Author: Vicky

A Suspense of A Romance

Watching tv on Sunday I was bombarded with an extended trailer for Star Cinema’s June release Nasaan Ka Man, starring Claudine Barretto, Diether Ocampo and Jericho Rosales.

Why extended? The trailer gave away everything but the ending.
Even with my basic understanding of Tagalog, I got the following:

The characters played by Claudine, Diether and Jericho were raised by these two women. When they grow up Claudine and Jericho fall in love and want to marry *cue romantic picnics and chasing through fields*

But Diether is enraged by this. He starts to stalk Claudine and even tries to kill Jericho’s character before Claudine pushes him off a hill.

There’s a funeral and the two young lovers are free to be together.

But wait and this is where things get creepy. Claudine starts to see Diether’s character wherever she goes. Is she being haunted by his spirit? Or something worse?

Holy smokes folks! I got all that from watching the trailer. But I’m more disturbed by the fact that the film is trying to be both a romantic drama and a suspense. Will it work?

The Numa Invasion

We were talking in the office that by the end of the year the Numa numa song would be a hit in the Philippines. In fact, the invasion has already started as Sheila heard it on the radio this morning.

I can just imagine the noon-time variety shows having Numa competitions to see who can dance the Numa best. Then before you know it there’ll be Numa copycat songs on the air. Zuma Zuma song? Can you imagine the Numa video on the Myx charts?

And if you think that I just made this scenario up, have you forgotten Ocho ocho?

Just what I needed

Before I go home to dinner and the Survivor finale, I dropped by Julius’ other blog and came upon his entry on the taping of one of Hiram’s last episodes.

Why is it that unlike Korean telenovelas, ours is a continuous one-hour cryfest interjected with infinite permutations of scandal-inducing scenes like slapping, hair-pulling, and public shouting? It seems that we measure a celebrity’s talent by how much tears, sipon and laway he or she can produce in front of the camera. A very mature way measuring it up.

Wonderful entry, Juls!

Grave Danger

Pia texted me this morning “I don’t want to spoil it for you but Tarantino is the man! I was on the edge of my seat with excitement and I was crying”.

Since we’re both die-hard CSI fans, we’ve been waiting for the season finale for ages. For me doubly so since it was Quentin Tarantino who directed it. From the time news came out of what the plot line would involved we were both like “Hurry up! Get here! I wanna watch it now!”

And half an hour ago we finished it watching the season 5 finale of CSI and Pia’s words were so true.

A brief recap: While collective evidence from a crime scene, one of the CSI investigators gets kidnapped and is buried alive in a coffin. We watch as the rest of team work against time to find one of their own.

It was a thrill ride, captivating, enthralling, heart wrenching…Gil Grissom is my hero. As Pia says “I salute … William Petersen for having Grissom show more emotion in a sentence that he could ever do crying. Nuff said.

I’m so looking forward to Season 6.

Really. Nuff said.

Kingdom of Heaven

Saw Kingdom of Heaven for the second time last night.

The movie tells the story of Balian, a grief-stricken French blacksmith to goes to Jerusalem in search of redemption and purpose in life only to find that the knights there don’t know what they’re fighting for. Idealism has given way to greed and shame and there are hardly any heroes left. Yet Balian finds his reason for being and does his utmost to see his duty done.

Kingdom of Heaven has a great message to tell, of the futility of religious fanaticism, and how one person can do a much. It is beautifully shot with some remarkable action sequences (though comparisons abound to Lord of the Rings).

Yet something is missing. The movie flows in a logical manner from A to Z but at certain points I get the feeling that scenes were cut which could have helped flesh out the story a bit more. In one scene, something terrible is about to befall Saladin’s sister. As one of the knights approaches her, Terai turned to me and asked “Who is she?”. The answer came from another knight. Watch it and you’ll see that it’s awkward, as if the Ridley Scott, the screenwriter is pandering to the audience with a kind of “Shit, perhaps the viewers need a little background info!”

Instead what we have is something of a rollercoaster ride. Thrilling for the half minute (or 1 and a half hours) that you’re on it but later you’re left feeling unsettled. Things happened at a quick pace that it feels unbelievable. I just didn’t get how Balian could go from being a simple blacksmith to a master military tactician!

From this article I learned that nearly an hour was cut from the film, an hour which focused on character development. Heck! If that additional hour was there perhaps the movie would have been more moving and more meaningful.