E". Okay, so maybe the local movie industry can't and shouldn't be compared to Hollywood. That would be comparing a third world country to a developed or highly-industrialized one. But how about those Hollywood romantic comedies that don't require state of the art special effects, stories like "You've Got Mail", "My Best Friend's Wedding", or "Definitely, Maybe"? Or the Korean stories like "Il Mare" or "The Classic"? Take note, I said "stories" instead of "movies". The local industry can't come up with movies like those due to budget constraints. But good stories are independent of budget. Surely these writers watched those American and Korean hits. They're popular here after all. But why do they time after time come up with movies with titles of forgettable songs as movie titles packed with equally forgettable stories?

Anyhow, the experience itself was fun. There were 13 of us. And we laughed at several corny lines and scenes, complained about the crappy audio track of the movie, notice a drastic change in the color grade between the first and the second half of the movie, and laughed and frowned at the awkwardness and deceit of the very last scene of this John Lloyd Cruz and Sarah Geronimo vehicle.

Shopaholic Movie

First, there was the book, which I haven't read. You see, years ago, I've read about this book on the internet. It was a best seller. Back then I was still working in Cagayan de Oro. And there really was only one bookstore in the city. Of course I didn't find the book when I looked for it. I bought a lot of other books since then and I guess I just forgot about this book.

And then there was the movie, which for some reason I really haven't heard it was being made. I only learned about it when we went to our company's Movie Night #1 for 2009. We passed by a big standee of a red shopping bag with Isla Fisher printed on it. Directed by PJ Hogan it says. Right then and there it became interesting. The director of Peter Pan (2003) is returning to chick flicks (he directed 1997's My Best Friend's Wedding). Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Again interesting. For some reason I always thought that his company only produces big, blockbuster films.

And so I invited the only one I know from the office who read and liked the book to watch the movie with me. She, of course, accepted the invitation immediately. She's a fan of the book (actually books because she'd read other titles in the series). So off we went to Ayala Cinema 1 on Thursday after office.

Well, it was funny and we had lots of laugh watching it. It's not the best romantic comedy by a long shot. That would have to be You've Got Mail, which starred Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Or Definitely, Maybe, which also starred Isla Fisher. Isla Fisher is very good at comedy. I think she made Confessions of a Shopaholic work and made it watchable despite the very simple plot that would just drive any serious movie critic mad-crazy.

Just wasn't meant to be

I guess it just wasn't Federer's time to match Sampras's grand slam titles record (whatever that number is). I really don't follow tennis. Back in Cagayan where we had cable, I only watched The Wimbledon. So it's not surprising that I root for the Swiss, Roger Federer. I mean, how could you not when you only watch the Wimbledon, and for years he had always won the whole thing before Nadal defeated him last year.

There are still three grand slams left for the year (French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open). Three chances to match and then break Sampras's record. I still believe he'd do it this year. Nadal, with the win in Australia, is beginning to look like he has what it takes to win all four grand slams this year. But I think he still has a lot of things to proved before I root for him instead of Federer whenever they meet.

Movie night #1

The Company's Movie Night is back with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, the pick for January. It's back but for how long I don't know. Somehow in the light of the current state of the economy, in the light of what happened two weeks ago, of saying goodbye to laid-off friends, and the uncertainty of the rest of the calendar year and the next fiscal year, somehow it doesn't matter anymore whether there will be another such movie night in the coming months. The US economy got the colds and every other economy is feeling it, too.

Anyway, back to Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. I haven't seen the first two movies in the trilogy so I don't know how well its story blended with the stories in the first two movies. As it is, though, its story was easy enough to understand and to follow even without understanding the deeper impact of the events in this movie to the first two movies, this one being a prequel. I had one slight problem with it. The story was very simple and not much was happening with it that I'm not really sure if it should have been made into a movie at all, except perhaps to get a bigger budget than it would have gotten if it were just a tv-movie or a miniseries.

First post for 2009

In a few days month number one of 2009 draws to a close. And as I expected, I'm back in Cebu and not blogging. Perhaps there's something in Cagayan de Oro that makes me want to blog.

Anyhow, I've seen several movies already (not necessarily released this year): Burn After Reading (2008), City of Ember (2008), Eagle Eye (2008), Millions (2006), Seven Pounds (2008), and Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Here are my thoughts about these movies.

Burn After Reading - There were some funny moments, but it was just not my brand of comedy. Most of the time I wasn't laughing at all.

City of Ember - It was the company's October movie night pick last year, but unfortunately it opened in Cebu in December that resulted into the cancellation of the movie night for that month. I like sci-fi so maybe this is the reason why I liked this movie. It reminded me of Wall-E, only this time the people chose to wait it out underground instead of outerspace.

Eagle Eye - This received many bad reviews, but it's a good thriller actually. The super-duper-computer looked stupid, laughable even, though.

Millions - This came from the makers of Slumdog Millionaire. But it was the more feel-good of the two films and involved saints and an overflow of Scottish accents.

Seven Pounds - The only thing that this movie had it going was Will Smith. Without him (except if maybe replaced with Tom Hanks, the other most likeable actor) this movie had nothing worth watching. The story was intriguing but the movie itself was boring and slow.


Slumdog Millionaire - This came from the makers of 2006's Millions. Supposedly what I saw was the real India or at least the real Mumbai (skyscrapers surrounded by slums) and its people's stories distilled into a single story of one Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestant. I have the feeling that the same story is true here in the Philippines. This movie pretty much explained why game shows are the number one shows here in the Philippines, and to a lesser extent why poorly-made fantasy series are hits to the masses.

***

It seems that the current (fourth) season of Prison Break will be its last. The remaining episodes of the series will be aired in the US, Friday nights starting April 17. Apparently most Americans go to the movies or somewhere other than their homes on Fridays, so the networks dump their soon-to-be-axed shows or those on which they don't have much confidence in that day. Oh well, the big twist this season was pretty much over the top, and somehow it felt like the show was asking for its own death sentence. And Fox gave it that.