Hello Bolly!

i'm in bollywood! *smiling, color-coordinated dancers jazz-walk into frame*

the city formerly known as bombay has been my temporary home for three days running. while marlon is off doing various business-y things, i've found myself -- hmm, ano nga ba? alone but not lonely. each day has its highs and lows, but oddly even the lows occur to me as highlights.

day 1, tuesday

we land in mumbai after a four-hour flight from india. ever had waves heat pound at glass windows to get to you? walk from plane to immigration at the mumbai airport and you will. stepped outside and had the novel experience of having my jeans "shwup", a sensation akin to vacuum-packing, to my lower legs. verified that the "twenty-nine degrees centigrade" temperature announced by the captain upon touchdown was off by about, oh, just ten degrees.

fell in love (with a resounding ka-blag) with our hotel, the itc maratha sheraton. oh god, this hotel. i want to take everything in our room home with me. there are beautiful indian dupion silk drapes (in my wedding motif colors! let me at 'em!) and delicious aromatherapy toiletries in apple, apricot, basil, parsley and sandalwood. (naka-shook na ako ng isang buong set for my mom.) there's a pillow menu (!) and 100Mbps Internet.

and when you step out of your room, it's just beautiful. it's a light-filled white atrium, with latticed windows that remind me of the alhambra, stretching all the way to the ceiling.

our first lunch in this hotel convinced me that i will have to be rolled back to my family. i love indian food to bits (now making up for all the years that i fiercely resisted it as a child), and this hotel reportedly has some of the best restaurants in mumbai. god help me. ang traje de boda!

bits and bites

marlon and i spent the rest of the day immersed in work, albeit separately -- him at the office, me at the hotel. nawili ako masyado sa bilis ng internet at sa ganda ng kuwarto -- i did not set foot outside the room for the next six hours. pathetic, i know.

after welcoming home my sweaty, dusty, mumbai-encrusted fiance, we set off for a group dinner with the twenty or so p&g global folk who'd flown in for the week. it had all the makings of a great dinner -- first was the superb food that seemed to never stop getting plunked down on my plate.

then there was ridiculously excellent service -- one waiter dashed to my side after i took a bite of fish, murmuring "madam, you have ordered the vegetarian meal. but i just saw you take a bite of the fish. i am sorry for not informing you that it indeed was fish that i put on your plate. are you alright?" my gawd! i bit back the urge to tell him that i was just a vegetarian poseur.

there were extremely interesting people, of which my favorite was dr. colin, scientist-turned-beauty p.r. director. forget chi-chi fakeness and empty smiles -- this guy is a genius on so many levels, without that "i-know-more-than-you" aura, and so much fun to talk to! feeling ko parang tumalino ako pagkatapos ko siyang nakausap. haay idol ko na siya.

discovery channel

what i loved most about dinner was stepping into marlon's world. at one point in the evening, i just stopped and took in everything around me -- being in mumbai, the gorgeous surroundings, the intelligent conversation -- and realized, marlon's part of this. i just sat with that for a while, letting a whole new world open up: a world of him. suddenly, the man who cuddles with me at movies, loves corned beef and comics, and who i regularly "save" when he blanks out on people's names took on a whole new dimension. at that dinner table, on that night, i discovered marlon all over again. that alone was worth coming here for.

back in the room that night, talking to marlon about what i had done for the day and what i had planned for the next, i uncovered something rather prickly about myself.

why i hadn't stepped out at all was not because of the amount of work i had or the comfort of the room.

and why i wasn't at all excited about flinging myself out into mumbai was not, in fact, because of anything about mumbai.

(to be continued)

This is cute

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The Blogger ban

hello, my friends. the good news is, i'm alive and happy. i'm in lah-lah land with marlon celebrating our fourth, and our last, anniversary as boyfriend and girlfriend. tomorrow, the two of us will be flying to mumbai -- marlon on a business trip, and i as official palamuti.

the bad news is, blogger, and consequently all blogs, have been banned from the office.

haay.

i'm not giving up my blog just yet, but as the office is where i do 90% of my blogging, the frequency of my updates will be seriously affected (as you've gathered from my month of internet hibernation). i miss reading my friends' blogs (that's YOU! or those of you who are on blogger anyway), and especially miss the inspiration and eye candy on one of my favorites, design*sponge.

i'm not too happy about the prospect of migrating to wordpress or livejournal though -- i have a wordpress version of this blog that i gave up after a couple of days of working on it. plus there's just way too much on this blog to give up!

must admit i am stuck at the moment. stuck but still writing :-)

Welcome to Boracay

after an hour-long flight in an aircon-less, stewardess-less aircraft that i will always cherish in my memory as the "coaster na may pakpak", i barely remember my first glimpse of the fabled white sands of boracay. i think i might have been a little underwhelmed -- the sun was hiding behind thick gray clouds, dulling the colors of everything.

what i do remember vividly, is almost weeping upon seeing the room that would me mine (mine, all mine! moooahahahaha) for the next two days. ah, how the centavo-scrabbling writer of "paradise at a steal" had moved up in the world! first i wanted to twirl around and fall into bed a la julia roberts. then i started really missing marlon. *insert crude thought here*

welcome sight # 1: my room at the boracay beach resort.

home sweet home

the people from fila (i swear! grace under pressure ang mga ito!) treated me and paolo, the photog, to lunch. i believe the frozen lemonade i had at the regency set the tone for the rest of my boracay trips -- i went on this two-week long citrus frenzy which included countless calamansi/lemon/mango-lemon shakes, calamansi muffins at real coffee, and the aforementioned lemon cheesecake at lemon cafe.

then we went to work. or rather, paolo went to work.

while i pretty much watched, chatted, looked over some of the clothes, and ogled various boys pointed out to me by a woman more than twice my age and in better shape than me. i played photographer, too.

welcome sight # 2: teams practicing for the dragonboat races that weekend.

score one for the hype.

this is when boracay really started wowing me. i'd never seen the ocean that soft, pearlescent almost-white shade of turquoise before. and the sand was just absolute talc.

my first pair of havaianas. i totally get the addiction now -- which is not to say that i actually have an addiction of my own

and presenting the finest welcome of them all: the obliging male-models-for-a-day of the bugsay boracay dragonboat team.

welcome sight # 3: care ko sa girls?

work it! work it!

aside from daniel and sebastian here with their prepare-for-glowy midsections, there were also various groups of men around me at this point flexing muscles, lifting heavy weaponry (isn't the dragonboat a war vessel or something) and going "harrumph harrumph!" (or "awoo awoo!" as jeline would say). it was all very 300.

i remember marveling at all these extremely fit and tanned specimens (in fairness, pati ang mga girls) and wondering briefly whether this was what God had intended human beings to be. i felt almost sure that beer bellies and thunder thighs were not part of the divine plan.

then it was five thirty, "work" was done, and i was left to enjoy my first boracay happy hour -- and my first boracay sunset.

My life in weekends

last weekend, i watched one of my dearest high school friends marry the love of her life in a beautiful, intimate, all-white sunset wedding in one of boracay's most exclusive resorts. the night before, i'd gone night swimming in the ocean (totally piss drunk) for the very first time. i spent zero on accommodations, and even less on food. my biggest splurge was a lemon cheesecake at lemon cafe.

the weekend before that, i flew to boracay for the very first time in my life on an all-expense paid writing job for the star. my travel time to boracay -- about 2.5 hours back and forth -- was probably longer than the time i spent actually working, if you call chit-chatting, watching a photographer and ogling buff dragonboat rowers working. i stayed three days.

and this weekend, i am flying with the love of my life, and a handful of my fabulous officemates, to spend the weekend swimming with the world's biggest living species of fish -- the whale sharks of donsol, sorsogon.

i am darker than i've ever been. ever! well maybe since grade school when we went to the beach practically every weekend, and we had a pool in the backyard. this is the first summer in a long, long, looong time that i've actually had a tan.

so in short, life is good.

---

there were times these past few weeks that i just stopped and said to myself -- wow. i have a life that allows wonderful things like these to happen. this is my life.

i never thought it could be this good. i have a life that allows wonderful things like these to happen. i would have said even the in-betweens -- but i just realized there are none.

and instead of waiting for the proverbial anvil to drop out of nowhere, i'm looking up and seeing nothing -- absolutely nothing -- overhead. just a brilliantly blue summer sky.

it's my life, all of it -- and i'm loving every minute.

oh. and i promise to blog about and post pictures of these weekends. they were just too good not to share in detail. :-)

Make way for the king (3)

this is the last post of its kind. i promise. it's just that -- that -- *collapses into trembling, frothing puddle of fanhood*

hindi ba pag closeup mukha siyang totoong tao????



okay. now back to the rest of my life. ;-)

Make way for the king (2)

now, now, what have we here?

i actually smelled him as i lifted him out of the box. oh, the depths of depravity.

Make way for the king

he is now enthroned in his own little kingdom, ebony wood under his slim, black-shod feet and a light beaming on his tawny-colored head. it isn't the labyrinth, it isn't escher, but for now, it's the only dominion he can ever have.

he has a new slave too, who ran around the entire morning like a panting, lost puppy rearranging everything for his arrival, and whose heart almost stopped when his crystal orb fell from his gracefully posed little fingers to the floor thrice.

the kingdom is my desk, the slave is me, and jareth the goblin king rules. literally.

to be continued (with pictures!)

You remind me of a babe

babe with a power!

i got an email from my boss today with the subject heading: "my next new toy". this photo of the jareth figure from neca was attached.

you could say i've waited twenty years for this.

i don't remember this cape from the movie, pero di bale na -- the pointy, flipped-up leather collar (which i do clearly recall) and the distinctive 'do is more than enough to inspire all-consuming lust.

now if they came out with a figure of david bowie as he appears in his final scene in labyrinth, i would not stop going ape freaking sh*t until i had it in my hands. that flowing cape with the owl feathers and distressed floaty hems. that deep v-necked puffy shirt. those white tights. aaaggggh.

"just fear me, love me, do as i say, and i will be your slave."

oh YEAH.

Future furbies

this was taken last weekend at bellini's, a cool if somewhat showy jazz bar at st. james power station, singapore, where i discovered the sweet fizzy goodness of bellinis. i had two that night and they were lovely.

i look at this picture and all i think is: what big eyes our children are going to have.

big eyes. round. cuddly. and possibly quite furry. that's why marlon and i call them furbies -- our future kids, i mean.

ok mushy overshare. let me step back a second and protect my shoes from being splashed by your collective vomit. ;-)

Looks familiar

i have recently crawled out from under my rock and discovered heroes. i have lots to say about it, but at the moment all i really want to say is this.

i love nathan petrelli/adrian pasdar. the slash is their because his/their gorgeousness renders me unable to separate the two at the moment. maybe someday.

way back as a boy-crazy little girl, i also used to love adrian pasdar . i saw him in solarbabies (just like labyrinth, you'll never know what kitschy eighties movies will stick with you) and never forgot him. so much so that when i saw his name in the opening credits of heroes, my heart skipped a beat. then i started really liking the character of nathan petrelli, and put two and two together with some help from imdb.

at eto pa. i also used to be in love with someone who bears a disturbing resemblance to adrian pasdar.

separated at birth? sorry, i have no better scanned photos of this man

this fact just hit me over the weekend, stunning me into spending a good twenty minutes or so of my sunday sitting in a wave pool at a water park in pasir ris (yes that's in singapore), blabbing about my imagined past with this man to marlon. (who by the way is so wonderful and loving that he readily validated said imagined past.)

parang gusto kong manood ng top gun. but wait i gotta finish off episodes 13 to 18 first! argh adik adik adik!

running home now. bye bye!

Walastik

so this is what i've been up to lately.

for something i thought was my waterloo (comedy), approvals for stuff i've been working on for this account have been really, really, BIZARRELY easy.

fun fun fun.

Holy

something for the holy week.

detail from la sagrada familia in barcelona, taken last november

the moment i zoomed in on this detail with my lens, six years of choral singing took over my brain in a nanosecond. and suddenly all i could hear in my head was

sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus

you'll only really get it if you're a choral nerd.

but hahahahaha. ohmygad. a tower wrapped in sanctuses! at boses pa ni chris ong yung naririnig ko! kaloka.

ehem. anyway. the point of this picture is, "sanctus" means holy.

---

i'm spending the "holy" part of holy week (maundy thursday and onward) in singapore, as i did last year. what's different this time around is that marlon and i have committed to attending easter sunday mass together.

"let's have a celebratory weekend," marlon said to me last night.

"we always do," i replied.

"i know," he said. after a beat -- "let's go to mass on sunday."

"okay," i said. "let's."

if easter is a celebration of freedom, then there really is a lot to celebrate.

---

a couple more pictures of la sagrada familia that i really like. i realize just now that i love the ones with the sky in them because i'm reminded of what a beautiful day it was -- reportedly highly atypical for autumn in europe, i was told, which didn't really mean anything to me at the time. for me it was simply sparkling and bright, deliciously sunny, and warm.

update: grabe. sa dami pala ng mga piniktyuran kong simbahan on tour, i could post a different church picture on my blog every day this holy week.

hmmm. visita iglesia on the blogosphere. why not?

Meet the kiddies

from left to right: me, gids, pia, leo, maggie and jonel. m.i.a.: tor (off being a fashionista in nueva york), mimoy (off being a fledgling opera singer in indiana) and loi (off being an aspiring music student/auditionee at time of photo).

a brief history of the kiddies: we were the youngest members of the glee club when it spun off into being the acs; some of us had just stepped up from being trainees. as the tendres (late-thirties and above) and the semi-tendres (mid-twenties and above) seemed to naturally aggregate in and out of our little sphere of choral music, so did we. i don't remember who started calling us "kiddies" (short for "glee club kiddies" or "acs kiddies) , but it kind of fit, since we -- and others -- would always see ourselves as the kids of the group.

the kiddies are the friends i thought i had. until recently, when i had the great pleasure of rediscovering that they are the friends i really do have. i won't expect that to make sense, but that's what it is.

these photos were taken at our march kiddie dinner in north park -- the first of the monthly kiddie gatherings that i'd ever been to. we had another one just last week at maggie's house, when loi got back, where we sated ourselves with pizza, loi's lomi, banana walnut praline cake from roshan samtani (incidentally maggie's neighbor), pugon, red iced tea, and wonderful company.

landmark ladies: me, gids and pia

bisayas + papista: leo, mags and jonel

over lomi that night, pia declared: "i love being with you guys! i'm so lucky to have you!"

i didn't say it then, but i agree with her. i guess these these photos are like a delayed outburst of my own.

i'm the first among the kiddies to move into a world that's not so kiddie-like: away from the world of school and first jobs into marriage and the eventual family of my own. but i take immense joy in the knowledge that part of me, the part that loves these guys and fully enjoys the friendship we share, will always, always be a kiddie.

Name game

with a name like mine, this is far from the only entry i can post about my name. but anyway i nicked this from jeline.

so does my name really mean anything?

You entered: Deepa Catherine Arevalo Paul
There are 25 letters in your name.
Those 25 letters total to 112.
There are 13 vowels and 12 consonants in your name.

Your number is: 4
The characteristics of #4 are: A foundation, order, service, struggle against limits, steady growth.
The expression or destiny for #4:
Order, service, and management are the cornerstones of the number 4 Expression. Your destiny is to express wonderful organization skills with your ever practical, down-to-earth approach. (Hmmm. So far this doesn't sound a lot like me.) You are the kind of person who is always willing to work those long, hard hours to push a project through to completion. A patience with detail allows you to become expert in fields such as building, engineering, and all forms of craftsmanship. Your abilities to write and teach may lean toward the more technical and detailed. In the arts, music will likely be your choice. Artistic talents may also appear in such fields as horiculture and floral arrangement, as well. (Maybe I should take up Celia's invitation to join her ikebana group.) Many skilled physicians and especially surgeons have the 4 Expression.

The positive attitudes of the 4 Expression yield responsibility; you are one who no doubt, fulfills obligations, and is highly systematic and orderly. You are serious and sincere, honest and faithful. It is your role to help and you are required to do a good job at everything you undertake.

If there is too much 4 energies present in your makeup, you may express some of the negative attitudes of the number 4. The obligations that you face may tend to create frustration and feelings of limitation or restriction. (Jackpot!) You may sometimes find yourself nursing negative attitudes in this regard and these can keep you in a rather low mood. Avoid becoming too rigid, stubborn, dogmatic, and fixed in your opinions. You may have a tendency to develop and hold very strong likes and dislikes, and some of these may border on the classification of prejudice. The negative side of 4 often produces dominant and bossy individuals who use disciplinarian to an excess. These tendencies must be avoided. Finally, like nearly all with 4 Expression, you must keep your eye on the big picture and not get overly wrapped up in detail and routine.

Your Soul Urge number is: 3
A Soul Urge number of 3 means:
With the Soul Urge number 3 your desire in life is personal expression, and generally enjoying life to its fullest. You want to participate in an active social life and enjoy a large circle of friends. You want to be in the limelight, expressing your artistic or intellectual talents. Word skills may be your thing; speaking, writing, acting, singing. In a positive sense, the 3 energy is friendly, outgoing and always very social.

You have a decidedly upbeat attitude that is rarely discouraged; a good mental and emotional balance.

The 3 Soul Urge gives intuitive insight, thus, very high creative and inspirational tendencies. The truly outstanding trait shown by the 3 Soul Urge is that of self-expression, regardless of the field of endeavor.

On the negative side, you may at times become too easygoing and too optimistic, tending to scatter forces and accomplish very little. Often, the excessive 3 energy produces non-stop talkers. (Hmmm. Na-conscious tuloy ako.) Everyone has faults, but the 3 soul urge doesn't appreciate having these pointed out.

Your Inner Dream number is: 1
An Inner Dream number of 1 means:
You dream of being a leader and one who is in charge. You want to be known for your courage, daring, and original ideas. You seek unconquered heights. People may get a first impression that you are very aggressive and sure of yourself.

Noooneeenooo

from gatchie

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD
1. speechwriter
2. miss saigon audition facilitator
3. freelance copywriter
4. resume writer

FOUR MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED OVER AND OVER
1. labyrinth
2. the princess bride
3. the sound of music
4. terminator 2: judgment day

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
1. bel-air
2. dasmariñas village
3. forbes park (on a street called flame tree road -- diba pwedeng pang-tv series?)
4. palm village (GROWING UP IN MAKATI ROCKS! I LOVE MAKATI!)

FOUR TV SHOWS I LIKE TO WATCH:
1. lost
2. ...
3. ...
4. ... (ohhh-kay for a person who works in TV, i sure don't watch it a lot)

FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. puerto princesa, palawan
2. granada, spain (go las otras!)
3. brussels, belgium
4. bangkok, thailand

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
1. dark chocolate
2. mcdonald's cheeseburgers
3. kfc brownies
4. coffee jelly

FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. pwedeng in singapore lounging by the boyf's pool
2. andalusia i miss you!
3. clara ramona's intro to flamenco class (it's going on right now)
4. ... but here is really good, too :-)

FOUR PEOPLE WHO WILL ANSWER THIS MEME
1. mimi, if she still reads my blog
2. nette
3. toni
4. ... anybody?

The house on Algier Street (2)

continued from this.

---

i rang the doorbell. shortly after, a small, brown-skinned, pleasant-faced girl answered the door.

"puwede bang mag-inquire tungkol sa classes?" i asked.

"opo!" she said, beaming, and ushered me in.

i made my way up a narrow, cream-colored stairwell, whose three flights were lined with posters upon posters mounted on thin, hard wood. these posters had come from all over the world, it seemed, heralding performances upon performances by a singular, striking figure: world-renowned flamenco dancer clara ramona.

this house had become her home and her studio.

lady of the house

when i first started getting interested in flamenco classes, jeline told me about hearing the distinctive of flamenco shoes as she was walking down algier street one february afternoon. looking up, she saw a huge tarpaulin plastered on a house. it said: clara ramona centro de danza flamenca. after falling head over low-heeled, stomping feet in love with flamenco in granada last november (more on which later), naturally, i just had to check it out.

i remember googling "clara ramona" and turning up results from boston, taiwan and madrid, among others. "there must be some other dancer named clara ramona," i thought to myself. "the one stuck teaching in manila can't possibly be the same woman who's done all of that."

but, as i found out that saturday afternoon, she was. not only that; she was filipina!

i sat in the rear of the room as she led a handful of students through the graceful, dignified movements of her classical spanish dance class, which kind of looked more like ballet than flamenco. she was clad in a tight brown top and flowing skirt wrapped around her and tucked into her waistband.

as she moved, i caught her eye in the mirror. she smiled at me, almost as if she knew me.

to be continued

Happy birthday Mom!

my mom turned 58 last friday. we went out for dinner at banana leaf curry house, the last full show of dreamgirls at the podium (one night only! one night only!) and coffee at starbucks. it was a nice date with my family, quite a different way to spend friday night :-)

at the end of the evening, i presented her with my gift, which i had worked on for a couple of days.

her favorite flower (lilies), her favorite colors (purple and turquoise), framing something i hope she'll always find beautiful -- herself!

it's a mirror, okay. i just propped it up on lulu for the photo. i bought it plain and bare at ikea two weekends ago and decided to break out the acrylics. 'twas fun :-)

incidentally, my wedding palette is pretty close to this: amethyst, aquamarine and dark gold.

A story about stories

i used to have a story about me.

and that story was that i wasn't a writer. that writing was just something i "did", like in my spare time, or when i felt like it, or to make money when i needed money. and that writing wasn't really important to me, or it wasn't really me. now that might sound kind of funny considering i've been writing all my life, people know me as a writer, and i make my living now off of writing.

but there. i never thought i was a writer because i wanted to be other things. and wanting to be other things than a writer, my story went, meant that i couldn't possibly be a real writer. for a very long time, my story went, i was a frustrated singer. (boy, you don't know how frustrated.) i was potentially a phenomenal solo singer... if i could just have more money, or more courage, or more talent, or more time.

being a potential something feels really great, let me tell you. it gives one an excuse to be not-quite-good at, or not really put yourself into, what you're doing at the moment. you can always claim, "oh but i'm not really a writer. i'm actually really trying to be something else." how convenient!

so i chose to be a struggling singer. there was a whole sh*tload of drama and an odd sense of nobility in all that struggling. and don't we like our drama.

so that was one story: "i'm not really a writer."

within that story was another one: "i'm not really a writer. i can't write fiction."

which was true. i really couldn't. i was only good for magazine articles, newspaper articles, research, speeches, analyses, business writing, essays, papers, press releases, copy, blurbs, plugs, blogs, and the occasional poem. ang engot diba? ang dami-dami ko na ngang sinusulat, hindi pa ako writer. but real writers, my story went, could write fiction. and i couldn't. i didn't want to worry about plot and characterization and all that rot. and since i couldn't, or didn't, then i wasn't a real writer.

in freshman english class, doreen fernandez once assigned us to write a three-page short story. i didn't. i wrote a fictionalized account of childhood memories with my dad. then in class, my classmates' stories got read out loud -- and they were honest-to-goodness fictional stories, about fictional people who had wings and cut themselves and went crazy and looked at life from inside tupperware containers (ang galing ng mga kaklase ko, actually). and i looked at my story and realized, this is my life -- this isn't fiction.

doreen (bless her soul) had me read my story in class, and effusively, generously praised it. so i thought -- okay, this ain't fiction, but it works. people love this stuff. i get praised for it. so makes perfect sense if i stick to this. just this.

and then -- can you guess? i never wrote, or tried to write fiction. ever. it was just too much fun being good at everything else to risk it.

so that was the story. recently i've recognized it for what it was. just a story. i gave it up.

and what lay behind it was a real story. my very own, first-ever piece of short fiction. 813 words of it, written in an hour and a half yesterday afternoon.

what lay behind it was a real writer. capable of writing anything, including fiction.

what lay behind that story was me.

Trailers and 300

caught the last full show of 300 last night at rockwell with gideon and jeline. it was fun, i don't know why i've never watched movies (or trailers) with them before.

trailers. that movie of mr. bean going to the beach in europe kind of reminds me of the acs on tour.

die hard 4.0 starts out like a corporate avp for a telecom company.

the trailer for -- norbert? norbin? norvin? -- basta eddie murphy movie was surprisingly funny. is there some kind of prosthetics award-giving body somewhere in the world? 'cause that there is a really convincing fat suit.

jeline on the reaping: "another satanist-apocalyptic movie." gideon helpfully cleared up my confusion on the plagues of egypt and the signs of the apocalypse. the reaping is about the former, although i know some people for whom a rain of frogs (the third plague) might as well mean the end of the world.

i liked how the trailer for the next fantastic four movie played out as just one continuous scene. i couldn't care less about the fantastic four, but even i goggled when the silver surfer burst out onto the scene. and i don't even know what he does except gleam and surf.

me on sunshine, which immediately followed: "another scientific-apocalyptic movie." we all giggled when the title was revealed at the end. "from the director of trainspotting comes... sunspotting." titter titter.

300. as promised by its promos, the movie was gorgeous. absolutely gorgeous. charlie (my partner art director) would pee his pants at every scene. abs, abs everywhere. it got so overblown at some point (was it when the oracle started exposing her nipples or when leonidas and the missus started going at it?), which made it so much more fun to watch.

may i just ask why the asians have all the circus freaks? ("how imperialist!" hissed jeline at some european-versus-asian dialogue.) is it so you know who to root for? because of course you'll root for the hotties.

gerard butler's accent-and-underbite combo struck me as strange. scottish pala siya. "they aw thweatening spawta!" mock-frothed jeline. "prepare for glowy!" he roared, purposely rippling his abs. subtext: "and flex!"

gay undertones abounded, which is unsurprising considering they're all equipped with cgi eight-packs and large padded panties (where did leonidas get the apple he had for a mid-skirmish snack? was that the bulge in his skivvies?). the two prettiest soldiers flirt with each other on the battlefield. "ay. doodams na yan!" murmured gideon. xerxes kept insisting he was divine. subtext: "i am divine... brown" (jeline). "i am divine... and fabulous!" (me).

pero in fairness, maganda talaga siya. as in beautiful, visually. plot- and dialogue-wise, obviously nobody set out to reinvent the classic guy battle movie, which was fine by me. i liked faramir's narration (who's that actor again?), although he rasped through most of it. and to have started out with a vision of the movie looking that gorgeous, and to have followed through on it... wow. galeng. i even liked the closing credits.

you can check out the posters on the imp awards site. i love the exclamation marks on everything, it's so old-hollywood overpromising/campy. and the "beautiful death" poster (yes, one of the few without the exclamation marks) is one of my favorite versions.

update: okay, i just came from a shoot and according to paolo contis (o diba showbiz ang lola mo), all the abs in that movie were genuine flesh and blood. apparently he read somewhere that the spartans worked out only their biceps and abs six months prior to filming. makeup plus the color grading must have just emphasized the outlines.

divine... and fabulous!