Watched It

Saw Watchmen earlier. Visually, it was great; Dave Gibbons' artwork brought to cinematic life. And while it tried to stay true (maybe even inanely true) to the graphic novel, as with all film adaptations of Alan Moore comics, it pales in comparison to the source material. The best part of the film was the opening credits montage where director Zack Snyder shows the world's background and origins to the tune of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'. (Maybe Snyder should stick to making short films in the style of opening credits montage. Prior to this, I thought that his best work was the opening credits to the Dawn of the Dead remake.) What follows is a very uneven film that tries to get the feel and the mood of the world that Moore and Gibbons created but stumbles more often than not.

Another gripe I have with the film has something to do with Snyder's fight scenes which I think were bloodier and more gruesome than the ones in the comics. Plus, they were shot in Snyder's signature fast forward slow motion (fastfoslowmo?) style which annoyed the hell out of me when I first saw it in his300 (not that that's the only annoying thing in that movie. That whole movie was an annoyance in itself) which made the film feel all the more dragging.

I admit that it took a couple of readings before I truly appreciated Watchmen. The first time I read it, it was okay. It did not wow me or anything, I just thought that it was different than any of the comics I've read before. It was darker, more violent, the heroes were not really heroes (some of them, at least) and what the fuck was that pirate story all about? I only "got" it after the second time around and I appreciated it even more after subsequent readings. If my appreciation for the movie adaptation will increase through subsequent viewings, that remains to be seen.

Haruki Murakami

Recently finished Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and I declare that Haruki Murakami is the only writer that can reach the hopeless romantic in me that I keep locked up like Schrodinger's Cat.

His story On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning (which is included in The Elephant Vanishes) convinced me of his greatness that I muttered "shitfuckdammit" the first time I read it and then I immediately reread it three times in a row. He made the work seem effortless and easy. The story seems simple but it's not. Only the great ones can pull it off. Read it and I dare you to disagree with me. When I first read that story years ago I was courting someone so I reasoned out that I was in the mood for such a story (not that the story is overly romantic and mush-filled).

And years later, I buy and read his latest collection of short stories. I figured that On Meeting the 100% Perfect Girl... was a fluke and nothing would come close to it. I was partly right and partly wrong. No story in the collection came close to being a punch in the gut like that story but many of them came close. Amid his weird and strange and oblique stories like Nausea and The Poor Aunt Story, there are stories of lost loves and longing like A Folklore for My Generation: A Prehistory of Late-Stage Capitalism? (Which reads like a Wong Kar Wai film.)

And then there's Tony Takitani. (Which also reads like a Wong Kar Wai film that I hope Wong gets off his ass and adapts a Murakami story. Although there is a Tony Takitani film already, how about adapting Nausea, the one about vomiting? I'd love to see Wong's version of that, with of course Chris Doyle lighting.)

Reading these stories makes one want to fall in love only to wallow in and even cherish the the misery of the ensuing heartbreak.

Free Weird Tales and a Weird Question

A free issue of Weird Tales is available for a limited time. Something to read in time for Halloween.

And there's a question that's been bugging me throughout the day:

How many Oreos (or Cream O's if you prefer the local variety) should one cram in a person's mouth to choke that person to death?

If you have any practical knowledge in this matter, let me know. It won't change the fact that you're scum of the earth, but you'll have my gratitude. Of sorts.

Frenzied Boredom

Jesus, it's been a while.

Allen e-mailed me this link and boredom led me to click through it.

I AM
65%
FRENZYTake the Transformers Quiz

Frenzy

Frenzy is a chaotic spy turned boom box, sent by the Decepticons to infiltrate enemy strongholds.

Like Frenzy, you are not compassionate and harbor evil thoughts. Your leadership skills are weak at best. You will never be the commander of the Decepticons. In addition, you use technology when you need to, but you do not embrace the latest trends.

I harbor evil thoughts--sometimes, mostly when I'm fresh out of bed and haven't had my caffeine fix--but I'm sure I'm relatively compassionate. I'm compassionately evil!

Ah, crap. Carry on.

Watching the Watchmen

The Watchmen trailer's up.

A bit apprehensive about this one because I didn't really like Zack Snyder's previous movies (I thought 300 was boring and the best part of his Dawn of the Dead remake was the opening credits with the Johnny Cash song and then it was all downhill from there), but damn, I have to admit Watchmen looks really, really nice. You have the birth of Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl and Sally Jupiter's assault on the prison, Rorschach with an improvised flame thrower (could've done with a "Hurm", though) and The Comedian being thrown out the window. Damn.

I'm off to dig out my copy and read the whole thing all over again.

Ellis Interrogation

"I don't like anything I've written, a half hour after writing it."

"I like the games where you kill people and they scream. I liked SOLDIER OF FORTUNE, because you could shoot people in the throat and they'd thrash and choke and drown in their own blood. Also you could shove knives in their balls and they wouldn't die immediately, but lurch away from you shrieking."

"I come from the old school where a writer is a person who sits alone in a room and beats on a keyboard with their fists until the machine surrenders and spits out the story they wanted."

More here.

Exiled

Finally saw it. Wow. My mind's still reeling in awe of it that I don’t know how to start.

Four men came knocking at a house looking for one man. Two came to kill him, the other two to protect him. The wanted man finally shows up and the gunplay and the violence begins.

Exiled is basically a western but instead of a frontier town the action is transposed to 1998 pre-handover Macau. And while director Johnnie To riffs from the masters of the western genre--traces of Sergio Leone in the first fifteen minutes (and throughout the film, actually) and there are tones of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch towards the end--the film is all To. And as with all Johnnie To crime flicks, the action set pieces are things to behold. The aforementioned opening fifteen minutes is fun, but it’s just a taste of what is to come. Personal fave though is the shootout at the underground clinic; close quarters gunfight in a claustrophobic setting and To stages the hell out of it. Jaw-dropper, really. Heck, I found myself slack-jawed even in some non-action scenes.

The cast consists of To mainstays: Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Lam Suet, Roy Cheung, and Simon Yam. It’s the classic cast of The Mission plus a couple of new faces in Nick Cheung and Richie Jen. Unsurprisingly, the leads do very well. Even Nick Cheung was bearable for I thought he was a bit annoying in Breaking News.

Yeah, the themes and situations are nothing new to To (he even gives some nods to his classic The Mission, which Exiled may or may not be a sequel to, but who cares, right?) but with this one, there’s a certain… exuberance to it. It’s like Johnnie To’s having fun on this one and it is infectious.

Not that the film is light. I think that parts of it are grimmer than The Mission. It turns somber towards the end but in a self-reflexive moment, the characters laugh despite their fate. They had a good run and they had fun and surely the audience did too.

Bye Pooch

Poochy, one of our dogs, died early Tuesday morning. Whatever the cause was, either heartworm or distemper, I don’t know. The veterinarian never called back with the result of the blood test and besides, it’s rather moot now. It was difficult watching him suffer and I don't dare imagine what he felt during those last twelve hours.

Sleep well, Pooch. You are missed.

Kill Fidel

I remember reading about this last year, probably when the author's book first came out (and I also remember seeing something like this at the Discovery channel), but in light of Fidel Castro stepping down as Cuba's Comandante, this article lists some assassination plots that the CIA cooked up to get rid of the bearded one. Gotta love the ones where the intended effect (or so they say) is for Castro to lose his beard. And the ones where the Mafia is involved echoes bits of James Ellroy's American Tabloid.

And with Castro gone--well, he probably won't exit the stage entirely--will the CIA dream up more schemes if his successor does not play nice? But then, they don't assassinate people anymore, do they?

Akira Lives

Leonardo DiCaprio will produce a live-action version of Akira.

It'll probably be westernized so instead of Neo-Tokyo, the story will be set in, um, Neo-New York?

And instead of shouts of "Tetsuuooooo!" we'll have "Jaaaaaaacccccck!" or maybe, "Miiiiiike!" I dunno.

I liked the anime because it was visually gorgeous but wasn't really into the story. I thought it was nice to look at but the story was a bit off. It's hard to compress a thousand-page (at least) manga (which I've not read except for the last few issues of its Marvel/Epic reprint) into a 2-hour film and Katsuhiro Otomo tried admirably but fell short. But he more than made up for it in the visuals. He came up aces on that department.

So the two primary challenges that the producers will have to deal with are to find a writer (or writers) who can make sense of the story and make it comprehensible (or at least near-comprehensible; I'm not asking for much. Hehe.) and find a director who can match (or even exceed?) Otomo's vision. Heck, maybe they could even get Otomo himself to direct the film. With Otomo at the helm, at the very least we'll be treated to an amazingly designed (he does awesome cityscapes) Neo-Tokyo (or Neo-New York), great action sequences, and a grotesquely mutated and bloated Tetsuo (or Jack or Mike) threatening to engulf Neo-Tokyo (or Neo-New York). I'll be first in line on opening day if that happens.

FreakAngels

The first installment of Warren Ellis' webcomic FreakAngels is up. It's free so go read.

Al Capone Sends His Love

Celebrating the day of hearts, prohibition-era Chicago style

"One February evening in North Chicago, seven well-dressed men were found riddled with bullets inside the S.M.C Cartage Co. garage. They had been lined up against a wall, with their backs to their executioners and shot to death. With the exception of Dr. Reinhardt H. Schwimmer these men were mobsters working under the leadership of gangster and bootlegger, "Bugs" Moran. Within a few seconds, while staring at a bare brick wall, these seven men had become a part of Valentine's Day history: the St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

And this article says that when the site of the massacre was demolished, an enterprising guy bought the bullet-riddled bricks and eventually sold them as macabre memorabilia. Most buyers returned the bricks, though, saying they are cursed.

Red Cliff

Directed by John Woo. Starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Zhao Wei.

What more do you need to know?

Sweeney Todd

Not really into musicals (can only count two I saw and really liked and they are Bob Fosse's All That Jazz and South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. And should Life of Brian count? I mean, there was this song-and-a- bit-of-dancing-while-crucified number towards the end. Um… where was I?) Yeah, but a musical directed by Tim Burton and is about a serial killing barber is enough to draw me out and end my months-old moviegoing abstinence.

It was moody, it was gory, it was disturbing, it had depraved characters in it, it had songs with wonderful lyrics in it (I’ve half a mind to buy the soundtrack, actually), and it was glorious. Excellent performance from the actors, especially Johnny Depp. His Sweeney Todd is all intensity that one can't help but avert one's eyes slightly when Burton closes in on his glowering visage. One thing that rankled a bit was Sacha Baron Cohen’s singing. While his cameo was fun, his singing sounded like he was possessed by Adam Sandler’s Opera Man character during his Saturday Night Live days.

But the thing that really stuck with me from the film is Burton’s vision of Victorian era (or was it pre-Victorian?) London. Burton’s London is dreary, dirty, and bleak that it could easily drive one to depression. Or slit other people’s throats. But despite all that, despite that coat of dirt and dreariness and bleakness--or because of it--Burton’s London is beautiful. Like that old saying goes, it'll be a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. The city's duality was summed up during the opening minutes where Todd saw the city, as “a hole in the world like a great black pit, and it's filled with people who are filled of shit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it, and it goes by the name of 'London,'” which was a response to a young sailor’s fairly romantic and optimistic view of the city.

And the city perfectly mirrors the movie. For all its gore and gouts of blood and the pervading gloom that sticks with you even after you've left the theater, it is still something that one can't help but love. Just don't be surprised if it doesn't love you back.

A.I. Suicides

"So what exacty does a web suicide note look like?" McKinstry wrote on January 20, 2006, a week after he posted to Singh's blog. "Exctly like this."

He was sitting in a café near his home in Santiago, pounding the keys on his Mac laptop. He posted the message on his blog and a slightly different version on a forum at Joel on Software, a popular geek hangout.

McKinstry's rant was florid and melodramatic. "This Luis Vuitton, Parada, Mont Blanc commercial universe is not for me," he wrote. He talked about his history of suicidal feelings and botched attempts, and he insisted that this time things would be different. "I am certain I will not survive the afternoon," he wrote. "I have already taken enough drugs that my alreadt weakened liver will shut down very soon and I am off to find a place to hide and die."

Wired article about two A.I. pioneers who committed suicide using eerily similar methods, roughly one month apart.

Airing Out

It's been a while since I've been here. Some music to blast away the stale air.

Iggy Pop + Sonic Youth + I Wanna Be Your Dog = Rakenrol!



Sonic Youth's one of the few acts I'd kill to see perform live and yeah, I missed out when they were here back in '95--or '96?-- on a triple bill with the Foo Fighters and Beastie Boys. Here they are performing Sugar Kane, their ode to Marilyn Monroe.



Purveyors of beautiful noise, they are.

Today

Right.

Twenty-nine years down, who knows how many more to go.

Cheers.

Section 8

Tagged by the guy who doesn't smoke joints (or runs a joint where smoking is strictly prohibited). Wasn't keen on doing the post at first (you could say I was indifferent to it. hehe), but what the hell.

But first, the rules:

1. list eight (8) things/facts about yourself that people don't know (why 8? why not 9? i don't know, why not 10?---so, 8 it is)
2. then tag anybody you wish to tag (can be a friend or a relative or someone who has a blog; or wastes time maintaining one)
3. leave a comment on his/her blog telling them they're tagged (it's not mandatory, but do it anyway)
4. have them post the meme on their blogs and do the same thing (it's a simple instruction, don't you think?).
5. remember, there is no pressure. we're just keeping the cycle running.

Here goes:

1. I watched Sharon Cuneta in concert. Hey, I was a kid, seven years old, I think. This was waaaayyy back in 1984 or 1985 when our family lived in Las Pinas but I had to stay during the weekdays with our relatives in San Juan since I went to school there. They were complimentary tickets and most of the people in my grandma's house went to the concert. And since I didn't want to be left alone in the house, I had to come along.

2. I experienced a bomb scare. It was in 1986 and me and my parents were doing our Christmas shopping in SM Cubao. We were in one of the upper levels, shopping for shoes when someone shouted there was a bomb and people started running to one side of the building. Me and my parents of course ran along. We found ourselves huddled with the rest of them, waiting for the big kaboom that will send us to our big sleep. Or maim us, at least. No bomb exploded.

From what I can remember, someone from the upper levels saw some people in one of the lower floors running for some reason. Turns out Gary V. (or some other celebrity) was shopping there and people rushed to him for autographs or whatever. Some idiot thought there was a bomb (for I can faintly remember that there were some bombings in the Metro during that season) and saw it fit to alert the rest. Or some idiot got his kicks from seeing mass panic and shouted “bomb!”

3. I watched an episode of Kuya Germs' GMA Supershow live at the Broadway studios. Kindly refer to item number one, only a couple of years later. Moving on...

4. I drank my first shot of alcoholic beverage at age 14. My father's Rotary club was hosting a delegation of their sister club from Taipei. They took the guests to Subic (this was a year or so after the Americans left) for an overnight stay. Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant and the Taiwanese guys kampai'd everyone to their favorite rice wine. No exceptions. The old guys tried to intervene when it was my turn to take a shot, saying that I was underaged. The Taiwanese guys said that rice wine is okay for my age. After getting the okay from my parents, I took the shot of rice wine. I caught a whiff of it and it smelled like our local patis. I poured the wine into my mouth and it tasted like our local patis. The salty liquid quickly turned into an accelerant, forcing me to gulp it down, trailing fire down my throat. I downed a glass of ice cold Coke afterwards.

5. The first time I encountered wasabi, it almost burned my face off. Or at least it felt like it. It was in Taipei, some months after the rice wine incident. (Needless to say, bottles and bottles of rice wine were downed during that trip.) We were at a formal dinner; suit and tie stuff. Appetizers were served, some kind of raw fish, soy sauce for dipping and a small saucer of green paste. I saw someone in another table put some of the green stuff into the soy sauce, and-- monkey see, monkey do--so did I. I dipped a piece of fish and eagerly put it in my mouth. I think my face went red instantly. But instead of swallowing, I held it in my mouth. I hesitated spitting it out because, come on, I was in a formal dinner! To make things worse, drinks haven’t been served. Not even water. I stood up and headed for the restroom where I spat the vile thing into the toilet and flushed it away. I then rushed to the faucet to rinse away the burning in my mouth. I was there for quite a while.

6. I am wary of open doors. I dunno why. Natural paranoia, perhaps?

7. I used to have delusions of being a comics artist. I used to draw a lot. It was spurred on by seeing and admiring the works of superstar comics artists Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio during their X-Men days. I wanted to be like them so I practiced drawing, starting out with copying comics art line for line. When the time came, I took entrance exams to a couple of fine arts schools but failed them both. That didn’t stop me, though, and I still kept on drawing. Even bought Burne Hogarth’s Dynamic Anatomy on a trip to Canada. The drive to draw eventually tapered off sometime during college. That was when I began having delusions of being a writer, I suppose, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

8. I love walking. I think I started appreciating walking towards a destination instead of taking a car or commuting when I lived in Cubao where every place I want to go to seemed to be within walking distance. With walking, I can take my time, take everything at my own pace. I get to really see a place, a street, or a neighborhood instead of just catching glimpses of it as the vehicle I’m in speeds along (or not, if I’m stuck in traffic). There are obvious downsides, of course, like letting my lungs wallow in the city’s pollution or the risk of getting mugged. The former is inevitable while the latter, thankfully, has never happened to me.

Whew. As for who to tag, um... anyone who comes across this blog and would like to try this meme. (Not that anyone really reads this blog...)

Japaholic

Eiga Sai's here. It's usually held during the first quarter of the year that when said first quarter went pfft and no announcement regarding the filmfest has been made, I thought it was discontinued. Glad I'm wrong. Contemporary Japanese films are the focus once again and aside from Takashi Miike, I'm not really familiar with a lot of the films and directors.

And Miike's film in the festival--Shangri-La--is a bit odd. Miike usually deals in ultraviolence and perversity (sample Audition and Ichi the Killer, if you can stomach the grisly violence) and from what I've read, Shangri-la is a feel good movie. Then again, it's a revenge film and calling it a "feel-good film" could be a relative way of looking at it.

As for the other films, Blue Spring sounds interesting and according to film critic Noel Vera, Harmful Insect is good.

Check out the Eiga Sai page for sked info and film synopsis. And as usual, admission is free.

Heart of Darkness?

Linked from Etchie's blog:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

And as we all know, down that river lay madness.