Mummy Mia!

Horrible title for the blog post, I know… but I heard it on Jay Leno and I LOL’ed ^_^ 

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - Eeek. Really bad. Main culprit here is Maria Bello replacing Rachel Weisz in the role of Evie. I like Maria Bello, but it just doesn’t work. Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li weren’t used well. Brendan Fraser still looks stupid. The guy playing Rick and Evie’s son looks like all he knows is magpa-cute, look cool, and sound cool. Decent action, but nothing we haven’t seen before. Really not so fun to watch. (3/10)

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan - People who know Adam Sandler and have seen the trailer better know what to expect. Taken for what it is, it’s actually a good fun film. Crass and dumb, yes - but don’t we all expect that from the guy who brought us Little Nicky and Billy Madison? Although this one is a bit too crass even for Sandler’s standards… and what is it with him and old women?? Zohan is actually witty and LOL-funny at times, which is a bonus. Emmanuelle Chriqui is HAWT! John Turturo is brilliant. (5/10)

Spiderwick Chronicles - Pleasant surprise. A lot of movies claim to be magical, fantastical and full of wonder, but this is one of the few that really deliver. I think I’d put it up there along with “Bridge to Terabithia” in terms of films that really give you that sense of magic and wonder and don’t just shove all these shinny and shimmering special effects down your throat. The thing that makes good fantasy films is that they show you the real world, they show you the fantasy world, and then they highlight what makes the fantasy world so fantastic. This is one of those films. (7.5/10)

In other news, “Breaking Dawn” comes out. It’s the last part of the quadrilogy that is the “Twilight Series”, written my Stephanie Meyer. Mau gobbled up the first three books in around a week and then waited excitedly for today so that she could buy “Breaking Dawn”. It’s out of stock in all Powerbooks outlets so we got her copy at Bibliarch.

As for my Murakami books… every time we pass by a bookstore, there they are calling out to me… But I have yet to finish “Dance Dance Dance” - Demmit, I’m such a poor reader.

dance dance dance

damnit, this is what i get for not bringing my book along.

i wanted to blog about certain quotes from the book but i can’t remember them in verbatim and i left my copy at home. the funny thing is that i stared at the book for a good ten seconds this morning contemplating if i should bring it or not before i decided to just leave it on the floor in my room.

"i wouldn’t have time to read it anyway. i’d be working most of the time (yeah right); and even if i wasn’t, it wouldn’t exactly be polite to my officemates to be reading a novel during workhours. then after work, i’d be with mau. i really can’t read books when i’m not alone so i wouldn’t be able to read then either. so i just won’t bring the book."

… way to go, Reason!

i’ll try to blog it anyway from memory and try not to get anything lost in translation.

right now, i’m around 1/3 into my second Haruki Murakami book: "Dance Dance Dance". what it’s about can easily be researched in wikipedia; so if you’re interested, you can go on and just do that (ang sungit ko no? ^_^). on the other hand, the feel of the book is something you’d really have to experience for yourself. it’s surreal and it’s absurd. it’s thrilling and slightly eerie. think a less kiddie Alice In Wonderland but set in modern urban Japan.

what i’m liking about the novel the most right now though is that i’ve seen a couple of similarities already between myself and the main protagonist. that’s one of the better bonuses when i read a novel (like when I read "High Fidelity"). when i read about a character that’s somehow a mirror of me, i get more enthusiastic about the book. it’s like this story (or a different version of it) could be my story. i like doing that… daydreaming about an alternate existence and imagining myself in different situations… call it escapism if you want. that’s probably what it is anyway. it also helps that the main character remains unnamed. it’s easier to put myself in his shoes that way. easier to imagine.

anyway… ah, similarities… right…

somewhere in the beginning of the story, the protagonist has this short chat with an older man about the state of the world. as he describes to the older guy how he sees things, the older man says that he could never understand these complex workings that the protagonist describes. at this, our protagonist thinks to himself that actually, he doesn’t really understand things also. he just recognizes things for what they are. and there’s a decisive difference between those two propositions. that was the first thing about the main character that really stuck to my head.

sometimes, there really are no deeper complexities to the things that happen around us. sometimes, maybe much more often than we think, things are just what they are and they have to be recognized as such. i must admit that this isn’t always the case though. the world is full of ulterior motives, hidden intentions and deeper meanings. but i also think that people have made life much more complex that it should be, and that has affected our perception of things to the point that we try to read too much into a lot of stuff. the sad thing about it is that when you start reading into what shouldn’t be read into, things might start to get ugly.

another thing about him that struck me (although to a lesser extent) was what he said that sometimes, people can’t tell if he’s kidding any more that when he’s serious.  suppose that struck me only because it somehow touches on how i often get misunderstood or misinterpreted. that’s all there is to that, really.

well that’s that. hopefully by next week i’ll be finished with DDD. it’s interesting how the protagonist’s story progresses "down the rabbit hole" and it’s equally interesting to see if there are any more similarities i’ll be able to see between the two of us. after that, i can move on the other books wasting away on the shelves.

golden

I saw the full-length trailer of The Golden Compass for just the first time a few nights ago and…

HOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIT

i want!!!!

new line cinema has seemingly gotten it right again. after lord of the rings, they bring another trilogy to the big screen in sterling fashion.

can't wait for this film to come out. gotta finish the book! shet, nasa chapter 2 palang ako!

dem armoured polar bears look badass! and Ian McKellen as Iorek Byrnison (one of dem badass lookin polar bears) has WIN written all over it!

-Jekyll 

Man vs Machine

The setting of Kurt Vonnegut's first novel - "Player Piano" - is a dystopian world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. During the first part of this 1952 novel, there is a mention of an old factory machinist, Rudy Hertz. Hertz was the best of the best in what he did. When the machines came, Hertz's "essence" was captured and stored into a tape, which dictated how these machines were to function. The turner-on of power, the setter of speeds, and the controller of the cutting tool - this was Rudy Hertz's essence as far as the machines were concerned.The machines had all the information for functioning while Rudy Hertz was no longer needed.

Further on, it was described that the world in the book had already undergone two industrial revolutions: A first industrial revolution that devalued a human's muscle functions and a second industrial revolution that devalued a human's routine mental tasks. Both of these functions were taken over by machines. The prospect of a third industrial revolution was being considered - one that would devalue human thinking altogether.

A player piano is a modified piano that "plays itself" without the need for a human pianist. The piano keys move according to a pattern of holes punched in an unwinding scroll. The instrument produces the sound itself, driving hammers that strike the strings, with the keys moving up and down based on the pattern of holes. Consequently, a player piano, like its ordinary counterpart, can also be played by hand. When a player piano operates under automatic control, the movement of its keys produce the illusion that an invisible performer is playing the instrument.

… … …

The essence of a human being… humans being obsolete… machines dominating the world… that's what "Player Piano" is all about. It's not a new concept. The Matrix trilogy touches on this, as well as a number of other things in contemporary culture.

So, will the world ever get to a point where machines would rule the world? Take note that this novel was written in 1952. In this day and age, 55 years later, there are already machines that have taken over our basic muscle functions and our routine mental tasks; and to a certain extent, there are computers out there that can already think and are capable of rough analysis and primitive comprehension.

I'm just three (3) chapters into this 35-chapter novel, and it's already gripped me and gotten me thinking. Hopefully, the novel ends well for its characters. Hopefully, everything ends well for us.

… … …

Anywhoo… I just went from Haruki Murakami's "Hard-boied Wonderland and the End of the World" to Kurt Vonnegut's "Piano Player". I enjoyed the former, and the latter is already enjoyable early on. This means that I'm probably just going to alternate between reading Murakami and Vonnegut novels for the next several months. Good books. Good times.

Book Backlog

Before, it was just "So little time, so much music to listen to".

Now, it's also "So little time, so many books to read."

Buti nalang pwede ipagsabay ang music tsaka books.

Enter: My new interests - Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Z. Danielewski (actually, it's more of his debut novel "House of Leaves", which I saw today at Bibliarch for Php800+)

Damnit, I already have a huge book backlog (but now, at least, it's a book backlog that moves) and I'm tempted to buy "House of Leaves" just because it's the only copy I have seen of the book anywhere!

*grumble grumble*