mojacko's recently viewed DVDs

Since Twinx's school was shut down due to a case of the swine flu, we bought some, ehem, DVDs to pass the time. We watched Coraline, T2 and Shake, Rattle and Roll X.

I had no idea about what Neil Gaiman's Coraline was about but it was an exciting experience! This is the only movie where I don't hate that precocious Dakota Fanning! From one of the makers of "The nightmare before Christmas," Henry Selick's movie is about the adventures of a girl named Coraline who finds a door that leads to a parallel world where everything is perfect except for the fact that the people there have buttons for eyes and her "other mom" wants her to stay there and sew button eyes on her, too! Plus, I love the roles of Brit duo, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders! Hilarious and scary!




Chito Rono's T2 is not Terminator 2 but stands for Tenement 2, the setting of the climax of the latest Star Cinema horror flick. It has an interesting and promising premise about our local folklore's encantos.

(SPOILER ALERT)

Maricel Soriano is a woman whose marriage is crumbling when she decides to bring an orphan girl to her new adoptive parent in T2 but all sorts of strange beings keep following them from Samar to Manila to get the girl who is a child of a man and an encanto.

My main problem with this movie is that is seems to have confused encantos with the aswangs. Encantos are enchanted beings who can be wicked and playful but not evil. Here, encantos turn into giant black boars, rats or wall-crawling creatures with green-grey skin who are vanquished by throwing salt at them. I also find it funny that in the movies, the encantos' world looks like Hong Kong Disneyland complete with fireworks, though a very interesting blog claims that this otherworldly beings do live in a very modern world replete with golden castles and hi-tech airplanes. (But what for, when they can travel anywhere in the blink of an eye?)

While Maricel is a competent actress, Rono should have reined in the young girl's OA tendencies and take a cue from Haley Joel Osment's mysterious turn in The Sixth Sense.

Finally, while we all started giving up on the Shake Rattle and Roll franchise after the brilliant first movie featuring Ishmael Bernal's "Pridyider" and Peque Gallaga's "Manananggal," right? But every now and then a jewel rises out of the muck like Lore Reyes' "Aswang" in part 2 or part 3's "Nanay" by Gallaga.

For part 10, upon my sister's recommendation, I skipped to the third part titled "Nieves" starring Marian Rivera as an encanto-buster who retires after losing her husband(Pekto) to an encanto queen. Far from being scary, this is intentionally funny and so refreshing! Forget T2, the encantos here are naughty, seductive and speak in a weirdly familiar language. It turns out one of the encantos (Iwa Moto) spoke swards speak (gay language!)

This movie showcases Marian's true calling : comedy! Forget another remake of Darna, they should make Nieves into a TV series!

This part got such good buzz, Regal Films is turning it into a full-length movie this year!

Twinx invades Bicolandia!

Twinx and a co-teacher were sent to Bicol for a school activity. Their former president went with them on a tour of the Mayon volcano and fortunately, they had a cool tour guide/photographer who took some amusing photos.Climb every mountain, search high and low, follow every byway, jump over a volcano...

Suddenly Sister Mikee turned into a 50 foot nun!!! RAWRRR!!!Luckily, Twinx found a magic stone and swallowed it to become......a 50-foot girl and tried to climb up the Cagsawa bell tower!

obsession

definition: preoccupation: an idea or feeling that completely occupies the mind

It all started with a cool Francis Magalona t-shirt I saw somebody wearing on the jeep. It was always out of stock so I found myself buying similar shirts carrying the designs of the flag and I've learned to appreciate how cosmic-cool our flag looks. The symmetry of the sun, the primary colors, plus, yeah what it symbolizes, too. And yes, I know there's a law against wearing the national symbols but till they start arresting Manny Pacquiao et al., I'm buying some more and making my own super-hero team!

and Happy Independence Day!!!

Found this Manny Pacquiao windbreaker on the internet. Cool collector's item , no?

My sister quipped "Did a Philippine flag throw up on you?"

twinx in ilocandia

Pictures from Twinx's trip to Ilocandia. They had a school meeting there and they went to Ilocos Norte, Marcos' tomb, Pagudpud and Vigan, where my balikbayan aunts, uncle and I were supposed to go in 2006 after our Wowo's death anniversary. Captions to follow

a trip to UP diliman and Antipolo

While we were in Coron, I missed the opening of our group exhibit called "the Panel Collective." It was really an exhibit of comic book panels but the only artworks I had that were available were my t-shirt works. We had no idea how to display my shirts so I just hung them on hangers and printed out the heads of my artworks to mirror the shirts they were wearing. Admiring a classmates witty exhibit pieces

Artists who made it to the opening of the exhibitMy stuff!!!
It's just too bad that a freak thunderstorm flooded Manila at the time so people, even some of the artists were unable to come.

We were able to visit the Vargas museum the weekend after our trip to Coron and were very impressed by the works. It's still ongoing till June 28 so I hope more people can come!

This was the first time my family had visited UP Diliman not counting entrance exams and graduation so I toured them around and took them to the Parish of the Holy Sacrifice, which features the works of 4 National artists, Leandro Locsin, Napoleon Abueva, Arturo Luz and Vicente Manansala. Wow, that's an art gallery by itself!

Ma admiring a statue of Mama Mary

It is just so sad that the murals are slowly peeling off due to exposure to the elements...

Then we went to Chocolate Kiss, the pricey resto of my socially progressive school...
before going to Antipolo church for our annual tradition of hearing mass and buying cashews !

Finally, the sulit family had dinner at a small carinderia which served a hot bowl of lomi and paksiw na lechon!

duhat update 3

When we came back from Coron, Manila was in the middle of a summer storm. Bad news for people who had summer plans but good news for duhat lovers! It seems that the secret to plump, juicy duhat is lots of water. Our tree was literally bursting with duhat goodness just aching to be plucked!

coron part 3

Day 3 in Coron was just spent going around the small town looking for souvenirs. We bought some shirts and necklaces and cashew brittle (P50 a pack) Lunch at Seadive's resto. Menu for the day: Steamed lobster and Chili lobster (P400 per 200 grams) Tip: You won't find lobster in the nearby market as the restos have cornered them.

For merienda, we decided to fill up on carbs for energy as we would be climbing Mt. Tapyas so off we headed to Bistro Coron again, this time for their famous pizza.

This huge pizza only costs P389 but it was soooo good. The fresh tomatoes, the cheese, the foccacia crust...This gets my vote for the best meal in Coron. It was as big as a cafeteria tray! I thought we wouldn't be able to finish it...But just a few minutes later...it was that good! Then it was time to go to Mt. Tapyas. There were huge helpful signs on how to get there but be prepared for a 700+step climb! We were still feeling our calves ache a day or two later!

By sunset, we had to go down as a thunderstorm was approaching. Luckily, it only rained after we got down.

Here's Twinx doing a sun dance from the movie "a very special love" to no avail. But it was fine. It was like getting a free shower right after a workout.

On our last day, Ma surprised us with a giant lapu-lapu fish (2 kilos for P300) for breakfast which she had cooked at Aling Trining Bacsa's resto. This is a good place for budget meals. A whole meal for 5 people would usually cost P500 or less. The only trouble was that the fish was so huge, it took a lot of time to cook so we had it split into two. We had the tail part steamed with soy sauce , scallions and chili and brought home the head for dinner.