Alice in Wonderland

Just arrived from watching Alice in Wonderland at SM Bicutan. I wish I saw it somewhere else. One of the speakers keeps turning on and off and all of the speakers seem "sabog."

Buti na lang it was a great movie. I loved how the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) moved, este, flowed. And I have this feeling I'd be immitating her tonight when I'm alone. LoL! But yea, Johnny Depp was superb as the Mad Hatter. He's really one of a kind.

If there's one thing that the movie pointed out to me, it's how others would take so much effort to please and make you feel comfortable even to the point of humiliating themselves when you're in high power. The Red Queen's (with a bigger than normal head) entourage consisted of men and women with defects - one has the longest nose, the other big ears, big boobs, big tummy... And they did that just so the Red Queen would be fond of them.

But I hate it when they took away my digicam to the security office. As if naman I couldn't take pictures with my phone. Had they known that I had a netbook with me, would they also take it?

Watch: "The Last Airbender" Trailer

I first saw Aang on TV5 one afternoon while I was surfing the tube. I instantly liked the show and fell in love, until they stopped after a few episodes and re-ran it from the start. I tried watching it on Nick but I kinda lost track due to busy scheds.

Then the trailer came out and I got excited all over again. JP (one of my movie buddies) and I nearly screamed when we saw the familiar bald head of Aang during the intermission when we watched 2012.

Now summer 2010 is almost here (can't you tell by the heat?) and with summer comes The Last Avatar! It's definitely a must-see (along with Alice in Wonderland).

Noah Ringer plays the role of Aang. But I'm more excited about Twilight's vampire hottie Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale) who plays Sokka in this movie. Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire is also in the cast.

Synopsis:
Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Four nations tied by destiny when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war against the others. A century has passed with no hope in sight to change the path of this destruction. Caught between combat and courage, Aang (Noah Ringer) discovers he is the lone Avatar with the power to manipulate all four elements. Aang teams with Katara (Nicola Peltz), a Waterbender, and her brother, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone), to restore balance to their war-torn world.

Based on the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, the live-action feature film The Last Airbender is the opening chapter in Aang's struggle to survive.

Teaser-trailer below:

"What's Bing?"

Microsoft sponsored New Moon's movie premier. Ryan Seacrest, in a booth just outside the theater broadcasting live on the radio, was giving out Bing bags to the guests as token. It's just bad that Robert Pattinson didn't even know what Bing was. "What's Bing?" he queried when he received the small package. I hope someone told him beforehand that Bing was Microsoft's search engine.

But of course the real issue in the video is how Robert's rep cut the interview as soon as Ryan Seacrest began asking the Twilight star about his co-star, Kristen Stewart. The rep said they're talking about the movie (and not Kristen). Uhh... isn't Kristen part of it, too?

I'm so showbiz. Let's cut it here.

xoxo

2012

I watched 2012 yesterday with JP, my movie buddy for years now. Good thing it's his day-off cuz I was really dying to watch and I'm not used to going alone to the movies anymore. I must admit going to the movies alone is quite an adventure but I'm so past that stage already.

I was actually wondering why he wasn't texting me about watching 2012 when I have read good reviews about it. You see, we only see good movies and/or blockbusters together. I eventually learned that his brother who watched 2012 on it's 2nd day gave a bad feedback, so he thought against watching it.

But his brother was proven wrong. The movie was so fast-paced and kept us on the edge almost all throughout. JP specifically loved Lilly (Morgan Lily) cuz she reminded him of the young Dakota. The scene where Jackson (John Cusack) was driving the limo with his family towards the airport to escape the  chaos that seemed to be following them was a blast. It was GTA-on-doomsday.

Another thing to love in this movie is the Japanese Chin (?) named Caesar. I'm not actually sure if he's a Jap Chin or a Pekingese but he looked more like the former. As a pet lover, I'm so relieved that they didn't kill him in the story. But his human did. Actually, those with "unclear conscience" actually died. Well, not all. But the Russian Yuri and his girlfriend Tamara (Caesar's human), plus Sasha the pilot whom Tamara had indecent affair with all died.

When all thought it was a spaceship they were building to save humanity, I thought wow, was this inspired by Wall-E? LOL! But the minute I saw a giraffe and an elephant suspended in helicopters towards the "spaceships," I knew it was a modern version of the Bible's great flood. And it was confirmed when the spaceships turned out to be just ships. But a very high-tech one at that.

One more thing: Osric Chau, the actor who played the Chinese named Nima, is very Jay R (the singer) and a little like Paolo Abrera. LOL! Can't help but notice.

It's almost 2009. What can I possibly do to come up with a 1 billion euro before 2012? LOL! I guess people like me should just embrace what's to come. After all, no one really knows when the end of world will be.

Or is it ending now?

I Don't Wanna Wait in Vain...

So you see when you really, really like something, waiting for it is such an agonizing experience. But some people have zero tolerance of waiting.

I called JP at four this afternoon. He’s still at work but is preparing to go home. I told him I couldn’t hold it til Monday. And he wanted to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on its first day, too. So we agreed to watch the 7:30 screening. LOL!

We were young once again, excited to see a movie we’ve long waited for.



We started going to the movies together in 1998. Cesar Montano’s Jose Rizal. Not because we wanted to see it, but because his mom gave us tickets to that movie. There were like 6 of us, our old barkada. And it’s actually the group’s first time to go out together.

Since then, we would go to the movies with his brother, Jindo, everytime there’s good sci-fi out. The girls wouldn’t wanna join us cuz they didn’t like the movies we love watching. Then after some time, Jindo wouldn’t wanna go the movies anymore. His interest drifted to guitars so he’d rather strum than sit inside the theater to watch.

Well, we go to the movies with other friends, too. But movies of our interests - like Harry Potter – should be watched together. No questions asked.



It was a fine Harry Potter night. If you’d not count the fact that it’s raining so hard going to and from the theater, it was overall a good trip. I also got to pay my credit card bill, had Princess’s card updated (at last), and was able to buy the much needed 600w (generic, though) power supply for one my units that burned out this afternoon.

Anyway, bawal pala magpicture ng posters sa SM. I didn’t know cuz I always get away with it. Kaya lang my flash gave me away kanina. Sayang. Sabi na nga ba camera phones are better. LOL!

Photos via wikipedia.org and thoughtsfromthejockstrap.com

See No Evil

I’m all excited to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Watching it was the first thing that came to my mind upon waking up this morning. I have agreed to see it on Monday with JP (who is my movie buddy for almost a decade now) but I also want to see it with my nephews. (So okay I want to see it twice.)

I texted Leni this  morning: Can I see Harry Potter with your kids on Saturday?
She texted back almost immediately: Ayaw ko yun e. Sorry.

How could I forget. Her family hasn’t watched or read a single Harry Potter. Why? Their church forbids.

It’s such a pity that some people (or churches) regard this story as wicked, evil, even satanic. It’s all about wizardry, yea, but all they have to do is read the plot to know that the story focuses on good things and despises the bad.

But I respect their opinions. Everyone’s entitled to live by their ideals.

I’m just glad I am free as a bird to do watch all things I want to do watch.

Posters

It had been long ago when I last admired a movie poster I wanted to have one.



Love it. Makes me want to start collecting movie posters.

But then regardless of the poster, I'd definitely watch Revenge of the Fallen when it hits theaters.

New Moon Stills

The free book and this video has revived my excitement for New Moon.



Can't wait for November.

"Kinatay" Won't Be Shown Here

Brillante Mendoza, after winning Best Director at the 2009 Cannes, has decided not to give his film ("Kinatay") a public showing here in the country. But before you say that he's madamot, hear his reason first.

Let's just understand that a movie is like a child to the director. It's his creation, and after winning in Cannes, it's his masterpiece.

We know how movie censorship is. And for that, Mendoza doesn't want his masterpiece to go under censorship's knives.

It will be on exhibition, though, on some universities.

Photo Source: hollywoodreporter.com

Death Note In Hollywood

It's so cool that the first manga I fell in love with is now being made into a Hollywood movie. Warner has recently acquired the rights to adapt Death Note into a live-action film.

Screenwriters Charley and Vlas Parlapanides were hired to adapt.

Warner Japan has already made 3 Japanese-language Death Note films but the Hollywood movie will not be based on them. It will be drawn from the first three installments of the manga.

Cool. I haven't seen the Japanese Death Note yet but a friend says it had been altered a bit.

I should buy some Death Note merchandise this early before they begin overpricing.

"Bruno"

Sacha Baron Cohen will surely give us a good laugh in this upcoming comedy flick, Bruno, where he plays a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter.

Watch the trailer. It's hilarious. Makes me think how much funnier can the full movie be.



Bruno is showing July 10th.

Why Can't You Visit Us?

Daniel Henney, who Filipinos first saw in the Tagalized version of Korea's tv series "My Name is Kim Samsoon," together with Hugh Jackman, will go to Korea to promote X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Makes me wonder why they don't come here to promote.

But really, why can't Hollywood stars come to the Philippines to promote their movies, when most of us Filipinos just love them. LOL! Really, Hollywood movies are a hit here in the Philippines, sometimes more than our locally made movies. I confess I rarely watch Tagalog movies, only when its critically-acclaimed (like Ploning) or isn't mainly a kilig love story.

Perhaps I'm really not into mainstream. While everyone was out watching You Changed My Life, I couldn't even find myself considering watching it. The last drama-love story Tagalog movie I watched that I really liked was Carlos Siguion-Reyna's 1991 film Hihintayin Kita sa Langit. I watched it through the recommendation of a friend, who also lent me the VCD a few years back. Watching it made me wonder why Siguion-Reyna stopped making films. Or did he? It also raised a question of why modern-day filmmakers won't make films of such story lines.

It was so well-made the characters will stick in your memory. Even if I saw it years ago, I still remember scenes of Gabriel and Carmina so in love with each other. I'm not really a fan of Richard Gomez's acting (and hosting) abilities but the fact that he made the character of Gabriel so unforgettable perhaps mean that he's a really effective
actor. Well, Dawn Zulueta as Carmina gave a flawless performance. A beautiful, helpless, fragile lady so in love with Gabriel but can't escape the cruelties of her brother.

Oh I really hope Reyna Films make movies again. I'm sure those who like Hollywood movies will patronize Tagalog movies with good story lines. By the way, isn't the lack of it made them turn their attention to foreign movies?

Speaking of unforgettable characters, there are two more that I can't forget. Victor and Alma from Andres Cristobal Cruz's "Ang Tondo Man May Langit Din." I'm kinda sure those who read the book can't forget them either.

Photo Source: k-popped.com

Let the Right One In

I like horror movies. Thrillers. Loved Twilight. And I heard there's an indie film that's a little something like Twilight, only it's more gory and although it involves a love story between two 12-year-olds, it's not exactly a love story.

The movie's from Sweden and it's called "Let the Right One In." It has been winning all those "indie film awards" that America bought the rights to make their own version.

I've heard it's scary, creepy, demented... I've searched for a trailer in YouTube but I didn't watch it. Midnight's not a time for scary stuff. LOL!

Here's the trailer, though: (but I'm not watching until tomorrow... in broad daylight. LOL!)

Silent Movie

Karl Lagerfeld directs this movie about Coco Chanel.

Edita Vilkeviciute plays Coco.

I love the black and white.

Spotted: Captain America!

Weren't you disappointed when you failed to see Captain America in The Incredible Hulk as was earlier announced? Well I was. But not anymore. He really is in it! On the DVD version, that is. The said cameo appearance was cut in the movie version.

Here are some pics. Look closely.



That's it! He got frozen, so even if his story was set in the World War II, he can still appear in The Avengers!

Superhero Movies and Awkward Singing

A lot of good movies coming up. I still haven't caught up on the (too many) movies I've missed and then here comes Max Payne already. Mark Wahlberg plays the title role. Been a secret fan of Mark ever since his Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch days. And I became more of a fan when he proved he could act. The first Marky movie I saw was the 1997 controversial film Boogie Nights. Haha.

His brother Donnie is on the limelight again. NKOTB is back. I haven't seen the music video but I've been hearing their single (entitled "Single") on Magic and their high-pitched singing makes me cringe. Haha. They sound so young, and having been a fan in the late eighties, I was kinda expecting their comeback to be somewhat "mature." I don't know maybe I've just expected something else. I really wanna see the video of the song. I hope it won't look as awkward as I hear it. And hopefully the "awkward" impression will change.

And then Christopher Nolan is expected to do his 3rd Batman film. They say Johnny Depp will play The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman will be The Penguin. What's more, Will Smith is going to play Captain America! I'm so excited. Captain America surely will be fun. And my ortho will have additional three more action figures in his collection. Haha.

But then the Dragon Ball movie has been so quiet as of late. I have no idea when it's coming out.

Photo via: filmwad

Dragon Ball Live Action

The Dragon Ball live action movie trailer will be out October 17 together with 20th Century Fox's video game adaptation Max Payne. But Nerdorama has some screenshots of the movie trailer which are now on the dragon ball website. I'm sure kids and adults (especially those who followed it on tv when they were still kids) are watching out for this movie with great anticipation. Reminds me of my other ortho - 44 y/o, has a complete collection of the anime on vcd's. I don't know if it's pirated because I never saw the cases or the actual vcd. It was just playing on his monitor on one of my visits and we kinda chit-chatted about it. But I guess all of us, in one way or the other, became a fan of the anime. Someone I know don't even watch it but likes collecting its posters. I myself isn't a die-hard fan but I do like the show. So evident is the fact that I can't keep myself from posting some promotional photos =)

Goku kinda looks like Frodo Baggins on the first pic. But oh, well, the other actors in the cast are:
Chow Yun-Fat - Master Roshi
Emmy Rossum - Bulma
Joon Park - Yamcha
Jamie Chung - Chi Chi
Randall Duk Kim - Grandpa Gohan
Eriko Tamura - Mai
Shavon Kirksey - Emi

The character of Emi is especially created for the movie version. She plays the bestfriend of Chi Chi. They're the "in" girls (with Emi) so to speak.

Social Networking Movie

Social networking is so "in" today that kids (from as young as 6) and adults have an account (or two) to either keep in touch and up-to-date with their biological friends, have contact with their virtual ones, or simply gain more friends virtually. Many (whom I know personally) don't like the idea of these social networking sites, saying most are posers and pretentious, and that they rather keep their friends biological rather than virtual.

I was introduced to Friendster by young friends in 2002, during the early stages of the site. I made an account but didn't do much about it until last year when the people I play with in Ran Online began exchanging e-mail addresses which serve as their Friendster identity. After much prodding from my online game friends, I started adding them to my friend list and eventually found it fun to be updated on what my "friends" are up to and quite happy when I receive comments or messages from them.

Another networking site, Myspace, came out a year after Friendster was born. I also made an account during its early stage and added a few friends but just like what happened to my Friendster account when I first signed up, I stopped signing in.

Then Facebook came out in 2004. It was created at Harvard by Mark Zuckerberg and eventually became a hit. Other same sites emerged such as Multiply, Hi-5, etc. But a pattern emerged. Friendster and Multiply became a hit with Asians while Facebook and Myspace became the networking sites more favored by the caucasians.

But sometimes, the good intentions of these networking sites are put in the bad light by some of its users. Remember the Myspace hoax? Some also eventually meet up and become partners for life while some are being kidnapped through Friendster.

Will these points be brought up in the movie Aaron Sorkin is writing? Or will it be just about the evolution of Facebook?

Bad Movies

My favorite journalist, who does movie reviews for a spreadsheet, described Star Cinema's A Very Special Love as a series of romantic scenes put together to make a movie. Now For the First Time is described as "pretty". She writes: "KC Concepcion is pretty. Richard Gutierrez is pretty. Greece is pretty. The Richard Prince bag is pretty." Followed by: "Then the movie has a nervous breakdown, and everything goes to hell."

What comprises a good movie, anyway? And how important is a good plot to a movie? Is it enough to make the viewers "kilig" or is it also important to instill something and somehow influence them with the movie?

Movie producers have been giving us romantic movies with bad plots. Why? Because these kind of movies are the ones that make more money. Good movies don't make that much money. Look what happened to Judy Ann Santos' self-produced Ploning. Didn't get much attention.

Big producers only care about making money. And as long as we patronize bad-plotted but full-of-kilig-moments movies, that's what they will continue to give us. They can spend millions to shoot abroad, they can spend big money for the everyday shooting fiesta, because they know people will watch the movie no matter how bad the story line is; that they will get their money back threefolds.

I hope people will think twice about spending a hundred or so pesos for a movie with merely kilig moments rather than a good plot. Because patronizing something bad will make matters even worse.

Narnia

And so we went to see Narnia. We were supposed to go to another moviehouse but Jaypee got to my place quite late for us to make it on time for the last show. So we went to Festival Mall instead. Their LFS were at 9:20 pm (for cinema 7) and 10:00 pm (for cinema 8), so much for our convenience.

Georgie Henly has grown to be very pretty. She reminds me of the young Drew Barrymore sans curly hair. She is so cute I can't help but laugh when she pulled out her knife like a sword towards the end of the movie, the part where the enemies are retreating before poseidon (if that's him) showed up.

I love Tilda Swinton. Too bad she only has a short part in this movie as the White Witch. I love contrabidas. The latest contrabida I came to love was Cate Blanchett as Col. Dr. Irina Spalko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She's so good I almost applauded. Well, I didn't applaud. I was alone when I watched it, courtesy of movie6.net haha.

Jaypee was so fun to watch a movie with. We were kids all over again, shouting, clapping, laughing, eating... We only had burgers and drinks. We didn't have time to buy more. We arrived at the moviehouse 15 minutes before the movie started. So this:

It was in my jeans' pocket. That explains the crumpled state.

I hate seeing VAT on my receipts.