Being Anonymous

I like being anonymous on cyberspace. I don't think any of my friends know I blog. Once upon a time I did tell a few to take a peek at my blogs - I don't think they did -  and encouraged one or two who are terrific writers to write/put out a blog of their own. I thought they were wasting their talent by not sharing their written thoughts. I was very lucky in the past when they would write me kilometric letters. And when the letters stopped coming I thought it would be to my best interest if they would write. Unfortunately, they didn't blog or maybe I just didn't get an invite to read their thoughts, if they did put out a blog.

Anyway, this isn't where this post is supposed to go when I first typed the first sentence of this post.  But it definitely took a life of its own. 

So aside from being an closet blogger to my real friends, I am also a ghost or lurker to some fabulous blogs around cyberspace.  A few of them I added to my links and still others I continue to read without them knowing.  Some day I will tell you which blogs I frequent. 

In the mean time, I'd be happy to report that my tree is finally up.  I haven't taken a picture of it yet.  I don't know how long it will remain up as my kitties are so fascinated by the rounded ball of shimmer and glitter hanging on the tree that I spent the rest of the weekend shooing them away from and under the tree. 

We also have been getting some rain.  On Sunday, there was a downpour and I got wet going to the cinema to finally watch Harry Potter.  I know, I know.  But I love to watch movies when there is no crowd to spoil my fun.  Thankfully after 3 weeks of running, the crowd has finally thinned out at Harry Potter.

Wasn't that just a marvelous 2 hours  of Harry Potter?  I'm almost sad that it's ending.  Would it be too much to hope that JK Rowlings find the inspiration to continue the story with the next generation of Potters and Weasleys?  Fingers crossed.

Also I would like to share with you a fine fine deal of a sale I got on Thanksgiving weekend.  We went to Borders bookstore to collect the free latte (coupon via newspaper) and browse at the books.  But lo and behold I saw a display of some older dvds on sale for $7.  Included on the $7 display case were Twilight and New Moon, both of which are the 2-dvd package.  Can you believe my luck.  So last night after enjoying some Potter, I came home and put on Twilight and giggle like a teenager.  Nothing like being silly on a rainy night.

I Enjoyed Them.

Amidst all the hullaballoo surrounding the historic and successful quest of the San Francisco Giants to win the World Series trophy, I managed to watch two movies via Netflix.  I know my movie watching production has gone down this year, due to many factors - blogging is one of them :)

Thankfully, we have managed to set up our tv to show Netflix movies straight from the tv.  It is a pain to watch Netflix on our pc and we don't have Wii. 

I love foreign films.  I love chick flick.  This movie combined two in one movie.   In a nutshell this movie is: "A romantic comedy centered on the daily lives of five Lebanese women living in Beirut. "

A mystery thriller that is not filled with action, but is not boring.  In a nutshell:  "A ghostwriter hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy. "

Love Story

I love love stories. I love movies that feature love stories. Boy meets girl. Boy/girl hates girl/boy. Then at the end of the story, boy/girl realizes that girl/boy would be the only one who could complete his/her life.

Hollywood cannot make them fast enough for me. I love them. Even those sappy, very predictable movies that most people find boring and a total waste of time, I relished them.

Just think how magical it is to find that someone from all the people who are walking the earth right now, or all the people that have walked or will walk this world before you're long gone.

I remember when I was a mere teenager I marvelled at how lucky I was to be in the same world as these people I hang out with . Or how magical it is to find who I thought was the "one" walking not only the same planet Earth that I was walking in, but also the same streets. Of course not all fairytales end in happy ending. 

And all these emotions are coming back to the forefront because I watched a ho-hum movie last night, LETTERS TO JULIET.  Aside from the spectacular Italian countryside that was the locale for this movie, there is nothing that jumps out at the viewer or the critic to say "watch me". I have not read the reviews, but let me guess this movie would have the-little-man-is-asleep-on-the-chair rating. 

What truly amazes me is how people find each other.  How they find each other.  How the universe conspire to get them together in the same gps location at the same time.  It's fascinating to me and I never tire of hearing how couples meet.  And when you ask couples who have been together or married for quite some time, they recall their first meeting with that glint in their eyes.  And I am hooked.  I would sit in the couch or that pain in butt chair in the outdoor seating area of a cafe and listen.  Ask questions.  People in love is a fascinating subject.

Six Pack

Once upon a time in another blog I posted a weekly post I called Six Pack. It's a list of 6 of whatever I wanted to post. That ended when that blog became a meme blog. I toyed with the idea of picking up where I left off with regards to jotting down six of something every week. And after months of considerations, I finally found myself reviving this post.

So here's my Six Pack for this week:

Six movies that got my attention:

1. The Sixth Sense - the quintessential curve ball at the end of the movie when it was revealed that the Bruce Willis character was a ghost. Come on now tell me if any one ever thought, ever guessed, ever imagined he was a ghost! I don't think so.
2. LOTR Trilogy - just the mere scale of how Peter Jackson told this Tolkien saga was jaw-droppingly amazing. Add the perfect casting that made the characters come alive on the big screen - perfection.
3. Little Miss Sunshine - a delightful storytelling of an ordinary family. I can't stop laughing while watching this. Great cast, fabulous acting.
4. My Big Fat Greek Wedding - laughfest. Funny to the max. It's one of my favorites and I don't tire of watching it over and over.
5. Harry Potter - what can I say? I love the characters, the way the story is told, the CGI is fantastic and the humanity of the main characters. The first one is still my favorite
6. Inception - what a well made movie this one is. I find that when you watch it intently from the beginning, there is no confusion at all. I love how the director told the story, how masterful was Leo's acting [can't believe he turned out to be such a good actor] and how the supporting characters were all magnificent in their portrayal. And oh, I also love the subject matter.

My Car Remains Unwashed

Another weekend passed by and the car remains dirty, filthy. Good thing it's not smelly :) I have been meaning to wash in months. But as each weekend arrives I find my list of to do filled with errands and gardening and laundry and church activities that carwash always end up in the "if there is time i'll do it" category. Many weeks passed and I still didn't have time.

Here's why I didn't have time to wash the car:

1. Daily weekend date with mom. Lunch at her favorite Chinese restaurant. I've been at this restaurant many times and I can't remember it's name :) She had the seafood claypot and I had a lunch combo (garlic prawns), which ended up tasting like their other prawn dishes.
2. After lunch with mom, we ran a ton of errands, ending in a stop at a local Pinoy restaurant, CABALEN, who's moving to a closer location this weekend. Hah! less driving for moi. As was the case every weekend, we came out of the restaurant with boxes of to-gos and some cassava cake and halo-halo. My connoisseur of a husband commented that CHOWKING's halo halo is far superior :)
3. Got my FRY'S fix. We love this computer/electronics store/warehouse, even if we're just browsing. We were able to get a landscaping software that would be free after the mail in rebate is submitted. I used to like coming here because of their massage chairs. This week the chairs were nowhere in sight so I just lovingly touched and handled the Nikons and the Canons in display and I didn't care if the salesperson was looking at me funny!
4. Gardening - weeding, sweeping, snipping dead rose blooms, etc etc until it was dark.
5. The whole morning of Sunday is for church.
6. A friend of ours who treats my husband their "good son" and I their good son's wife, had a hip replacement, her second, but she had some complication with the medication they gave her that affected her heart. Poor thing! So we visited her and although she was staying in a nonprivate room (sharing with two other people) she has the window view and what a view it was. She can see the Berkeley from her bed. It was a great view. I hope she gets better soon.
7. We delivered pizza to #5's husband, who is also not in the pink of health. We visited with him and his only son who was staying with him while the mom is in the hospital.
8. Almost missed the screening of THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE. I love that movie. Well, I like it a lot. For one it's very entertaining. Another, it's always nice to see Nick Cage in a movie. I wonder when did I become a Nick Cage fan?
9. Had dinner at a friend's house and after dinner she put on a Netflix WII movie which is very interesting. It's a Bollywood movie made in Miami. She and I share a love for Bollywood. I can't remember the title. But it's a funny movie. Unfortunately, it was 9 pm by the time we finished our chai and the movie is just getting into the good parts. I will watch this again in full.

So there wasn't really time to wash the car. How was your weekend?

I Like It

Let me begin by saying, I am an actor-centric movie goer, which means I choose what movies I watch according to who's in it and not what's it about. So it isn't any surprise that one of Netflix movies was REMEMBER ME which stars Robert (team Edward) Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin ( pregnant Claire on LOST).

I want to see Robert Pattinson in a movie where he's not a vampire and brooding. He's not a vampire in this movie, but he is brooding. Will he be typecast as a brooder?

Emilie is cute in this movie. There isn't much to say about it. It's a dramatic love story with some tragic elements, when Emilie's character's mother's was killed in a subway mugging where her character witnessed and at the end where it was implied that Robert's Tyler character died in the Twin Towers incident on 9/11.

The two of them together works for me. Their chemistry looks easy and believable as lovers.

This movie has a ROTTEN rating, I don't disagree with that. However, the movie spoke to me in a way that I liked the way the director told me the story.

I don't recommend this to anyone, but if you're curious about Robert Pattinson the way I was, go ahead and check him out in this film. Although you've been warned that there's very little differentiation between his characteristics here and as a vampire.

Another Weekend Recap

Tell me please that time is not marching on this rapidly. Okay, it's almost July - ALREADY!

I know. I better start writing up a recap of the first half of the year pretty soon. So later on in the second half of the year I can look back on the recap post and see what's accomplished and what is not.

In the mean time, let me recap my too-brief-a-weekend.

Saturday was a lazy day. My church had the annual yard sale. I was pretty lazy that I did not sign up to help out with the sales or the clean up. Last year I was there with the troops, this time I was curled up in bed until about 1 pm, lounging with hubby and the cat and watching SHUTTER ISLAND, which was our Netflix movie.

Okay let me first tell you how much I loved Shutter Island. How much I loved Leo in this movie. I think I may have fallen a little bit in love with him here. Not as much as I went head over heels ga-ga when he did that movie with Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. I can't remember the name of the movie and too lazy to google it. Anyway, I admire the storytelling of Scorcese. Well, that's all I have to say about this movie. I'm sure you all have seen it by now, so I don't need to tell you how I feel anymore than that I love the movie and Leo.

To continue with my recap of Saturday - I skipped breakfast/lunch at home and after taking a quick shower, my mom and I went to have late lunch - twas about 2 pm - at her favorite local Chinese restaurant. You know how big portions they give you at these places. An order of $7.95 string beans with beef is a platter, large enough for four regular mouths. So we ordered the string beans, a platter (order) of fried rice, an order of wonton soup (twas a breezy cool day for late June), and fried chicken wings.

I was very good. I tasted, but did not pig out. Surprisingly I wasn't hungry when we went out to eat, considering it was 2 pm and I did not have anything to eat yet.

After running a couple of errands after lunch, we went home. Husband decided to cook - he does the cooking at home coz he is such a good cook - which means I would be doing all the chopping, dicing, slicing, and all other prep work.

When that was done, surprisingly we had a little bit of time left. We have tickets to the movies and realized that we haven't seen PRINCE OF PERSIA yet. So off to the net I went to check for showtime. Luckily our neighborhood multiplex or metroplex still shows the movie and the next one was 7:25 pm.

The movie exceeded my expectations. Have I mentioned before that my enjoyment of a movie is direct correlation to how much I enjoy the actors? Yes I am unashamedly actor-centric when it comes to movies. So not really a fan of Jake G (cant spell last name, lazy to google), I really had no expectations at all. Husband loved to see it so we went. But goodness, the casting was perfect, the story was fun (it was a video game????), and I simply love all the CGIs. Thank heavens for CGI, right? Anyway, two thumbs up!

On Sunday, we attended the mass and my husband got his pop for Pops at church. The church was giving away suckers for fathers and men in connection with Father's Day.

The best part of Sunday was getting a massage. A massage is an extra expense for both of us, one that we have to save up for because we really can't afford it. But we bit the bullet and after months of going without massage, we went and tried this new place near our house. We did because of the coupon we got. Anyhoo, I truly loved her massage, although I thought she was making up some of the techniques/moves she was employing on me. Still, she set the perfect ambience for a relaxing time while having the massage. I think I'll save up for another visit. My husband wasn't truly impressed and preferred the Chinese masseuse 10 miles away.

We ended Sunday watching Food TV's Next Foodnetwork Star and Dzindra (spelling?) got booted off, thank heavens.

Three Books I Haven't Read

With all the fall shows busy coming up with a season finale and of course my preoccupation with the slam bam series finale of Lost, I still managed to squeeze in a little of movie/dvd watching :)



After the disappointment of New Moon, the next three movies on my Netflix list are all adapted from books. Just like New Moon, these three I haven't read. I haven't even heard of them before, which disgusts me if I may say so. Once upon a time I used to be very bookish and while I preferred textbooks and history books, I never shied away from fiction.



Here are the next three on my Netflix list for this year in order of arrival.



UP IN THE AIR is a 2001 novel by American author Walter Kirn about a 35-year-old career counselor whose main job is to deliver the bad news (lay off) and assist these people in reentering the job force. In the movie very little is shown about this assisting, it's more on the delivering the bad news. Ryan Bingham (Clooney's character) spends about 300 days traveling and his goal is to reach the milestone of 10,000,000 miles. Along the way he meets fellow frequent flier Alex (Vera Fermiga) and embarks on a casual relationship. [Like there is one. For me when this type of relationship ends there is always someone who gets hurt.]



Bingham was summoned to the main office to train new recruit ambitious Natalie (Anna Kendrick) and show her how things have been done before. Natalie wants to implement a high tech program to cut cost.



MY TAKE: Bingham on paper is 35 y.o. Clooney is not. But that didn't deduct anything from the validity of the movie. The acting by the three major characters [including Jason Bateman as the boss - gosh I hate that guy!] was natural and effortless, which is probably why acting nominations were handed out to the main actors by award-giving bodies.



At some point in the movie, I thought it ran a little slowly. It took its time moving the story along.



Not having read the book, I was surprised to see that Alex was truly just after casual affair. Wasn't that scene where Ryan found out that she's not into anything serious kind of want you to say 'GOTCH' Ryan.



I enjoyed the movie, although I wouldn't pay good money to see it on the big screen.



THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE is a 2003 novel by American novelist Audrey Niffenegger. It's a love story about a man whose genetic disorder causes him to time travel unpredictably and his wife who has to deal with his absences.



MY TAKE: I love Rachel MacAdams. She has this ethereal beauty that gives a classic feel to a movie. Eric Bana is not bad either. He didn't stand out here. And I don't think Rachel did as well, acting wise. However, the story is captivating. It transported me to a place I wanted to be. I love this kind of fairy tale/sci-fi movies.



I got choked up more than once in the movie. It's a nice one to put on the dvd player if you want a little chilling time.



THE LOVELY BONES is a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold about a 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered and is coping with her death as she watches her family go about their daily life from her perch "heaven".



MY TAKE: I read the synopsis of the book on wikipedia, if I haven't I would be happy with the film adapatation. In the book the mother played by Rachel Weisz had an affair with the detective in charge of disappearance case of Susie Salmon. This was not implicitly or explicitly shown/hinted on the movie version. I don't know if that would have made a difference on how I viewed the movie.

The subject matter is a bit serious for me. It's not the kind of movie I would have wanted to see at midnight. It does give you some things to think about death and grieving and accepting.

The protagonist's character was superbly played by Stanley Tucci. Just one look at him and you can feel bad vibes.

All in all, I think it's a well made movie. I don't know if it made money in the tills, but it's a good rental movie.

Neflix #2: The Ugly Truth

The truth about The UGLY TRUTH is that it's truly ugly. The acting was ugly, the dialog was ugly, the story was very ugly, and there is no chemistry between leading man and leading lady. A total waste of sleeping time.

Even though my second rental for this year was a thumbs down, I hope it's not the trend for the year.

I Am Now A Believer

I never pay attention to the hype. Not even when millions of people all over the globe spend millions of dollars or pesos or euros to support the hype. It's just my attitude to not go with the flow, which explains why I don't own an Ipod nor an Iphone.

Still I was curious, and more importantly my husband was panting in anticipation. So okay I said let's go - go with the flow- and see Avatar on 3-D after it has been announced the winner of the Golden Globe Best Film award.

The verdict? I. completely. totally. love. love. love. it. I really did. It's not just the computer-generated imagery, it's the story as well. It was a well-crafted movie. It's not what I expected from the director who's other movies Terminator (too violent, and too much Arnold) and Titanic (too mushy) were never my favorite at all, so I was really hesitant to see this. But I'm glad I did.

And to think that this movie after weeks of run still gets sold out is the amazing part. In this economy paying $13 for 3-D can be a pain, but I think in this case it was worth it.

A little tidbit about the movie: Is it just me or jakesully in avatar form sounded so much like Matthew McConaughey? No kidding. I thought I was hearing Matthew the entire time. And if given a choice between 3-D and regular screen, I'd opt for the regular screen. 3-D kinda freaks me out a bit :)