Let's Talk Movies: Grave of the Fireflies (DVD)

Watched Grave of the Fireflies last night with Obi. I've had a copy of the movie for a long while now, before Ondoy hit Manila, to be exact, and I'm really sorry I had to wait this long to watch the movie.

The story takes place during the carpet bombing of Japan. It tells the story of brother and sister, Seita and Setsuko, as they struggled to survive the war on their own.

I'm ashamed to say I cried a river watching this movie. I don't think anybody with half a heart will be able to stop themselves from feeling something while watching this movie.

For a young boy to try to protect his younger sister from devastating news, have to endure the constant nagging of a supposedly nice aunt, and fend for himself and his younger sister is just too much for a kid to handle. I couldn't help but feel for Seita all throughout the movie.

It just hurt a lot when it got to the part where Setsuko died. Even in her delirious, near-death state, she thought of Seita. She made mud riceballs and offered them to Seita. Although Seita brought nutritious food for Setsuko that fateful evening, it was too late for her and she died.

Watching Seita sleeping beside the already dead Setsuko was just heartbreaking. He hugged his sister as if she'd still feel the warmth of his body. He wasn't crying. As if all the recent events had made him numb. I don't think I'd ever want to get to that point.

Honestly, Grave of the Fireflies is a very depressing movie, but it's too good to not watch. It teaches you a lot of things about love and the effects of war. I was thinking if I'd have been any different if I were in Seita's shoes, but the thought depresses me.

Anyway, I found out that there had been two live-action versions of this movie. One was in 2005, at the 60th anniversary of the end of WW2, and in 2008. I found a link to the 2005 version and I'll probably watch it later when I get the chance. I'll get tissues to make sure I don't make a mess when I cry again. Haha.

Thoughts: On Writing About Movies

It's been a while since I last wrote about a movie I recently saw. Honestly, it's been a while since I've been in a theater to actually watch a movie. Since my last movie post about the unedited version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine back in April and that short post about 10,000 B.C. last June, I don't think I've ever written anything closely related to a movie.

Truth be told, I miss it. Writing about movies, I mean.

I may not be that big a movie buff, but I love watching movies. It's sad, though, that recent budget constraints don't really allow for much extra cash for movie tickets and a bucket of popcorn. I do keep up with movies via streaming sites on the internet, but it still doesn't beat being in the movie houses.

Let's see, I've watched a lot of recently aired movies, like:

• Jennifer's Body
• Paranormal Activity
• The Ugly Truth
• Orphan

I've got a good copy of The Surrogates and a cam-copy of 2012 waiting for me at home. I got a copy of The Echo from the office torrent pool, but it turned out to be overdubbed in French so it's pretty much useless. I had Obi look up a copy of Ponyo for movie night this Saturday, too.

Oh yeah, I forgot that we watched 500 Days of Summer in the movie house a week or so back. But alas, I never wrote about it. I might. When I've time. Maybe next time.

Right now, I just thought I needed to let the thought out here. Need to start working freelance again. Toodles.

--edit--

I correct myself. Apparently, upon checking, I have written some piece about Star Trek and Angels & Demons in between my X-Men Origins and 10,000 B.C. reviews. But nonetheless, I still miss it. :(

This Will Be News To Many...

I just bought 2 dresses from one of my officemates. The first one is a plaid halter dress that fits me quite comfortably.

Call it impulse buying, if you will, but I'd like to look at it as helping a friend's business.

Obi will definitely scold me for this. He might even say that the dresses will end up exactly like the one I bought about half a year ago - hanging in my closet never to be used again. My other friends would probably laugh at the thought of me walking around wearing an actual dress. They're just not used to see me in a dress.

Heck, I'm not used to wearing a dress! Period!

I think I'm going to try to control my appetite and try to lose weight.

Again with the diet plan. *I roll my eyes at myself*

Yeah. Obi and I have tried and failed on numerous occasions. The most successful one appears to be the weight-loss bet we did before we got together. We didn't even see it to the end. But sure as hell I lost about 5 to 7 pounds in that bet. I actually started fitting back into my old clothes then.

But that was then.

I wonder if I can keep my resolve to eat less this time. We'll see. :) I'll be posting my start weight and waist line once I get the chance to actually weigh in and measure how wide I've become. I'm going to try to look for some tricks to lose the pounds the safe way.

Well, anyway. Any ideas on how I can lose weight and get fit before December 20 of this year?

Rant: The Good Times Just Keep On Rolling

Can you feel the sarcasm? Seriously.

Most people know that I just got out of one calamity when I endured Ondoy with Bruce and a couple of other friends.

Just as things are starting to pick up, another mishap happens. I get scammed.

Yes. Call me an idiot. I got scammed. I think I'm going to change my name to Jinxed or something.

What happened? Well, some impostor texted me saying that he sent a balikbayan package to my aunt with our names on the items. Told me that he got a roaming sim so that it's cheaper to text.

Naturally, since I know that my uncle was abroad, I immediately felt at ease. He offered a proposition about how Pinoys in Australia were buying load for their roaming sims at double the price. He said I could make money by selling load through him.

Thinking that it was my uncle, I agreed. He said that he had a buyer waiting for five, 500-peso load cards to use. He told me he was going to send the money immediately via Western Union once the buyer hands over the money. That sounded good enough for me.

To cut the story short, I got the dude the load and sent him the PINs. When I got home (at Bruce's house) I saw that my uncle was online. I asked him how to claim money via Western Union. I can't describe how shaken I was when my uncle asked me where the money was coming from. I was even about to tell him that he was supposed to be sending me money.

Instead, I asked him if he had a roaming sim. He told me it was too expensive to maintain so he never got one. The funny thing was, the dude pretending to be my uncle was still texting me to find a way to produce ten, 500-peso Globe load cards and five more 500-peso Smart load cards.

I told him to pay me up first so that I can use the money to buy the load for him. But he wouldn't agree. I stopped texting him back and tried contacting Smart to have the loads cancelled so that the impostor can't use it.

Unfortunately, no one was answering.

I tried going for Globe's chat support. Unfortunately, their chat client sucked big time. The representative didn't even see my messages. She just left thinking I wasn't replying at all. I tried calling their hotline to report the scammer's number, but the signal seemed to be too erratic. One second you can hear the dude loud and clear, the next second you can't even hear white noise. I'm guessing the dude kept putting me on mute.

The bottom line is, I'm an idiot. I'm going to file for a name change. You can now call me Moron.

Thoughts: On the Coming "-Ber" Months

August is almost up. Who would've thought 2009 would go by so fast? By next week, it'll already be September. And you know what that means, right? The "-ber" months are back in town. Christmas songs will be playing on the radio, people will start hunting for presents to avoid the holiday rush.

But for me, I got a lot to look forward to in the coming months. For one, my mom's coming over from the province to visit me and my brother. I know it hasn't been a month since she left Manila from her last visit, but it's nice to have her around.

I'll take her to see the new house Bruce and I are renting. This is where she will be staying when she visits Manila the next time around. She's also probably going to see the room my brother's renting. He finally decided to move out of his comfort zone and venture on living alone.

A funny side story, though. My relatives are more worried about him living on his own that they were for me when I left the nest. Sino ba sa amin ang lalake at sino ang babae? Haha.

Anyway, my mom's probably going to stay here when she comes over for All Saints Day. Although I think that it's probably better if we have my dad's remains cremated so she won't have to tire herself with the 7-hour trip to Manila just to visit the cemetery.

What's I'm really excited about is the month of December. I've had confirmation from my freelance boss that he'll be shipping over his old Pentax K100D to me early December as my year-end bonus. It will come complete with an 18-55m, a 50(or 55?)-200mm, and an 18-200mm lens. I'll finally have a dslr of my own. No more borrowing the D100 from Obi or worrying about when I'd get the money to have my films processed. Haha.

Then again, there's also the 13th month pay (which, frankly I don't think will amount to much because of my absences) which I'll use to buy a new cellphone. I'm torn between buying a cellphone or using a big bulk of that money to pay off credit card debts. Haha. Bruce will kill me if he reads about this.

I almost forgot the highlight of my December - Obi and I are celebrating our 3rd year together!!! Yay! I'm hoping it doesn't end there, though. I'm looking forward to more shoot trips with Obi come 2010.

The last leg of the year is looking good for me. I hope it sticks. Hehe.

Thoughts: On Being Insecure

It's been a while since I posted a rant. Here goes something that's really eating me inside out right now...

I've always thought that my difference made me unique. But I can't deny the fact that it makes me paranoid and jealous at times, too. Why do I say so? Here's why:

We went out drinking, me, the bf, and some other friends. We moved over to a friend's house because there were free drinks and I thought I was going to work there. As the night progressed, things were going as usual. Booze, stories, poking fun at a specific person in the drinking group. This is how our regular drinking sessions go about.

Then out of the blue, the bf comments, referring to the host, "____, gumagamit ka ba ng Chapstik? (___, do you use Chapstik?)" Surprised, the host answered, "Yeah, why?" Jerk-O asks, "WTF? Baket ka nakatingin sa lips niya? (Why are you staring at her lips?)" To which he answered, "Wala lang, it's shiny."

It was a pretty valid question that unnerved me. I didn't add to it in fear of embarrassing the host. It is, after all, her place that we crashed.

I did, however, see a change in the host's face that kind of said she felt conscious at the offhanded comment and the fact that he was, indeed, looking at her lips. She shifted topics. I felt uneasy, but didn't say a word. Everybody dropped the topic and went on drinking and listening to music from the host's iPod. I wanted to ask the bf, "Onga, ba't ka nakatingin sa lips ni ___? (Yeah, why were you looking at ___'s lips?)" But I kept my mouth shut.

A bit later, the host starts dancing sexily, showing off her dancing prowess. I find myself unable to stare at her dancing for long periods of time. Jerk-O starts focusing on the SkyFlakes Brute brought in as pulutan, to avoid watching her dance. But the bf focuses on her dancing - smiling, watching her sway her full hips to the music.

When it was time to go, another remark came out of his mouth. He said, "Marunong pala sumayaw si ___ (I didn't know ___ can dance)." I was pretty surprised at the discovery as well, so I said, "Onga e (Yeah)." But that nagging thought still won't go away:

Why were you staring at her red lips and watching her throughout her dance?

Should I be worried?

I don't know if I should ask you. You might think I'm shallow. What the heck?! I probably am.

So I'm not as rich, pretty, classy, and graceful like the others. I'm insecure, so sue me.

I actually need to be up by 730am so I can pick up my paycheck at the office. But since I'm not done with one article, I can't go to sleep yet. Then there's the debut we need to go to in the afternoon, the gig in Highstreet, and then my brother's move to help with on Sunday (tomorrow). What the fuck?!

Thoughts: On Writing "For Dummies"

I like taking photos. I just haven't been doing it because budget constraints don't really allow me to set aside money for film processing and stuff. But I remember back then when I was still learning the ropes of photography.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm no professional, but I do know that I know a thing or two about photography. But because it's been a while since I last held my camera, I thought it was time I brushed up on the basics again.

So I looked for a photography guide for dummies (that's basically what I am) and came across this site. The title of the article was Digitial Photography for Dummies, so I gave it a read. Thank God for what little photography terminologies I retained because if I really were a beginner, I'd probably get lost in the article.

Why, you may ask? Because he goddamn crammed everything into an article. The explanations were simple, I'd agree, but passing through all those different aspects of photography will definitely confuse the uninitiated.

Shouldn't writing for dummies be more concentrated on tackling one topic before moving on to another, as opposed to just throwing simple explanations of stuff in, hoping something would stick?

Bah. It's probably just me. Do give the link a click and tell me what you think of it. I know we're pretty much going to add to the page hits this dude is getting, but I just want to know if I'm the only one who thinks his article isn't really something a photography newbie would appreciate.