Films: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"I was born under unusual circumstances."

My View
Grab your handkerchiefs people because this surprisingly moving story touches your heart in the most unusual way. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a wonderful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story of the same name with the script written by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich), and tells the story of Benjamin, who was born a man aging backwards. This movie is directed by David Fincher (Fight Club).

The story starts much like Forrest Gump did with one of the main characters telling a story, in this case, a daughter reading from a diary. I found the movie a bit surprising and thankfully, not full of heavy drama, if you know what I mean. It simply tells the story of how Benjamin tried to cope up with his “curious case” with rather interesting results. Benjamin also meets an assortment of characters who teach him about life, love, and death. Curiously, this film is not about death, but about life and how one has to live it to the fullest.

The story however, emphasizes on Benjamin’s relationship with Daisy, a grand daughter of one of the elders living in the home run by his “mother”, Queenie. This begins a very curious friendship between the two. It is in this relationship that Benjamin struggles with his “disease” and his love for Daisy, and their family.

I see this movie as an absorbing and touching film with great dialogue. On the theatrical side of things, the make-up was superb, with Pitt looking like a realistic ninety-something year old man. I love the way they did the progression of their ages – as Benjamin grew younger and as Daisy grew older. Both Pitt and Blanchet delivered in this film. I wasn’t disappointed.

I give this movie five stars.

Films: Hero

I remember a friend who once told me that "if it's a Chinese movie, expect the main characters dying in the end;" he was right! Talk about tragedy!

I have been incarcerated to our house for the past few days because of this blasted flu and so I have been amusing (?) myself with watching movies, Chinese movies. An ode to my heritage, if you will. Even with my weak Chinoy background, I can still appreciate good Chinese movies when they come my way; especially if it's available in English audio! Ah, the invention of the DVD...

Anyway, I was amusing myself with two Chinese films, coincidentally directed by Zhang Yimou and also starring Zhang Ziyi! I'm not a huge fan of them particularly but I am so loving Yimou's stuff! Talk about romance and action PLUS drama in one go! You haven't seen that in American films, right? I guess the Chinese have their wuxia films and Japan their horror films.

Hero
Hero (Chinese: 英雄; pinyin: Yīngxióng) is a 2002 Chinese martial arts film, directed by Zhang Yimou with music by Tan Dun. Starring Jet Li as the nameless protagonist, the movie is loosely based on the legendary Jing Ke.

A group of assassins: Flying Snow (飛雪) (Maggie Cheung), Broken Sword (殘劍) (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), and Long Sky (長空) (Donnie Yen), have sworn to kill the King of Qin (秦王) (Chen Daoming), and Nameless (無名) (Jet Li) comes to the royal capital to claim the reward offered for their defeat. The movie tells the story of his conversation with the King of Qin, and through a series of flashbacks depicts the journey he took to earn the honor of sitting before the emperor. Zhang Ziyi stars as Broken Sword's servant Moon (如月).

My View
I loved it! I was quite surprised about how the story went because I didn't actually know what it was about at first. I had heard great reviews about it before but I didn't see it on the big screen. As it was a typical Chinese film, all the main characters die in the end which I thought was fitting for what they went through.

The film actually narrates different versions of fights and confrontations between a nameless man (Jet Li) and the three assassins, told to the Emperor Qin. In all the scenarios, only one was the truth. This was all a ploy to finally assassinate the Emperor so he could not unite China as one whole nation.

I can remember the colors of the film, visually depicting the mood of the fight. The best scene would have to be the fight between Nameless and Broken Sword in the lake. The reflections where awesome and the view was breathtaking plus the fight was astonishing! I know many people think that it is impossible but I think that it was actually made to portray a deeper understanding of the arts.

The film's climax was when Nameless understood what the Emperor meant by uniting China. With the Emperor saying that it took an outlaw to make him understand what was meant by Our Land. It ends with the deaths of Nameless who was buried as a Hero; Broken Sword who was killed by his lover Flying Snow because they argued about the assassination of the Emperor with Broken Sword refusing to kill Qin.


I give the movie five stars.

Image: Google
Info: Wikipedia

Films: Twilight

With the recent release of Twilight in the movies last Friday, it was quite appropriate that I was hightailing it to the theaters at the earliest possible moment. In fact, my head is still stuck in twilight. There is good news to all Twilight fans out there since Summit Entertainment has already announced that New Moon is in the works. I don't know about you guys but I am quite interested to see how they will show the film since it is quite...Edward-less most of the time with Bella acting like the world has ended...but that is another story. Twilight has already raked in $70.6 billion in sales surpassing Quantum of Solace who is already in its second week.

The film stars Kristen Stewart (she's the kid in Panic Room...yeah I was surprise, too!) and Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory in the HP GOF & HP OOTH) as both Bella and Edward respectively.

My View
It is quite tricky how to adapt a book into screen and in most cases, the film usually ends up as a disappointment. However, with that in mind, I was prepared to leave my book knowledge and view Twilight without any preconceived notions.

I found it quite hard to separate the film and the movie. I'm not saying that the movie wasn't good but it just lacked a few details that I thought where integral to the whole movie so that it would tie in with the book. I also saw a few modifications of the story and some that weren't included that I felt should have been included.

For instance, Bella was unnaturally clumsy but in the film, there was only a subtle reference in that. I thought it was important to show it because it was one of the things that Edward was drawn to. You see, in Midnight Sun (Meyer's unfinished book), Edward was in a dilemma: was he a predator or a protector? So adding this element in the film would have added a whole new dimension which would tie it in with the book. I did ask someone who hasn't read the book and she did mention to me that she didn't see Bella as clumsy as all.

The was also the "asking to the dance" thing which was not included in the film. I thought it would have been nice to see Bella's expression and add another thing that Bella would be suspicious about. This would include the searches she did on the Internet and walking alone in the woods to think about how the new knowledge she found out about the Cullen's would affect her feelings for Edward.

I know it's hard to fit a book into a two hour movie so I can let the modifications and the parts that were not included in the movie slide. I'll probably wait for the DVD release and check out the deleted scenes to see what they cut out of the whole film.

All in all it was a surprisingly good film and I loved it! I guess you could say ALL the male vampires where GORGEOUS! hahaha yup, I've got my head stuck in the clouds this time! Oh, let us not forget my favorite character Jacob, he was gorgeous, too! I do recommend, however that you read Twilight then Midnight Sun, in that order, first before seeing the movie. Why? Because I think that reading them first would make your brain fill in the cut out parts and make you appreciate the movie more. I think this movie was made with that in mind: people have read the book first.

So while I give it three point five stars, I still loved the movie immensely and will definitely buy the DVD.

Films: Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

...is a bloody musical (pardon my pun)! That's right ladies and gents, the film adaptation is actually based on Stephen Sondheim's musical of the same name. I was quite surprised when I heard the first strains of the musical because it wasn't advertised as a musical at all. Seeing as "curiosity killed the cat" (pardon my pun...again), I was quite hesitant to look up details about Sweeney Todd but eventually, I found the courage to.

Plot
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 2007 musical-thriller and the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's award-winning 1979 stage musical. It re-tells the Victorian melodramatic tale of Sweeney Todd, a fictitious English barber who, driven insane by the loss of his wife and daughter, murders his customers with a cut-throat razor, and with the help of his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, turns their remains into meat pies.

My View/Summary
Again, I was quite surprised when I found out that it was a musical. I hadn't read any article pertaining to the 2007 adaptation of the movie so I didn't know the particulars. Being a fan of Johnny Depp and loving his "out of character" roles, I immediately wanted to see the film. It wasn't shown back in Dumaguete though, so I had to wait until I rented out the DVD. As luck would have it, the Burbank Public Library had it and I immediately borrowed it.

It was a week ago, I think, that I saw Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel where I heard about Sweeney Todd again and was reminded about the film. It is quite interesting that Sweeney Todd was considered a contemporary of Jack the Ripper; both of them not proved to be real people; and both movies starred Johnny Depp! Freaky, huh? But I guess only Johnny D had the talent and the air to portray someone this weird.

After my initial "shock" of the musical, I found the movie quite entertaining. The constant singing actually lessened the freakiness of the film that is why I wasn't as creeped out as I should be. I did find the cutting and the slashing to be very visual indeed; which earned it a "Restricted" rating for its "graphic bloody violence." Well, I mean, Sweeney Todd was rumored to slit throats using a straight razor while shaving his customers which had to be very bloody, indeed.

The movie actually shows Todd as someone out for revenge because he was falsely accused by Judge Turpin who was after his wife Lucy. Todd was sent to Australia for fifteen years and when he came back, he was "back to business," working as a barber on top of Mrs. Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) Meat Pie Shop. Mrs. Lovett and Todd reached in an agreement and while Todd slit his customers throats, she would grind them and make them into pies which were quite popular. I also loved the song that went with this scene.

In this version of the story, Todd also found out that Judge Turpin adopted his daughter and was also planning to marry her. Judge Turpin was almost killed by Depp only to be aborted by a sailor who had seen Joannah (Todd's daughter) and was planning to run away with her. The movie takes off from there are Todd goes on a killing rampage but his eye was still on Turpin and Turpin's assistant Beadle.

Todd's first victim was a faux-Italian barber Adolfo Pirelli who had a boy servant with him. The duo, Todd and Mrs. Lovett, kept the boy, Toby, as Mrs. Lovett's servant. Later, Toby found out about what Todd was doing and warned Mrs. Lovett about it. Naturally, the duo planned to kill the boy for knowing too much. On that night however, things changed. It was then that Beadle came to investigate Mrs. Lovett's bakehouse because neighbors where complaining of the stench coming out of her chimney, especially at night. Todd disposed of him and then went looking for Toby who had run away. Anthony, the sailor, and Joannah arrive at the Barber Shop but it was empty so Joannah, dressed as a boy, was left there to wait for Anthony while he found them a passage to wherever it was they where going. An old mad woman came up to the room and Joannah hid in a trunk in the shop. While there, Todd finds the woman who seemed to recognize him but he slashes her throat using the straight razor. Judge Turpin then arrives telling him that Anthony has Joannah and Todd convinces him to have a shave while reassuring him that Joannah was with Mrs. Lovett. Todd quickly kills Turpin and sees Joannah, dressed as a boy peeking from inside the trunk. Before Todd could kill her, he hears a scream from the bakehouse and goes to investigate; it was Mrs. Lovette who screamed. Secrets where then revealed and Todd recognizes the old mad woman to actually be his wife, Lucy who was locked up on Bedlam when she wouldn't give in to Turpin. Mrs. Lovett swears that she kept the truth from him for his own good but Todd throws her into the oven. The movie ends with Todd holding his wife in his hands, and Toby slitting Todd's throat with his razor as revenge for killing Mrs. Lovett who was like a mother to him.

Whew, that was quite a mouthful. I did enjoy the film but I had to cringe at the "bloody visual killings" that I saw; although I thought that it was in keeping with the theme. I was quite tickled however, when I saw who played Turpin and Beadle! They were none other than Snape and Wormtail! I mean, Alan Rickman (Judge Turpin) and Timothy Spall (Beadle Bamford) who play Severus Snape and Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter films. I just couldn't hold my laughter when I saw both of them together, yeah I know, I'm weird that way. Plus, Helena Bonham Carter also played Bellatrix LeStrange in the HP film OOTP, although I just couldn't picture her as LeStrange while watching the movie unlike what I did with Snape and Wormtail hehehehehe.

All in all, I give this musical-thriller four stars for extremely surprising me and giving me a few chuckles to boot.

Info: Wikipedia
Image: Google Images

Trips: Griffith Observatory

Griffith Observatory North Doors

We went to the Griffith Observatory last Friday with a few of my friends from my review class. It was our time to break free from the books and review and we indulged to our hearts content.

Astronomer's Monument

Since elementary, I have been fascinated with the universe. I devoured every picture book that contained anything about the Universe and watched any documentary on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel. In fact, I even wrote a paper in high school about aliens. Weird, huh? Well, that's me!

This was an opportunity of a lifetime. I finally got to see the Griffith Observatory and all its glory. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the Planetarium because we arrived late and my friend Michelle had her kids with her. We had fun and I know the kids enjoyed it too!

Ate Carmela, Michelle, Me (photog: MJ)

Pia, Michelle's daughter

The land on which the observatory stands was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Col. Griffith J. Griffith in 1896. In his will, Griffith donated funds to build an observatory, exhibit hall, and planetarium on the donated land. Construction began on June 20, 1933 using a design developed by architect John C. Austin based on preliminary sketches by Russell W. Porter. The observatory and accompanying exhibits were opened to the public on May 14, 1935.

Western View of the Valley

Zeiss Telescope Sign

Zeiss Telescope

Foucault Pendulum

The first exhibit visitors encountered in 1935 was the Foucault pendulum, which was designed to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. The exhibits also included a twelve-inch (305 mm) Zeiss telescope, a solar telescope, and a thirty-eight foot relief model of the moon's north polar region.

Nighttime View of the City

I haven't seen the Planetarium yet but my mom and I are planning to drop by soon and see the whole exhibit. Unfortunately, we weren't able to check out the lower level exhibits.

Location
Griffith Observatory
2800 East Observatory Road
Los Angeles, CA 90027
General Information Line: 213-473-0800
L.A. City's "311" Information Line: 866-4LACITY
Hearing Impaired Reservation Line: 888-TDD-2555

Entrance is free
My rating:5 STARS

Info
Griffith Observatory
Wikipedia

SkyWatch Friday: Dusk

On our way home from our early dinner at Hop Li, we passed by Echo Park in Los Angeles and I couldn't resist taking a few snaps for SkyWatch Friday.

I really loved how the sun's colors accented the clouds and made it look puffs of pink.

Debt Consolidation...and then some

There has been much speculation about debt consolidation these days. Some say that it’s not advisable at all but I beg to differ.

I have noticed that a few friends have made a debt loan to pay off their credit card debts. They explained to me that it was easy consolidating their debt into one company to make it easier for them to do monthly payments because they will be paying for only one company and to limit their interest rates.

On another note, some people even opt for debt settlement to reduce their outstanding debts. They negotiate with their creditors and agree on a reduced balance that will be regarded as payment in full.

With credit card debts being one of the causes for bankruptcy, it is advisable that we rethink our finances and get back on our own two feet. With the current economy at its lowest, it is high time to think about spending wisely.

Drop by www.fastdebtfreedomnow.com to consolidate your debt and avoid bankruptcy now.

Trips: Japanese Garden

Last Sunday was the first time that I used my Nikon D40 SLR camera. I know, I know, I'm not that good yet and I still lack the expertise to manipulate the shutter speed and the f-stops (aperture) but I am getting there!

We went to The Japanese Gardens in Van Nuys, California and we enjoyed the whole excursion. At $3.00 per person, not only was it affordable but it was worth it! This post will turn out to be a photo post and I hope you will enjoy my photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Suiho En, the garden of water and fragrance is a 6.5 acre authentic Japanese garden fashioned after “stroll gardens” constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries for Japanese Feudal lords. The Garden Creator, Dr. Kawana designed more than one dozen major Japanese gardens in the United States, including botanical gardens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Diego's Balboa Park and gardens in Denver, Chicago, Memphis, Minneapolis, and the largest Japanese garden in the United States - the 14 acre garden in St. Louis. He pioneered the design of traditional Japanese gardens which utilized plants native to the area of the garden.

For my whole album please visit Secret Fantasy.

Location:
The Japanese Gardens
6100 Woodley Ave, Van Nuys, California, 91406
Tel 818 756 8166 • Fax 818 756 9648
Info: The Japanese Garden

Trips: Bowers Museum

I have finally reached my 100th post! I've been remiss and I haven't been updating all my blogs this past week because I was too excited reading the rest of the Twilight Series. I finally went ahead and reviewed Twilight, the best book of the four.

That aside, we finally went to see the Chinese Terra Cotta Warriors at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California.

When I saw the documentary about said Terra Cotta Warriors on the Discovery Channel a few years ago, I was entranced. Imagine, hundreds of terra cotta warriors guarding the tomb of the first Emperor of China? That would be something worth seeing! Unfortunately, the whole shebang is in Xi'an, China so I knew that it would take years for me to see it.

Fortunately, the Bowers Museum is currently having an exhibit of the Terra Cotta Warriors straight from China. There are about 20 life-sized figures for the exhibit and a slew of artifacts from the site. Unfortunately, no photography of any kind was allowed (I also knew about this one in the Discovery Channel documentary because the Chinese consider the warriors as sacred).

The Terra Cotta Army are also known as the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang the First Emperor of China. These figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by several local farmers near Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China while digging a water well in March 1974. The figures vary in height (183–195cm - 6ft–6ft 5in), according to their role, the tallest being the Generals. The figures include warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits. These figures used to be exquisitely painted and some of them still have evidence of the fact. What's more, these figures are made with exquisite detail and no two terra cotta soldiers are the same. At the height of their glory, these warriors used to wield real weapons but raiders and looters have long since removed them.

Seeing the Terra Cotta Wariors Exhibit at the Bower's Museum is pretty expensive. With weekday rates at $25 and weekend rates at $27. Fortunately, the museum has free admission for up to 100 visitors per hour at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 and 7:00 pm every Friday. Naturally, we grabbed that opportunity and started lining up at 3:00 PM. I was pretty disappointed with the exhibit though because it wasn't as good as I had imagined it to be. There was an audio tour though, which made the experience entertaining. You see, we were given a hand held remote control thingy where you can just press a number coinciding to the number of the exhibit and you will hear a brief description about it. This one is pretty handy because you can pick whichever object/warrior to see first and not follow an organized tour of the whole exhibit.

Photo shot by my mom.

I was able to snag a photo with a replica of a Terra Cotta Warrior displayed in the museum hallway. All in all I give the experience three stars.

Location:
Bowers Museum
2002 North Main Street
Santa Ana, CA 92706
Images: Bowers Museum & Wikipedia
Info: Wikipedia

Skywatch Friday: Looking Up

I haven't spent time at all looking up these days and I feel that I have taken my days for granted. These are a few shots I took of the sky when I had the opportunity to look and captured them.

I also snapped a silhouetted shot of the fountain at Griffith Park while I was doing my assignment for my photography class. I thought this photo came out great (I used my SLR this time). Hope you love my shots!

Sky Watch Friday: Universal Sky

My second entry for Skywatch Friday was taken two months ago at the Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles, California, a few weeks after I arrived here.

It has been two years since I visited the shops and restaurants here and I still can't believe that everything seems so new to me. There were a lot of new street performers and new activities and shops that can be found there. I especially enjoyed the spray painting; you just wait while the guys make you a breathtaking painting of different scenes using only spray paint. Amazing!

To read more about my trip, hop over to Trips: Universal Citywalk.

Click Skywatch Friday for more entries.

Books: Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

I finished the third book, Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer, after a few days of reading it. This time I thought this book had promise. It's basically a continuation of New Moon and is packed with a little bit of action.

If you haven't read the book yet, I advice you to skip reading so as not to spoil your fun.

Plot
The Twilight series is basically about star-crossed lovers; Romeo and Juliet, if you will. The twist is that the male protagonist, Edward Cullen, is a vampire while the female protagonist, Bella Swan, is human. That explains why both of them can't be together. This time, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. This book is more about choices and another love interest is introduced in the book.
Synopsis
It is almost graduation and Bella Swan had already asked the Cullen family to vote for her being a vampire. The family already decided to turn Bella into a vampire after graduation although no exact date had been set even though Edward wasn't too keen on this idea.

Bella already decided to be transformed into a vampire because she knew that if she would not become one, the Venturi would be after her. Sure enough, there was a crime spree in Seattle that had the Cullen family worried. They had already decided that the crimes were due to newborns (recently transformed vampires) where being made because of an impending war. Alice, Edward's sister who can see the future (sort of), had already foreseen that the new coven would attack them.

Because the coven had already assembled an army of 18 newborns, the Cullen's had no choice but to ask for help from the werewolves in La Push. At first, they thought that the Volturi where after Bella but Bella realized that it was Victoria who was the mastermind of the whole attack. The werewolves and the vampires formed a truce and decided to work together to eliminate the army while keeping Bella safe. The werewolf pack had already increased adding two new wolves to the pack, making them 10.

They had devised a way to trap the newborns and split them in two, while Edward and Seth, one of the new wolves, where to guard Bella in a place where they thought she would be safe. The battle ensued but Victoria and her accomplice caught Bella's scent and attacked. A fight ensued and her accomplice was killed by Seth while Edward eliminated Victoria.

My View
This time, I enjoyed the book. It wasn't the best, mind you but it was pretty good, especially when the fight ensued. I enjoyed the graphic description of the fight and could easily picture it in my mind.

I loved the part where Bella finally realized that she loved Jacob and was torn between him and Edward. Although she had chosen Edward over Jacob, I could see now that there is really love between them. I still thought that Bella was a tad weak, though. I guess it's just her personality but I just hate that she closed her mind to other possibilities.

It was insightful actually, when Jacob kissed Bella and she reacted passionately. It was, as Jacob put it, her first kiss. Even if she had kissed Edward, they couldn't explore their passion because he [Edward] was afraid of hurting Bella if he would lose control.

The epilogue of the book was all about Jacob. He had already given up his fight for Bella and received a wedding invitation between Edward and Bella. I found the epilogue interesting because it explored Jacob's feelings for Bella. As my previous post indicated, I am all for a Jacob and Bella relationship because I can still see that Jacob "loved her more."

I know I love vampires but the werewolf Jacob had an irresistible appeal to me. I know, I love bad boys!

Games: Heroes of Might and Magic

I am definitely a game buff. I may not be as proficient as the others but I enjoy playing games. I think it was about 6 years ago that I tried playing Heroes of Might and Magic IV. I remember this game because I could see the similarities of this game and The Lord of the Rings. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that this game was loosely based on LOTR.

Heroes of Might and Magic is a strategy game where you can choose your race and amass armies and fight, conquer, and defeat other races. You can play against the computer or do multiplayer games online.

Check out these amazing screenshots

There's not much I can say only that I am itching to get the new Heroes of Might and Magic V. Aside from the traditional strategy type games, they have incorporated RPG elements and added next-generation 3D visuals.

Perhaps I might be tempted to purchase one when I have enough time on my hands!