Archive for category Movies
Interview with The Dawn
Posted by Kim in Dailies, Events, Mainstream, Movies, Music, Music Videos on May 13th, 2009
(L-R) Me, Jett Pangan, JB Leonor, Kenneth Ilagan (Truefaith), Ricci Gurango (Hungry Young Poets, Mojofly)
New wave has got to be my unconscious genre. I was born in the late eighties, so most of the music I remember from my earliest living memory is a combination of new wave radio hits and clumsily spurned grunge.
Growing up, I never knew The Dawn but when I did my homework prior to my interview I immediately recognised their songs. Most probably, the only reason I would ever get the chance to hear their music is if someone older than myself had been picking the tunes on the radio and I just happened to be in the same room at that time. The night before the interview, I sent everyone on my phonebook ages 30 up to see if any of them knew the band. I get an urgent reply from my lawyer, our veterenarian, an engineer, so on. People of considerable stature. This is the generation the band sung to. And so as someone who was barely born at the cusp of their prime, my Filipino music history was enriched and had a brush up last friday with The Dawn.
Unfortunately, my record of the said interview was of such poor quality I wouldn’t dare upload it to grate your ears. Instead, I wrote a transcript of the higlights of the interview that fans might appreciate. Viola.
Long gone the days of Urban to the new Hip-hop tripe
Posted by Kim in Dailies, Foreign, Mainstream, Movies on October 6th, 2008
The movie The Wackness starring Josh Peck and Ben Kingsley was so nostalgic. It might be a classic Sundance bleeding heart movie, but you could easily forgive the theme when you listen to the music featured on the film. It was the music of 1994 – such a great year for music, championing in that time are greats like A tribe called Quest and even The Smashing Pumpkins who really shook the scene with the release of Siamese Dream, which was in my opinion the best album they released.
But let’s talk about the state of Hip-hop now. The truth is, I’m a snob when it comes to mainstream Top 40 Rap, Hip-hop and RnB, if you could call it that. It all began when these Hip-hop artists wanted to sound more like SoSoDef. Suddenly, Hip-hop wasn’t soul music anymore, or talked about the harsh realities of racism and ghetto violence. It wasn’t the music that we used to call in the 90’s as Urban. The tripe you hear from Hip-hop these days are about grinding, girls on the side, car upgrades and partying. Not that these wouldn’t count for realities, but where’s the depth?
I knew that the death of Tupac changed the face of hip-hop. Kanye West is trying to revive part of the glory that belonged to that great era of Urban, but he doesn’t have the exquisite rhyme of old school artists nor enough humility to really overcome the insipidness of the mainstream that riddles his exposure. We can’t identify deep issues from the likes of new hip-hop artists like Eminem or Nelly or T-Pain.
The groups who managed to resist the trend of materialism that is evident in most Hip-hop music have disappeared in the background of the multimedia spectacularism, simply because they choose not to. If you’re attentive enough, you realise that music pundits harp about them, appealing to everyone’s music sensibility. But strangely, there’s just not enough promotion: most of the MTV generation just doesn’t buy in to that kind of music anymore. The mainstream music entices its lot with people’s vanity and hype not their intelligence.
The Roots are one of those artists who have stood their ground. In 2002, they released an album entitled Phrenology. Phrenology is the pseudo science of assessing the figure of someone’s head to determine their intelligence – an idea which used to justify racism.
Peace out.
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Bloody diamonds and bloody scriptwriting (with spoilers)
Come on. Everyone loved that movie. Blood diamonds is lush and action-packed beginning 3 minutes since the start of the movie. You get African rebels portrayed “tactfully” as raging, heroin-driven, smoking, drinking, gangstah copycats who believe in toppling a government who is equally dubious. Nontheless, that’s not the entire point of the film. Because the film is really about the struggle of an African man who got caught by these rebels, and is suddenly caught in the unfolding of catastrophic yet serendipitous events (to make a plot, of course) caused by his discovery of the biggest goddamn pink diamond they’ve seen around those parts. Yummy, so the story begins.
So you have Leonardo di Caprio on one hand and the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly on the other who adds to your staple Hollywood aesthetically-pleasing tandem. Except, they’re not as romantic, you know. They didn’t kiss, they most certainly didn’t get jiggy and the plus part is that Leonardo owes a lot of his charm to his being an asshole. It would have been great if the romance unfolded with the two retaining that kind of bullheadedness. The director, I assume, said cut somewhere just when they’re intense enough to finally have closure over some “things left unsaid”. But really, what am I complaining about?
Sorry to crack your ideal scenario here, but seriously: Blood Diamonds is as cheesy as mozarella. They run around Africa after some Diamond with the wits of a headless chicken then they decide to throw lines reminiscent of Darth Vader’s “I am your father” and top it all off with that memorable acronym: T.I.A. Come on!!! T.I.A. can mean This Is America…or This Is Australia (which on some parts actually have red soil) but what I have to say T.I.A. ought to mean is Take It, Asshole. Yeah, that’s the spirit. Just take the friggin’ diamond and get on with your lives, okay? (And where was I?) Now, you can’t expect to be within a crossfire and be able to have that profound moment of realization inbetween. And what’s worse is, they forget that people are shooting guns for a moment just so they can stare at each other and say the things to each other you’d hear in a soap opera.
Plus, if you have an eye pastry serving of Mr. Di Caprio and Ms. Connelly in the same movie, you might as well exhaust their millions-of-dollars worth of paycheck and get them together for some serious sentimentalist treat. Hollywood is all about taking your cake and eating it, right? You have got to do better than a last phone call. That was heart breaking but, you know, you let the African dude carry you a considerable distance up a mountain, what gives?
Please, please, please, don’t tell me the African dude turned in to an altruist in the end and started the whole wave of getting people to stop buying “conflict-free” diamonds. Ahem.
“Excuse me, I see a lot of conflict in this diamond. Are you absolutely sure it’s conflict-free?”
“Yes.”
“I’m insisting it ought to be conflict-free!”
“It is conflict free!” (Jeweller doesn’t even know where the stupid diamond came from…)
“Okay…”
(And imagine that somewhere in Africa, someone found the next conflict-trodden diamond. Wahoo! On to Tiffanys.)
Pirates and pilates
Jack Sparrow has got to learn pilates.
He has the knack for it. He wobbles like a drunkard and yet he manages to get from point A to point B (in less time than expected, at that). Plus, he possesses this uncanny flexibility which is native in all those who are pilates-pros. Pirates learn pilates, how’s that?
(Read: Potential spoilers) Aside from Johnny Depp, everyone else seemed so blah. Kiera you’re hot but honey, you don’t look too happy when you were “reunited” with Orlando. What about you, Orlando? What happened? God, if you weren’t so yummy I would have hacked you senseless with a medieval axe. What’s up with all the Alas!-you’re-my-long-lost-father and I-will-save-you-because-daddy-you-were-gone-for-so-long-and-yet-I-love-you theme, which unconsciously alludes to Star Wars? And why can people like Kate Bosworth date him and rub torsos with Brandon Routh at the same time? The world is unfair! Give me back my money!
Yes, we see all the faces were looking for from this year’s input of Pirates of the Carribean (Dead man’s chest) but I had to ask really, why bring in Geoffrey Rush at the end of the movie when we all needed that slob from the start? Would have made things more interesting. I bet he would have blown the heads off those Cannibals, who are incidentally low in attention span, instead of those “pirates” running around the island. Come back and fight, cowards! Do that “Harr!” thing you do. I need sword fight. The only sword fight worth mentioning was when the three “men” in the movie fight over someone’s “heart”. It doesn’t sound right! Sword fight that’s not right? Okay, okay, if I have to give ‘em some credit, I did appreciate some of the antics. Kiera acting like a bimbo, throwing stones at Orlando and Jack and that (forgettable) other guy while they fight. The pirate and his gallivant eye, (as in gallivant), period. The fuzzy feeling you get when you see those giant tentacles flashing at the silver screen. Sitting next to this guy who laughs like a girl so you end up laughing too. Having to see Orlando’s precious, precious back get whipped. (I’m thinking S&M, whohoo!) And a whole lot more.
That’s Hollywood highway-robbing right there, folks. Oh, I can’t wait for the next installment.
Sequestering what you deserve
Two weeks ago, my friend Nate and I were bitching about the fact that Up Dharma Down didn’t get to play here in Davao. What’s the real story there, eh? Imagine two really excited music geeks, all dressed up for the occassion only to find a deserted autoshop. It doesn’t seem fair. Sure we didn’t pay for the tickets yet, but the point is, we actually went there. Some friends were complaining about it come Monday. One of them said that the sponsors back out on them. I don’t know how authentic that story is but if so, why the heck would the sponsors back out on them? It didn’t seem fair for a lot of us, and mind you, there were a lot of us.
Okay, I did get to see them when I was in Manila but like what I keep saying to people, there’s nothing like having it live. It’s like playing sports. You get all sweaty and energized that you come out of the gig jumpy or drained. Either way, it’s a good feeling.
So last week, I wallowed in self-pity by finally buying their album. I’m a bit partial to the tracks written in English, but songs like Pag-agos are too “involved” in my life to ignore. Heh. Next topic…
Disclaimer – Superman Spoilers: If Bryan Singer is as gay as they say he is, he probably worked too well with Brandon Routh. For me, Brandon plays Superman as an eye candy because that aside, we tend to raise some crucial questions about his heroic characterization, especially on this whole concept of being “man of steel” – which I incidentally, don’t get. Does it mean that if you’re a man of steal, so is your spandex costume? (You’ll realize that one of the most notable scenes from that movie is when Superman was being fired at by a gattling gun.) Why are there no holes on his costume after that? And why was it so easy to take it off when Superman was in the hospital? (The theory goes, there’s probably a zipper at the back.)
Singer hints to a sequel by introducing Superman’s son. To this, I can only say two things: 1.) He’s not too cute, and 2.) How did he happen? Let’s dwell on the second notion more since it calls for more immediate attention. Again, fans ask: How did Superman do it with Louis Lane? When I was in Manila, a friend posed a similar question: If Superman and Louis Lane made love, would it rip Louis Lane apart? It sounds plausible. To be a bit more imaginative about it, by the time Louis Lane’s “done”, Super’s probably looking back at her with a relaxed look. Then again, you’d have to consider the possibility that it takes a great amount of control for Superman to do his “normal” tasks, i.e. putting on his coat, hugging his mom or even, opening beer bottles. Perhaps, when they were making love he had taken the same conscious effort to keep that control. Ladies and gentlemen, this is where I insert my opinion that: if Superman can be as “normal” as he wants to be, and human beings transform into “monsters” when they make love; therefore, Superman tends to become a monster when he makes love. Yes, Louis Lane would have to be left in pieces by then.
Hands up, I loved that movie nontheless. How couldn’t you? Heroes were heroes, and villains were villains. It may not have Kevin Spacey’s oscar-winning performance in American Beauty but I still love the way he’s bratty in that movie. Parker Posey is read: snark shark. I love her. I really, really do. Kate Bosworth portrays a seemingly more pragmatic and more jaded Louis Lane. A lot of critics think it’s bad acting, I on the other hand say, in this case, bad acting works. She’s lousy and not too inclined to shrieking – isn’t that more realistic? (If I were Louis Lane at that stage, I’d probably think Superman was a jerk and would therefore start smoking.) And what about Routh? Brandon, Brandon Routh. I’ll burn our house down and slaughter an elephant just so he would save me. Whoops, Calamity.
I deserve entertainment, people.
www.kim.southisms.com
Mindanao film makes it to Cinemalaya 2008
Posted by Kim in Dailies, Events, Indie, Mindanao, Movies, Social Comment on July 10th, 2008
Photo courtesy of http://morofilm.blogspot.com
My friend Jun Macarambon, who co-wrote “A step for my dream” had their film officially selected in this year’s Cinemalaya, inevitably the most prestigious film festival in the Philippines. I haven’t seen the film myself, but the fact that it made it to the festival should keep everyone’s heads up. It was directed by Monalayn Labado, also a Mindanawon. Hopefully, their producer Teng Mangansakan II, also a documentary filmmaker from Mindanao, would allow to screen the said film for this upcoming Mindanao Film Festival for everyone to see. Lately, the influx of critical Mindanao filmmakers shaking the national and international scene have grown since, perhaps, Lav Diaz. Other films to watchout for that are made by a Mindanao filmmaker include Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s film (director of Huling Balyan ng Buhi) “Imburnal”, which was recently shot in some parts of Bankerohan and Dumalag. It is an entry for this year’s Cinema One Originals. Also, an advocacy film was recently made entitled, “Hunghong sa yuta” which has already run on local cinemas. Noticeably, most of our fresh breed of filmmakers have done stories on Mindanao, treating these stories with a fair sense of what Mindanao truly feels like.
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Bankeron, Cinema One Originals, Cinemalaya, Eddie Romero, Huling Balyan ng Buhi, Hunghong sa yuta, Imburnal, Jun Macarambon, Lav Diaz, Mindanao Film Festival, Mindanawon, Monalyn Labado, Sherad Anthony Sanchez, Teng Mangansakan
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