Theater Report: Forbidden Kingdom

April 23, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
7:30 PM
Attendance: 95% of capacity

Story:

Jason is a kung fu obsessed teenager. He frequented what looked like a very weird video shop ran by an odd old man. He found a staff that turned out to be magical and was once owned by the Monkey King. Jason turned out to be "the one" who'll free the Monkey King from a Jade lord curse. To do that, though, he apparently had to travel back in time or to use the movie's term, "go through the gate of no gate" (what the heck?) to when Jackie Chan wore a hideous wig (I hope it's not his real hair) playing the "drunken master" (which I have to say he couldn't do as well as he once did years ago) and Jet Li was, well, Jet Li. Trained by these two masters, the evil Jade simply had no chance. There's this girl they threw into the story at a fight scene in a tea house who obviously was just thrown there so that the movie will have a female character (which otherwise doesn't add to the story). Jason fell in love with this girl later, or at least the writer tried to fool us that he did. This subplot has got to be the most underdeveloped love subplot in the history of impossible movie love affairs. This female character was simply just the token love-interest-of-the-hero role. The writer tried to flesh her character out by having her tell the story of how the evil Jade lord killed her father and burned down their village. But the way she told it and the way the "flashback" was presented on screen, I just didn't care. In the end her character was insignificant. Negligible. And sure enough she was killed later in the movie. And I shed not a single drop of tear. Even the circumstances upon which she died was a token kill-the-love-interest-of-the-hero act. In the end Jet Li trainor of Jason turned out to be a strand of hair of the Monkey King (which he used to clone himself) and drunken master Jackie Chan turned out to be odd old man from the odd old videoshop. The token love-interest girl reappeared in her 21st century hot girl glory seconds away from when the end credits scrolled up. And Jason smiled a knowing smile.

Thoughts:

The way I described the story above should be enough for anyone to gauage how I feel about this movie. What an utter waste of 140 pesos. Several of us from the office decided we should watch a movie. A mini poll was conducted. This movie won. It might look like I spoiled the movie by telling what happened in the end, but in reality I'm saving you (all four of you who read my blog) from accidentally spending your hard-earned cash on this movie.

Would I see it again? Would I recommend it to my friends? If you have to ask, you'll never know.

***

Actually, if I forget about the 140 pesos I paid for the ticket for a moment, I believe the very simplistic love connection presented in the movie between Jason and the token heroe's-love-interest can happen in real life. When both of you are eight. At that age, there's a big chance that your crush also has a crush on you. And you go on having a crush at each other, spending a lot of time together, writing each other notes, until such time that the two of you graduates from elementary school and had to go each other's separate ways because you are going to an all-boys high school and she an all-girls one.

I don't know. Just my opinion.

New banner

I thought it would be nice to have a banner for my blog, so I created one. The picture in the banner was that of the lake at Del Monte Golf Course. It's probably the tee #11 or #12 for senior golfers. I don't know. I forgot. But I love this part of the course. The tee was in a little island in the lake. I like that it had a bench at the end of the bridge that connected the little island to the rest of the golf course. Spread around the golf course were the company houses provided for Bugo and Plantation-assigned DM executives. How nice it would be at the end of each day to sit in that bench, relax, think, and blog.

***

And of course, whenever I think of the DM Golf Course, I remember her. And yeah, I wouldn't admit it before, but they were right, I went there just to see her, at least at first. But if I really think about if, if I can be objective about it, more than half the time (probably even two-thirds) I went there, I never saw her. So in the end I'd like to think that this proved that I went there because of the golf course more than anything else. One time I went there with just two hours of sleep (went home at 2:00 AM from a Saturday night out with friends, slept, and then woke up at 4:00 AM to get ready). I remember I was very sleepy in the ride going to the course, and sleepy while eating breakfast at the clubhouse. But as we started and I got to see the view of the course, breathed the fresh air, smelled the freshly-cut grass and the pleasant smell of pine trees, I was energized. The whole course was more than 6 km of walk, but I forgot that just minutes before I was tired and lacked sleep. There's something about walking that golf course that I love. It's the reflections about my life that I got while walking the scenic route. It's the reason why I now call this blog "Walk With Carl". This blog, like the walk, gives me a venue to think about my life and where it's headed. Now it's not literal where I write my goals in life here in this blog, rather this blog has been a tool for me to reflect on where I came from (my history, at least that which I chose to write about) and gives me an insight or hint at where I am headed.

***

And yes, the Moalboal trip last weekend. And the customary birthday post (which I conveniently forgot to write). More on these later.

Moalboal

I have been talking to an officemate through instant messenger about our plans to go to Moalboal (which I assume is a scenic beach/dive resort to the south of Cebu City) tomorrow. The original plan was for an overnight stay, but due to the resort being fully booked, it was decided that it will just be a whole day affair instead. It's fine by me, considering that the alternative was to stay overnight, sleeping on the beach using a sleeping mat. It would have been cool actually if I think about it but only so long as it wouldn't rain. If it rains, it'd be uncool and very cold night of non-sleep. So it'll just be a whole-day affair.

Now this Monday will be a public holiday so I guess I have an extra free day to buy a Rubik's cube and learn how to solve it.

***

I've just upgraded to Vista SP1. The total download was just around 67 MB (I guess because I've installed all updates from Windows Update just last month so my PC needed only a few updates to be officially called "SP1") and overall the whole activity probably took around an hour and a half to finish. I'm happy that I didn't experience any of those horror stories regarding installing SP1, though I guess it's still too early to tell if the installation went well.

I'm sticking with Vista for now because it came pre-installed with my PC. All other OS that I'd like to try will have to be installed in VMWare Server that I've already downloaded but have not yet installed. Interesting because in my previous PC, it took just about 5 days after buying it before I made it into a dual boot (the other OS being Mandrake Linux). Of course I was still in college then and I had plenty of free time to install and reinstall different operating systems. And it came with just Windows 98. And I wasn't "online" then so a downtime due to OS mishaps doesn't mean much. Now, I just want to check my Gmail everyday.

People say that Vista is slower than XP. And I get them. My previous PC, at the time that my parents bought it for me, just barely met the minimum requirements to run Windows XP. But when I finally installed XP (a release candidate, not the final release) I immediately notice the improved performance. It was noticeably faster than Windows 98.

This time around, my PC is not top-of-the-line, but I'm certain that with this specs, XP will fly like the wind if it was the one preinstalled. But I'm sticking with Vista for now. It came preinstalled with my PC and I'm sure a significant portion of the price I paid for it was for the OS. So I'm enjoying the privilege of "Genuine" Windows, whatever that means.

***

Update: The trip to Moalboal will be an overnight stay after all. I just hope it wouldn't rain.

Just dreams

Last year, I attended the World Youth Day Cross vigil here in Cagayan de Oro. The cross was en route to Sydney, Australia for the World Youth Day 2008. I dream of attending the event.

Last year, I wanted to attend a solitary retreat for my birthday.

This year, I would have loved to attend the three-day stay-in holy week retreat sponsored by Xavier University.

In kindergarten, I wrote "Doctor" as my ambition in our yearbook. In elementary, I wrote "Physical Therapist". In senior year high school, I wrote "Accountancy" as my first choice on what course to take. In college, I finished "Computer Science".

From when I was seven until I was nine, I used to draw stick drawings that to me passed as "movie posters" on a cardboards. Now I have this secret ambition of writing a novel. Could I ever achieve this?

In college, I told myself that I would write computer games for a living. Now I write business applications.

We were close. And then far. We connected. And then lost touch.

I dreamt. And then hoped. Changed my mind. And then hoped.

Life is more than a journey. It's a chase. May I gain speed as I grow. And so may you.

God speed.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

“For you, a thousand times over,” Hassan answered when his best friend Amir asked him if he would eat dirt if Amir asked him to.

This is a story of two generations of two boys, best friends, who got separated from each other at the time of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Two boys. And their two fathers. Amir and his father ended up living in America, while Ali and Hassan were left in war-torn Afghanistan. The circumstance upon which they were separated from each other is difficult to describe without spoiling the story. Just know that there’s going to be a search to reunite. And with it, the search for atonement, and salvation.

This is one of the best novels I’ve read in years. Afghanistan, the country I only heard about or seen in TV’s when the US retaliated from the 9/11/2001 attacks on the twin towers of NY’s World Trade Center and several other locations in the US, was vividly described. I could almost see the streets, hear its noise and chatters, and smell the fragrance and the stench as Amir described his life and his country then and now. I could see Amir and Hassan run up the hill and watch over their village (it reminded me of those times when my friends and I would climb up a hill and watch our village below, fascinated at how organized the houses are in the subdivisions, and the vastness of the ocean beside it). But more than their country, the two boys themselves, along with their friendship and their fathers’ friendship, were expertly characterized by Hosseini. Ten to twenty pages on and I found myself caring for the book’s main characters. From the back cover of the book I gathered that an invasion was going to do something to the lives of the characters and I found myself anxious to read on the circumstance of the two best friends’ separation, and the eventual search to reunite.

I’d definitely recommend this book to my friends. Last week a colleague told me that she wanted to read a book over the long weekend (3-day weekend due to public holiday) and asked me for a recommendation. I bought several books since moving to Cebu, but I had a hard time recommending one because I liked them all equally and none of them really stood out from the rest (all of what I would readily recommend I left in my home city, Cagayan de Oro). She wouldn’t admit it, but she leans towards fantasy so I ended up lending her my copy of “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman. I had a backup fantasy recommendation, “The Goose Girl” by Shannon Hale, but she wanted to borrow just one book. Anyway, had I already read “The Kite Runner” when she asked for a recommendation, I definitely would have recommended it. A thousand times over, even though it isn’t fantasy.

Theater Report: Vantage Point

February 21, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
7:30 PM
Attendance: 95% of capacity

Previews:

10,000 BC (looks enjoyable to watch, but the story is hard to deduce from the preview)
Horton Hears a Who (definitely for children)
WALL-E (from the creators of Finding Nemo, I’m definitely watching this one)
Meet The Spartans (a parody of “300”, looks funny and dumb at the same time)
I don’t remember the other previews.

Story:

The president of the United States attends a summit on anti-terrorism and got assassinated. Secret service agent Barnes, who took a bullet for the president in a previous assassination attempt, tried to catch the unknown shooter right there and then. The story is told from several points of view (thus, the title “Vantage Point”).

Thoughts:

This is a storytelling that I haven’t seen before, or I don’t remember seeing before. So its storytelling was fresh to me. You’d think that watching a film constantly being rewound several times, each time presenting a different vantage point of the same central situation is boring, but it wasn’t. Okay, maybe you wouldn’t think that, but I certainly did. I expected it to be boring. I even thought it was going to be a political drama (but then that’s my fault because I haven’t seen or read an ad for this film). I probably wouldn’t have gone to this movie had it not been for free (the company I worked for have what we call “Movie Nights” where every month they chose a movie that we have the opportunity to watch for free). When the email for this month’s Movie Night came and I learned it was going to be “Vantage Point”, I commented to my colleagues that I wish they chose “Jumper”. But I saw “Jumper” a week ago and now that I saw both movies I thought the company got it right in choosing “Vantage Point”. It was great, edge-of-your-seat thriller from beginning to end. Later in the movie the story just went improbable, but it’s okay. The premise itself, I think, called for improbability in order for the film to be made. I’m not a fan of its plot, but I’m definitely a fan of how it was told and the pace that it was told. It’s the kind of storytelling that you only get to see in good television these days (“24”, “Lost”, “Prison Break”). I thought “Vantage Point” showed me, if anything, how TV’s “24” would look like in the big screen and how it would sound like in a Dolby Digital theater. I heard rumors of a “24” movie and I think it would be great.

Would I see it again? Maybe I’ll see it again in DVD, there’s not much reason to watch it again once you knew who did what. Would I recommend it to my friends? Yes.

2007

I wanted to have the usual end of year list. Every blog should have it at the end of each year. List of books that I liked and not liked, movies, tv shows, and events. It's too late to do that now (obviously) so I'll just write some of my thoughts of the year that was 2007.

“I went to take memories. And to talk more than to see. Never got the chance on talking.”

In 2006, I took every opportunity to have my picture taken in my cubicle, in the cubicle of my colleagues, in the canteen, and in the small landmark places outside our office building. I took the opportunities to take pictures of my colleagues. I joined a colleague in his golf games, not to play golf, but to take pictures of the golf course that my previous employer owned. Somehow I knew, I would be leaving the company.

And in the second half of 2007, I did leave the company to work for another one in another city. It was an opportunity to try to fend for myself and train rigorously in the field that I now loved, an opportunity that was too good to miss and couldn’t have come at a better time. There were rumors that our department will be dissolved, replaced by the IT department of the new owner’s company. There were talks that it won’t happen. I did not wait to see which is true. I left.

“How are you?”

“The decision was the right one, given the circumstance.”

The thing about leaving your comfort zone is that you grow uncomfortable. For the first time I was away from home, from my family, from my friends that I have known since I was four, and the colleagues that I had worked with, laughed with, talked with, and sang with for over four years. It’s like being under the sun all of a sudden when your whole life you only knew rain. It’s a good thing that work is similar to the previous one. If it hadn’t, it would have been like sucked in a whirlwind instead of just being thrown in a world where the familiar rain is absent, replaced by the warm sunlight.

After over six months in the uncomfort zone number one, life is getting better. I can see the heavy clouds looming ahead. Soon enough, the drizzle will come. And then the familiar rain. The heat will give way to the relaxing coolness.

“Do you think your 2008 will be better than last year?”

“Don’t know. Does the wind always come before the rain?”

I don’t want to predict my 2008, not that anyone can predict what will happen in the future. But one always prays that the new year would be better than the last. Each year contains its set of setbacks and its set of advances. How can I chose one over the other?

“Any new year resolution?”

“I don’t know what it means anymore.”

To lose X number of pounds. To lose X number of enemies and gain X number of friends. Never commit the same mistakes again, would that be a resolution? If so, then that’s probably it. I’d love to achieve that. I probably won’t.

“Were you happy with how your new year started?”

“Outside the comfort zone, the start of the year went unnoticed.”

It’s almost March and I’m just writing this now. I am happy.

Theater Report: Spiderwick Chronicles

February 16, 2008
SM City Cebu Cinema 4
7:45 PM
Attendance: 40% of capacity

Previews: Just on time coming in so I wasn’t able to see any trailers.

Story: A family moves in to an estate of an old ancestor (or somewhat like that), a mother, twin boys, and a girl. One of the twins finds a book that’s sort of a guide to the “other” world. It contains all the secrets of this “other” world and now the other world’s super villain wants to read it and conquer all the worlds. The siblings (twin boys, one girl) are thrown to protect the book and thus the worlds.

My thoughts: It’s a very simple story with very few characters. Action is limited to the estate, its surrounding forest, a sanatorium, and somewhere where nobody ages (but is not Never Never Land). The book, where this movie was based, is probably a good read. But there’s nothing much in the movie in terms of a fantasy story that I haven't seen before.

The special effects are good. Freddie Highmore (acting the dual role of the twin boys) was excellent. I’d say he’s the best child actor around today. The way he acts is very real, very believable. There were instances of the twin’s interaction where you’d notice that they are not really in the same room (being acted by a single actor), but there are also instances where you’d forget that this two characters are acted by a single actor. The music reminds me of the first two Harry Potter movies. And the end credit sequences were great.

Would I see it again? Once is enough. Would I recommend it to my friends? Only those that are fans of fantasy.

Theater Report: Jumper

February 17, 2008
SM City Cebu Cinema 3
5:30 PM
Attendance: 90% of capacity

Previews: Teaser trailer of “Star Trek” (directed by JJ Abrams). I first heard about this new Star Trek movie a year or two ago in Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX). Mix reaction in the forum when it was announced. Some said it’s going to be a disaster. Some are more optimistic because it was going to be directed by JJ Abrams who created TV’s “Lost” and “Alias”. Funny because when I watched “Cloverfield” two weeks ago I thought it was the movie tied to JJ Abrams that I heard in HSX. And I thought it wasn’t very impressive for somebody who created “Alias” and “Lost”. Now I realized it was “Star Trek”. Impressive.

Story: This report is about “Jumper”, but I just spent a relatively long paragraph about “Star Trek”, which will not be shown until 2009, probably Memorial Day weekend 2009. Anyhow, “Jumper” is a story of at first one and then later on two “jumpers”. They are people with the ability to teleport to any place they can vividly see in their mind (places they’d been to before, seen in postcards, etc.). It wasn’t long since finding out about his ability that the first jumper used it to steal money from a bank. He said he had no choice. He was 12 and alone. “What would you do?” Oh, I don’t know. There are many decent jobs that I could think of if I’m a jumper. Delivery boy, messenger, spy, to name a few. Now those are just “jumping” related jobs. There are other regular odd jobs minus the hours spent traveling to and from work. But then again all of them combined wouldn’t earn half as much as a minute stroll to the friendly neighborhood bank’s vault. Anyhow, all is well, until somebody who kills jumpers for a living showed up.

My thoughts: The first 30 minutes where the film’s premise was fleshed out were great. From there up to the ending wasn’t so great, or good for that matter. It became nonsense. Carrying around a backpack full of money is so 70’s. How about buying himself tons of debit cards? With few spare bills for those where debit cards aren’t accepted. And what is that secret society that hunts down and kill “jumpers” because “only God should have that power to be everywhere at the same time”? What’s that society all about? “Only God should decide when somebody should die,” I’d say to them if I were the jumper. It’s probably just anti-religion symbolism nonsense. It could just have been a love story between a jumper and an ordinary girl. Or a superhero story. As it was, it was nothing but about a pursuit of a jumper. Once the pursuer was defeated, the movie ended. It had to. It had nowhere else to go. Hayden Christinsen doesn’t show much emotion on screen. The actor who played his character as a “young jumper” would probably had done better at the job had he been years older.

Would I see it again? No. Would I recommend it to my friends? No. I wanted to buy the book where this movie was based on, but it wasn’t available in Powerbooks SM Cebu and I didn’t have time to go to National Bookstore. The book’s probably better than the movie.

Next by Michael Crichton

I talked about this book earlier in a previous post. Now I’ve finished reading it and the book went nowhere from the first 150 pages or so that I talked about in that earlier blog post. I was still surprised with the twists in the end, but I just felt that the story went nowhere since the first 150 pages. Probably because he wanted it to be as close to what’s really happening in “genetics” as possible. But I still love the way Crichton makes each of his novel a page-turner. Everything that I’ve read from him had been page-turners. And I’d just love to have that ability.