MOVING ON

Thanks to our office-based coop, I was finally able to get meself a new phone. I am retiring my light saber. What a relief! No more missed messages, no more half-received SMS (the rest won’t come in for lack of space), no need to erase stored data to make room for more.

12 months to pay, and I earn coop points, too! Not a bad deal. Please pray that I will not feel generous again and give away my phone to spawns-of-the-!#%&*+&! taxi drivers.

==

Today, at 2AM, I cried again.

ANBYN!!!

Something happened at work that made me want to flip.

The supervisors misplaced our overtime log sheet. The first time in my 3 years stay there. To rub salt on the wounds, they won’t apologize and passed the blame back to us; the next day, all the medical editors went on strike by not coming in to work. They felt bad that after having to work like dogs (that’s how Kathy described it), nobody received what’s due them.

My description of our office’s work ethic: dog style. Eyeloveit.

TIME TO COME HOME, TOO

I was shocked to see the queue to Cinema 6 where the last screening of Volver was to be held. Never realized that so many people would want to watch it! I mean, there’s always Bourne Ultimatum in Cinema 1, hello! (Snobbish bitch, me.) At any rate, my only aim was to make sure we get seats far away from the screen which we did. The film has already started, drat.

Aldomovar never disappoints. All the elements that make up an Aldomovar work are all present: mothers, witty one liners (the line “Ghosts don’t cry.” is its most memorable line; it is both kitschy yet has loads of implications), a slice of Spanish life, a stab at the national psyche, female and male character games, and irony. Add to that the elements of rape (or near rape), shots focused uncomfortably on bosoms and cleavages, murder, a sad song and you have a classic. Honestly though, I still will choose Todo Sobre Mi Madre over this. A critic that I came across wrote that one can’t be an enfant terrible for so long. I believe him. If we are already able to dissect Aldomovar and his work then has already repeated himself too much. Time for a new tactic, I guess.

Anyway, the acting is so – as expected - natural, realistic, and effortless. I always admire Spanish films for their clarity and sharpness and their ability to portray characters with so much depth. It’s just like being part of the whole thing! Also, the scenery shots almost always show the kind of life people in Spain live yet all is so effortless, unstaged, un-prop-ed. It’s actually very…provincial. It was said that Aldomovar was born in the same village where the film was shot. One can then say that like the title he, too, has come home.

TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE

At Gateway, my officemates and I caught two Cinemanila entries. It’s the Festival’s last day, and still reeling from my experience last Friday, I made sure we picked the right movies this time. Mantra: We have a choice. We have a choice. We have a choice. Repeat 20X.

On the last minute, I dumped the Best ASEAN film winner, MUKSHIN, in favor of Japan’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (released as Tokikake in 2006). I had no regrets. Gut feel told me that I can never go wrong with Japanese animation.

TGWLTT is a story of a schoolgirl, Makoto Konno, who realized that she can travel through time when she was about to meet a train accident. At first puzzled by her newfound powers, she eventually used this liberally to miss coming late to school, beat her younger sister to her favorite pudding, and many more. Soon enough, with a little help from her older sister who claimed to have done something similar in the past, Makoto was made to realize that her actions had adverse reactions on people around her. When she finally runs out of chances to leap through time (one is limited only to 90 jumps), it dawned on her that she should have used the power to do better things – like saying yes to love when it was first offered to her.

The film’s premise is not new, but the way it was applied here gave it its universal appeal. There is humor that connects with the audience and just the right amount of drama – oftentimes amusing in the manner only manga can do it – to arouse sympathy with the character. The only problem is that they didn’t end it when it should already have. We all know the feeling of having to go through many potential endings. It’s like missing your bus stop. There are missed opportunities to make a more remarkable ending by going on and on.

At any rate, it’d be nice to get a copy of this one if only to put it beside my copies of animation icons Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, although the animation doesn’t compare to the latter two.

TARANTINO-ISM

"I am a writer,” he says to film students in the workshop-forum. “I don’t consider myself a scriptwriter. For me, writing a screenplay is as serious as writing a novel. My screenplay is literature. You’re not just reading a blueprint—you’re reading a piece of art. F--k the movie! I’m more concerned with the written word.”

What he means is, a good screenplay should be able to stand independent of the resultant film.

“I want to be one of the greatest writers of the 21st century,” he tells his now-awestruck audience. “I’m not saying I deserve it. I’m saying, I want.”

BIRTHDAY CHA CHA

Me, myself, and my two left feet. Unlearning what has already been learned.

IF ONLY...

...puppies never grew up.