Soundtrack to a Jeepney on Reverse

I am not kidding. This is the standard song that plays when jeepneys go on reverse. And I believe this was also the soundtrack and theme song to a movie starring Cristina Gonzalez...sino raw?



Thanks to Pax Florius for the inspiration. Pero mas weirdo ang mga vids mo. hehe

Jumping The Gun

Good thing I checked my PAL ticket - my flight's schedule is on SATURDAY, not tomorrow. Nasobrahan sa excitement kaya...hahaha

Summer Report

1. Kas 205 and Kas 208 notes complete. Looking forward to the brain-wracking back home...

2. Moby Dick - finished. Of the 135 chapters, the Great White Whale turns up in the final three chapters! Grabe!

3. Awaiting the results of the preenlistment for the First Sem of my final year in grad studies. Feels like a milestone already hehehe

4. Currently packing my bags for the trip tomorrow. See you all in Bacolod.

From One Starbuck to Another...

Just finished the Season 4 DVD of Battlestar Galactica. Grabe! Truly, one of the most thought-provoking sci-fi series ever made - or remade. This video features the song "All Along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan but this remake gave me the frakking goosebumps...



Now I'm immersing myself in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. From one Starbuck (Kara Thrace) to another (Captain Ahab's first mate, and I believe the inspiration for the Starbuck of BSG). I'm a bit lost with the whaling terms, but so far I am still afloat and enjoying the ride with Ahab and his crew. The book got me thinking on predestination, free will, salvation and vendetta as a driving force in one's life. hmmmm...

I'm currently consolidating my Kas 205 notes. This should've been done a long time ago but I was still busy enjoying my summer (read: the BUM life). I should complete my notes this weekend.

Admiral Adama (Almost) Always Has A Nervous Breakdown

I'm currently watching the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica and it's frakking great.



Methinks the "final five" should be called the "original five" -- ooops! Spoiler!

To Boldly Go...

...where Ditch has rarely gone. hehe

Taking my cue from a movie review I read that the best way to watch Star Trek XI was on the biggest screen possible, I went to the IMAX Theater at SM Mall of Asia.

I think this is the third time I have made the trek to MoA. The excitement of seeing the new Star Trek film has produced two miracles on my part: waking up early (8 am! Milagro!) and going to MoA. Alone. But enough about moi, on to the movie review...

This movie was meant to be seen on a very, very large movie screen. J.J. Abrams really, really knows how to make action scenes work. From the third Mission Impossible film, then Cloverfield, and now the reinvigorated (I won't use reimagined or else I might confuse this movie with Battlestar Galactica) Star Trek, Abrams has nailed the formula in making a blockbuster film.

The kind lady at the IMAX ticket booth situated me in the most optimal spot - right smack in the middle - and although the film was in 2D, I felt that I was literally in space: in the middle of the space dogfights, the phaser fire and photon torpedoes. Whew!

The pacing was done well, devoting enough time to introduce the main protagonists and flesh out their characters for the viewers. Though the film most certainly did not capture all the subtleties and intricacies of the iconic crew members, enough time was given for each to shine in their own way.



SPOILER ALERT!

Favorites: The scene where Scotty took a trip through the water vents was unexpected but really fun to watch. Chekov's accent was disconcerting at best but stays true to the TOS character - there was this moment when he was going "The sheep vill pass vy See-turn.." and I was going "Seeturn? Oh...Saturn!" I loved Sulu's "I have combat training" boast (though you have to admit, fencing could be bad-ass - as Sulu proved) and the part where he screwed up the Enterprise's initial warp. And Uhura was give more depth than the original, which one reviewer described as nothing more than a glorified phone operator - in miniskirts, I might add. And the unexpected romance between two main charaters...Star Trek purists I imagine would be up in arms if a lesser director was at the helm, but being not too well versed with (and thus not too emotionally involved - pero if this was TNG magkakamatayan tayo hehe) the OS canon I was forgiving of Abrams' tweaking because, let's face it - it worked.

Thus another franchise was revitalized for the New Generation. I expect that a few more sequels are in the works, and that the world of Star Trek shall continue, as the Vulcan saying goes, to "live long and prosper."

Fahrenheit 451

"It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books....The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and television, but are not. No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us."


- Faber to Guy Montag, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Hahaha

Wolverine! Etc...

woke up early this morning to go watch the Wolverine movie. I figured that if I was at the mall early, then I'd have a good selection of schedules to choose from in the cinemas.

But it turns out that both Trinoma and SM North were featuring the Pacquiao fight for the entire morning until such time that it ends. Which meant that ALL THE EFFORT (c'mon peeps) I exerted to wake up before noon was all for naught. I had to wait until 2 pm until Wolverine's back screening again.

F*ck!

Anyway, here are some bits and pieces on the movie.

1. Pretty decent movie. Hugh Jackman totally owned the character (in a good way) of Wolverine and it shows in his performance. One complaint I have is that they featured a number of mutants but did not devote enough time to flesh out their stories or even develop the characters. Even Victor Creed (ably played by Liev Schreiber) was a bit one-dimensional.

2. Ryan Reynolds was a good choice to play Deadpool. Every word out of Reynold's mouth just drips with sarcasm and wit. The guy could just whistle and that would make us chuckle. But then again, not enough screen time. The second half where he's in he somehow lost his mouth. Frenetic swordplay and sardonic wit - check. Only lacking was the blatant breaking of the fourth wall. I was expecting Deadpool to look straight at the camera and wink or something. Or maybe strike a Mr. Pogi pose hahaha

3. LOTS of complaints on Emma Frost a.k.a. The White Queen. WTF?! Looks like the movie split her power into two - for now she has a sibling that possesses 'tactile hypnosis' which came in useful only in the last part of the film. Probably the first part also, but showing it in use during that part might get the film an X rating hehe. Now all Emma Frost had was the "skin turning into diamond" (how much is she in carats?)power which, by the way, is her secondary mutation brought about during the attack on Muir Island by [text deleted as it is too nerdy for comfort]. Dammit! I wanted to see The White Queen as THE WHITE QUEEN -- powerful telepath at par with Professor X himself, the white vixen of The Hellfire Club, mentor to Generation X and the other young mutants, ...[text deleted as it is too nerdy - and obssessive - for comfort]...and the actress that played her wasn't even close to what I imagined Emma Frost would be.



now we're talking...

My fave actress to play The White Queen...



Yeah, baby! Yeah!

*Ahem*

4. Finally, there's GAMBIT.



Actually, he's my favorite of all the X-men and he's also my first character of choice whenever I'm playing the Marvel vs. Capcom game either in arcade or on PC emulation software. My second character's Chun Li hehe. Gambit had all these cool moves and strikes and he's FAST, really fast - jumping around the screen, swinging his staff around like a manic dervish. I never got around to really mastering the combo moves as I would just pretty much pound on the arrow keys and [text deleted as being too nerdy, drawn-out, and inconsequential for this post] hahahaha [text deleted] I suck at Marvel vs. Capcom.

But that scene where he hovers like a helicopter and even the "staff smash" I'm positive the writers stole from Mar-vel! Ver-sus! Caaap-com!

All in all, a good - though not great - movie. Surprise cameo by a beloved telepathic, BALD, mutant. the movie may be a lesser addition to the growing X-men franchise, but this one still deserves a look - if you haven't seen the bootlegged version on the net.

Now that Wolverine's done, there are still a crapload of movies I have yet to watch: Star Trek, Transformers, Terminator Salvation, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

And this is why I love (or hate) summer...

Oh wait, here's a vid for you...