A Student and her Cinemas

So our Cinema Knights Week has just ended, and I got to watch 3 amazing independent films created by our talented Communication Arts students. First off, Cinema Knights Week is a week where at least 8 indie movie entries are shown in the different viewing halls around our campus. The Communication Arts students sell the movie tickets (PhP 25 each) in the lobby area where they've set up different themed booths based on their movie entry. Attached to the tickets are the scheduled viewing times of the films and which Hall it's scheduled to be shown.

Zinema Ticketssss.... O.O

This isn't exactly the first year I've gone to watch Letran's indie films, in fact the first time was last school year (when I was in my 2nd year in college...), where our Marketing professor all but offered incentives to her students who were willing to buy and watch her Communication Arts students' indie films. Not that I needed any additional incentives with my grade and all, but I guess curiosity won me over with what my fellow Letranites had to offer when it came to movie-making. So I guess you could say I was caught off guard. "Vindicaré" turned out to be like a murder mystery short with a who-done-it plotline, adding a sibling-rivalry gone wrong twist. Also "Rainbow X" came as a surprise with its psychological horror genre which even had me (... and ONLY me...) yelping at one scene, albeit embarrassingly. It basically focuses on the life of an award-winning indie actor who leads another life as a serial killer, killing off gays (... and it's not the happy kind...). The horror part? Well, he gets haunted by a bloody one (like literally!) throughout the film!

So backstory aside, that experience was the first time, and would surely not be the last. That's why this year I decided to watch 3 films; namely:

The teaser that started it all...

"The Cramming" is a comedic short which, as the title states, focuses on Ely and Kurt trying to meet their deadline. How they manage to do so is beyond me. Another one would be a romantic short with a surprising twist at the end entitled "Message Sent". It starts with an aspiring musician later finding a cellphone number in a public bus, who later becomes his textmate. Sparks fly while cellular loads are diminished (... unless you know, Unlitxt20 to 8888...).

Because not everything has to be said... <3

Lastly would be "Sabado", which is surprisingly about suicide (... or in a more euphemistic sense, life and death). 

... the washed-out poster should have been a warning...

It starts off with both our protagonists waking up and setting a timer, while they proceed to enjoy the little things in life together for the day. By the end of the day, they're at Jones Bridge with the guy saying something along the lines that, "It takes courage to Die, but it takes more than courage to Live." With the girl replying that she's "not afraid anymore" as they throw their respective timers off the bridge. The End. Yeah it was meant to be open-ended I suppose, as I later found out from the director during the Q & A part at the end of the film.

Cliffhangers aside, all in all it was an enjoyable experience which I wouldn't mind doing again next school year. Kudos to our upcoming movie directors and screen writers! ;) Arriba Letran! :D

Nothing Beats Stress Like School

So it's been a while since I took up blogging... Too many distractions have kept me from posting anything worthwhile I suppose... This day, however, marks the beginning of an end. It's what we call the day of "The Defense," and I'm probably in school right now. I had this post pre-scheduled in a funny attempt to mimic a last will and testament. Call this day Judgment Day.

In preparation for this day, with all the revised paperworks that needed to be done, last week was filled with pent-up emotional stress. It actually felt like a f---ing roller coaster of emotion.. going round and round, up and down the slopes... and other emotional garbages thrown your way. Although I blame it all on hormones and delayed period, that out of the blue spouted out in the middle of a very stressful and hectic week. Damn, never before have I ever felt such anger even at the littlest things that I somehow wished they'd spontaneously combust! I'm not generally led by emotions so it was pretty rough. It's like my head was full of the F word - for this, that, everyone, everything! Why can't they all just die out?!

It's pretty creepy, now that I look back on it a week later. Also had this really annoying incident at our local cinema that same week. I wished the ticket attendant's head would just burst off... It all started with me wanting to unwind for just a little bit. Since I've seem this cool trailer, I wanted to watch the movie in its entirety. Turns out it was an R-16 movie. Well, I'm 19 so that's not a problem, right? Wrong! The ticket lady cared too much that even after presenting my college org IDs (I don't walk around with my college ID), she was still hesitant to print out the tickets. D-UH?!??! That moment, I wanted to rip off her head! I was like, "What gives?!" Just because I'm not tall enough for my age doesn't give her the right to judge! (I previously got to watch an R-18 movie shown in the same week at the same cinema. What the F---?!)

On a lighter note, I should just pray for good results for our "defense" today. I wish and hope for at least a passing mark. I guess stress won't end here, and I'll probably encounter more stress later on in life. That's part of growing up. Just like what my mom always says, "Pray for everything that is not within your control." I guess that's what I'll do... pray for the strength to carry on, pray for wisdom in all my decisions, and pray for more than enough faith to know that at the end of the day, everything will be just fine. ^_^

Talking Back & Dying at the Same Time?

Well, well, well... Look who decided to come back to blogging? Oh that's right, it's me. So yeah, I'm technically back from my 8 month hiatus, though I don't know for how long... But really, the reason why I'm back to blogging is because I realized something. Something so utterly life-changing, it boggled my mind... This realization came to me in the form of a book. Yes, because of all the books that I have read, it suddenly came to me that I had only "reviewed" ONE book here in my blog... Don't believe me? You could always click the "Book Review" tag at the bottom of this post, you know!

So yeah, I guess that's one of the reasons why I'm back for the mean time... I should probably do more book reviews than movie reviews... Hmmm... So! Back to the matter at hand! What particular book will I be blogging about, you ask? Well it's actually a local book, published by PSICOM Publishing, and guess what, this book has recently been adapted into a movie! (Which is actually another reason why I decided to blog again...) But let's concentrate on the book first:

"Talk Back & You're Dead!" by Alesana Marie

There's two of them! @.@

This is the first book of the trilogy, and for all it's worth, the book has also been divided into two parts.

The whole gist of the first book was quite simple, "Poor little rich girl falls in love with a bad boy". So here we've got our main protagonist, Miracle Samantha Perez, and our male lead, Timothy Odelle Pendleton, a.k.a. TOP. Sam's your all-around-good-girl type of gal, she's beautiful, smart and rich. Though her almost perfect world will come crashing down once she meets TOP. Completely Sam's opposite, TOP is your all-around-bad-boy, sure he's said to be roguishly handsome as well as rich, but he is also a "gang" leader. Yeah, I know, the whole story is cliché, but I was expected some action-packed kind-of story when I read this synopsis: 

"May nakilala na ba kayong (napakagwapo) nakakatakot na nilalalang na may kakayahang maglabas ng laser beam sa mga mata kapag nagagalit? Eh ang maging boyfriend sya dahil sa (kabaliwan) kakaibang trip ng mga kaibigan mo?

At ang mapaligiran ng mga (hotties) hot-headed na katulad nya? Ang tahimik kong buhay ay biglang naging parang action movie, may mga habulan at fighting scenes.

Ako si Sam, isang perfect student, maganda matalino at mabait). Boyfriend ko si TOP, isang delinquent, gang leader at cussing machine.

Magtagal kaya kami kung pati teddy bear ay pinagseselosan nya rin?"

I guess it was my fault that I took the "laser beam" thing literally, as well as Sam's life suddenly becoming some kind of "action movie with chase and fighting scenes". Shouldn't have taken her word for it. But still, it was an amusing read in times when you just wanna kill some time. Although, I'd like to point out that book version Sam was a wonderful breath of fresh air. You don't get that much of head-strong females in local writing, so good job Ms. Alesana Marie! (Though Sam does have a bad habit of keeping secrets from TOP most of the time...)

In the end, since I've already read both halves of Book One, I couldn't help but buy the first half of Book Two already! Since there were a lot of loose ends and unresolved pasts left at the end of Talk Back & You're Dead, I've decided to keep on reading until the end of the series. (Support our local writers!)  

Overall, the book had a sense of continuity and a lot of romance; the many characters also had their own side stories going around, which were mostly believable, if not convenient. So I suggest, buy the book. (forget about the movie...) Read it if you plan to even watch the movie version because. Just because.

So now that I'm done babbling nonsense here, I do hope you guys wait for my next post. It's about the movie version. Until next time, cheerios!

It's FaBLUElous!

Due to my now busy schedule, since it's my midterms week, I just thought of taking a break from my monotonous routine of studying myself to oblivion. So I thought of looking at my blog posts and found out that I have yet to blog about the debut that I attended last year on the 30th of November!

Finally! I have something to post in the "Fashion Statements" section! Also, the theme for this party was White, Black and Blue, so I decided to go for the latter:

Told you it was faBLUElous! XD

I've also decided to partner it with silver accessories:

They've got nice studs... :3

Simple, yet elegant... ;D

Azures... @.@

Don't forget the manicure! ^_^

Also the pedicure! XD

The result....

I'm fabulous! XD

Another event fashionably attended and it's all thanks to "San Diego's Boutique" for my gown (again... ;D), it's located at Stall 2J-15, 11/88 Shopping Mall, Reina Regente cor. Felipe II St., Binondo Manila. My purse from SM Carriedo, a.k.a SM Quiapo. My shoes, from Isetann Carriedo. The jewelry set, which was a gift to my mom, is labled Cote d' Azur. My toes & nails were done at "Perfectly Polished", located in SM Manila; my hair was done at Ricky Reyes, located at the 2nd Flr. of Robinson's Manila.

Finally my make-up was again done by my mom, Rosyel Sawali. She sure is getting better in the "art of make-up" stuff.

I Want to Build a Snowman!

Because the holidays just about ended and it doesn't technically snow here in the Philippines, I've been left watch to Disney's Frozen, not once, but twice.

Wishing for a white Christmas...? @.@

Frozen is about two sisters, Elsa and Anna, whose bond is tested after a couple of unfortunate events. Elsa, who is the eldest of the two and also soon-to-be Queen of Arendelle, tries to hide her ice powers as she thinks it is a danger to everyone. Anna however tries her best to reach out to Elsa and even goes to great lengths to get her sister back when Elsa runs off to the snowy mountains in the North. There she meets mountain man, Kristoff, and his reindeer, Sven. Together with a talking snowman named Olaf, the group embark on a mission to get Elsa back and unfreeze the eternal winter that Elsa accidentally unleashed.

I guess I just couldn't get enough of the thought of winter and snow and Frozen really did a great job in giving me the chills, especially during the song "Let It Go" where Elsa magically creates her Ice Castle and beautifully transforms into the "Snow Queen" that the movie was based on.

My newly-found addiction doesn't end there however, since I discovered "Jelsa"! You know, Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians and our beloved Snow Queen, Elsa! I absolutely adore this couple ever since I saw this image on Facebook:

The fan-art that started it all... :3 

Now that I think about it, I don't remember making a review about the movie, Rise of the Guardians. I guess it's high time that I should! Until my next movie review, have fun!

I couldn't resist posting this too...! XD

Holiday Blowout!

Happy New Year everyone! Yes I know, it's been at least 2 months since I last blogged and I'm still in that "holiday break hangover", even though school just about started yesterday. But still, my blog haunts me with this feeling of abandonment, and so I'm back.

Though honestly, I'm not in the mood as of this moment, I'd rather share my humble holiday meal during this last Christmas. I'm sure you've all got a "table-full" more than this but nothing ever beats my grandma's special spaghetti!

It's special... :3

Oh, and don't forget another favorite dish of mine, lechon kawali! It's actually just roasted pork chopped into this tiny bits of goodness, but it's definitely a bestseller during the holiday season.

Chop! Chop! XD

So at least you've now got an idea what my holidays were filled with... Food! :D

A Writer's Block Bonus...

Lo and behold! The ever negligent blogger has come back from whatever "hot-pot-hell-of-a-hole" she managed to get herself into this sem in her college career. Speaking of said "ever-negligent" blogger, I am pleased to inform you that I have safely survived my "shockingly" demanding semester in college, though I'm quite disappointed with my grades I'll tell you that...

As for the above mentioned "bonus", I'll be presenting to you a double movie review! *cricket sounds* Not much of  any excitement there I see... -__-"

If  you are still reading this far into my post however, then you must brace yourself; this film is heart-breaking. "Alagwa" is the title of this indie film which means "Breakaway" and is directed by Ian Loreños.

It's heart-breaking... :'(

The film centers on single dad, Robert Lim (Jericho Rosales), and his son Brian (Bugoy Cariño). At first we are given a glance of the father-son dynamic, with Robert being a strict father who tries to discipline his stubborn son, Brian. Although Robert tries to make up for his strictness by taking his son window-shopping at the mall. In one of their trips however, Robert fails to keep an eye on Brian and ends up losing him. What's a parent to do when your child suddenly ends up missing?

In the end, the storyline had a nice concept of a father-son relationship, albeit a solemn one. It also gives us insight on what really goes on when it comes to human trafficking, and it is definitely NOT a joking matter. Reality check: This is not a Hollywood film wherein Liam Neeson  stars in "Taken" or whatever similar film you've probably watched in the past. I did tell you to brace yourselves right?

So now that I've probably scared the lot of you off, let's now proceed to the lighter part of Philippine cinema! Let there be "romantic" lights! *clap clap*

Like I said, the next film will be "lighter" in the sense that it will be heart-warming, with a little heart-breaks on the side, but you'll surely get over it once you watch this:

Rain and all its romantic elements... :">

The film stars Bea Alonzo as Cat and Dingdong Dantes as Wacky who are bestfriends but are too stubborn to admit that they love each other as "more-than-friends" (cliché right?). Here comes a younger man named David (Enrique Gil), who is obviously interested in Cat and is NOT afraid to show it! With Cat being tired of waiting for Wacky, finally let herself be swept off her feet by David? Can Wacky live with that thought in mind? (...he obviously can't but hey, I want my synopsis to be cliché too you know! :p)



Honestly, I couldn't help but cry in some parts of the movie since my right eye was hurting (... literally speaking...), and also because the dialogue was well written. The confrontation scene between Cat and Wacky struck a nerve in my part (... I feel for you Cat, I really do... ), and the break-up scene! That was ironically the best break-up I've ever scene on the big screen! I mean, come on, how can a guy still look lovable even while he's "proposing" to break up? You'll probably understand me after you watch this movie.

Until next time that I'm utterly bored and restless! XD See ya! :D