Movie binge

Since last weekend, we've been movie binging, mixed Tagalog and English movies. Here are my take on some of them:

'Sigaw' (Richard Guttierez, Angel Locsin, Isa Calzado and Jo Marie Yllana; I heard there's going to be a Hollywood version translated as 'Echo' which actually literally translates to 'Alingawngaw' but 'Sigaw' is really 'Shout' - poetic license) -- I like almost everything about it: the story, the cast, cinematography and set (really great condominium hall and unit, reminds me of all those scary Japanese games I used to review). Well except for one thing which soured the whole thing for me -- the way the story was told. The unfolding of events, the sequence didn't work for me, it dragged for too long and revealed things that allowed you to second guess everything. It's a shame, if not for that, it would have been a stellar movie, but I like it all the same.

'Sukob' is a film starring Kris Aquino and Claudine Barretto on the other hand was very effective in the scare factor for me. Set and costumes were not so extraordinary but at least it was able to surprise me. What totally ruined the movie was the ala Sadako scene when Kris' husband was killed, total rip off. I am not sure what the translation for 'Sukob' is, if there is any but it means that two events, specifically a wedding and death in the family (a combination of a death and a wedding or two weddings) happened within the same year. Filipinos have this belief that 'sukob' can be quite unlucky so relatives usually avoid marrying within one year of each other or marrying within the year a death occured.

'Shake, Rattle and Roll 8 (Keempee de Leon, Manilyn Reynes)' - like a lot of Pinoys I know, I still have fond memories of the first 'Shake, Rattle and Roll' which featured actor-turned-politician Herbert Bautista who played the young, lanky lad who finally killed the mananggal. I say fond, because for us, it was one of the best movies featuring creatures from Philippine folk lore like manananggals (a creature that looks like a beautiful woman during the day but at night, it turns into an ugly monster with bat-like-wings. Before it takes flight, it's body separates into two, around the midsection. The upper half flies off in search of victims. Any human would do but it has a special liking to newborns). Anyway, 'Shake, Rattle and Roll' is usually a 3-part movie, or 3 independent stories in one. In version 8, I only liked the third one, 'LRT' where a group of youths (minus the religious doomsday fanatic) were trapped in an LRT station, looking for a way out and home. It had a 'Langoliers' feel that I was so taken with it... the disappointint part was when the monster, of course there's a monster, was revealed. Aside from being blind, it might as well have been kidnapped from 'The Village'.

'300' - finally, I saw the it! Great effects, lots of eye candy. Makes me want to read Greek mythology again.

'Failure to Launch' - I just love Matthew Mcconaughey and his sexy drawl. It's a light movie for a stay-in Thursday night that had me laughing real good.

Ena lent me her whole collection last weekend so I have LOTS more to watch. So happy. Sigh... movies... the balm to a tired mind. Perfect world to escape into. All Filipino films came from Mr.A and Ms.M.

On the big screen:

Ratatouille - love it. But why does it have to be rats? I know it's the world thing -- rats and kitchen are worlds apart. they shouldn't even be together. Yuckie, especially the scene when they were all crawling on the kitchen and... and... and... it's just yucki.

Rush Hour 3- nothing to say here except I love Jackie.

Sicko - you should all watch this. Michael Moore is funny, touching and brimming with information. Gives a whole new insight in the land of milk and honey.

That dark place

I've seen this place before,
It's the dungeon lovers fear,
Where hearts are wrung dry,
broken into tiny pieces.
Pain. Sweet pain. Don't let it start.
But I walked in. Eyes open. Arms wide.
In the mid I stood to be slain.
Waiting. Waiting. And I cry.

PhotoFriday: Unfinished

Tunnel Ride

Harassment equals lashing

I just got this email from a friend of mine...

--

Anyway, I want to share with you guys my experience in Rashidiya Police Station yesterday afternoon. Backgrounder... There is this Indian man in my neighboring office(as in next door to mine). He is the owner of this company, *Beep Beep* Technologies. Many months ago, last year actually, we were on speaking terms pa and my office door was always open. He would drop by and chit-chat, talk about his business, blah-blah-blah. I never thought that it was other than innocent or a polite and friendly gesture on his part...and of course, on my part, it was never more than being a polite, courteous Filipina in the neighboring company. Well, one day, he decided to shower me with praises and compliments. ..i simply said thank you but was wondering, what in the world is he up to? The conversation came to a point that he was insisting for me to allow him to touch my hair (kadiri!) I said, "No!" and glared at him....persistent, undoub! tedly as most Indians are, he begged me...repeatedly saying please to let him touch my hair(@#+*).. .My response was an adamant, "NO!". He reasoned out that for sure, I let my friends touch my hair....I replied with, "precisely, the key word is 'friends'... which you are not! After much more pleading from him...I told him to get out of the office and bombarded him with acerbic remarks such as, I was not created by God to pamper his desires...and it is not my obligation to give in to your whims...so forth....until I shouted at him to get out, I am very, very pissed at your words and your actions...leave and never talk to me.

Many months after, during the interim, he kept on apologizing to me whenever we would come across each other in the hallway, I accepted the apology and extracted a promise that nothing like that would ever occur again. I kept my distance and never chit-chatted with him just courteous responses to his greetings... .Until this month of August, he's suddenly become brazen enough to borrow stuff from me....in fact, even calling me on my cell phone asking whether i was going to office or on vacation because he hasn't seen me for some time....my replies were always polite but laced with frostiness.. .The constant borrowing of inane items such as pencil sharpener and the dust pan was not bothering me...it was when he would return these items and saunters in our office as if he belonged there and even if I tell him to just put it by the door, he would walk all the way to the interior of our office and put the borrowed item...i guess where he thinks it b! elongs and repeatedly knocking on my door, on our glass pane and calling me on my mobile...to let him in the office so he can return the sharpener... .I didn't bother opening our office door and answering his call because I told him already that the sharpener is his and no point in returning to me.....Yesterday morning, upon arriving, he repeatedly knocked on my door and tried to open the door, but I locked it....and when the secretary from upstairs came to my office to use my fax..he confidently breezes in the room and I immediately raised my voice and asked him, "what do you want from me?...why do you persistently knock on our door and window and you keep on bothering me on my personal mobile?" His only reply was, I wish to return the sharpener I borrowed from you, my friend" I told him...no, this is not as simple as that and what you are doing is harassing me at all times of the day....I told him to get out and never ever set foot in our office again! and never knock on our door or window. He stepped out without a word.

A few hours later, while our Arabic engineer was with me in the office and our office door wide open, this Indian guy, saunters in and proceeds to shout at me and points his finger at me (in short, guys, dinuro-duro ako).....saying. ..you do not let your irritation with me show and embarass me in front of other people....blah- blah-blah. ...don't forget the favors I did for you.....at the point where he was pointing his finger at me and screaming at me, my ears were already getting hot( nagpapanting ang tenga ko)...i too, raised my voice and asked him, what favors he was talking about...he said...i bought you cigarettes.. .if not for my anger, i would have laughed out loud. I replied to him, my voice dripping with sarcasm, that was not a favor, if you recall this, you were the one who presented and offered to buy me cigarettes, so don't try to make it appear, that I ask favors from you...I never have and I never will. He told me to listen to ! him...to which I said, no, you shut up and you listen....(to emphasize my point, I slammed my cellphone on my desk with such force..buti na lang, chipanga ang fone ko...) and told him, Get out right now. Stop this nonsense or I will call the police. Our engineer, seeing that I was about to stand up and go near this screaming Indian man...ushered the guy out and tried to calm him down but...The Indian guy, I heard him say in Arabic...Heya sharmoutah.. ..Kol-hormah filipini sharmoutah.. ..20 dirhams faqat....(in english, She is a whore and all filipinas are whores and only for 20 dirhams)...The nerve!

I informed my boss who is in Tunisia for a spot of vacation of the confrontation that happened with me and A***s. He is aware of what occurred many months ago. He told me to go to the police and report this guy because if I let it go, this indian guy would not stop harassing me especially after having been embarassed twice.

In the police station, W*g*h gave his testimony as witness to the entire conversation (the last one) and reiterated the fact that this Indian called me a sharmoutah and testified to the police that I have been working for the company for more than a year and never has he seen that kind of action or attitude from me. They also interviewed me as to what happened and what I wanted to happen to this guy. I said, only for him to never look at me again, never talk to me again....never to call me again...and not to knock on my door...in short, to leave me alone and never bother me again...ever!

We waited to this guy, he arrived at 5:40 pm. The engineer and I told the police that this guy is A***s, the one I am complaining about. Two policemen came on his side and escorted him out to the cells. The Policemen informed us that he will shortly be whipped for his misconduct and detained. At this, my heart felt heavy, I did not wish for such a heavy punishment, just for him to leave me alone. We tried to tell them this, but they have decided that this is the just punishment for a Muslim man calling a woman...sharmoutah and for harassing me. I also was informed that if at any instance, he looks at me...just look...or call.. or try to talk to me...call the police right away, he will be picked up and deported immediately.

My apologies, to all of you who are reading this very lengthy story....it was just for me a very different kind of justice...sudden realization dawned on me....I am in the Middle East, in a totally different culture and this is their land.

--

It got me worried for her safety too. The guy that she talks about here works just beside their office. Dubai is very different from the other Arab countries, it lulls you in a complacency that everything is fine, but then you're jarred back into realities like this.

Photofriday: Old

OrangeJar again

Friends, once again, I need to divert your attention to Caricatures at OrangeJar.com. I have changed the design again though it still follows the same theme as before and am planning to incorporate more stuff, and this time, I'd really follow through. I have some plans already on things to feature for the blog - art projects, kid arts, etc. As for the samples, I'm gathering all previous and current works to make it fuller. And I will fill in the portraits and photography sections next time.

Please email me if anything is not working, like the first time I loaded that new design, the sitemeter and the slideshow were not working properly. By the way, here's another funny thing that happened to me... I've been wailing for some time that my site meter stats on OrangeJar.com always lands on my inbox with a flat 0! So I thought, the solution is to import my blog to OrangeJar.com. But how to do it? I've been racking my brain and surfing the web for ways on how to embed a blog into iweb. But I've come up with walls and holes a lot of times (that's why the site is like it is now, with publishing that takes time unless I can afford a .mac account, which of course, I can't and won't). Anyway, it wasn't until I've started correcting the mistakes on my first upload yesterday that I realized what was wrong, why I kept getting 0 stats for OrangeJar.com when a few people have already told me that they've seen the site! Ready for my extreme BIG s? The sitemeter is embedded in my old geocities site, not this new one. So how can any traffic be recorded. Geez. What a loser. Where have all my brains gone?

Another anyway... Please check out www.orangejar.com and give me suggestions, point out mistakes, etc. We can also feature kid's art -- which I'm planning to do with Kit-kit, Raq's newphew who is great at using PaintArt to draw and a little how to as well.

The point is to relax
On another matter... I don't have pictures for this, but tonight, I attended my first Body Balance class at Fitness First Ibn Batuta. (It's a bit embarrassing but I failed to get the name of the instructress). Body Balance combines practices of Yoga, Taichi and Pilates. My sweat were slowly dripping from where they formed down my face the whole time! It was not so cardio, but gawd, the way it stretched my "muscles" was absolutely mad! And the instructress kept telling us that the point was to relax, to get your center. Relax? My body was wobbling and shaky from the strain. How can she say relax??? I was having involuntary muscle spasms so don't tell me to relax! Ah, but that's her job. And surprisingly, the back and left shoulder pain disappeared. So make no mistake, I'm going back. It was a great exercise after the treadmill for about 20 minutes.

The Starbucks Oracle

Sunday morning sluggishness. Trying to shake it off with my lukewarm coffee and instant chocolate porridge when I came across this Starbucks article on MSN which is actually on Slate.com. LOL. And of course I went to consult the Oracle.



My favorite drink in Starbucks is a Cafe Mocha or a Caramel Macchiato but that result up there is for a Mocha Tall. I actually haven't been to Starbucks in a loooong time. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf or Costa have been more convenient (yeah, despite the number of Starbucks here too!). I'm sure Tenshi will get a kick out of this article. And since we're talking about coffee I have to say, I miss Kapeng Barako. Now that's great coffee by itself, no need to add anything, just brew the beans and you're all set. Lovely, lovely coffee from my home country.

Comedian/Filmmaker Mark Malkoff attempts to visit 171 Starbucks stores in Manhattan in one day. He must make a purchase at every store and consume part of the product.


By the way, Tenshi, you know how many posts gets lost into busy schedules right? I took pictures of all the Starbucks I went to and those I saw in airports during my trip to Canada -- but well, that post also got lost along the way. The files are burried in my other HD.

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