1.7321
August 5, 2008Harold & Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay - A lot of people say that the first one was the better of the two films, but I think otherwise. This second film seems less rough around the edges, better paced and contains wittier jokes. Plus, it has this poem, which did it for me. Nerd-love rulez. (6/10)
I fear that I will always be a lonely number like root three.
A three is all that’s good and right,
why must my three keep out of sight
beneath a vicious square root sign?
I wish instead I were a nine
for nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic.
I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321.
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality
when hark! What is this I see?
Another square root of a three
has quietly come waltzing by.
Together now we multiply
to form a number we prefer,
rejoicing as an integer.
We break free from our mortal bonds
and with the wave of magic wands
our square root signs become unglued
and love for me has been renewed.
Mummy Mia!
August 4, 2008Horrible 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.
The Dark Knight
July 25, 2008There are 20 kids playing on a set of railroad tracks and you’re the driver of a train about to pass through it. At some point in between your running train and the kids, the track forks out to two paths: The old lane that has long been unused, and a newer set of tracks where the train has been regularly passing.
Now 19 of these kids are playing on the new set of tracks while one kid is playing alone on the old path. You see these kids and there is still time to pull the lever and switch lanes. If you continue on course, 19 kids are going to die. If you pull the lever, one life is lost. There’s no stopping. You have a choice: Many or one?
What do you do?
I really wanted to put off writing this entry until I’ve seen The Dark Knight for the second time (on IMAX, hopefully). However, I just have too many thoughts to remember until that time comes. Knowing me and my god-forsaken memory, I’d probably forget a lot of what I want to write. I’ve probably already forgotten things since I saw the film.
The thoughts are just racing through my head, especially now that I’ve just finished Batman: The Killing Joke, and I’ve started reading Watchmen. But basically, everything just revolves around a certain theme: That timeless struggle between good and evil. (Note though: Watchmen has nothing to do with Batman, but it’s a great graphic novel)
Going back to that scenario at the start of this entry… what would you do? The simplest and most impulsive answer would be to save the 19 lives of course. No contest, right? 19 lives or 1 life - and 19 is greater than 1. But I would think that most of us understand that a lot of things aren’t really as simple as they look.
If you think about it, the 19 kids are knowingly on the wrong part of the tracks, and only that one other kid is on the right track. Taking it to a broader view, it’s like asking if you should save the 19 people who are on the wrong side of the law or the one noble, law-abiding citizen on the other side.
I don’t have an answer. I’m just thinking things through. There’s a very thick human element and a sticky web of raw emotions involved, and these are the types of dilemmas that the characters have to face in The Dark Knight… and The Killing Joke… and The Watchmen. It’s what makes them so engrossing - that sense that the conflict we’re seeing can very well happen in real life. Not that there’s a hero in a batsuit or a criminal posing as a clown or a group of superheroes out to serve justice. It’s that these characters we’re bearing witness to are also so genuinely human that we can relate to the struggle inside them.
That timeless struggle between good and evil… I guess that’s why Batman has started to rise above the pack as my favorite superhero as of late. I never really had a favorite superhero. I couldn’t find anything in anyone before that I could take as something special that separates that hero from the rest. But Batman… Batman has proven to be different…
I’m not disillusioned that Batman is a superhero. He’s far from perfect. He doesn’t have any superpowers. He’s human. He breaks. He gets hurt inside and out. To be honest, I don’t even think that the hero is what makes the Batman story. To quote something that I read somewhere on the www: “The villains make batman. A lot of them are mirror images of him or what he could have become if he didn’t decide to take his personal tragedy and make something good out of it.”
I couldn’t have said it better. And no one in the realm of the Batman universe is a more glaring example of this than The Joker.
I’m going to comment on the movie now: It’s great, really. Is it the greatest film of all time? No. (although the members over at IMDB seem to think so) Is it the greatest Batman movie ever? IMHO, yes. And a BIG part of that is Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker. Heath played him so perfectly that it makes Jack’s joker look like a watered-down, cartoony, kiddie version of what the Joker should be. Posthumous Oscar? I’m all for it, and anything less than a nomination would be a travesty.
The Joker in The Dark Knight really isn’t a complex character. What you see is what you get: He wrecks havoc. He disrupts the peace. He goes against the system. He kills people and blows up things. He’s chaos incarnate. But that’s basically it. It’s not like in The Killing Joke where Joker has an origin/backstory. In TDK, The joker is simply an agent of madness. The portrayal of the character is what makes it so fantastic. I think it really doesn’t matter in the context of the film where The Joker originated. The point is that he’s a psycho. As he himself said in The Killing Joke: “If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice,” … “My point is that I went crazy!”
As for the story, conflict and theme of the film… that’s where Batman and Harvey Dent come in: As a couple of good men thrust into the forefront of an evil society. Harvey Dent as “The White Knight” - the hero that Gotham needs, and Batman as “The Dark Knight” - the hero that Gotham deserves. For the dark knight though, the burden to bear is greater since he makes the sacrifices and decisions that no one else would make. And in turn, this makes him the vigilante; shunned by society and living it its shadows.
Between those two, I think I’d like to be the dark knight type… making the hard decision and fading into the darkness…
The Eraserheads Are Back
July 21, 2008It’s been all over the pinoynet for the past couple of weeks now: The Eraserheads are back.
No, they haven’t exactly reunited. They’re back apparently for one night only. One concert.
Rumor is that Marlboro is sponsoring the concert, which is going to take place on August 30, 2008.
Rumor is that 10,000,000 pesos is involved in the deal - whether that is the amount to be paid to each member of that band or kung yan ang paghahatian nila is not clear.
My teenage life has greatly been shaped by the music of the Eraserheads. To say that they are a major influence in my current state of being is a huge understatement. The first record I ever bought was Circus. I eventually owned their entire discography and all of those albums absorbed so much wear and tear that I’m amazed they’re still playable up to this day.
I sensed the animosity between the band members long before they broke up. When I was in grade school, the Eraserheads were there to play a set in our auditorium during our annual fair. As I was roaming around the campus amidst all the stalls and rides and kiosks put up, I found myself at one point standing beside Buddy and Raimund. We were all there looking at some computer setup that was amazing at that point in time. My disillusion then was that being in the most popular band in the land, the four members of the Eraserheads were probably bestfriends with each other. I started to wonder where Ely and Marcus were. I figured they were doing their own roaming, but I found it weird that the band wasn’t together.
Anyway, fast forward a few years and the Eraserheads are still playing live shows, guesting on variety shows and daytime talk shows. I remember them guesting on A.S.A.P. and Kris Aquino’s show then. And I remember telling myself that they really don’t look like they like each other very much. I don’t know… I’m just like that… I get a lot of “gut feels” a lot of times, and everytime I saw the Eraserheads before, I just had this feeling that there was a lot of animosity between them.
So eventually, when the rumors started to brew that there was trouble within the band, I wasn’t really shocked or surprised. When they broke up, I was more relieved that disappointed. It was just a feeling that it was time and they had to move on. We all had to move on.
But apparently, the animosity ran a lot deeper than I thought. Even after the breakup, stories of the bad blood between Ely and Raimund kept on popping up like wild mushrooms every now and then. Of course, everyone wanted a reunion, but it seemed more and more unlikely as time passed. As for me, I never really stopped hoping. As people say… time heals all wounds. And I thought that with enough time, these guys would give their defunct band another chance.
And now we find ourselves here. A month or so before the biggest concert of the decade. But do we really want it? Do we really want it like this?
I don’t know the whole story yet. I don’t know how the guys are with each other. But if it’s just the money that’s bringing them together, sana hindi nalang sila nag-reunion. Really. I’d want the Eraserheads to reunite - even for one night only - because they missed playing their music together. Because they want to play the old Eraserheads songs as The Eraserheads, and that the money was just a big bonus. But hey, on the flipside, The E-Heads were supposedly shortchanged for all the music they created that are now pillars of pinoy rock… so if this servers as their big payday, I guess I’m all for it…
Maybe I’m still a disillusioned little kid after all, but I still want to believe that once upon a time… Raimund, Buddy, Marcus and Ely were really good friends who made really good music…
Hopefully that can still happen.
