Pick of the Week #10

This Week's Pick was my LSS for the whole weekend and went on heavy rotation in my PMP. I love how Agnes looks in the American version of this video and just how smooth she sounds.

Pick of the Week #9

Forgot to post last week's Pick. But here it is, anyway. Neon Trees's "Animal."

In Review: Black Swan

The Gist

Possibly the film that has Natalie Portman's best performance yet, Black Swan sees Aronofsky put art and psychology into one cinematic salad bowl--the result of the tossing being a bold and inventive storytelling of modern day rivalry and success, an encounter with passion and climax that ends the same way as the ballet classic it rides upon.

The Good

• very fine casting and solid acting
• a not so convoluted storyline from Aronofsky; well-presented and not as spiritually and psychologically confounding as his other films

The Bad

• nothing much, except perhaps for the visually disturbing scenes, which if removed would take a lot out of the movie, so yeah, no complains really

Synopsis

A veteran ballerina, Nina Sayers lives a strict and disciplined life under the watchful eye of her retired ballerina mother. When her ballet company decided to refresh their rendition of Swan Lake, Nina was one of the front runners for the role of the Swan Queen, but the catch of also playing its twin, the Black Swan, does not bode well for Nina. While she is elegant and perfect for the Swan Queen role, she is too controlled and too disciplined to play its twin, the Black Swan. Her understudy, Lily, while not as technically good or graceful, has the passion and the sense of freedom enough to play the Black Swan and eventually replace her. Fearing to lose her dream role, Nina dared undergo a search for her darker side to give everyone a performance of a lifetime.

PowerArtHouse

Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis needed to train ballet for 7 days a week in 6 months to be able to play ballerinas in this film. This film made me appreciate the art and beauty of ballet and the dedication and torture ballerinas undergo to perform a masterpiece. I remember a talk with Coke Bolipata about how they violinists are simply machines of the ancient maestros. They are simply tools with which the maestros become alive once more; if they do well, they have done their jobs. Performance art is like that. You have to give it your best because what you are doing is not original and will have to beat or outdo a set standard--which is pretty high. It is a tradition, a high-browed discipline, and you have to fare well with those who have done it before you. Black Swan presented that pressure in a splendid manner and it was quite a sight.

Of Control and Letting Go

Black Swan acts on the premise of a ballerina who wanted to perfect everything without knowing that the only way for everything to be perfect is for some things to be imperfect as they are. Natalie Portman did play the role well of the discipline-driven mad beauty who dances to herself to death and perfection. This is possibly the role of her life and she nailed it, frame by frame. I am no ballet expert, but watching her do ballet makes you believe that she really is a ballerina who got acting lessons.

The supporting cast were also good. Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel both pulled off convincing performances and Barbara Hershey played the austere and manipulative mom quite well, too.

I liked how Aronofsky paralleled the Swan Lake with Black Swan's story, using the Swan Lake's story to feed the machine that keeps The Black Swan's wheels rolling. Needless to say, the storyline was well done and the screenplay is also perfect. The execution of the film's concept is also top-notch and while I was in fear that this will be as boring and ocean-deep as perhaps, The Fountain, it wasn't. Very far from it, in fact. Black Swan is simple and yet still wonderful to the point of being relate-able. The difference between these two films are, while The Fountain pretty much poked everything physiological, spiritual, psychological, and emotional, Black Swan simply dipped on psychological and art. It maintained a very cohesive two-layer storyline (Swan Lake, and the film's storyline).

Pacing is perfect and not too dragging. Storytelling is top-notch and even if you are not fond of ballet, watching Portman dance can be enthralling and is a reward in itself. I guess the cinematic lighting, and camera angles, zooming and panning, helped present ballet in a better, er, light.

The film's final resolve and its similarity to Swan Lake's resolve made me love the it. This is one of those films that I would remember not just for its visual effects or the compelling storyline, but more for how relatable it is. I believe I have grown a control freak and it came at a time in my life where I am learning to loosen my grip and go with the flow. And a film like this feels really liberating.

My verdict:

A passing and recommended mark of 4.5/5.

In Review: RPG Metanoia

The Gist

The Filipino's first attempt in making a full-length computer animated film, RPG: Metanoia has more to boast than its CGI claim to fame. Plush with a charming story and characters you can relate, RPG only suffers from its dubbing, which is oftentimes uncomfortable but forgivable anyways.

The Good

• characters are fleshed out properly and are very relatable
• charming story that makes for a good family movie

The Bad

• jittery, seemingly less than 24 fps animation on the "game world," hurts my eyes
• the voice acting needs a little work, while I do appreciate most of the voice actors, the lead character's voice is a bit too high pitched and might not work comfort on everyone's ears

Synopsis

Nico (voiced by Zaijan Jaranilla) is a 5th grader addicted to playing Metanoia, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. He prides himself to have the strongest game character in his peer group, but outside online games, he is actually inept. So when they lost the global tournament of Metanoia and were banned from playing at their local internet cafe, Nico needed to learn how to live life beyond the pc monitor. During their absence, however, tragedy strikes in Metanoia and only Nico and his peers can help put things back together.

First-Born

Some facts: RPG Metanoia took 4 years to make and the partnership between AmbientMedia and ABS-CBN only partnered last 2009. The reason perhaps for the long production time is not technology but funding. Or it could be both. When it was released during the previous film fest, it was marketed as the first 3D full-length computer animated film. People made a big deal out of it, but the true strength of the film is not that it is computer animated, but that it has a story line and script that would make other film fest entries ashamed of competing. In terms of animation, RPG is behind foreign efforts, but quite understandably so. It is still a step in the right direction for the Philippine cinema industry and if more efforts in the future would be improvements of this, then that is a very welcome development.

Sound Check

RPG begins with a scene in the game world. I wish they have done otherwise. To differentiate the game world from the real world, AmbientMedia decided to make the game world animation jittery--not so fluid animation, like watching a movie that has plenty of skipped frames. The characters in the game world and real world look alike for the audience to easily identify them and still differentiate the two worlds. But how I wish they didn't. It looks unpolished and turns you off at once.

Outside the decision to use the jittery animation effect on the game world, the animation is fine and very fluid. Had this been dubbed in English, you would think it was made outside the Philippines. This is a good attempt for starters and I hope this continues and improves.

The voice acting and dubbing were fine, save for Nico's voice. Zaijan Jaranilla's voice really does not rub well on me. Perhaps because it is too high-pitched and seemingly too childish for his age. The other kids were apparently voiced by children, too, and I didn't mind them much--to be honest they were really good that you'd think they were voiced by professional dubbers. But the main character kind of didn't work for me. Though it's all personal preference there.

I wish I could have enjoyed the movie as much as I have wanted to, but truth is I did not. Perhaps I was looking where that charm is, but I couldn't find it, or I did but it wasn't enough, or I just had too many expectations due to the number of praises it got.

Truth is, I can enjoy Filipino movies, but this one, while technically is a cause for celebration, I can't help but feel it's nothing more than mediocre. But that's good enough already to celebrate. We have made our first step to modernization. We can make movies like this now and I hope it will only get better in the future. For my verdict:

A passing mark of 3/5.

Pick of the Week #8

I know this is really ancient, but Texas' Say What You Want has always managed to find itself in and out of my playlists over the years. The song is laid back and resolute with simple yet haunting vocals by Sharleen Spiteri--who also looks androgynous hot in the video.

In Review: Tangled

The Gist

Disney's modern take on Rapunzel involves a dreamy painting style of animation, Mandy Moore, and typical Disney-ness. That said, I feel I have grown too old for cartoons--with too much musical numbers.

The Good

• Voice acting and animation is top-notch
• A worthy addition to Disney's catalog of cartoons
• Good storyboard and moderate pace of narration, easy for kids like me to follow

The Bad

• may have too much slapstick, even for a cartoon
• musical numbers left and right, like watching old-school Disney movies in CGI

Synopsis

Once upon a time, there was a Golden Flower that can heal any ailment known to man. An old selfish witch named Gothel found it. Just by singing a song to the flower, Gothel is returned her youth. Addicted to the promise of eternal youth, she wanted its power for herself so she hid it away for her selfish purpose. Consequently, the Queen of a nearby kingdom fell ill during her pregnancy and no cure could be found for her but the mythical Golden Flower. The kingdom searched far and wide and found it one night when Gothel failed to hide it properly. The Queen was healed by the flower and she gave birth to a daughter with a beautiful golden hair. Gothel found the princess and realized that the flower's healing powers has been transferred to the Princess's hair as long as it's not cut. Gothel kidnapped the princess and hid her far away in a tower in the middle of the forest. From then on every year, on the princess's birthday, the kingdom would release thousands of paper lanterns into the air, in hopes that the princess would see it and one day return. Now turning 18, the princess, named Rapunzel, is trapped in a tower far away, her hair immeasurably long, wants to go out for a day to see the lanterns, or floating lights, but Gothel, her "mother" forbids her, saying that the outside world is cruel, full of people who wants to use her magic hair for their own good. And thus begins Rapunzel's dilemma and a quest to see the lanterns.

Dream Sequence

Apparently, Disney spent 260M USD for Tangled. That makes Tangled the most expensive animation film ever made and the second most expensive film ever made, only beaten by the Pirates Caribbean: The World's End. The hand-painted CGI feel on Tangled is probably one of the reasons why Tangled was so expensive. If you have seen Tangled, you will be impressed by how 2D old school the characters look, yet still very modern CGI. That was the idea of Tangled's directors and that was what they were intending to do, anyways. Blend traditional 2D and CGI animation and the results were impressive and nice to these eyes.

The Spirit is Disney, but the Flesh is Pix

ar. I meant Pixar. While, the animation used is technically grand that it scales past Pixar level, the narrative and the musical numbers made Tangled very old-school Disney. I heard some people loved it, but the last time I liked a Disney movie with musical numbers was on Enchanted. And its musical numbers were good and iconic as with most Disney films. With Tangled, I can't say the same. There were many musical numbers in that film, but I only remembered Mother Knows Best. I didn't sing along as I did with Enchanted's Happy Working Song, and So Close, or Aladdin's A Whole New World. There were no songs iPod-worthy.

I also deride the overuse of slapsticks, although the movie itself is comic in a very Disney way. I found it weird how often the frying pan was continuously a device of humor, and that there is a very intelligent horse that also acted like a Pointer dog. Kids undoubtedly will love those kinds of humor, but the folks accompanying for the ride, I can't say the same.

The voice acting was great, and Mandy Moore was casted right since she can sing. But did she do well? You bet. Voice acting, typical of Disney, was top-notch. Storyboard was also well done and the narrative was easy to follow, something that both kids and adults can follow easily. The dialogues, script, is a bit washed out, mainly because this is a kid's film. If it were Disney-Pixar, it won't have singing, will have less speaking, and more emotional touch. But this is Disney alone. Something for children, and if you expect it to be like Pixar, you will be disappointed as no matter how tightly knot these studios are, their products are still very distinguishable from each other.

No matter, Tangled has been very enjoyable, save for the musical parts that I wanted to skip. Maybe Disney will change that touch in the future. Maybe they will update their classics to CGI and do less singing and probably pick up influences from Pixar yet still be very Disney somehow. I don't know how. They managed to marry new age animation with traditional animation. If they can do that to the Flesh, I'm pretty sure they will manage with the Spirit. Maybe in the future. But for now, I give my verdict.

A passing mark of 3.5/5.

Jerky Talks #2: Of Chinese Typewriters and Styli

As early as the 1700s there were prototypes for the English typewriters. But the Chinese typewriters were only made during the 1940s. No, don't go blaming Westernizers being too slow to reach China. China has been under several spheres of influence of Western countries as early as the 1800s. It's because Chinese typewriters were impossible to make due to the complexity of the Chinese language and characters. For instance, did you know that a typical commercial Chinese typewriter back then has 2,450 unique characters. Yep, you read that right. 2,450 unique buttons. And you think the QWERTY keyboard has too many keys, huh?

Apparently, there was a patent for Chinese typewriters before that only has 4 to 5 rows of character keys (akin to the Western equivalent) that can be pressed together to form a multitude of 90,000 unique characters. The commercial Chinese typewriter pictured above can only do upto 30,000 unique Chinese characters and looks too different from its Western cousins. Too bad the patent for the 90K character typewriter didn't fly off to mass production due to some financial issues of the inventor.

Fast forward to today, China has benefited from computer softwares that allow them to type in Chinese characters seamlessly without needing to lookup 2450 hardware keys. Just a well-sized keyboard that can combine single characters to form more complex ones. However, porting this technology to touchscreen phones does not necessarily guarantee fluid Chinese text writing. In fact, some find it awkward to tap Chinese on phones. I haven't read much, but I guess, it's more convenient to the Chinese if they can simply write these characters themselves. Which brings me to the "stylus."

Once upon a time, touchscreen phones sport resistive screens, or screens that are sensitive to pressure rather than the body's electric signatures (like the iPhone's screen). These resistive screens allow the use of styli for text inputs. Over time, improvements in technology have eliminated the need for the stylus. These screens are called capacitive screens. They do not respond to styli/pressure but more to the body's electric signals. These capacitive screens support Chinese writing poorly. And as I mentioned, in China, tapping screens ain't really the way to write electronically--especially since the Chinese vocabulary is harder to predict. The styli has suited the Chinese people well. Unfortunately, styli for capacitive screens don't work as good as the styli for resistive screens do. And this makes China a bit of a complicated market for mobile phones.

Why did I go to so much research to write all these? Tried and tested solutions. Most of the times, we don't challenge them. They're tried and tested. Like the capacitive screen. There ain't no better thing for phones than the capacitive screen. But being in IT has helped me understand that not all tried and tested solutions will work all the time, some clients, like the market in China, have unique requirements than what the tried and tested solution can address.

Same thing goes in life. There are some things that no matter how tried and tested, won't work for everyone. Today, the Minnesota Planetarium Society released a statement that the zodiac constellations have changed positions by a month because of the moon's gravitational pull and that we now have 13 signs of the Zodiac instead of the usual 12. A lot of people have reacted wildly at it. And for a good reason. People believe in the Zodiac signs and Astrology in general and feel at times defined by them.

To speak my mind without inhibitions, I'd like to think out, like the Chinese, why should we let ourselves be defined and shaped by technology, or in this sense our zodiac sign. Like the Chinese who let the technology redefine itself for them, why don't we just redefine the stars. Whether you have been moved from one sign to another, or finds yourself under Ophiuchus, you are your own person, shaped by the people you met and the experiences you have gathered. Nothing can define you better than the scars (or lack thereof) in your heart, and the callouses (and the lack thereof) in your mind.

Pick of the Week #7

Pick of the Week Number 7 goes a little more current and pop with Rihanna's What's My Name. This Barbadian-charged tune has snaps and beats that just got me on the mood the whole week. Upto now I've been singing it, actually. Quite loudly to be frank.

In Review: Easy A

The Gist

Directed by a relatively unknown Will Gluck, Easy A surprisingly is as charming, witty, and funny as its main star Emma Stone.

The Good

• Great casting and script makes for a very atypical teen movie
• Charming Emma Stone really gets polished to shine here
• Properly edited and well-done screenplay

The Bad

• It's still a teen movie and it still has teen movie elements which may not appeal to older audiences
• Not much, save the picture quality; the movie is very grainy.

Synopsis

Forced to lie to escape a nudist camping weekend with her bestfriend Rhi and her parents, Olive Penderghast (Stone) created a lie that snowballed to her ending up being branded a highschool harlot. Olive narrates her descent and way out of this shoddy image.

Shiny Stone

I would like to state now that I am really partial to Emma Stone. First time I saw her in Superbad, I fell in love with her spot-on. And she pulls off another great performance in Easy A. I was actually pretty sad to see she's doing a teen movie like in the House Bunny, but when I got word that it was pretty good, I got faith back in Emma Stone. She's all at once funny and witty that you can't help but wish she would keep on speaking, she and her husky voice. She totally outshines every star here, even Stanley Tucci. And this is to say that the movie was well-cast with Emma Stone for starters. Stanley Tucci, Amanda Bynes, Penn Badgley, Lisa Kudrow, Thomas Hayden Church to name a few were there to give the movie's crown jewel enough polish to make sure she shines the whole time.

Not Another Teen Movie

Contrary to most teen movies of late that make very little sense and survives by slapstick, toilet humor, or overtly sexual themes, Easy A offers brain food by being witty. Based on "The Scarlet Letter," Easy A is dotted with interesting little background details that do not take away your entire attention from the main plot of the story. You could also commend that Stanley Tucci, as always, was charming like his on-screen daughter Emma Stone, yet he does not ask for all the attention. Lisa Kudrow's quirkiness also makes up for fun here and her selection for the role makes sense in the end. Amanda Bynes also worked well as the main antagonist of the story by being too righteous to be like-able.

I would also like to mention the editing and the screenplay. They were just well done and makes the story more engaging and quite unpredictable. Olive Penderghast sits in front of the computer and says she became a home-wrecker and you'd think she slept with her teacher, but the truth is far from that. The idea simply is to feed the audience an idea and throw a different loop that would end up in the promised result. The formula worked well for the movie and made it feel really smart.

My gripes? Not much really. Probably the grainy and poor picture quality. Just didn't do enough justice. I actually enjoyed this movie too much. Even the musical number by Emma Stone, I didn't mind. I in fact loved it and was a pretty good part of the movie. It's not entirely a movie that will make you question how you live your life, as I said, it's a teen movie, and probably the best since Mean Girls. If you take it the way you would take, say, Eat Pray Love or Julie & Julia, you are fooling yourself. This is a simple and charming story of a lie that got out of hand that someone needed to say the truth in the end. And isn't that what we all are looking for? The truth? And that hopefully no matter how much facades we put up, the ones we love always know and would love us for who we really are.

I give it a passing and recommended mark of 4.25/5.

Bull

Fun Runs have been really popular in 2010 and the trend would seem to go on for 2011. The first major ones for these year are the PSE Bull Run and the Cebu International Marathon held yesterday January 9, 2011. Given that I run simply for fun, I joined the much simpler and affordable Bull Run and with that, I wish to impart my thoughts about the run.

Registration

Registration was very simple and manual. I have no complaints. The singlets were given on-spot and while it was fast and cheap, they easily run out of stock. I registered for the 10K in Chris Sports Megamall and well, I got the last 10K singlet. It was also a good thing that there were many registration spots. Registration fee was a measly 450 bucks. and for a very good reason.

The registration kit contains the usual suspects: route map, singlet, bib number and safety pins, and the omission of a D-tag in favor of a timing strip (or whatever they call it). The singlet is pretty, but as witnessed by me and my friend Gus, folding them may stain them, must be the choice of textile paint they used. They may also get textile paint stained after a wash.

Route

The 10K route starts from BGC at the 28th Avenue and goes on to Makati CBD and back. You would be passing on your way, the BGC streets, the Buendia Flyover, Kalayaan Ave., Buendia, and eventually Makati. Not in that order.

The only trying part of the 10K route was the Buendia Flyover--which was given to the mercy of natural lighting at 5:45 in the morning. Meaning, if you're night-blind, it would be impossible for you to see a thing and easily run over your fellow runners. For some reason the organizers felt it was OK not to have the lampposts lit up or set up their own lights. If that wasn't mean enough, the early finishers from 16 and 10K were accompanied by a motorycle escort with lights that blind the ones on their way down the flyover. Regardless, I heard stories of people almost bumping into the early finishers. Also, only the Makati-bound lane was taken for the race, so people would need to squish themselves to fit on that one, sadly.

Getting to Buendia was troublesome for both cars and runners. Apparently, this whole section wasn't closed down. And I myself had to nag drivers so they'd let me pass. The traffic people were dumbstruck by the number people running.

Markers were also missing in action so you wouldn't have a clue when to sprint and just maintain speed. I maintained a constant speed the whole time, btw.

Water Stations
From hereon, I will not take it too kindly. Sure the registration fee is cheap. We get that. But seriously sacrifice the water station. If you're fast enough, the first water stations would be relief, but the last ones are on a fight-or-flee situation. You would need to fight to get water, either with your fellow runners or with the ones giving away water. Some stations have no water, while some conveniently misses their cups and waves you away with, "wala na pong cups, kamay na lang po." This is downright inexcusable and in a way is putting the runners' on harm's, er, way. Dehydration is a serious thing and apparently, the organizers could care less. "Meh, stop crying bishes, it's cold, no one gets dehydration when it's cold," they probably thought.

Also there was this instance that the water station attendant gave the runners the cups and allowed them to scoop Gatorade from the jug. This was utterly disgusting to say the least.

There were 5 stations at most and sadly only two were functional. The water also tastes right out the faucet.

Giveaways

For 450, I didn't expect much. Post-race events are really bothersome. You would need to be looking for your running mates or hustle to the giveaway booths and this can be quite consuming for someone tired. The Bull Run is no different story, though the giveaways make them more depressing. You will get a smallish bag, a small can of chili corned tuna, a very raw banana, and if you ran 10K up, a bottle of body temperature Gatorade to make up for the less than stellar water stations.

Given the inconvenience and the failures of the Bull Run, I still enjoyed it anyways. For some reason, I ran it very well and didn't walk for a minute. But the failures of the organizers can really get to people and this one just reeks. Maybe it's true what my friends say, this run mirrors our economy, and looking back, that does not bode well.

Social Insight #2: Is Technology Making Us Lazy

Time Magazine says that the class of 2014 will barely touch emails. Come to think of it, when was the last time you have sent an email to say Hi to a friend? I myself have not used email outside of corporate use. And if my cow orkers can tweet me their concerns or issues, or send me a DM via FB, I'd be happy to communicate with my cow orkers by those means and completely forget about email.

Checking my gmail, I see that it is littered with email notifications from facebook, e-statements, Twitter notices, spam that gmail failed to filter out, some digested e-group mail, stuff I don't read in short. And that's what makes email annoying. The manual need to dispose of these things, whereas in, say, twitter, these things just fade to make way for newer content. Even with the implementation of Priority Inbox, which is a failure, in my opinion, things still end up in clutter and disarray. Even if you have folders, without rules, you will need to manage your mails on your own which is very inconvenient.

Why am I talking about all these? Well, awhile ago, I was informed by our IT that I need to fill up a form to transfer account ownerships. While this is OK, I was further informed these forms need to be hand-delivered to the satellite office. To be honest, with the level our techonology has reached, filling up forms has become a very cumbersome task. Much more hand-delivering them. And here comes an admission: I am too lazy to do both.

We are in an era where we don't always need to go to the mall to buy stuff: we go to ebay, check there and have it delivered to our residence. We forgo the music bar for iTunes. We are closing down bookstores in favor of Amazon and Kindle. We are saving trees and laying off people thanks to Internet newspaper. And day by day more stars are born on Youtube than on the TV. The thought of having to hand-deliver and hand-fill a bunch of documents is kind of anti-climactic. The act does not belong to 2011. And while a lot of organizations, banks most especially, still require hand-filled up forms, it is inconvenient and inviting errors.

I'd be honest that technology has made me lazy, but wait, I am driving a point here. These manual tasks take time which can be used for other more pleasurable or productive things, like attending to your tasks, babysitting your kids, or baking pies. And these days, the more time you have, the better. Because time is the only thing that cannot be replaced or re-earned. You can buy a new pacemaker, but not extend your time on this planet. And that is technology's role. Not to make us lazy, but to give us more time to do more things.