Hobbit and penguins

Hobbit 3

I've anticipated to see this movie for almost a year and expected too much that when I finally saw it I was underwhelmed. How could I not be underwhelmed? It was barely a movie despite its 144-minute runtime. The only scenes that I really liked were the ones near the last 30 minutes. I'm beginning to believe that they only had that much remaining movie and that the rest were fillers to get to that ending. I've read in the past that they only planned two movies. And based on what I saw, that may have been the case. Be that as it may, I don't begrudge Peter Jackson for making 3 movies instead of the planned 2. In my own industry some things also don't go as planned. But I question stretching it to 144 minutes if he only had about 30 minutes of story to tell. People will complain of paying full price for a 30-minute movie for sure. But why not trim down the other 120 minutes by half? What is so wrong with having a movie that's shorter than 120 minutes if you really only had that much to tell?

On a side note, this reminds me of another movie I saw this year that I thought was stretched out purposely to make an extra movie. That movie was  Mockingjay Part 1. I also did not like that movie as much as I liked the previous ones in the series.

On another note, the line, "Why does it hurt so much?" in Hobbit 3 and how it was delivered was cringe-worthy.


Penguins of Madagascar

I had no plans to watch this movie, but the company picked it for a free movie outing. So I got to see it for free. And it was fun! It won't be a classic any time soon, but it was fun to watch.

What if?

Photo from What If Facebook Page

1. Daniel Radcliffe needs a better American accent. I like his acting. He reminds me of Keanu Reeves, so if there's any plan to reboot the Matrix (reboot, Matrix, get it?), Daniel is the one. I believe he improved a lot over the years since taking on the role of that famous wizard Harry Potter. I hope he will appear in more movies (American or British). But for Hollywood, he needs a better American accent.
2. His role in this movie is actually a Londoner, but I just want to state #1.
3. How in the world is their city showing "Princess Bride" in a movie house in 2013? I've read the book in the past and I've seen the movie on my laptop, but if I was in their city, I'd also go see it in a movie house and also alone if nobody wants to go with me.
4. I'm a sucker for movies where characters write each other in complete sentences using email (You've Got Mail). It's the next best thing to using a pen to write something on paper, putting it in an envelope and posting it in a post office. And, to top it off, it's also the next best thing to tearing an envelope, unfolding a piece of paper, and reading a note from your friend written on paper using a pen.
5. I don't think #4 will ever happen again, so it's just me reminiscing.
6. That scene in the rain with the umbrella. Huzzah!
7. Zoe Kazan plays Chantry who is an animator with bangs and looked good in glasses. I know another actress who'd look good as an animator with bangs wearing eyeglasses: Zooey Deschanel.
8. Zoe and Zooey are probably not pronounced the same way. But I'm just guessing.
9. Good night, Chantry.
10. Option 5.
11. Dublin (in Ireland, just in case there's another Dublin) looked nice. Roads were made of cobblestones. I like the idea of me walking on something like that one day. In 2015 if I have my way.
12. I know that scene! I've seen both-looking-for-each-other-at-opposite-place countless times in the past. Corny, yes. I still like it.
13. That airport scene near the end, what was that all about? Why wasn't it edited out? Some crazy writing there.
14. 18 months later is not needed. The movie could have ended "earlier".
15. Daniel and Zoe could be the next Tom and Meg. But if this was "You've Got Mail", they need a "Sleepless in Seattle". 
16. They should "Sleepless in Seattle".

(Grade: B+)

Paddington

Sometimes while walking you get lost and stroll into a park unplanned and your day got a lot better. That’s not what happened to me in the circumstances upon which I got to see the Paddington movie. But the feeling is similar.

There are only two movies that I planned to watch this month. This was not one of them. I didn't even know that this movie existed even though Hugh Bonneville (I regularly watch Downton Abbey) was in it. But then I have a friend who loves her salads and the salad place had a promo where you add 2 bucks to get a cup of coffee and a movie voucher. She’s into salads and coffee, not so much into movies, so I got the voucher (I paid for the $2, of course). And with $2, I was ready to watch any movie. I chose this one.

Paddington is sort of an origin story of a popular plush toy of the 1950's that I learned was based on children’s books of the same decade. The story started in Darkest Peru where an English explorer was commissioned to find a specimen of odd stuff in his expedition. He found a couple of rather civilized bears and was awed that instead of capturing them, he took care of them and in return the bears cared for him. Fast forward to many years later, there was an earthquake and a tragedy in Darkest Peru. A young bear was sent to London to have a new home and a better life. Except that London was not as the explorer described. It was not warm and welcoming. It was cold and cold. Will the bear find a home in London?

I love just about everything about this movie. The phase at which the story moved forward was brisk. The colors were vibrant. The animated Paddington was endearing. The score hit the right notes at the right time: jolly, sad, quirky at all the right places. There were things happening in the background that while not important to move the story forward made it a visual treat. The cast gave inspired performances, especially Hugh Bonneville’s “Mr. Brown”. His comic timing, especially with the dry British humor, was impeccable.

If you need (or perhaps just want?) to lift your spirits up this Christmas, go and see this movie. Watch it with your family, or with friends, or even alone. This is going to be a future Christmas classic.

Looking back on 2014

Inspired by my old year-end list of 2005 where, among others, I listed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as my favorite book of that year (I can't believe it's been 9 years!), I thought I'd do another list this year for posterity's sake and for a nostalgic read 9 years from now.

Television

For the first time in years, my free time was not mostly spent in watching TV shows. At the start of the US fall season, I only followed four tv shows: Downton Abbey, Gotham, The Big Bang Theory, and The Amazing Race (now in its 25th season!). As of this writing, Downton Abbey has ended it's 5th season, and I lost interest in Gotham (not enough Batman) and Big Bang Theory (no longer funny like the first few seasons). I'm down with one remaining show, The Amazing Race, which in itself will end its 25th season this Friday. Between the two, Amazing Race and Downton Abbey, I don't really want to (and don't need to) choose a favorite. Both are clearly my favorites seeing that they're the only two shows that I watched in its entirety. Side note to TV: I also watched season 6 of Master Chef Australia. I like the Australian edition of Master Chef better than the US one: less politics, no trash talks, simply mentoring and cooking competition.

Movies

In the big screen arena, I also saw only a few movies in cinemas this year compared to last year thanks in large part to my big move to a "small" city. I loved How To Train Your Dragon 2 (as good as the first one). I also loved Big Hero 6 (Pixar-level Disney movie). Lastly, I loved Paddington, an origin movie of sorts for that famous plush toy from the storybooks of the 1950's. The movie was great. The plot progressed briskly with both light and emotionally charged moments, especially the notion of being lost and then being found. Side note to Paddington: LOST: 2 main stars left Downton Abbey 2 years ago to pursue movie careers forcing the writer to kill off their characters in the TV series. The movies they pursued were not memorable. FOUND: Hugh Bonneville (who plays the Earl), on the other hand, did not leave Downton, but found time to be in this good movie. The take away here, I believe, is don't leave Downton.

Books

I'll write about my favorite book (or books) this year  some other time. I'm writing this in my coffee break at work so I don't have much time. Au revoir, for now.

Maleficent

Promotional photo of Maleficent. (c) 2014 Disney.

1. Maybe it's just me, but I thought Maleficent didn't have much "conversation". She had plenty of dialogue, of course, after all she's the titular character of the movie. But it seemed to me she said some bleeps here and some bleeps there. This is a shame because Angelina shines through when given enough dialog.
2. As short as the run time was at 1 hour and 40 minutes, the story felt too long starting out with exposition from Maleficent as a child and well into after the proverbial true love's kiss. They crammed too much into 100 minutes. To me it felt like a slideshow where the presenter was in a hurry showing each slide with not so much an explanation but "and this happened". Click. And this happened. Click. And this happened. Click. And this happened.
3. If they wanted to stick to 100 minutes, they and us the moviegoers would have been better served if they just drop Aurora/Sleeping Beauty from the movie and concentrated on Maleficent's formative years ending at the giving of the gift. And then if they really wanted to, another 100 minutes for the Sleeping Beauty story line in the sequel.
4. Look at Wicked: only brief appearance of the Wizard and I don't even remember seeing Dorothy. Would have served them well if they saw Wicked and imitated it.
5. Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning were great. 
6. The one who played Stefan, though, didn't have much chemistry with Maleficent. Probably it was a result of cramming too much in 100 minutes that his character wasn't fully developed. 
7. Several times in the movie (especially in the Moors) I thought it sounded a lot like the 2003 live action adaptation of Peter Pan. Then in the end credits I read, Music by James Newton Howard. I like JNH's take on fairy music in both Maleficent and Peter Pan.
8. I saw it in 3D. Do yourself a favor, skip the 3D and see the Moors in full color instead.

Percy, Perseus, and The Proposal

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

A lot of people I know didn't like this movie. Well, I like it. Production value was great and the story is very rich and engaging. I only have two problems with this movie. First, so many things happened in this movie that there was barely any time to develop one scene before the need to move on to the next scene. This may in large part due to the film makers trying to squeeze so many scenes from the book into the movie most likely so as not to anger fans of the book. Second, the acting ability of the main child actor wasn't harnessed well by the director. Sometimes it felt like the actor was merely going through the motions and wasn't really into the role he portrayed, which is a shame because I found him to be a good child actor in a short-lived TV series, Jack and Bobby, carried by Studio 23 in the Philippines some years ago. But on the other hand it was an enjoyable movie to watch.

Clash of the Titans

Most of my friends who I watched this movie with were disappointed with this movie. For some reason they had high expectations with it, which I didn't really understand. Maybe they were very good in Greek Mythology or something. I, on the other hand, didn't even know that this movie was made until I saw the trailers a few months back. My only real problem with this movie was the unbelievability of the film's main protagonist, Perseus, played by AVATAR's Sam Worthington. That actor doesn't have a wide array of emotions under his belt. He reminded me of Keanu Reeves. But the movie was enjoyable, the special effects were more than decent. I enjoyed watching this movie. It was never boring.

The Proposal

"The truth is Margaret and I are two people who are not supposed to fall in love with each other but did."

The first two-thirds of the movie was actually very good. It was funny and witty and the onscreen chemistry of Sandra Bullock and the actor playing the lead role was good. But the last thirds of the movie was weak. I didn't really believe that Andrew would fall in love with Margaret based solely on the events that unfolded in the first 2/3 of the movie. His "change of heart" wasn't believable. It felt forced by the writers just so they could end their movie.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Favorite movie 2008

December is drawing to a close and with it the year. I don't think I'll be seeing another movie in the theaters for the rest of the year, so I think it's safe to pick my favorite among the movies that I have seen in theaters this year. I've seen most big movies for free courtesy of The Company's "movie night" before the budget for community activities were cut: I Am Legend, Vantage Point, Iron Man, Indiana Jones IV, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Twilight. It's easy to see how it's been cut, of course. Notice that all of these movies came out in the first half of 2008 with the exception of the last one, which came out in November. In the second half of 2008 the economic crisis in the US began to loom upon us like the heavy dark clouds before a storm. If the budget wasn't cut I would have seen 12 movies (one for each month) for free by now and I would have seen my favorite movie of 2008 for free. As it was, I had to pay for it to see it and seen it with only two co-workers instead of 99.

WALL-E. I have no doubt that this would have been picked had there been a "movie night" for August. I like "nice" sci-fi movies. By nice I mean something that isn't highly stylized (e.g. making the whole thing grayscale, or the opposite making it burst with too bright colors) and something that doesn't strive to be something more than what it can actually deliver. WALL-E was the "nicest" scifi movie that I've seen this year. It's a Pixar animated flick and, like its predecessors, it's worth the ticket price to see it in theaters. If WALL-E wasn't shown this year, The Dark Knight would have been my top favorite movie. And there's also no doubt in my mind that it would have been picked for July if the movie night budget wasn't cut.

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I have seen only 3 Filipino movies in theaters this year: Ploning, For the First Time, and I.T.A.L.Y.. And among them, only Ploning was worth the ticket price. Even the co-workers that "forced" me to watch FTFT and ITALY with them weren't happy with these movies.

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Tropic Thunder was the funniest movie that I've seen in theaters this year. It was funny in a silly kind of way. And we paid only 90 pesos for each ticket because we saw this in SM instead of the usual Ayala Center.

The funniest one in the most-fun kind of way had got to be Bolt from Disney. We had plenty of laughter and the story wasn't bad either.

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Next year, I'm looking forward to watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The irony

The irony. When I'm in a project, sometimes I get very busy that it's very tiring and I long for the days that I'll be in bench again. But when I'm in bench for a long time, it's boring and I long for the days when I'll be in project again. They say I should enjoy the time I have in bench. Well, I enjoyed it, of course, but I can only enjoy it for so long until it becomes too boring. I feel like rust is starting to form in my brain. On top of that, we were "encouraged" to take a very long leave of absence, effectively about a month's worth of absence starting Monday, December 15. Paid, yeah, but I want to save some VL credits for the Holy Week next year. But hey, the Holy Week will still be a very long weekend no matter what. There, the silver lining in this irony of a life in an outsourcing firm.

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The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the words of one of my co-workers that watched the movie with me, "Mao ra to?" ("Is that all?")

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Bolt. We enjoyed this movie a lot. With the merging of Disney and Pixar, Disney's back with producing quality films. The last time I enjoyed a Disney animated movie was when they released Mulan. And that's a long time ago.

Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park

It was after my first week in my freshman year in high school. For five days I had gone to the city by myself to attend school. I lived some 16 kilometers away from the city and for the most part I was confined to our barangay (village) since I had been attending a local school. But high school was different. I got a scholarship from a school downtown. A few classmates from elementary school and I decided we should celebrate our first week of going to school in the city by watching a movie. So we went to the city, to Lim Ket Kai center, which was new back then, to see a movie. We went to see Jurassic Park.

We enjoyed it a lot. Residing as I did that far from the city, with parents who were never into movies, I rarely went to the cinemas. Jurassic Park was the first movie with awesome special effects I saw in a theater. I was blown away by the special effects. It was as though dinosaurs, extinct for millions of years, were back and roamed along side humans. Afterward, we agreed to watch it again.

It was only later that I learned it was based on a novel by Michael Crichton. I borrowed a book, "Congo", from a classmate in second year high school, and though published much earlier, the recently released paper back listed "Jurassic Park" as one of Crichton's novels. I've put off reading the book for a while. I went on to read the author's "Airframe", "Timeline", "Andromeda Strain", and most recently "Next". And then weeks ago, came the news that Michael Crichton died. I thought it's time to read "Jurassic Park". And so I looked for my copy, which started to gather dusts, and started reading.

It was good as always. I've yet to read a Crichton novel that bored me. I don't want to say that the book is better than the movie. I'd say that it was as enjoyable as the movie was. The book certainly digged deeper into the characters as only a book could do, but just the same I wouldn't prefer it over the movie that I enjoyed so much, that my friends and I enjoyed so much one Saturday afternoon, after our first five days of going to the city by ourselves.