movies and mito

i watched a lot of movies this past week...

raising helen
bourne supremacy
house of flying daggers
suite habana
el viaje de carol
wimbledon
fahrenheit 9/11

...three of which i watched in one day! shet. what's funny pa is that the three films i watched (house of flying daggers, suite habana, and el viaje de carol) aren't in english. 'house..' is in mandarin and the latter two are in spanish. so you could just imagine what i felt like after watching all three, i felt like i was in a different country. i was practically in a movie house for six hours that day.

anyway, just some short comments on each film:

raising helen
absolutely disappointing. kate hudson and joan cusack are great but over-all, the film doesn't deliver. i felt as if the funny parts are forced and it turns out not to be funny at all. character development also sucks big time. i mean, the whole point of 'raising' helen wasn't established and it's the same with the other characters especially with the teenage girl.

bourne supremacy
a lot of people got annoyed with the cinematography but i think it's great. the whole 'nakakahilo'/hand held camera shots are apt for the film since it shows how jason bourne is basically living in a confused world. i also love how the film doesn't really make the characters look good. make-up is kept at a minimum so you have this feeling that you're watching real people play the roles. i also like how jason bourne isn't mala-james bond with all the gadgetry. para siyang silent utot, simple at tahimik pero ang lakas ng tama. oh diba. how's that for a character review? however, like what a friend of mine said, the film isn't bad but it isn't good either. it probably could have been better if it was done in a different way with a different director.

house of flying daggers
i'm a big admirer of ang lee's 'crouching tiger' and zhang yimou's 'hero' so my expectations for this film were a quite a lot. this is yimou's second martial arts epic but whatever you say, it is simply inferior to 'crouching..' and 'hero'. the movie has great cinematography, great fight scenes, great actors, great portrayals but unfortunately, it isn't a great movie. it just lacks that necessary 'oomph' to be called a masterpiece.

suite habana
the movie for those endowed with an ocean of patience. you will not hear a single dialogue in this film. i'm not kidding. the only words you hear from this film are those that come from the radio or tv and the background music. other than that, it's all just scenes of different people living their lives in poor havana. however, call me weird but i kinda liked this movie. i loved how it ended and i loved how well every character still 'told' their story. the whole point of the film is how simple people live simple albeit hard lives but still have the time to dream their dreams. (by the way, the characters aren't mute. they just really don't speak in the entire film).

quote from a song sung in the film: "your time is a butterfly. like a white ship. thin and nervous"

el viaje de carol
nice and sweet film about this girl who comes back to her native spain after growing up in new york. it's about how the protagonist, carol, 'discovers'. period. discovery alone can tell so many great stories and in this film, it does. well-made and well-told with effective humor and the necessary childhood romance. this is one of the films i recommend everyone to watch.

wimbledon
blah, blah, blah. i used to watch tennis a lot, and that includes wimbledon matches. a lot of the things in the movie are inaccurate and for a movie entitled after one of the greatest tournaments in a season, it just doesn't live up to it. and weird din ng love story ng dalawa, i mean, that was it? could've been better in so many ways.

fahrenheit 9/11
met all my expectations. michael moore is a genius and bush is an asshole. hehe. and even though i know that some of the footage in this film are taken out of context, i find it to be a great example of what excellent story-telling should be.

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the spanish film festival runs until the 17th of october at greenbelt 1. you have 14 films to choose from and it will only cost you P30. c'mon! it's about time filipinos get to watch non-american films.

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kwento of the week:

my friends watched the recent uaap finals and there was a time, before the game i think, that the dlsu crowd was chanting 'jologs! jologs!' obviously against feu. may mga ginagawa din kasing ka-kupalan feu eh so gumanti na lang yung la salle. anyway, while dlsu was chanting 'jologs!', this friend of mine, mito, turned around and faced the la salle crowd at upper a. tapos putting on a serious-and-affected face kuno, he said something like "guys! ano ba! ang sama niyo naman!" ... a moment of silence after ... then he suddenly chants with matching clenched fist and patawa face: "mahirap! mahirap! mahirap!". the nearby crowd bursts in laughter.

disclaimer: for all those who know mito, we all know he didn't really mean it. pampatawa lang talaga and up to now, i still laugh at the kwento. eh pati nga yung mga nanay na malapit dun natawa rin daw eh. haha!