no, not the racing kind. it's my tv/movie marathon slash addiction.
i recently discovered more sites (aside from youtube) that show tv shows and various movies. this means that over the past 2 weekends, i've watched a number of movies already. let me count: last week - my first romance (haha!) and kasal, kasali, kasalo. this weekend - anak, the classic and 300. yes, 300! i'm quite surprised myself. it's still showing at the neighborhood cinema near my place and since i've been hearing only good word about it, i was planning to see the film this weekend. but then, veoh came along.
i loved the movie. gerald butler is good but rodrigo santoro as king xerxes rocked! he looked like a gay dennis rodman, and that's a good thing. haha! the effects were magnificent, the fight scenes were awesome, the costume, well, who's complaining? lol.
more capsule reviews: i liked the classic. it's a korean film and i heard about it when i was in my "my sassy girl" phase because of their deft use of johan pachelbel's "canon in d" which i love so dearly. this one i watched through crunchy roll, which specializes in asian cinema. thanks r, for sharing the site with me. the only caveat, unless you earn points, you can only watch using their 2 x 3 screen. this was totally fine by me since i have been searching for this movie everywhere (it's not on veoh) and even in local video stores. maybe i should have extered more effort and went to k-town. but then, i don't think they'd be releasing sub-titled movies in k-town. but maybe they did, for the english-speaking koreans. well.
kasal, kasali, kasalo is one wonderful movie i'd recommend to all my filipino friends here. it was the topgrosser in last year's metro manila film festival and starred real-life couple ryan agoncillo & judy ann santos. the story was very realistic and the dialogue very crisp & fresh. kudos to joey reyes for coming up with a heart-warming and poignant look at newly-married life. judy ann's character is a barangay kagawad from cabanatuan city and a batotay magnate and she is played with a lot of flair by veteran actress gina pareno. (batotay is the famous cabanatuan beef longganisa. i prefer the really garlicky versions and everytime i am home, my mom cooks it for breakfast). ryan's mom is played by gloria diaz and she's also quite good in this film as a rich woman who lives in the u.s.
heard there's going to be a sequel and they're going to call it sakal, sakali, saklolo. it's gonna be hard to top the first one so they better make sure that the story-line and the dialogue and oh yes, the characters are all in sync.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
marathon
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
give jennifer (and leo!) the oscar!
hah! just finished watching 'dreamgirls' and jennifer hudson was indeed, a revelation. probably it was the role because it was really a challenging one, but an actress of lesser confidence would have crumbled right there. who knew that j-hud had it in her?
she swapped dialogues against, and had shouting matches with last year's oscar winner jamie foxx, and she didn't seem to wince. neophyte? not this one. beyonce was beautiful all throughout, no question about that, but this was not her movie. sorry, b.
my friend j and i went to the grove as early as lunch-time to watch this but unfortunately, tickets to the first four screenings have been sold-out that the first slot available was at 11:05 pm (a full 12 hours later!) and 12:05 am. we opted for the 11:05 and called our friends m & r if they wanted to join us.
we watched 'blood diamond' first and i was moved by leonardo's performance. he's really good in this film. he's nominated for best actor at the golden globes for this film and for 'the departed' (which i did not see). for the oscar race, apparently, you can be nominated only once, and they will get the one with the higher votes. which would be bad for leo, since he delivered two fine performances, his votes will be divided. and if ever he gets nominated, the bigger problem is: will the academy make him win? i was rooting for him last year for 'the aviator' but no, the academy just won't give it to him. did i hear scorsese?
anyhow, 'blood diamond' was quite heavy with all the blatant killings. i read in GQ that the diamond industry is going to come up with a campaign to somehow clean up their name which was somehow tainted by the movie. the actors delivered honest and real performances and i'm happy i watched this. (it was either this or apocalypto. will catch that one some other time.)
