motorcycle morons make me mad

while my way long overdue post on epigonism remains in gestation, allow me to squeeze this recent-events-inspired one in. first, the indirect motorcycle mishap...

three nights ago, we (jeean, iaine and the driver/me and my in-laws: mommy, linlyn, zshalia and adrienne and) were headed for sm to have dinner in celebration iaine's 2nd month. we had just crossed the only bridge to our destination and, as usual, traffic moved at chelonian pace. as the car in front of us began to move forward from a full stop, i heard the irritating blare of horn from a far-behind but incoming motorcycle. as the noise grew louder, a couple on a moped slowed down on the right side of the lane ahead of us. suddenly, the source of the auditory annoyance arrived at breakneck speed and, adjective appropriate, the rider swerved to avoid the two-wheeler upfront and crashed on the side of the road all by himself. unaware, the mopeders went on and joined the other cars in the distance. without wasting a single micromoment of his wipeout, the stuntman audition reject abruptly stood up, left his motorcycle on the road and ran away. whether it was because he wanted to chase the moped, save his face from shame or it was simply due to inertia, we didn't stay long enough to find out. we drove around the fallen machine and talked and laughed about the whole thing for ten seconds.

the incident last thursday afternoon, however, took a pretty serious turn. we (jeean, iaine and i) were headed for sm (yet again) to grab some grub and have my old, timeworn specs replaced by new ones. after iaine's monthly pedia visit, we took a detour and stopped over my in-laws' house to retrieve my wedding ring which i inadvertently left in the bathroom. with the ring back around its designated wearer, i steered the revo back onto the road (i drive pretty fast when im alone but not when im with my family. now, with iaine, i drive even slower). we had not gone far from the house when a wackadoo on wheels suddenly shot out from the other side of the road and tried to take my space on the lane, nearly crashing into us. thank goodness i had taken my presence-of-mind pills that day and was able to quickly swerve away with enough inches to prevent the biked bastard for causing any damage. as i told jeean later that day, i'd have shrugged it off if i was alone (or scare the motorcycled maniac off the road by "pretending" to run him over). but in that instant, all i could think of was iaine. if i had reacted a teensy bit later or the revo had been a couple of notches faster, the motorcycle would surely have smashed on my side and we probably would have been sent crashing onto something or someone on the right side of the road. jeean and i could survive that unscathed. but a two-month old baby? i dont think so.

anyways, as i fought for control of the vehicle, the motorcycled monster did as well and slowed down behind us. i stopped in the middle of the highway and waited for him to pass. he stopped on jeean's side and the asshole had the audacity to tell me that i should have been looking where i was going. of course, i gave an expletive-ridden reply of a madman. he should have been looking where he was going because the lane was mine and he was the one attempting to take it. any person with a brain would wait until both lanes are clear before entering the lane on the other side. there wasnt even a way for me to know that he was coming onto the highway. he just popped out from nowhere. i was brimming with anger for this imbecile and literally in the process of destroying my vocal chord and having an aneurysm (also, creating a mile-long car queue). i was on the verge of getting out of the revo and introducing the douchebag to my fists when he finally asked for forgiveness, which was the first thing he should have said. he was at fault and no form of logic, law or common sense would say otherwise. he backed off and muttered about going home or something. i sincerely hope that he has taken the time to meditate about his actions and then shoot himself in the head. i really do.

so, to cap things off, fuck motorcycle morons and any kind of arrogant moron for that matter. just because you know how to do something, it does not mean you're good at it. if you dont value your life (the two idiots weren't wearing helmets btw), we value ours so fuck off and die already.

p.s. to contrast, there's a lot of things to hate in this world and everything to love about my daughter.
p.p.s. my dad used to bike around and he is very good at it. he also did motocross, so yeah, these shitheads will eat his dust.
p.p.p.s. my apologies for the fucking language.

flickstack: 82nd oscars! place yer bets!

dont know about you but im a cineaste by heart and the academy awards is the only awards show i give a damn about. so, to anyone else who gives a damn, the nominees are...

best editing: stephen rivkin, john refoua, james cameron (avatar), julian clarke (district 9), bob murawski and chris innis (the hurt locker), sally menke (inglourious basterds), joe klotz (precious)
my pick: sally menke. she's the only editor that quentin tarantino has trusted with his films and anyone who has seen a tarantino film knows how well they are cut and spliced together, albeit non-linear.

best visual effects: joe letteri, stephen rosenbaum, richard baneham and andrew r. jones (avatar), dan kaufman, peter muyzers, robert habros and matt aitken (district 9), roger guyett, russell earl, paul kavanagh and burt dalton (star trek)
my pick: avatar dudes. no one can deny the fact that avatar is the breakthrough in this field.

best cinematography: mauro fiore (avatar), bruno delbonnel (harry potter and the half-blood prince), barry ackroyd (the hurt locker), robert richardson (inglourious basterds), christian berger (the white ribbon)
my pick: the hurt locker dude. war movie about bombs - shaky cam shit = awesome. the sniper scene is my favorite.

best animated short film: french roast, granny o'grimm's sleeping beauty, the lady and the reaper, logorama, a matter of loaf and death
my pick: the lady and the reaper. if not for the great animation, then for cerberus.

best original score: james horner (avatar), alexandre desplat (fantastic mr. fox), marco beltrami and buck sanders (the hurt locker), hans zimmer (sherlock holmes), michael giacchino (up)
my pick: michael giacchino. his is the only tune i can hum without a thought.

best adapted screenplay: neill blomkamp and terri tatchell (district 9), nick hornby (an education), jesse armstrong, simon blackwell, armando iannucci, tony roche (in the loop), geoffrey fletcher (precious), jason reitman, sheldon turner (up in the air)
my pick: in the loop. but i believe either district 9 or an education will win. i chose in the loop solely for the amazing badass lines.

best original screenplay: mark boal (the hurt locker), quentin tarantino (inglourious basterds), alessandro camon and oren moverman (the messenger), joel coen and ethan coen (a serious man), peter docter, bob peterson, tom mccarthy (up)
my pick: quentin tarantino. since james cameron will surely win best director, quentin oughta get this one. although a serious man and up are tough contenders.

best animated feature film: coraline, fantastic mr. fox, the princess and the frog, the secret of kells, up
my pick: up. would be surprised but glad if either fantastic mr. fox or the secret of kells wins.

best supporting actress: penelope cruz (nine), vera farmiga (up in the air), maggie gyllenhaal (crazy heart), anna kendrick (up in the air), mo'nique (precious)
my pick: anna kendrick. vera farmiga didnt do no nothing in up in the air. the fast-talking debater from rocket science deserves this more.

best supporting actor: matt damon (invictus), woody harrelson (the messenger), christopher plummer (the last station), stanley tucci (the lovely bones), christoph waltz (inglourious basterds)
my pick: christoph waltz. hans landa. nuff said.

best actress: sandra bullock (the blind side), helen mirren (the last station), carey mulligan (an education), gabourey sidibe (precious), meryl streep (julie & julia)
my pick: carey mulligan. meryl streep or helen mirren might get it because they're old but sandra bullock?! come on...

best actor: jeff bridges (crazy heart), george clooney (up in the air), colin firth (a single man), morgan freeman (invictus), jeremy renner (the hurt locker)

my pick: sam rockwell. yes i know he's not a nominee but i say he's been robbed. if you've seen moon, you know he's way better than george clooney. but if my life depended on picking one from the list, jeremy renner.

best director: kathryn bigelow (the hurt locker), james cameron (avatar), lee daniels (precious), jason reitman (up in the air), quentin tarantino (inglourious basterds)
my pick: quentin tarantino. even though we all know james cameron would win. wouldnt be surprised if his ex, kathryn, won. still, my money's on tarantino all the way.

best picture: avatar, the blind side, district 9, an education, the hurt locker, inglourious basterds, precious, a serious man, up, up in the air
my pick: inglourious basterds. moon should have at least been nominated. avatar is the strongest contender here but i have a feeling the hurt locker might win. however, inglourious basterds should win because avatar is a great spectacle but sucks as a movie overall. in inglourious basterds, hitler dies in a shower of bullets. so there.

p.s. they should get conan o'brien as next year's host.

p.p.s. i cant wait to watch movies with iaine.

timestamp: a stellar birth on prime-earth

what: most. kickass. childbirth. ever.

where: st. patrick's hospital + palacio de lanting
when: february 5-8 2010
who: jaiskizzy (big daddy), jeeanfoxy (beautiful mommy), the world's greatest parents, parents-in-law, relatives and friends, the super doctor team hyperforce, single-serving nurses
why: cuteness equilibrium

day1/friday/february5: the new equation
400pm: it has been decided that jeean shall undergo cesarean section delivery the following day so all the bags of necessities that were starting to accumulate dust in the living room are finally loaded for transport. my mom, our househelp and i take the pregnant goddess to the hospital for mortals.
500pm: after squeezing the car to the tightest parking spot i have ever encountered, i carry our stuff (looking like a guy on a 1-year vacation all by himself) and head straight to 221, the room reserved for us, where i spend an awkward moment of silence and stares with two maintenance dudes. and then i receive the 5-second late text message that jeean and her mother-in-law are in the admitting office. anyways, i dont hate paperwork, paperwork hates me and i am very thankful that i have a wife to handle the sheetflow with her excellent penwomanship. glad i dont have to struggle with providing the requested information in hieroglyphics.
600pm: we hold fort in 221 and chill, literally because the air-conditioner seems like it was manufactured by eskimos. i am appointed legman and my first errand is to buy dinner: the infamous pulang pansit. (i accompanied the local pasta with some grilled pork, chicken and hotdog and proudly but silently beat the vendor's calculator in purchase computation). mom-in-law, my dad and sibs shortly arrive with their comestible contributions.
1000pm: my co-producer and i have the room to ourselves. the tv's on as background score to our conversation in dim. the sandman is out on a break, allowing us to talk about our daughter-to-be, how our relationship's tumultuous beginning segued into an awesome knot-tying and is now a page away from a new chapter entitled parenthood. finally, after nine months of pain and pee, clinic and food trips, kicks and hiccups, tears and cheers, and waiting and wailing, our wonderchild, our cherubic aesthete, our little cuddler, the amalgam of the best of our dna is about to exit the void and bombard our lives with immeasurable brighthappycuteawesomeness.
1100pm: the enceinte enchantress is asleep. her mondobizarro monsterhero is wide awake, lost in reverie. soon, his palpebrae superior and inferior reunite for the time being...

day2/saturday/february6: do babies dream of electric lambs?
600am: i am bathing diagonally in the narrow shower space. the plumbers must be eskimos as well because the water is goosebumpin' cold. cleansed, i put on my pink big daddy shirt (because im into that kind of shit, so what). after enjoying her warm water wash, jeean is dextrosed up by a nurse who is pregnant as well.
700am: the world's prettiest pregnant person is on a wheelchair. she is smiling but there is an apparent and understandable trepidation on her face. our mothers join the hallway parade toward the operating room. i remember many hospital scenes in movies where the gurney is pushed into the double doors and as they close, the leads have enough slow-mo time moment to stare at each other and wish for an oscar award. unless it's one where the significant other gets to be at patient's side but as much as i want to be with her the whole time like that, spousal support is prohibited inside. a while later, i return to the operating room entrance to give our digital camera to my sister who is a doctor and has a backstage pass.
730am: my psp reads game over for the nth time as i cant concentrate enough to advance through the game. i am number-twoing by the way, big time. it's as if all the excitement, worry and bonheur had been blendered together and turned into unstoppable poop. i then hear my doctorsister enter and bring the good news. my mom and mom-in-law race each other to see their first granddaughter while the baby's father struggles through his excremental ordeal. once done, he who sometimes enjoys referring to himself in the third person cleans himself up in haste.
800am: minitears fight for freedom but i impede their escape. flanked by two happy women on the verge of tears themselves, i am looking at a beautiful sleeping baby girl with full red lips and chubby cheeks wrapped in cloth. she is iaine sivela feona and she is my daughter and i am the happiest newfather that ever breathed. imagine all the books you want to read, all the dvds you want to watch, all the chocolate you want to eat, everything that can make you glad to be alive, imagine all are yours for free, for the rest of your life, that feeling is probably just half an atom of how it feels to see your child for the first time. i am speechless (as i am now, typing this) for the word that can exactly define the feeling has yet to exist. the only coherent thing to come out of my mouth was "hello, iaine."
830am: iaine's nascent pictures are already reaping comments on facebook. i am walking to the drugstore to buy our baby's milk. the minitears that demanded release? out they go, now that i am alone.
1100am: newmom returns to 221 half-conscious, in pain. she stays in rest mode as congratulators start coming in batches. each batch goes to the nursery to take a peep at iaine and i always tag along just to see her again. most of the time, the little cuddler is asleep but there are a few times she's crying in high pitch, displaying her singing prowess which she inherited from her mother. these visits sans physical contact are nice but not enough. i want to hold iaine real bad. jeean soon regains consciousness but she is not allowed to eat solids until she has passed gas. whenever everyone's eating, i don't so that jeean doesn't feel left out.
100pm: in a hole on the ground near our house, i put books, papers, pens and one of my drumsticks together with iaine's placenta as told by the elder believers. no harm in obliging.

day3/sunday/february7: this too shall pass
1200pm: with the catheter off, i escort my co-creator to the bathroom to take a leak. this is the part of motherhood i never had any idea of. i thought that after the nine-month challenge and the delivery drama, she'd be pirouetting by now. instead, it's a painful piss. she holds on to me and i wish i was the one in pain instead. a couple more trips to the toilet seat and her urinal anguish subsides to tolerable state.
200pm: jeean is recovering real quick. she can walk with minimal assistance. she's on a soft food diet, getting tired of the flavorless porridge. still no fart. (i cant believe i am actually waiting for my wife to fart). the continuous flow of visitors help hasten her recuperation. some flatulence and feces later, the goddess of all things cute and sexy is munching on mangoes.
900pm: our ob-gyne/wedding sponsor drops by to change jeean's gauze dressing and throw some great news: we can go home the next day. the bikini cut looks fine, nigh-invisible if not for the small stitches on the sides.

day4/monday/february8: homeward-bound
900am: the stuff we came in with has doubled and i am getting myself a tan and workout carrying all of it to the family car parked two blocks away. we're just waiting for the starter gun to fire so we can go and live our new life as a family of three independent of hospital control.
1000am: my optical floodgates open wide at the sight of iaine on the bed in front of me with no glass window between us. i used to dread this moment because movie scenes of a child being born kind make me tear up a bit and i was pretty sure that when i experience that moment it would be like all my nose hairs have been pulled out for everyone to see. but now i dont mind the onlookers seeing this hardened meat of a man rendered tender by his dreamy, dreaming daughter. let's go home, sweetheart.
1100am: my sisdoc and i are stuck in motionless car queue. we had taken a shortcut to steer clear of the regular midday traffic jam but thanks to the arrival of president darkmole evildwarf, we stumble upon roadblock after roadblock until we're back to square one of the route we've previously avoided. jeean and iaine are in separate vehicle, several gearshifts behind.
1200pm: home, sweetheart, home...


p.s. happy one-month, iaine...

advent child

nine months ago, my muse and i made love. but that day was unlike the others. it was beyond the sensual enlacement of soul and body. we did not just become one. we achieved the perfect catalyst spark of our bond to ignite the biological flame. that day, my muse and i made love and created life.

any moment now, that love we have made will be born. and it is with immense delight for us that our little cuddler will lead this (r)evolutionary existence as a girl. to be honest, i wanted a son. actually we all wished for a boy. for months, our daughter kept her privates concealed and her parents perplexed. around that time, the gender didnt matter to us anymore. all we wanted then was for the baby to be healthy and when her femininity was finally revealed, we didnt have an ounce of disappointment. that confirmation put my imagination on full throttle. i saw myself reading poetry to her, combing her hair while she plays chopin on the piano, watching horror movies with her and running on a beach shore with her. jeean and i even spent a whole night perfecting the name we want for her. our tigress's name, which sounds uniquely sweet (or sweetly unique), shall be unveiled on the day of her emergence.

i dont want to divulge the minutiae of our planned parenting procedures but one thing weve sworn not to do is persuade her into a career she does not want. we will do our very best to guide her to a happy but proper way of life, making sure she does not grow up into a makeup-dependent social-climbing bimbo prancing around and talking like a two-bit cyprian. but alas i am getting too far ahead of myself. pardon this impatient parent for craving his cherubic aesthete's expeditious liberty from her uterine sanctuary.

i may use big words now but none of them will suffice to define exactly how happy and proud i am to be the father of this baby. i know that this odyssey isn't just smiles and tickles and baby unicorns galloping on rainbows, but im not one bit afraid. they way i see it, fatherhood is like leveling up as a man, the same with hitting puberty, having a job and getting married, and such furtherance presents new challenges to overcome (birthday boss battle) and new skills to be learned (+1 diaper dexterity). and there'll be no game overs for me in this epic two-player adventure until the day i die.

anyways, whenever she chooses to come out, may our daughter have a safe journey, both for her and her mother, from dimension womb to her vast, new, playground world where boundless love awaits her.

the sky is blue

most bloggers would start the year by posting something positive, usually about putting the mistakes of 2009 behind and looking forward to a happy 2010. most bloggers. but not me. sure, i'll be a father real soon and there's no better year-opener than having a baby daughter. i'll do that when she's out. so, in the meantine, let's do a recap of some recent f-word-appropriate events.

i used to watch the tonight show with jay leno, especially the part where he shows hilarious newspaper clippings, which, in retrospect, seems to be the only funny thing about that show. but i enjoyed late night with conan o'brien more (even before it blipped into mainstream audience radar) especially with the occasional appearances of triumph, the masturbating bear and the vomiting kermit. the very first episode of late night i saw was the one where famke janssesn demonstrated her goldeneye character's trademark leg squeeze. anyways, so jay leno passed the tonight show torch to conan last year but then, in a dazzling display of douchebaggery, the big-chinned bastard took it back, forcing conan to a later timeslot. conan, of course, wont take that crap and has decided to leave nbc. still no word on where coco will go but i've got two words for nbc and jay leno: fuck you.

traffic jams and idiot drivers test my boiling point, too, but the heat never leaves the car, except for the angry honking. this jason ivler guy, however, blamed his lousy driving skills on the car ahead of him and traded three bullets for the poor guy's life. as expected of all testicle-deprived assholes, mr. ivler pussied out and disappeared like his balls. for months, the nbi searched every crook and nanny but the cocksniffer could not be found. some guy who didnt even look like him was detained and deported from qatar just because he shared a similar name. so, where's waldork? well, lo and behold, the turdlicker's been home all along, in a secret basement room, abetted by his mother, who had previously made endearing public statements asking her son to surrender and told the police who had made several visits to their house that her bitch-ass son was not there. im all for loving your children, but supporting your child's murder capabilities is stupid parenting. so, fuck you, jason ivler and your mom.

oh, and in relation to the preceding post, fuck you, mmff.

the mtrcb has done it again. and by that, i mean, proving that they are a bunch of morons. there is a reason why films are classified according to content. g for kid-safe movies, pg for movies that need parental attention, and r for adults-only movies. so, i dont understand why there is a need for r-rated movies to have some scenes cut out in the worst possible way before they are shown in theaters. but the real point of this paragraph is the showtime issue which, no matter how they say it isn't, smells fishy. a male host from the rival network of rip-offs has been saying way more insulting remarks and i havent heard him suspended for a day. one showtime guest proclaims an offensive but valid argument and the whole show is order off the air, despite the self-regulatory move of kicking that guest out? the rival network's talk show in the same timeslot has been axed, by the way, due to irremediable ratings. so, yeah, there has got to be cash involved there somewhere. but even if there was not, fuck you, mtrcb and fuck you gma7.

normally this space gets a short closing paragraph of its own. but... that's it for now.

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.