them hidden actors

there was this one lazy saturday at my house when tatit, jan and i were just too lazy to move after a UAAP game. don't remember if we won or lost but the post-game ended up with an unintentional guillermo del toro-doug jones tandem movie marathon.

we watched hellboy first, then pan's labrynth next. after those two, i was an absolute doug jones fan. who he? why...he's the fishy man in hell boy and the faun and the pale man in pan's labrynth. being silver surfer must have been easy after wearing a foot long horn on the head!

so it's absolutely cool that he is second among the top 10 hidden performances. well-deserved! it ain't easy acting inside a sweltering hot costume, and he does it! a lot.

there are other hidden actors out there who often are unnoticed (kasi nga hidden), but play a great part in making a movie great. sometimes they are the ones you remember after watching. my other favorite "hidden" actors are warwick davis (marvin in the hitchhiker's guide, willow in willow, wicket the ewok in star wars and professor flitwick in the harry potter movies) and deep roy (that oompah-loopah in charlie and the chocolate factory and the dwarf with jadis in the lion, the witch and the wardrobe).

love these dudes! astig kayo, mga tol!

in mourning

heath ledger is dead! nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

my australian hottie who i fell in love with in 10 things i hate about you is gone. :(
so young and so talented. and he's gone.
darn it. i can't work. :(

* * * * *
update: 3 hours later, i'm still not over it. over lunch, my mind was constantly whirring with the words, "heath is dead, heath is dead." sigh.

i just had to search youtube for my favorite heath ledger scene of all time. why, it's the "can't take my eyes of you" serenade to julia stiles' character kitty in 10 things. been watching it over and over... and sigh... no more heath movies after "the dark knight."

mr. magorium's wonder emporium

i remember back when i was a kid, before i go to sleep, with the lights off, i would scan the room for shadows and silhouettes of familiar things. in that corner is my plastic doll, and in that corner another plastic doll and on the shelf are my favorite books. then i'd close my eyes and listen if they would suddenly start moving once i go to sleep. i'd imagine the words of the books start jumping from one page to another and make a mess of the story i love reading. but i never got to hear those words crawling to another page or the toys going off to another playing on their own, without me. but i believed with all my heart that they did things on their own when i don't notice them. i slept soundly, knowing what few toys i have will protect me from the ghosts that lived next door. or my nanny would. ;p

(and even now that i'm older... when i'm in my sister's house... i try to see if my nieces' and nephews' toys would do something too. just in case.)

so i was so excited when i hear about "mr. magorium's wonder emporium." the same way i was excited when the movie "toys" of robin williams was going to show (exclusively) in SM North Edsa back in college.

when it finally came to davao, i took a break from the stressful, christmas shopping i was doing, dumped all the stuff i bought and got a ticket for cinema 2. a little grin was plastered on my face as i entered the cinema. in my mind, a little thought balloon was going agog shouting, "toys and magic, toys and magic. wheeeeee!"

and as the credits rolled and the movie unfolded, the little thought balloon was getting more and more excited, my smile getting bigger and bigger.

i love mr. magorium! i want to play with him. and i wish i could go to his store and just hang out the entire day with eric, the little kid and mahoney, the store manager. and even, bellini the chronicler. i love all of them... even henry the mutant. tee-hee!

the story, is magical yet simple and pure. it tells of wonder, and friendship in unlikely people, and finding dreams in a block of wood. and nothing can feel as good as that!

the movie feels like cotton candy back when it was known as fairy's thread, of caramel apples and a game of tag. it's the joy of mud ball fights (there isn't any snow here) and swimming until your hands are raisins. in other words, i thoroughly enjoyed it and want to watch it over and over. i think it may just have kicked charlie and the chocolate factory from my top children's movies of all time. tee-hee!

toys and magic! toys and magic! and dragons. and wooden dinosaurs. and krakens from a book. and petulant stores. and a book that has all the toys in the world. and giant balls you can never dodge. wheee! what can be greater than that?

and so i slept that night, knowing in my heart, that that little child in her room full of silhouettes and shadows never left and was just waiting in her quiet corner playing with her plastic doll and reading her favorite books, still sure in her heart that toys had their own lives and books rewrite their stories. ;p

holes

he logical thing to have done on a holiday on a week a paper is due is: wake up, eat, study whole day, eat when you feel like it, sleep when tired or done.

but after stressing over a paper just two days before, i wanted my mind to be on autopilot. so what i actually did was: woke up, read a book, eat, paid the house bills, had good lunch, watched movie, finished book, then researched paper. which actually left me with just an hour! which actually had me finish the day with doing nothing for school. bwahaha!

but i can't help it. i love steve carrell, so i just had to watch evan almighty. and i'm happy i did because he was great, and the movie was fun, and morgan freeman dancing is worth 20 bucks of my 55. so.

and how would i have known that holes by louis sachar's would actually turn out to be a romp of a book! i mean, hello, with a lead character whose name is stanley yelnats who has a no-good-pig-stealing-great-great- great-grandfather... how can it not be interesting? i really couldn't put it down. read it in bed, read it in the restroom, read it while eating, read it while on the jeep, read it while waiting. if it weren't dark, i'd have probably read it during the movie trailers or the boring bits.

it's the story of young stanley, convicted of a crime he did not commit. as penalty, he was sent to Camp Green Lake instead of jail. the name sounds like a good place to be. except the place has no lake and there aren't may things green. and you have to be careful of the yellow-spotted lizard. so the camp turns out to be what exactly it is supposed to be -- a punishment.

we meet his new delinquent friends. we also catch a glimpse of the yelnats curse which began with his no-good-pig-stealing-great-great-great-grandfather and would continue on for the rest of the yelnats boys. we also get to witness a forbidden love story, one that occurs at the time of stanley yelnats, sr. and in the end... how it all comes together.

it's really a fun read, with lots of things to learn from too. i'm definitely getting my ten-year old nephew a copy for Christmas.

at pirate's end

galing. it was a good closure to the trilogy. and there should be no more fourth. make sure to stay after the credits because there still a short clip after that could possibly matter for those quite involved with a certain character.

it's great how they were able to marry a highly entertaining movie (i didn't notice it was almost three hours) with a very involving storyline and well-played characters.

johnny depp is his usual impeccable self portraying captain jack sparrow to most minute detail without missing a beat. will he get nominated again for the role? (did he win for the first nomination? i forget) geoffrey rush and bill nighy aren't so bad either. and who would've thunk orlando bloom can be such a man? (i did crush him as legolas, but that was because he was an elf. and what is it with him and period movies?)

and one scene is a definite top contender for the mtv best fight scene and kissing scene in one.

the most unique wedding ever pa!

basta. astig siya. better than the second. possibly better than the first. pirates are so fun! and jan and i are still discussing it even after having seen it three days ago.

dang it

i missed mirrormask.

but it was in exchange of free gastronomic fest at entree in apo view.

we would have made it though if not for the downpour. now i have to look up a sked for mirrormask. hope it's a good time slot.

meatfest

in more ways than one. that is 300.

the bodies and the blood. haha!

i couldnt decide whether i should look neck up or neck down. ;p

a testosterone-flick and a visual (on the technical aspect ha!) fest. a-hooo.
and i didn't even feel that grossed out despite all that violence and gore.

i only expected spectacular cinematography, art direction and editing from the movie. hardly thinking much of the story. but i forgot that frank miller wrote the comic book. and frank miller has always something interesting up his sleeve.

i absolutely liked how it dealt with honor and dignity and free thinking and strategic warfare. i can imagine the ateneo basketball team watching the movie for a pep-up before a game. hehe!

astig talaga, mehn.

about last night

the original plan of action was to have dinner with jan's high school barkada. but within the day, two called in sick already, which just leaves jan and andoy. so when jan asked andoy whether to resked, andoy affirmed. thus we ended up watching "the curse of the golden flower."

and typical of chinese emperor movies, you can either brand it as shakespearean or telenova with high budget. i prefer the latter. it an interesting watch, with beautiful costumes and production design. nothing different about the story, as there are the usual elements infidelity, power-grabbing and deception. but it is nicely told, and chow yun-fat did great acting as emperor because you see the character and not the actor. but throughout the latter part of the movie, only one thing keeps going on in my head... "madami talagang tao sa china!" there were thousands and thousands of people (who i assume are really computer-generated) and you just have got to be amazed with their organization skills especially in warfare. ;p

and so the movie was done. jan gets a text from mytch that he is going to andoy's anyway. a call here and there, and we were on our way to jan's house to get the car so we don't have to worry about how to get home. finally, we were at the host's house. and it was just so amusing seeing old high school pals remember their crazy reckless days. and the funniest thing was when they were discussing how our changed plans ended up going back to square one. and oh, somebody else has been relegated to the status of snuffulafugus girlfriend.

around 1pm, we were ready to go home. well, not really, but andoy had to get to work and had an infant to take care of so the three of us decided to ease his suffering for the night by leaving. on the way up to ateneo (we were at barangka), mytch was suggesting that we have a quick look at the UP fair as he was in a nostalgic mode. it was all fine by me since we were in the area anyway.

so we went to UP. MYMP was playing their last song, which was fine by me. i don't really care much for them. though i was singing along with them despite. wehehe!

our quick trip ended up to be a one and half hour stay because mytch was able to get us backstage passes through mojofly. i think he directed their newest video, thus the power to drag two over-aged teenagers to concert.

by two o'clock i was sleepy. the bwah music of the UP bands wasn't exactly helping to keep me awake (yes, i fall asleep listening to metal. sorry, drin). but i was too nahihiya to leave without listening to mojofly because they were the ones who got us in. and mytch was enjoying himself. so. we decided to wait for mojofly to perform. thankfully, they got upped two slots so we can go home earlier.

it was great seeing ali alejandro on the drums. poging talaga. not my type, but poging. i forgot the name of the vocalist, but mytch was saying, "lasing na to." which made it more fun, because nothing beats listening to a pumped-up drunk band singers. the whole time, the kala vocalist was on the stage dancing to the band's beat. they were to be next anyway. he was an adorable teddy bear that i wish i could squeeze but my hands weren't big enough and i wasn't bold enough to approach him. but i was behind him while they were waiting for mojofly to get on stage.

even with my eyes going on auto shut off, i asked that we stay for kala's gig. it's just two songs anyway. so it was fun listening to rock baby rock and jeepney. while this was going on, out came four guys in baston. orange and lemons. only one of them wore shades, and a ten gallon hat with that. so it was kinda funny when he was putting on his guitar because his hat got knocked out. since everything was a haze, i dont know which orange this was.

we left after kala. walking to the car, they were playing panalangin. i'd have stayed for the song just to find out what their second song would be. but it was just too darn late for an old fogey like me and poor jan still had to drive everybody home. so i never found out what they sang.

and it has to mentioned that several troops of taytay boys were there. punks not dead talaga! haha!

inside the car, while i was on my way to dreamland, i had a little smile on my face. it's messed-up plans on nights like this that make life a little more exciting. on valentine's eve too!

at bagets pa rin!

it has been a while since there has been a buzz in my blog. thanks to bagets, there has been much activity both here and in my multiply site.

adie and tonton, whoever you are, thank you for the link you posted. (wala bang ninja kids dyan?)

come one, come all bagets fans! nostalgia manila has several clips from the movie, including the opening bill board (sooooo fun!), bagets in school (flashback my own memories of HS and college. hehe!), their summer vacaction including william martinez and raymond lauchengco in trunks (gasp!) and some other clips in the film. walang birong nostalgia talaga. sayaaaa!

mukhang nakahanap ako ng tropa dito sa nostalgia manila ah!

stardust update deux

temporary website up!

and what fun! a digital coloring book of charles vess's (my favoritest! along with brian froud) works. charles vess did the art for the illustrated stardust.

past present: bagets

It’s been a while since I unearthed my 80’s music from the depths of my My Music folder. I picked up some old favorites to join the other songs in the dancerous folder. While going about mechanical chores of re-filing papers, “Just Got Lucky” blared out from the computer’s worn out speakers. True to form, I stated jiggy-ing in slightly behaved manner as our seminarian volunteer was on Sonny’s computer typing something.

I asked, “napanuod mo ba ang Bagets?”
J: sino nga ang mga bida dun?
I: sina aga mulach, William martinez, Herbert bautista… mga 15, 16 pa lang sila nun.
J: hindi e.
I wasn’t surprised. He was 21. Born in 1985. A few years after Bagets.
I: panuorin mo. Classic yun.

Before Bagets became gay speak for an offspring, it was a movie. And honestly, I think every tween, adolescent and teen-ager should watch the movie. And even those of us who have seen it in our youth should watch it again. See, I got to see it again in full last October. And found myself amused at the short-shorts, the high socks, the head band, the mullet, and worse, William Martinez in trunks! But more so with the fact that Bagets can now be considered a great classic as it has reached beyond twenty years and still has the same impact as it did when it first showed.

Arguably, it is the best Filipino teen movie in history. Even with the dated outfits and half of the cast thrown into showbiz oblivion, the issues explored in the movie remain valid after all these years. From falling in love with older people, to finding the courage to say you like a girl, to peer pressure to family issues, Bagets tells it lightly and comically albeit naturally and frankly.

“Pare Ko,” starring the Gwapings, Jao Mapa, Victor Neri and Gio Alvarez (aylabyu!), was the closest thing that tried to do a “Bagets” in the 90’s. Though it was fun, and relatable at that time (I was 16 when it showed), it can never reach the level Bagets has achieved. And they had Claudine Baretto whith her thick eyebrows and puruntong shorts. That is a terrible ordeal to be subjected to. Definitely worse than William in trunks. Defintely.

Or it could be just the soundtrack that makes it great. Hehehe!! (matanda na talaga ako!)

Bagets 2, I can barely remember. But it does have Francis Magalona, Richard Bonin and Ramon Christopher in it. Kilala niyo pa ba ang last two ta-artits? Hahaha! Francism talks about their reunion in an old old entry. A commemorative DVD? Anybody seen one? I want! And Ninja Kids? Meron din? Tat, tat!!! Let's scour the stores na!

stardust update

photo stolen from neil gaiman's journal.

in all fairness to claire danes, whom i absolutely dislike for reasons i am unable to fathom myself, she looks like yvainne in this still. but, but, but. in my heart, julia stiles still is the yvainne in the movie in my mind.

still, my attention is diverted to the handsome chap at the background. i love you robert de niro! i forget who he plays, but i'm thinking he could be the captain of the ship. i don't remember if primus ever crossed paths with yvaine and tristan this intimately in the book.

i pray to God stardust gets here. oh please. my heart still breaks that mirrormask has not come in our shores. though rowie texted me that it was showing on hbo family pack. which i do not have. sigh.

stardust the movie. hope it gets done sooooon!

filmfest movies

i've already seen two filmfest movies this year, and both of them involves superheroes. one is zsa zsa zaturnnah and the other, super noypi.

zsa zsa zaturnnah, i wanted to watch because i've read the comic and shared it with anyone who would be willing to read because it's one of the most hilarious and interesting Filipino graphic novel I've come across in ages. though i enjoyed arnold arre's mythology class (sana di nila gawing pelikula), zaturnnah was tickle-your-belly laughter that it definitely had to be shared.

when tat and i first heard the news it was to be a musical, we were quite excited about it. there was high hopes for that, really. and true enough, it remained faithful to the comic yet at the same time able to adapt transform the story into something else as a musical. the additions they made just made everything more crisp and witty and hilarious.

i really had no high expectations on the movie so i give it a passing grade. an 83 on the class card, maybe. i don't know why they had to put pauleen luna, alwyn uytingco and christian bautista's character in it as they absolutely had no point. felt like a waste of talent fee if you ask me. and joy viado looks more like aling britney than minnie aguilar, but my heart is still set with elizabeth ramsey. alfred vargas makes me laugh mostly because he really thinks he's good-looking. a ugh-what is he thinking natatawa kind of thing.

rustom padilla actually saved the day for me. he was able to portray ada's pain and confusion and gaiety quite well. the best acting he has ever done, if you ask me. maybe because it is something close to his heart. and kudos for actually wearing the costume. in fairness, ang ganda ng lolah moh! eula is still the better zaturnnah, as she is more gay, more beautiful and actually sings better as the lead character.

do watch it. it's not great, but it can make you giggle or laugh every few minutes or so. then buy the comics after. support Filipino literature!

super noypi, on the other hand, i had high expectations from. with quark henares on the helm, how could i not? he's into comics and super heroes and quentin tarantino... it's bound to be something interesting, won't it? absolutely wrong! nakapmpochangpanget!!! it's so darn ugly, my sister actually wanted to walk out of the movie house. i chose to stay and give it a chance. but to no avail!

there is no story nor clear plot. it's like a lousy mix of terminator and x-men/new mutants with out the proper teenage angst or interesting story line. too much unnecessary drama, terrible acting (led by mark herras and katrina halili. thank God for john prats and sandara park), and unbelievable casting (tatay ni mark herras si jao mapa at jennifer sevilla? hello ilang taon siya nanganak? 12? hello! quark, ano ba?).

ang panget panget panget talaga.

not even the nicely done special effects and mtv-camera movements could save the day.

quark, quark, quark... no matter how good your editing is, if the story is just too darn terrible, it can not and will not be able to save the movie.

and what's worse... there is a potential sequel in the making. damn! ugh.

watch

"the nativity" and "little miss sunshine" if you can still catch it before the metro film fest. beautiful films.

happy happy joy joy

it lives true to its name, this movie does! my head was bobbing, my shoulders swaying and my feet tapping to most of the sound track. and most parts of the movie, i was giggling like a six-year old. the little penguins were just so adorable! and the jokes were really funny! (or maybe i'm just mababaw). the CGI was amazing. got me mentally oooh-ing and aaaah-ing at it. there were scenes quite reminscent of "the fellowship of the rings." might it be because of sad blue eyes title-character voiced by elijah wood?

and robin williams. my dear robin williams! you never ever fail to crack me up. except when you are serious, of course. but it was quite clear that you were just messing around in this film. me loves you ever and ever!!!

and aha-aha-aha! i want a video of this movie. why? because of the social consciousnes that it has. about caring for the environment and letting mother nature's creatures alone. it's a perfect world, this happy feet is. but at least it teaches kids things, and lets them hope.

i want a baby mumble doll!!!

dooo not bee afreeeed, ahluvyu!

(funny though. read some of the online reviews, and there were a lot of criticisms from the ehm, critics. though i feel they may be taking it too seriously. or maybe that's their job. to take, even cartoons for kids, seriously. i don't know. i still love happy feet. and i still want a baby mumble doll!)

*****
SIMS
i knew it was bad news when bro convinced me to buy it. hardly slept me. and my dreams were just bombarded by mood meters. the creators are backmasking something, i know it. damn shit. ;p