tala @ so-phobic

… is the one in our minds. The one created by our imaginations as we flip from one page to the next, from book 1 to 6 (and soon, 7).

I watch the movies out of curiosity. I watch for the special effects. I don’t go in as a purist, because, well, that defeats the purpose of enjoying a Hollywoodized book. But I must say, every single Harry Potter movie has been a disappointment as a whole.

I do love me some Luna Lovegood. And some Umbridge, Gary Oldman, and Alan Rickman. Thank the gods for these fantastic actors. And all the Neville scenes. But I love them as separate parts. As a whole, the movie was a letdown. The special effects were common. And Sir Ian McKellen should have accepted the Dumbledore role after Richard Harries died. He didn’t have to worry about being typecasted for wizard roles. He’s already proven himself as an actor. Sayang.

Oh, and the dude who plays Ron was actually good in this movie. Hermione’s lines were just wrong. She sounded like she was doing an infomercial several times: “This is the Room of Requirement. It appears when it’s needed. But wait, there’s more! Call now and you get a free lesson on producing a Patronus from the Boy Who Lived.” Scriptwriters: Stop stating the obvious and take us into the adventure!

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I’ve marked my calendar for this. I hope to see batch mates and school mates at the CCP.

PISAY
by: AURAEUS SOLITO
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Amidst the chaos of Martial Law in this Third World country in the 1980s, six teenagers in the top high school for the sciences discover themselves as they go through the joys and pains of adolescence. They were the top two hundred students from all over the Philippines who passed the examination for the Philippine Science High School, which was created for the purpose of giving an education highly enriched in the Sciences to exceptionally gifted Filipino children. Selected from the best and brightest from all over the country, they endure college-level courses in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics from their sophomore year onwards. Those who can make it are hailed as the future science and technology leaders of the New Republic, those who don’t are deemed unfortunate victims of natural selection. They all learn however that they are neither isolated from the real world, nor are they exempted from living real lives. They find the world outside, erupting into the People Power revolution in 1986 against the Marcos dictatorship, being replicated within the school as they struggle to graduate, contend with teachers, classmates, family, school officials, and a new classification to segregate students meeting the high standards of excellence from those who do not.

The film will be shown at the Cinemalaya 2007 Film Festival on July 20-29, 2007 at the CCP.

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At some point you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out; they fence you in. Life is messy, that’s how we’re made. So you can waste your life drawing lines or you can live your life crossing them. But there are some lines that are way too dangerous to cross. Here’s what I know. If you’re willing to throw caution to the wind and take a chance, the view from the other side? Is spectacular.

My personal favorite:

At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don’t really expect it. It’s like one day you realize that the fairy tale is slightly different than your dream. The castle, well it may not be a castle. And it’s not so important that it’s happily ever after – just that it’s happy right now. See, once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you. And once in a while, people may even take your breath away.

Communication. It’s the first thing we really learn in life. Funny thing is, once we grow up, learn our words and really start talking the harder it becomes to know what to say. Or how to ask for what we really need.

Not all wounds are superficial. Most wounds run deeper than you can imagine. You can’t see them with the naked eye. And then there are the wounds that take us by surprise. The trick with any kind of wound or disease is to dig down and find the real source of the pain - and once you’ve found it, try like hell to heal that sucker.

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Warning: Contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.

2 Sir Ian McKellen films in 1 week! Yay! This fangirl is satisfied. The movie is the worst of the trilogy. The dialogue was cheesy, there was hardly any musical score. My favorite scenes were all the Professor X - Magneto ones, the original Brokeback duo. (Wait, is Patrick Stewart gay?) The opening credits were snapshots from the comics like usual, plus some scenes of cells with midichlorians. Oh wait, wrong movie.

At the top of my head, these were the things I liked about the film, and also some highlights:

• The snarking of Charles and Erik during the start of the film, before entering Jean Grey’s house and while witnessing her powers. Sidenote: According to my seatmate, a comic-canon guy, young Jean was only a telekinetic at that time. She shouldn’t have been able to read Charles’ and Erik’s minds. The snarking during the parallel scene where they both come to the Grey house, this time for Dark Phoenix.
• Magneto telling Pyro off after Charles’ death. Pyro mentions something about wanting to kill Professor X before (during X2 I think) and Magneto tells him that Charles has made one of the greatest contributions to mutantkind. I think Magneto is one of the more realistic villains. He recognizes the skill and genius of Charles, eventhough they are enemies. And they are enemies only in means, I think, since they started out with the same end dream.
• In lieu of the obligatory car-chase-scene-in-a-Hollywood-blockbuster, we have Juggernaut crashing through walls, chasing Shadowcat (who walks through walls). Very entertaining! Ellen Page, the actress who plays Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat, is pretty cute too.
• Angel spreading his wings. You can see this in the trailer. Beautiful wings!
• Magneto “picking up” the Golden Gate Bridge. Brilliant scene! Sorely lacking in score, but the camera work was great. Magneto breaks the Golden Gate Bridge into halves, moves one half and lands it unto Alcatraz, with the line: “Charles always wanted to build bridges”. Spectacular!
• Magneto getting 4 shots of the “cure”, taking away his mutant powers, making him human. Okay, I was really shocked at this scene. I couldn’t help yelling “No!” in the cinema. I actually anticipated it when the exchange among Logan, Storm, and Beast happened - them eyeing the syringes. The part where Magneto stops Logan was fairly predictable too. But I still can’t believe it happened! That’s blasphemy! (LOL) Magneto CAN’T lose his powers! Noooo!
• Professor X dies. I have no problems with Xavier dying. He’s died like what, 3 times in comic-canon? He’s the X in X-Men, he has super mind powers! He can leave a part of his soul in a horcrux! Oh wait, wrong fandom…
• …or maybe NOT. Stick around till after the credits for the appearance of the horcrux.
• The ending scene. Human Magneto is at the park, facing a table with a chess board and pieces laid out, but with no opponent, since Charles has gone kapput. He holds out his hand, and, the chess piece moves. The scene flashes so quickly and the camera is at a very clever angle. Did he push the piece slightly with his finger, or are his powers back? Of course, every one believes that he still has his powers. Maybe they should have tried out more camera angles, and picked the one that obscures what really happened. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the syringes were actually empty (some philosophical we can’t do this to a fellow mutant reasoning from Storm, Logan and Beast). After all, there was nothing mutant in Magneto’s physical form, so any change wouldn’t manifest physically (unlike Mystique’s). Whether his powers come back or not doesn’t have anything to do with the Magneto spin-off though. The film will be about his past.

There will be an X4. Fox has confirmed it. It will have a different story arc though.

Jane and I were gushing about Iceman all throughout the film. We thought that it was the guy who plays Troy Vandergraff on Veronica Mars. Look at how similar they look:

It turns out that they’re twins! Shawn Ashmore plays Iceman while his twin (older by a minute) Aaron is Troy!

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Kristen Bell gets Punk’d: KB on YouTube. Her reactions are so Veronicaish. The facial expressions she makes are so funny. I’m a fangirl, lol.

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