flickstack: the 13 best films of 2009

hey, it's christmas again! 'tis the season for receiving gifts that are rarely the ones you wished for, taking money from your godparents and having your money taken by your godchildren, and getting pestered by bad, divide-and-conquer carolers. sure, there's the usual partying, eating, churchgoing but if there's one thing i hate about christmas in this country, it's the goddarn metro manila film festival. not only do they have the same kind of crap from last year, they force those pieces of shit movies into everyone's faces by having all the theaters show only those pieces of shit. thanks to more mano po, more shake rattle n roll and more hollywood-quality-my-ass eyesores from vic sotto and bong revilla, i will have to wait next year to see sherlock holmes. assholes.

anyways, before i rant any longer, here's my list of the best films i watched this year. and because it's my list, there are thirteen movies, the first 12 in no particular order and the 13th tops them off. so it's kinda like just a top 2 list. but with 13 items. because i like the number thirteen. i know i have already said that but this sentence has thirteen words.

1. up - with that title and having an old man as the main protagonist, you'd have thought it was movie about erectile dysfunction. but thankfully it wass by pixar so it turned out to be a really great kids-and-adults movie. with talking dogs and a "swordfight" between two old men. hmm.

2. watchmen - it wasnt perfect but it was an awesome comic book movie. tdk went the realistic, dark route. watchmen went comic-book-that-moves route. i enjoyed it. anyways, i know you dont want to but you can read my review of this film here. persuasive psychology works sometimes.

3. coraline - freaky stop-motion movie. button-eyed people, circus mice, better parent dilemma. im gonna let my daughter watch this when she old enough. like two years old maybe.

4. 500 days of summer - this movie was the kind of boy-meets-girl love story movie that we need more of, instead of the ones where the couple falls apart and one of them wins the other back with something cheesy.

5. thirst - fuck new moon. while those twilight fags were sparkling and flexing, sang-hyeon, a priest, was sucking blood from a comatose patient through an iv tube. this is the vampire film of the year.

6. zombieland - and this one is the zombie fillm of the year. bill murray rules.

7. moon - this movie is about a guy who is alone in the moon for three years. there's more to that but it would spoil the movie. i liked it a lot and i dont know what else to say...oh yeah, fuck new moon.

8. sin nombre - intense spanish film on gangs and poverty. the gang leader with tattoos on his face had a baby along while the new recruit killed a member of the rival gang as initiation. im grateful im not the father taking his daughter to america by riding on train roofs.

9. district 9 - im pretty sure that unlike this amazing movie, if aliens came to this country, the darn government wouldnt know what to do. the armed forces would be probably ordered to shoot the visitors on sight, no questions asked.

10. black dynamite - michael jai white, the guy who played spawn, has the same second name as my first name. didnt know that besides kicking ass, he could also do comedy. he owned this really funny blaxploitation movie.

11. grotesque - gross and painful to watch, just the way i like it. but beyond the blood, the dismembering of body parts and the cringeworthy gore, there's the message of self-sacrifice and how much you'd put yourself through for a person you like but barely know.

12. avatar - jeean and i saw this in a regular theater and it was great. im pretty sure imax would have tripled the awesomeness of james cameron's pandora. it's like eyecandy that is good for you, minus the sugar. review

and best film of 2009 according to me is... (long heavy metal drum roll please)

13. inglourious basterds - i like war movies and i worship quentin tarantino. inglourious basterds is unlike any war movie ever made. this film was first-frame-to-last badass amazing. long, talky, tension-building scenes, the hans landa character, hitler showered with bullets, everything was remarkable. which is expected of every quentin tarantino film, like his foot fetish. i didnt even try to make a review because id probably get to 10 thick paragraphs and still havent conveyed enough of my thoughts. and for any fellow quentin tarantino fans out there, i ask you: have you ever shaken his hand? i have.

AVATAR by jaiskizzy

apercu: just like how south park put it. it's dances with smurfs. but for anyone who gets off on synopses...it's the far future and a wheelchair-bound ex-marine fills in for his dead brother and is sent to planet pandora to help out with research on the blue cat-people called na'vi. jacked into a genetically engineered na'vi, he becomes part of the natives, learns their culture and falls in love with the local hottie. soon enough, he is faced with a dilemma: help his fellow humans obtain the unobtainium or fight with the na'vi to protect their homeland. (i like parentheses)

review: something i hate to admit is having watched titanic six times. three times in the theater, twice on home video and once on hbo. of those instances, only once was voluntary. anyways, james cameron's return to film has been touted as a game-changer and change the game it did. that game would be the 3d motion capture game which beowulf played well but lost. it was more in the gamut of pixar and dreamworks toons. avatar, on the other hand, well, as much as i like swimming against the tide, i am compelled to agree with the majority of moviegoers that this wasn't a movie. it was an experience.

but let's deal with the minuses first, shall we? (i'll pretend that you said "ok") the first gripe i had was on the voice-overs. it was quite unnecessary and i dont think its absence would have made a difference to the movie, er...the experience. half of the time, the protagonist was merely describing what was or what would be happening. i get that they're connected with the video logs (i am not gonna say "vlog" because i think it's stupid and gay) but the narrations were short and sparse and added nothing to the scenes. it would have been better if, like, when the colonel was talking to him while in the power-suit, he voice-overed "i should get these guys to do a dance in those suits and upload it to youtube lol". moving on, complaint number two: the near similar titanic storytelling. in titanic, the movie would switch from the ship scenes to the old woman recalling her memories. avatar employs the same switching from human mode to na'vi mode. i guess this is a gripe because i actually thought that jakesully (the protagonist) would get trapped in his na'vi body, hence more pandora sequences (more on that in next paragaph). anyways, the most criticized aspect of avatar is its flat, cliche story. the love story cliche. cliche evil guys after cliche treasure against cliche good guys. but (and now i swim on the opposite direction) it didnt bore me at all and i believe the simplicity helped propel the 3d experience forward by not delving on complicated subplots or overlong character developments. yes it wasnt original but it wasnt bad either. at least the drama didnt try hard too hard to jerk tears out of the audience.

now let's get to the meat of the matter, the cgi and the mocap technology. a few sentences back i mentioned the human mode na'vi mode switch. a large part of what makes it annoying is that i wanted to spend more time in pandora. dude, that place looks awesome. i came into the movie knowing that the na'vi and their environment are all computer generated and yet i could swear that those bushes, trees and animals (no aquatics though) were real. and james cameron has perfected the mocap because although the na'vi were obviously cgi, their movements and emotions looked very real. heck, even the long-noticeable mouth problems seem to have been fixed. it's all very amazing. the other thing that james cameron must have labored hours for was the science of the film. for one, pandora is kinda like a moon to a bigger planet so it would be natural for pandora to spend some time under the bigger planet's shadow and have longer evenings. and that is why most of the flora and fauna have luminescent abilities. they have evolved to survive the darkness. there is so much more to talk and ponder about the film, from the little details of the fingers (human-na'vi hybrids have five, real na'vi have four) to the nature-based "religion", which, to be completely honest, is one i would get behind if we had it here. but no review would encompass the true avatar experience. like jakesully in pandora, it's something jack into and see for yourself.

finalword: here is a film that pits humans against blue catpeople and you root for the catpeople. james cameron waited for the right time to realize his vision and the wait was all worth it because he has created an instant classic, this generation's bar-setter in visual effects. bravo, sir. and good luck, challengers!

the good: cgi, mocap, science

the bad: pace, narration

the ugly: the forced theme song

the verdict: 9 eywa jellyfish

abattoir.

be kind, remind

high school reunion's coming up and ive been forced asked to do the audiovisual presentation. i havent started on the actual slideshow of pictures yet due to image inadequacy but the intros, effects, music and transitions have all been dealt with. these elements i continue to tinker with every now and then as i wait for new digitized memories to arrive and all the cuttings and renderings have made me miss my video editing days.

and during a bathroom break, i looked back on those days and remembered the very first time i performed video editing. it happened long before i knew what final cut and adobe premiere were. all i had back then were a video8 camera, a tv, a vhs recorder, a cassette player and creative persistence (or persistent creativity?). cue flashback fx for 10 years ago...

it was for a class report in informatics. i didnt want to do the usual talking in front of the class. it was good to have luigi in the group because he understood and supported my ideas every time. luigi and i shot most of our scenes unscripted, except for the part where we had to read the textbook. when we had all the footage we wanted, luigi and i went downtown to find a place to have our video report edited. we found none. the report was to be presented the next day. i told my friend i'd take care of everything and we went our separate ways home.

with no previous experience in video editing, i attempted to do the whole thing on my own. i made title cards by drawing on bond papers and taping them on the wall. i recorded the footage from the video camera to the vhs, cutting them together by pausing, rewinding and playing the video. on sequences where a music track was needed, i pulled the audio rca plug off the camera and jacked it into the cassette player where a tape played. it was a painstaking task for one man to do and my numerous tries caused by errors resulted into some bad recording. those, i considered as effects. the closing credits i created by typing in microsoft word and shooting the monitor.

the following day, i carried the loaded vhs player to school and luigi brought a tv. we presented the report to our class's amusement. even students from the other classes watched and enjoyed. the end.

now where could that tape be...?

a tragic mix of magic tricks

wow. i have wanted to use that title for so long a time. anyways, magic has been a form of societal entertainment for eons. im pretty sure jesus, with his walking-on-water and multiplying bread acts, was an illusionist himself. but from those days up to houdini's time, it didnt take much to fool the audience. pull a rabbit out of a hat or make a handkerchief vanish and bricks will be shat around you. nowadays, any self-respecting magician who attempts those tricks, even on kids, has got to be a fuckin moron.

"...and voila! my left testicle."

thanks to the masked magician, the veil has been lifted from our eyes and we now know how a lot of those magic tricks were done. i dont know about you, but i really never needed him to reveal those secrets. as a kid, magic amazed me but i knew deep within myself that it's all a well-orchestrated illusion. what sets davids copperfield and blaine from the rest is execution. you can bet your asscheeks that the tricks they do are humanly impossible, but they do it so exceptionally awesome that a part of you suspends disbelief and may just accept it is real because that itsy bitsy part of you could not deduce how that exceptionally awesome illusion was done.

i saw on tv "comedian-turned-magician" bearwin meily as he prepared to perform a classic: the water escape. because of this endeavor, the media has dubbed him the pinoy houdini. i have nothing against him, i actually kept an open mind, but i knew it was bullshit and his poor execution proved it was bullshit. couldnt find a video on youtube so here's an unbiased account of the proceedings: bearwin presented the water-filled tank, which will be shrouded by curtains on all sides. audience members were asked to check the tank. he then showed the tank lid, knocking on the steel plates and said they were real. a cop gave him cuffs which put on himself and then he was restrained with chains and two padlocks. he entered the tank, the lid was placed on top and locked. as he began to hold his breath and try to struggle free, the front curtain is closed to hide what was going on. matching the beat of the background music, the curtain was raised a couple more times, for a few seconds, to show the progress of his escape until the digital clock on-screen was past the amount of time an average human could hold their breath. bearwin, of course, escapes unharmed and me, unimpressed.

i assume that this is how it was done: usually, anyone asked by a magician to check equipment is part of the act. but the tank seemed real so it would be safe to say that the checkers weren't paid. the lid, however, is immediately questionable. two of his crew held it and only he touched it. plus, it was a large, square piece of flat steel with a steel frame and, suspiciously, two parallel steel bars in the middle. why not an x or no horizontal bars at all? because the middle plate between those steel bars slides open, enough for bearwin to poke his out and breathe while the curtains are down. this water escape wasnt as dangerous as he claims it to be. kudos to him though for acting serious. anyways, the second bogus aspect of his act was chain. the handcuffs were rigged ones of course, unlocked at a button-push. the chains were real but he wore it in such a way that anybody could escape easily from it. all he had to do was puff up his chest and tense his arm and shoulder muscles while the chains were placed around him to make it look like it's really tight around him. once in the water, all he had to do was relax his body and the chains would slip free. (try it at home. puff up your chest and tense your upper body and have someone tie a string around you. then relax and you're out). the stupid thing about the chain was on one occasion that the curtains were pulled up, his arms were free and there was only one padlock remaining, making the chain a loose necklace and the padlock, the pendant. and yet, bearwin was still pretending to be having a hard time with it even though it was pretty obvious that all he had to do was pull the chain over his head. that was really fucking stupid.

so, yeah, what was hailed as a houdini-ish feat by a filipino, the first one on tv, was actually nothing but a big pile of bullcrap. what a shame. i mean, even when he had that little weekly magic show, it was very underwhelming because there was nothing new and exciting to see and i merely watched a few episodes of it just to see which tricks they've ripped off from others. and that's the thing with magic these days. so many are doing the same things that it's not really entertaining anymore. so, at this important juncture (tee-hee), i present to you some tips for magician on how to improve their acts:

do the trick in your underwear. no long=sleeved shirts, loose black pants, jackets, capes, hats or any item of clothing that are usually used to hide shit. i would have suggested doing the whole thing completely naked but that would be disgusting.

do the trick with minimal cover. every time anything cannot be seen, something is going on so do away with the large cloths, smoke bombs and the like. turn that little kitten into a tiger right before our eyes. walk through that wall unconcealed. make that car fade away in plain sight.

do the trick in broad daylight, on a clear field. no stages, no curtains, no special equipment. just you and your trick, before a real audience.

do the trick without volunteers who you obviously paid (or threatened) to pretend that they're not part of the act. this is easy in relation to doing the trick with minimal cover. you dont need people to hold hands together around you and such. just stand there and do everything yourself. if help is needed to do the trick, dont do the trick. do a trick that doesnt involve anybody else.

do the trick live but not with your own crew. no pre-recorded tv specials. call up every network and make the trick a news event. let the different camera crews shoot where and how they want. plus, no suspense countdowns or commercial breaks. when everyone's there, just say what you're going to do and immediately do it.

do the trick without props prepared beforehand. no pre-shuffled cards or gimmicked boxes. anything you need to use for the trick, you take from where you are. in fact, it would be loads better if no props would be used at all.

finally, just do the damn trick. no long stories, no jokes, no big gestures, no dancing.

"for your next training, apprentice, you will guess what i had for breakfast

by smelling my palm which i had just farted on..."

here is an example of a magical feat in accordance with the rules i have mentioned:

in broad daylight, the magician is standing half-naked in an empty lot, surrounded by a crowd of people and some news crews. the magician then announces what he will do: he will crack open his skull, take out his brain, eat it and shit it whole. then, he lies down on the ground and smashes his head with a big rock until the top part of his skull is shattered. he stands up and pulls out his brain. he breaks off a piece and eats it. he keeps doing this until he has eaten all of his brain. he then takes off his underwear, squats and shits out a whole brain. he puts it back in his head, takes the pieces of his skull and rebuilds it like a jigsaw puzzle. as a final flourish, he picks his nose and flicks a booger into the air and it turns into a dragon which he rides on to leave. applause.

person

i dreamed i was a monster, devouring human flesh.
then i awoke and now i wonder:
am i a man who dreamed of being a monster
or a monster dreaming that i am a man?

all or nothing

on my previous post i said that my wife's beauty was kind of a visual confirmation of a supreme being's handiwork, thereby putting a bit of strain on my lack of belief. that was a thoroughly honest statement. then, ondoy came along (on the day of my birthday even) and re-fueled my predisposition for questions.

we all know what happened. saturday and it kept raining and raining real hard with mighty winds until late in the afternoon, we are watching the news where a man is neck-deep in the flood and still protecting himself with an umbrella. suddenly, dams are spilling, there are brown rivers where there shouldn't be and people are on the roofs of their houses. a disaster beyond expectations. and the more i saw of the effects of ondoy's wrath, the more blasphemy entered my mind. but the core of all my questions was: god did this.

all religious people attribute anything good to god. they win something, thank you, god. they get well from illness, thank you, god. but whenever something bad happens, it's usually one of three things: a) god is punishing them; b) god is testing them; c) god had nothing to do with it. so which of the three does ondoy fall into?

a) god sent ondoy to punish the people in the affected areas - if this is true, then god is pretty mean. he didnt leave room for forgiveness. he just went on and slapped his big holy hand across the faces of these poor people. which is a wrong thing for a god to do, especially for one who has forgiveness 101 in their curriculum. is this some sort of punish first, forgive later? if so, then what about the "be like god" thing? guy x murders guy w, guy w's family should then kill guy x and say "okay, dude. we forgive you now." the equation does not compute. plus, i don't think that all of the people who suffered were complete sinners. innocent kids drowned. what did god punish them for? not eating vegetables? if ondoy was god's consequence for not adhering to his strict guidlines, then he shouldve sent that darn typhoon over to the malacanang palace as well.

b) god sent ondoy to test the faith of the people in the affected areas and the kindness of the people in the unaffected areas - you always hear people saying things happen for a reason, and it's usually a test from god. again, the innocent children, what was the test for? if they could swim? a pregnant woman died in a landslide. he was testing how long she could hold her breath? if it was a test of faith, then it's a pretty dumb test because there is no way you can have coherent thoughts, let alone pray, when your lungs are filling up with water faster than you could complete the sign of the cross. i know tests shouldnt be easy. but they dont have to be matter-of-life-and-death hard.

c) god did not send ondoy - a friend of mine insists that the whole thing was man-caused. the flooding, yeah, maybe, but without the nonstop rain, there will be no flood. weren't we all made (forced) to believe that god created everything? everything, including weather. but let us just say that ondoy wasnt from god. then where did ondoy come from? science explains the whole deal, of course, and just about anything there is to be explained. so, if ondoy was not godsent, god does not exist. if the tragedy was all our fault, every single thing that ever happened, good and bad, we all did to ourselves. there's no bullshit there. if god does exist, sure he lets you get the good stuff sometimes but then he was also behind every fuck-up you've experienced in your life. it's either god gave you that sports car and also killed your parents, or you worked hard to buy the car and cancer killed your parents.

i wouldnt know if any of the unfortunate readers of this blog and this particular post would get what im trying to say. im not here to preach. im merely asking questions and laying arguments based on the facts. i just cant agree to the thinking that if it's a miracle, god did it but if it's a disaster, he didnt do it, or if he did do, it's because he wanted to punish you or test you. and that's what's so annoying about religion. anything that supports their beliefs, they accept without question but anything that threatens, they blind themselves from reality, and yet they're always the very first and the very worst at denying other people's beliefs and forcing theirs upon them.

if you believe in god, you should not go to hospitals, you shouldnt lock your doors, you should cross the street with eyes closed, you shouldnt need money because, as the big neon sign in guadalupe proclaims (not sure if it's still there), jesus/god alone saves. sheesh.

so... let the reactions begin!

one

what: most. kickass. wedding. ever.
where: basilica church + pastoral center, ciudad de balisong
when: august 1, 2009
who: jaiskizzy (the groom), jeeanfoxy (the bride), families, friends, unknowns
why: love.


800am: i wake up, put on outdoor clothes and sleepwalk to the nearest salon to have my much-anticipated (by everyone but me) haircut. it is still closed so i saunter off next door to my mother-side relatives' hangout spot and play with the kids for a while.
900am: i am inside the salon, sitting on a hydraulic chair, waiting for my turn. arianne the hairdresser is doing his magic (literally) on an old woman while some people are negotiating the price of his services and gown rental. some girl will be joining a beauty pageant in some faraway farmland's fiesta and her companions want her to look outrageously beautiful. i think what they need is a miracle. the girl is fat, fugly and bats are probably living in her nostrils. plus her supposed escort is a zombie. i silently thank the invisible unicorn king for the self-esteem boost.
1000am: my past-shoulder-length hair is being mowed down. with my spectacles off, the horrifying image of my decreasing mane is blurred on the mirror. but even so, i remember the big prom night scene in carrie and kinda feel the same way, minus the blood. at least samson was asleep when this happened to him.

1100am: i am back home, showering. bathroom floor is covered in bubbles because, forced by habit, i used the amount of shampoo i use for my late long hair on my new hair. as always, bathroom time is think time and several random thoughts fire up in my brain like popcorn: the tedious preparations are finally over, im leaving bachelorhood for good, cant wait to see what my bride looks like, what's gonna happen, et cetera.
1200pm: i am driving towards the ponte fino, wearing a hooded shirt to hide my haircut until the big reveal. jeean and i text and call each other occasionally to prevent any path-crossings. as i am about to turn right at don ramos, i realize i've forgotten the red bandana i need for our first dance. i head back home and find out that jeean's bridal car (c/o of papang) has arrived. we've been told it would be the cefiro, anything was okay with us actually, but im looking at the one we had wished for secretly. i retrieve the bandana and keep the surprise to myself.
100pm: i am at the hotel lobby, gradually attaining complete ennui. only one room is currently available and jeean is in there having herself made up. two more rooms will be vacant soon and i sulk in a lounge chair, watching a kid waste dslr specs on a bland table ornament. my friends from manila arrive but because i have no room to put them in and i am prohibited to leave the premises, i send them off to sm batangas to have lunch and murder a few minutes.
200pm: six men in a hotel room and it's not a stag party: me, pol, randell and a camera crew determined to get me posing. after late lunching on adobo, rice and jolly hotdog, the guy who has only one pair of shoes for everyday use metamorphoses into a long-suited, clean-shaven gentleman, at least externally; the photography session ends up with me jumping on the bed. the tailor-made suit set feels good on me not only because it's exactly the way i wanted it to be, it's like my golden fleece. i'm 11 times cooler just by wearing it.
300pm: it's raining and everybody's scrambling to the church. i jump into the family car and lose my chance of having any physical contact with the awesome bridal car. when we arrive at the church, a crowd of kids and adults in wedding attire is just beginning to bunch up near the entrance. people expecting my jesus christ look are shocked at my new guise and my favorite baby niece who cries when i leave doesn't even recognize me. i look at the aisle and see the first few meters of the new journey of my life.
400pm: i am at the other end of the aisle and all our eyes are on the entrance doors. this is my cad goddeu. from a badass-looking hummer, an angel has appeared to bless us with her heavenly beauty. ive been an agnostic ever since catholic school but this is one of those very rare moments were i question my non-belief and reconsider god's existence because only that powerful guy on the ultradistant second floor could create such a being of endless wonderment. gianina, my fulcrum, my utopia, my perfect bride. i feel weird, like im in a movie and this is the part where everything is in slow-mo. i am goosebumping all over. my mother-in-law-to-be's tears are contagious. my beloved and i stand before the altar and the riddle of love is finally solved.

500pm: there was a blog post i never finished about how life was a long road and that during our trip, we meet people who walk with us or run with us, sometimes carry us, overtake us, until we all arrive, though at different times, at the one destination we're all headed. jeean and i aren't ready to go home just yet. hands together, we've taken a detour to a road we've never been to before and even if we've been told that this particular path won't be easy to take, but im sure we'll get through it just fine. the i do's have been traded, the bands worn, the kiss displayed.


9 post-wedding highlights:
1. mafia-inspire entourage came into the reception venue in associative music. when it was our turn, my bride sang "if i ain't got you" by alicia keys. some had to be told that it was live.
2. instead of the bouquet, a bunch of roses were thrown at the "hopefuls" and the one without a flower in her hands was the lucky lady to wear the garter.
3. the much-awaited "rock baby rock" clan dance brought the house down, especially with my bride's parents joined in
4. the downed house was crumbled to dust when our supposedly traditional first dance turned into a dance medley of sorts (with a quick hayden-katrina thingy squeezed in), thanks to one hour of perspiration-filled practice of steps aided by youtube.
5. the photobooth didn't get any rest.
6. my father got us all worried when word broke out about his missing wallet, which he found in the pair of pants he left at home.
7. jeean and i came home to falling money and confetti, which became garnish to the kalamay we had to eat.
8. we counted the cash we collected and was quite pleased with the sum (but not thoroughly as we had to turn everything over to my mom for safekeeping).
9. there was a lot of back-and-forth walking in the ponte fino hallway because our immediate families were shacked in five rooms and everyone was in no hurry to slumber. after one tiresome month of preparations and one exciting day of wedding, my wife and i finally get the relaxation we've long longed for.

i could not have wished for a better way to get married or a better woman to get married to. i am a man, i am in love, and goshdarnit, i am very, very happy. very.

up next: parenthood.