My Asinine Thoughts

When things are out of control, when I’m stressed or when I’m down in the dumps, I buy a book. I have lots of books, go figure.

Whenever I’m especially stressed and going nuts like I am right now, I read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (P&P) to calm myself down and make myself feel better. The only problem is, I don’t have my book with me. I left it in my room in the Philippines thinking I wouldn’t need it since I would only be gone for a couple of months. WRONG! I’ve never needed it more than I do right now.

I could’ve purchased a new copy, but my P&P copy has sentimental value. We have history together. I remember quite clearly where I bought it (National Bookstore, Tutuban), when I bought it (1996), and why I bought it (because I just saw Sense and Sensibility on VHS). I remember that I was watching tv in my brother’s room one day and decided to multi-task by reading a book at the same time. I remember that the tv show I was watching was quickly forgotten and I was completely engrossed in what I was reading, never putting the book down until I finished the whole thing. I also remember that as soon as I finished the whole book, I read it again because it was so amazing!

I would never have that again, that first time of reading P&P, a book so special you’d want to announce it to all your friends, family and even strangers. I’m glad I’ve got the memories though, and I’m glad that my book is still in pretty good shape even after dozens and dozens of readings. I miss my book. I have to go home!

So as a temporary salve to my pain, I watched The Jane Austen Book Club. I’m a believer in delayed gratification when it comes to some things, and I try to pace myself when it comes to Jane Austen and anything relating to Jane Austen. I don’t want to gobble it all up in one go because I want to have something to look forward to and I’m really glad I resisted watching this movie until now because like I’ve said, I’ve never needed Jane Austen more.

The movie was wonderful! I was very pleased to see such talented actors emulating the character traits of some of Jane Austen’s heroines. Their discussion of 6 of Jane Austen’s books were funny and insightful and it made me wish to have a book club of my own, all Jane Austen all the time. I just need to find 5 people I know who actually read Jane Austen (ok maybe 4 but that’s still a lot!). Maria Bello’s character in the movie is definitely my favorite. She parallels Emma in her desire to be unencumbered by a man and her independent nature (and fortune!). Hugh Dancy’s character is a close second because he’s so good-looking, charming and funny. I’ve forgotten about James McAvoy, Hugh Dancy is now my favorite British actor. Yummy!

The best actor of all in the movie was Emily Blunt, hands down. I wish she could have played Jane Austen in “Becoming Jane” instead of Anne Hathaway. Anne’s ok, but Emily is extraordinary. She could’ve made that movie better because I felt like there was something missing in Anne’s performance and I ended up disliking the movie as a result, even if it was Jane Austen’s (embellished) life story and James McAvoy co-stars.

Which leads me to Ursula Le Guin and science fiction books.

Hugh Dancy’s character in The Jane Austen Book Club is obsessed with science fiction. He recommends a bunch of books and science fiction authors to Maria Bello’s character and he’s so passionate about them I became immediately curious. The day after I saw the movie, I went to Page One to look for Ursula Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Lathe of Heaven” but Page One didn’t have any of her books! Ah! The humanity! I was so looking forward to getting my hands on these books!

I consoled myself with buying other books that day and it made me feel a bit better. I promised myself that I wouldn’t buy books while I was here, but it was an emergency so I’m excusing myself. I bought a book by Arthur C. Clarke to start my path to science fiction and Alain de Botton’s “How Proust Can Change Your Life” because it looked really interesting.

I’m very excited about getting into science fiction. It’s a new genre for me since I’ve always been more into fantasy. Neil Gaiman is the only science fiction/fantasy writer I’ve ever read. So there you see? My depression has lessened due to books, the anticipation, the procurement, the actual reading of the books. The next thing I know, I’m on my way back home, ready to be reunited with my Pride and Prejudice again.

I’m totally loving this movie and its soundtrack right now. It was shown last year but I didn’t really pay attention to it until I started listening to Rufus Wainwright again a few weeks ago. Rufus covered the Beatles’ Across the Universe for the movie I Am Sam a few years ago and in my humble opinion, it’s the best cover of that song of all I’ve heard!

Anyway, Across the Universe was on my mind and I suddenly became interested in the movie. So I watched it, and then the next day I watched it again! If you make me watch it now, I’ll still watch it which could only mean that I loved the movie. It’s like a tamer version of Moulin Rouge backed with all the heart and magic only a Beatles song could delilver.

The movie musical is set in New York during the turbulent 1960’s when America was at war with Vietnam. A young man from Liverpool called Jude (Jim Sturgess) came to America to look for his father who doesn’t know he exists. Along the way he meets Max (Joe Anderson), a rebellious Princeton student and his sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) whose boyfriend just left to join the war. When Max decides to drop out of school, he invites Jude to go live with him in New York where they meet Sadie (Dana Fuchs) a talented singer, Jojo (Martin Luther McCoy) the new guitarist in Sadie’s band who is recovering from the death of his younger brother and Prudence (T.V. Carpio) a troubled young girl who is trying to find her place in the world. Some big name artists made cameo roles in the movie as well such as Salma Hayek, Joe Cocker, Eddie Izzard and Bono as Dr. Robert.

There are a lot of wonderful scenes in the movie but I think the one that really impressed me was when Max went to the Army for his recruitment tests singing “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)“. Man oh man, perfect choreography and execution there.

Soundtrack:
Martin Luther McCoy has got the most wonderful voice! His rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was stellar. I also liked Jim Sturgess’s version of “Girl” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face“, Joe Cocker’s “Come Together“, Evan Rachel Wood’s “If I Fell“, Dana Fuch’s “Helter Skelter” and Bono’s “I Am the Walrus.”

Hay, there just isn’t enough time to listen to all the albums and songs I want to listen to. Can someone please lend me another ear?

Before Penelope Cruz became famous, I’ve always thought that the way you pronounce Penelope was Pen-eh-lop. That’s the pinoy in me I guess. I also thought Hermione was Her-me-on at first haha! I’m sure there are more names I couldn’t pronounce but those two come to mind the most.

We went to the movies a couple of days ago because atsi and Jamie wanted to watch Semi-Pro. I just couldn’t see myself shelling out several dollars to watch a Will Ferrell slapstick comedy (even if it was atsi doing the paying), I just couldn’t. So my mom and I watched Penelope instead. I didn’t know much about what the movie was about but I knew James McAvoy was in it. People who know me well know enough to know that I will endure really bad movies if there’s a handsome guy I liked in it. That’s why actors should be handsome, because there are a lot of people like me in the world.

I read a review the next day stating that “the movie overdosed on whimsy.” Yeah, it wasn’t a good movie but James looked so handsome. My mother agreed. It could have worked if only it was edited better and there was less overacting by almost everyone. The director didn’t do that good of a job in my opinion, too bad, too bad. James looked so handsome.

What left an impression on me besides James after the movie was the music… and how James looked so handsome even when he was disheveled. There were a couple of songs that really moved me, and they were the instrumental version of Hoppipolla by Wenzel Templeton and Robert Pegg aka Sigur Rós (pronounced as See-veroush) and Waking Life by Schuyler Fisk (pronounced as Skyler)… these names! Hay naku!

Sigur Rós is a wonderful band from Iceland. I first heard about them when the Vanilla Sky soundtrack came out. They make beautiful, eerily sentimental, ethereal, melodic music such as I’ve never heard of before. Definitely worth a listen. Schuyler Fisk on the other hand was unknown to me. Turns out she’s the daughter of Sissy Spacek and is a part-time actor and musician. She has a beautiful voice and she sang a beautiful song. I tried to buy the two songs on iTunes but it wouldn’t allow me to buy just Schuyler’s song, I had to buy the whole album! But no regrets. My $9.99 was well spent because it’s such a great soundtrack. Give In by The Secret 6, Queen of the Surface Streets by DeVotchKa, The Kiss by Joby Talbot and Your Disguise by James Greenspun are also favorites. Practically the whole album is a favorite. Buy the soundtrack!

One of my favorite movies ever* is Office Space. It’s a hilarious movie from start to finish. I can really relate (as well as millions of others I’m sure) to the little things in the movie such as changing lanes all the time while driving (I call it the kiti-kiti syndrome) and always ending up with the slowest moving lane, fearing the doorknob because of static, having multiple bosses to answer to, never really perfecting that stupid report, problematic printer and having a stupid sounding name and infuriating surname (e.g. Sy? Kamaganak mo ba si Henry Sy?)

The big things in the movie though are what really gets to me. The protagonist in the movie is Peter, the office worker who has just about had it with his job, his boss, his girlfriend and his life. He feels that ever since he started working, every single day of his life has been worse than the day before it (I’ve almost got the script memorized haha!). All he wants to do is relax, sit on his ass all day and do absolutely nothing. Had I been white and a guy, I could swear that was me I was seeing on TV!

This is a terrible truth to own up to but I will own up to it. If given the chance, I will do nothing and I will be the happiest woman in the world. I’m always fighting with myself to act more unlike myself. There are times when I let things go, like now, and just let my life unfold on its own but time is running out for me and I need to fight with myself soon to get things done. Sigh.

So yeah, I’m the ultimate no-getter. You could lock me up all day, everyday for months in a room that has tv, an internet connection, several magazine subscriptions and books and you won’t hear a peep. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before but last Chinese New Year, I didn’t leave the apartment for a week and only subsisted on Knorr Chicken Sopas because I was too lazy to go out and buy food. I had too many videos to watch and too many books to read. I only stepped out when I ran out of Coke Light.

*I noticed I say this a lot… it’s just that there are so many wonderful movies

The Third Turkey (11/22/2007):

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Jamie’s family in Daly City (where there are about a billion Filipinos according to the J-man). I had a lot of fun eating, eating and eating since his relatives made a lot of food for everybody. I had lumpia, salmon, mashed potatoes, pancit, sioma, biko, cream puff, chocolate cheesecake, and of course turkey! Great combination ano?

The Second Turkey (11/21/2007):

Atsi still had work the day before Thanksgiving so I accompanied her to her school and joined her class in the celebration. We had to cook and prepare the food first though. Atsi’s students are really sweet and nice and I felt like I was a kindergarten teacher again although this time the students were a hell of a whole lot bigger!

Atsi’s first ever turkey (that she had to cook herself) turned out to be more than edible, it was yummy! Success!

The First Turkey:

I suggested we watch this movie.
I HATE Zack Helm now.
I’m never going to live this one down.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping the past couple of days mainly due to Harry Potter. I couldn’t wait (couldn’t wait!) to see the 5th movie and I had to (had to!) see it on the first day of showing. I pestered my friends to come watch the movie with me on a weekday because I wouldn’t (I wouldn’t!) be able to last until Saturday without seeing it. So now I have and I’m happy - that is until next week when the 7th and last book comes out, the day of my departure no less.

I was disappointed to hear the news before that Goblet of Fire director, Mike Newell, declined to helm the next installment of the series. I thought he did a great job of combining school life, growing pains, romance, character development, humor and action action action in the last movie. With David Yates’s Order of the Phoenix, there was certainly action and growing pains (mainly for Harry), but everything else came in small and quick bursts only. I barely heard the school teachers speak, even Ron and Hermione had reduced roles. Make no mistake, the 5th movie was about Harry having the shittiest time of his life thanks to Umbridge and Voldemort. I barely saw him crack a smile, poor kid.

What did I like about the movie?

Dolores Umbridge! Getting Imelda Staunton to play the part was absolutely inspired. She’s a terrific actress and has got the character down pat. All the movie needed was Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet and they could have had a Sense and Sensibility reunion. Actually, all of the adult characters are portrayed by some of the most talented British and Irish actors today and it’s too bad that there wasn’t enough screen time for all of them. Just think about it: Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, David Thewlis, Julie Walters, Brendan Gleeson, Helena Bonham-Carter, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman!

Gary Oldman! In my short list of men I unabashedly lust after, Gary Oldman is in the top 3. Gary has never really made it big in the leading man category but as a character actor, he’s superb. I think that his movie role choices have only made him a better actor. He was fantastic in Leon and True Romance, and even when he was in crappy movies, he was never really crappy. It’s sad that he won’t be in any more Harry Potter movies (why does his character always end up dead in the movies?) but I find consolation in the fact that he’s involved in another wonderful movie franchise we call Batman. The Dark Knight is going to be another movie I’ll probably lose sleep over.

Sirius Black/Harry Potter relationship. Sirius had a much bigger role here in Order than in the last two installments which was absolutely necessary to show how attached Harry is to him and how their relationship has developed since Prisoner of Azkaban. It was a nice touch near the end of the movie while they were in the heat of the fight for him to mistakenly refer to Harry as James. Sirius has been unquestionably damaged from all the years he spent in Azkaban and from losing his friends the way he did, but in the end he was always there for Harry and genuinely cared for him. I wish J.K. could’ve given them more time together, if I were Harry, I’d really be pissed off.

The Dumbledore-Voldemort fight kicked ass! There are many wonderful things to be said about reading, but reading can be limited to the reader’s imagination. I’ve read about the duel in the book but to see them fight on screen and have it wonderfully executed gives me another reason to love film adaptations. Fighting with a short stick doesn’t really excite much, but magic does come out of it and from there, all bets are off! When Dumbledore turned the flying shards of glass into sand, I almost applauded. What I particularly liked about the fight was that they used whatever material that was available to them at the time. They didn’t magically whip up a whole bunch of steak knives to fly into their opponent, no trolls or giants were summoned to crush the enemy and all that.

The fighting style. The kids fought with their wands like they were fencing aggressively, the adults used them as an extension of themselves. The way Gary Oldman portrayed the fighting Sirius Black really got into the meat of the character. It wasn’t Gary, channeling a peacock. It was Sirius, the sometimes rash but undeniably talented wizard that was wielding his wand with so much flair and panache. There was also Dumbledore, whose form really did belie an amazing wizard underneath all that facial hair and ungainly robe. His twisting-turning-swirling-wand fighting style is the Harry Potter equivalent of Yoda doing his own twisting-turning-spinning-flying thing in Attack of the Clones. They may be old, but dammit! They could fight!

Overall, I had a great time watching the movie. While I wasn’t as entertained as I was in Goblet, I suppose the storyline didn’t help. At least we were shown a Severus Snape moment with James Potter as well as Fred and George’s great escape with the matching fireworks. I suppose until the studio releases 10-hour-long film adaptations/DVD special editions, I’ll just have to learn to be satisfied with the bits and pieces of movie magic that are thrown my way. I am if nothing else an ardent gobbler.

Neither. I’m dumptruck.

Product description from Amazon:
Welcome to Westerburg High, where Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) is beginning to tire of her membership in the powerful yet cruel clique of ‘Heathers’ When Veronica falls for the mysterious new kid Jason Dean (Christian Slater), their dislike for the Heathers quickly escalates into a savage cycle of murder, suicide and Slushies. Now that her teenage angst has a body count, are Veronica and JD headed for the prom…or hell?

My two cents:
For the jaded generation who has seen it all, what’s another black comedy in a high school setting right? But what makes this movie special is how witty the script is as well as the movie being way ahead of its time. The reaction of the faculty to the suicides are pretty priceless as well as the uniformity of the dialogue between Veronica and her parents. You don’t know if you should be amused or horrified when the bodies start piling up, but one thing is for sure, after having seen this movie once, you’ll feel compelled to see it over and over again until you’ve memorized all the lines

Quotable Quotes:
Veronica Sawyer: Dear Diary: Heather told me she teaches people “real life.” She said, real life sucks losers dry. You want to fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly. I said, so, you teach people how to spread their wings and fly? She said, yes. I said, you’re beautiful.

Veronica Sawyer: Dear Diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count.

Heather Chandler: Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?

Veronica Sawyer: What’s your damage, Heather?

Heather Chandler: Fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa?

Veronica Sawyer: Watch it Heather, you might be digesting food there.
Heather McNamara: Yeah, where’s your urge to purge?
Heather Duke: Fuck it.

Heather Chandler: I got you into a Remington party and what’s my thanks? It’s on a hallway carpet. I got paid in PUKE.
Veronica Sawyer: Lick it up, baby. Lick. It. Up.

Heather Duke: Veronica… why are you pulling my dick?

Kurt’s Dad: My son’s a homosexual, and I love him. I love my dead gay son.
J.D.: Wonder how he’d react if his son had a limp wrist with a pulse.

Heather McNamara: It’s your turn Heather.
Heather Chandler: No, Heather, it’s Heather’s turn. Heather?
Heather Duke: Sorry Heather.

Veronica’s Mom: When teenagers complain that they want to be treated like human beings, it’s usually because they are being treated like human beings.

Veronica Sawyer: I just killed my best friend.
J.D.: And your worst enemy.
Veronica Sawyer: Same difference.

Heather Duke: (at the coffin of Heather Chandler) I prayed for the death of Heather Chandler many times. And I felt bad everytime I did it but I kept doing it anyway. (smiles) Now I know you understood everything. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah!

300 Hot, Half-naked Men!

I just saw the second trailer of 300… gaaaaaah! Ang tagal pa ng March!

Sobrang kick-ass ng paggamit nila ng bluescreen dito sa movie para talagang komiks na ang gamit na papel eh super glossy. Oh gawd, oh gawd, oh gawd! Yung abs ni Gerard Butler!!! Oh gawd, oh gawd, oh gawd!!! He said that he spent up to 6 hours working out everyday to get that body and damn! Masasayang naman kung hindi i-a-appreciate ng maigi diba?

An idea for a tsinelas commerical:

Spartan company: You threaten our company with your pa-sosi appeal !?!? Eh pareho lang namang gawa sa goma ang tsinelas natin ah! Sa tingin mo papatalo kami?
Havaianas: This is Madness!
Spartan: “This is SPARTAN!” sabay sipa sa kalaban using the new Spartan tsinelas derecho pababa ng balon.