Danny Boyle is an excellent director, but he is one ugly m-f.

And Virginie Ledoyen's original last name was actually Fernandez. I always knew she and I were married. hehehe :)

The Fourth Box

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History will look at George W. Bush unkindly. At a time of relative world peace, he chooses to declare war on a currently non-belligerent nation. I don't believe Iraq will be declaring war on anyone soon. And so Georgie is just picking a fight. What's with that?

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I'll fill it in later.

As requested, if you are walking in a mall and come across one of those rolling polling booths of NU107, please vote for the Down MTV by the Pin-Up Girls, directed by Quark, shot by Chris, styled by Mich, edited by Lia, in Brash. Naks, group effort.

Arthur Clarke: "For Jan was still suffering from the romantic illusion -- the cause of so much misery and so much poetry -- that every man has only one real love in his life."

Arthur Clarke: "Like a delegate to any scientific congress, he would attend the lectures that looked promising, and spend the rest of the time talking with fellow enthusiasts, or simply sight-seeing."

"Few artists thrive in solitude, and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests."

"We can be sure of talent: we can only pray for genius."

Well, today was a very interesting day as things go.

I started off the day with a bottle of wine and promptly went to sleep.

I woke up at quarter to 2 PM and got started for the shoot this afternoon. I prepared my stuff, charged my camera battery, folded up my director's chair and headed straight for Summit. i got there a little bit late, but it was okay coz they were shooting other things at the moment. Hung out with Lille, Alia and Quark and fascinatingly got to meet the other "Movers and Shakers". There was Sasha, a computer programmer, who is designing voice computer technology for the blind. M, who is a poet of the activist kind. There was another, a folk singer, but I wasn't able to meet her.

It was basically a party of sorts, where everybody was sitting around and talking about things they love. As Sasha said Peace, Love and Free Software. I got a poster of Gamitan :) Which I will add with my autographed poster of Pluto Nash of Jay Mohr and Eddie Murphy. Asteeg.

After that we headed for Pearl, where we hung out with Chris Costello, John and Sarah S., and Mich, who would also be on the 17 list, but she was just featured recently.

Then we headed to Brash, accidentally denting someone's sideview mirror on the way (which will cost me) and watched Takeshi "Beat" Kitano's Brother, which I must say, was a marvel. I loved Payback before I saw Michael Caine's Get Carter. But this movie beats them all at the moment. Funny, violent, poignant, delightful, Takeshi is a joy to watch, and his movies are simple yet elegant.



By the end of the movie *spoiler warning* you empathize with the character so much, that you love him, in a weird sort of way *spoiler end*.

In my earlier brash e-mail, i wrote that it is sad when Hollywood actors have to act in Asian movies, and I was wrong. Omar Epps was amazing. And Beat Takeshi did a brillant move by casting him. I also never saw so many Asian actors in an "American" movie. It was actually shot in LA, but produced by Japan. What made the film even more enjoyable we're the female members in the audience, they loved the movie and liked it even more when they found out that the gangster they loved also shot, wrote and directed the film!

Thanks, Ramon!

After that, me and Alia, headed off to IO, where we met up with Rex Navarette and co. It was a fun night, full of Filipino-Americans. But what was cool was I got to talk to Tim Tayag, who agreed to appear on the Brash Young TV show.

Which basically means in conclusion, i've got to get my act together.

Kewl.

Christ!


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Moriarity says "Alan Moore has become a cult figure since then, one of the most revered authors working in the field. FROM HELL, V FOR VENDETTA, THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, TOP TEN, THE KILLING JOKE... his resume is dense with masterworks, and once you read one of these casual bits of brilliance, they have a way of worming into you. They’re time bombs that keep going off long after you’ve read them, and they seem to inspire a rabid devotion in fans."

the time bomb thing is fascinating.

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I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Basic of John Mctiernan looks fascinating and Below by David Twohy looks cool.

click here

thanks to meg.

I think the reason why Hong Kong and Spanish movies succeed is because they are guileless.

Amenabar

I first heard about Amenabar, a couple of years back, I am not sure where. The first distinct memory I have is a documentary of filmmaking on Cinemax. India was featured, and so were some other countries, but also, of course was Spain. They were talking about the revival of Spanish cinema, and Alejandro Amenabar and his buddy Mateo Gil were featured. It looked very interesting. I have a fond of memory of Spanish movies, because once when I was in Spain, I actually watched a movie in all Spanish called The Day of The Beast (not by Amenabar), which I should get a copy of for Brash. I didn't understand the words but I enjoyed it.



And so these Amenabar movies looked good!

Anyway, moving on to Tesis.

When watching a movie, it is sometimes unfortunate for the director, that the viewer had seen movies similar to the one the director had just made. For me it was the Ring. And so during the whole movie, I was comparing Tesis to The Ring. Will the video in Tesis be as scary as the video in The Ring? Will the bad guys here be as scary as the bad guys in The Ring. And my answer to this is "no". Just when Amenabar was at the brink of scaring the beejezus out of you. He failed. But maybe this was his first movie and I'm being too harsh. But his subsequent movies didn't scare me either. And I am easily scared.

Anyway, back to the movie.

The movie script itself was weak. The twists and turns weren't believable if not downright annoying. The script was too long. But of course, this is the fault of the scriptwriter.

One character though that was very endearing was the character Chema, played by Fele Martinez. A video violence addicted film student, he reminded me of a lot of people I know. Imagine Gary Oldman as teenager. hehehe.

Okay, now here comes the part where I sell-out.

Did I like the movie?

Yes!

I liked the fact it was a Spanish movie. The language is very nice to hear. The story while long and unbelievable was very watchable. Amenabar has certain directorial and scripwriting traits that have great potential. What bothers me is, after watching Tesis, and The Others (which I didn't like) and Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe's version). I just realized that Amenabar can't write. He could, he has some sparks of genius in his film, but after three movies and to see he hasn't improved much, and that's just disheartening.

I am happy that Spanish cinema is going through a revolution. But if this is the greatest this Great Spanish Hope can do, it is not enough. It is not enough to shake the foundations of the world. The Spanish should try harder. And not rest on the laurels of the past.

I saw Tesis today. More about that, Alejandro Amenabar and the state of the Spanish Film Industry later.