joykilling

question number one:
who loves french fries? do you know how much grease is in a large order of fries? neither do i but it's enough for this guy to paint a mural...




question number two:
do you smoke? well, here's an experiment on the benefits of smoking...

cheek to cheek

years ago, there was a live-action beowulf movie which starred the highlander as titled protagonist. it was so-so and forgettable, but i have vague memories of the grendel monster looking like an alien. anyways, fast forward to now and we've got a new and way better adaptation of the epic poem. by the power of the marriage of computer-generated imagery and motion-capture, the filmmakers have made a groundbreaking step towards the future of film. and the only way to fully experience what this movie was meant to be, they released it on 3d. and so, with cielo in tow (or vice versa), i ignored my sore eyes and found out for myself what the fuss was all about. allow me to tell you the tale...

it was the 14th of october, 2007 a.d., dusk. our story begins in the pillars of peopesupport as our intrepid hero, jaiskizzy, leaves the fortress after a day's work of slavery. soon, he is joined by the fair princess cielo of pateros and the two of them brave a bus ride to the famed kingdom of moa to watch a presentation of the epic, beowulf. but alas, they failed to arrive in time for the seven o'clock showing and just settled for the next one.

cielo taking pictures of people's butts

having bought their tickets, they killed the hour by eating at greenwich and exchanging slices of their lives. when the clock struck nine and a half, they lined up to enter the theater and secure their seats. upon entrance, they were handed optical aids which later appeared in several unauthorized photographs.

a looping pic. if you stare at it for a while, you'll waste time.

grendel's mom and grendel.

cielo: pierced tongue
jai: tied tongue

after the three-dimensional spectacle, they exited the theater, left moa, and went their separate ways home.

the end...

p.s. if by any chance it interests you, you may read my beowulf review by clicking the last word of this sentence.

p.p.s. thank you, cielo.

BEOWULF by jaiskizzy

the gist: it's happy hour in king anthony hopkins' mead hall, which means booze, babes and belting out some songs sans videoke (and this was centuries ago. nothing ever changes eh?) enter grotesque gatecrasher grendel, who only wants some peace and gives everyone a piece of his pissed-off mind by tearing them to pieces. with everyone scared shitless, a hero is called for and through the stormy seas, beowulf rises to challenge. thus begins beowulf's battle against grendel, angelina jolie's nakedness and living up to his legendary name. plus a golden dragon. will beowulf be the last cgi standing?

the reaction: gaddaym! imax 3d is a-fuckin-mazing. say ta-ta to those red and blue 3d glasses of yore. this is no doubt the future of movie watching. and what better way to immerse oneself in this extraordinary experience than on the breakthrough motion-capture film beowulf. when i put the glasses on and the credits rolled, i couldn't help not to be such an idiot and tried to reach for and touch the 3d letters. it got me like that. every time something suddenly pops up out of the screen, my lovely companion would jump off her seat. and it's not even a horror film. if there is a 3d horror film being made out there, then im pitiching a tent in line. the scene of grendel's initial attack was utterly astonishing. i'm pretty sure it wouldn't have the same impact in 2d. i loved the three-dimensional blood gore and violence but the quick p.o.v. shot where robin wright penn's queen character is watching the carnage through a hole on the table she's hiding behind struck me the most in that sequence because it actually looks like you're looking through a hole in real life. darn, i crave for more of imax 3d.

the other thing that makes beowulf great is the way the poem was translated on screen. neil gaiman and roger avary of course had to change a few things up a bit and the final output was a well told story of a man who is known as a hero, proves he's a hero, but still is just a man. at one point, beowulf tells his wife queen (and im paraphrasing here) to remember him not as a hero but as a man, flawed and something else. great voice acting by ray winstone, he's not as loud as leonidas in 300 as most think due to the trailers, and upon checking the dude's pics, great decision to not make beowulf look exactly like him at all. one more kudo to crispin glover's portrayal of grendel. that old english gibberish of him talking to angelina jolie was one of the best here. angelina's though sounded fake. and speaking of that pouty-lipped temptress...

yes, fellow pervs, angelina jolie is fully nude in this film. yes, it's cgi and yes there's some gold liquid covering her privates, but a huge yes, she is very naked. and sporting a lara croft-like hairdo by the way. to me, her cgi counterpart was the most photo-realistic of all the characters. it seemed like it was really angelina jolie emerging from the water to display her cgi bareness. this was the big payoff after seeing anthony hopkins's butt and beowulf's everything except his weiner which, during his armorless, weaponless mano a mano with grendel, was amusingly covered, reminiscent of austin powers. so, yeah, apart from the violence, this movie surely aint for the young ones. which is good since there's gazillions of kid-friendly cgi movie out there. it's about time we adults get to enjoy a cgi movie for ourselves and not have any tears jerked out.

it was hard not to think of the videogame god of war throughout the movie. there were shots that felt like lifted directly from the game and i was clawing the empty air, pretending to hold an invisible ps2 controller. there were two particular sequences where i observed this prominently: when john malkovich (underused. could have been another actor, wouldn't matter) tries to debunk beowulf's hero fame by questioning the swimming contest he lost, beowulf tells him why and we get a flashback of him fighting sea monster just as he was about to win. he slices one in half and stabs another one in the eye, gives us a customary warrior shout on top of the monster's head and jumps back into the water and back into the race. very gamely. the other one is the whole golden dragon action sequence. i think i've spoiled enough so i'll leave this one undescribed for your full entertainment.

this 3d-fied version of the classic tale we all ate up in high school is a definite must-experience for all film buffs (well, except for the kiddies). sure, you could point out flaws from your point of view, but overall, beowulf will blow you away. the guys behind this have set the bar so high, everybody else will surely be pulling out all the stops to outdo them. which only spells even greater flicks headed our way. consider this reviewer bitten bigly by beowulf.

the good: the 3d!!! well, story and cg were good but fuck, man, the 3d is wicked!
the bad: mouths still need a lot of work. also, angelina jolie's boobies didn't bounce.
tha ugly: grendel.
the verdict: 9 golden horns.


jaimax.

blog readability

very short story: brando again

i.

"bullshit!" orfeo shouted. the applauding audience stopped applauding and turned to see him storm out of the viewing room. this was followed by murmurs which orfeo silenced by slamming the door.

it was the 4th national sculpture competition and orfeo ocampo lost to the aging sculptor, brando dela cruz yet again, he whom they called "the michelangelo of the philippines". this was because his works were traditional sculptures of the human form and they were great, but orfeo sought to beat him with his avant garde style. he had labored day and night with his masterpieces and still they failed to stand up to brando's.

the door to the viewing room opened and gina came out, and orfeo hard the clapping and cheering from the inside. gina was his assistant and girlfriend, in that order. she ran to his side.

"orfeo, don't be so hard on yourself," she told him. "there's still next year." she placed her hand on his arm but he moved away from her and began to head for the exit.

"fuck next year," he said without looking.

"but what about your god of a shrinking universe?"

he paused at the doorway. "smash it to pieces." he stepped out and gina never saw orfeo again...


ii.

a week later, orfeo was standing in front of the gate to brando's mansion. a maid opened it for him and ushered him inside. she led him through a hallway of sculptures and it was the first time he ever came so near to brando's works. they really were amazing. the maid gestured him to enter a door that opened to a staircase that spiraled downward and left.

when orfeo reached the bottom end of the staircase, he found himself in a small windowless room. in the middle was a long table with sculpting tools neatly placed on top. behind it was a large slab of stone.

as orfeo stepped forward to look at the tools, he noticed something hanging in the middle of the high ceiling. he couldn't tell what it was but it looked like a big ball with a hole on one side.

"orfeo," brando said suddenly, appearing from behind the slab of stone, startling him. "welcome to my workshop."

orfeo remained silent.

"anyway, i'm glad that you've finally come to your senses and agreed to be my protege." brando look at his tools, searching, rubbing his long white beard. "now, the first thing i want you to know is..."

"i'm not here to be your fucking protege." when brando looked up, he was staring at the wrong end of a gun. "i'm here to make sure your sculpting days are over."

brando showed no sign of fear and merely laughed. "of course. i knew that the moment you called me. however..." brando snapped and found what he was looking for amongst the tools: a whistle. "ah, here it is. however, poor orfeo, i am one step ahead of you."

"what do you mean? what is that?"

brando pressed the whistle on his lips and blew on it. orfeo heard it faintly. he looked around expecting a guard dog to lunge at him but there was none.

instead, a wail came from the sphere on the ceiling. orfeo looked up and a large, colorful bird emerged from the hole. it flapped its wings and then flew out. its long tail sparkled.

"what the...," orfeo said and the bird circled above him and released its droppings. the poop fell on orfeo's head. "shit!"

he tried to move away but he felt his feet stiffen. he looked down and his feet had turned to stone. and rapidly, so did his legs, followed by his waist and torso. he pointed the gun at brando, who was laughing maniacally, and fired but it also turned into stone before the bullet came out at the same time that his arms and hands did.

soon, his head began to turn into stone as well. his eyes turned to stone last and the last thing he saw was the bird perching on brando's shoulder and the old man giving the bird a treat...

by the freaking of my thumbs

during dinner with my family a while ago, the discussion turned to texting pet peeves. i usually stay quiet when eating, but i just had to join in. now, the one thing i hate most about text messages is when people replace ako with me (i.e. "d2 n me"). it's the most annoying thing to read. some may find it cute. well, i don't. it's stupid. just use straight tagalog ("d2 na ko") or straight english ("im here" or just plain "here" which i often do). what's worse than this? meeeh. worst? if it's a guy.

and then there's the shortcuts. i dont make use of them a lot, but when i do, i use them sparingly. and they make sense. some of the dumb shortcuts sent my way are: aq = ako, xe = kase, ño = nyo, kgv = kagabi, and the misuse of the number 2 to replace double syllables. for example, "ka2in n me". uh, what? just type whole word, dammit. this isn't a contest of who can text faster or an emergency. in fact, if it was an emergency and you'd receive that kind of text message, good luck to the poor soul that needs help.

finally, i also hate it a lot when the person on the other end doesn't answer all the questions you asked. i dont know why. either they didn't scroll all the way down or they forgot about it, but come on. i did not put it there just to fill in the remaining space for letters. rsvp, darn it!

anyways, that's the juice for tonight. im off to watch tron. tomorrow, i will posting another short story, one i wrote this morning when i woke up. but for now, gotta love ya and leave ya.

p.s. one other thing i really hate is music that automatically plays when you go to a web site. if i want to hear it, i'll play it. do not force it on me. it's no different from the dvd vendors that ask you what you are looking for when you pass by. dude, i'll ask you myself if i have to, but in the mean time, leave me the fuck alone.
p.p.s. yeah i know the pic had no relation to the topic. but just by adjusting your eyes, you could make the girl spin clockwise or counterclockwise. neato.