i am just not into it…

thursday night, after i published the second installment of my “stalking” post, i finished off my white mocha and drove over to the corner video rental near my place to return the “happy-go-lucky” dvd i rented monday night. yep, it’s three days over due.

my friend sarah borrowed it on tuesday. she promised to bring it back the next day; however, her scoliosis struck and she wasn’t able to report for work wednesday. i get penalize a dollar a day that the dvd is out, so she gave me two bucks for it. i told her it wasn’t necessary as my credit card has been charged already but she insisted. so i took it and used it to rent the newly-released dvd featuring an all-star cast lead by jennifer aniston and drew barrymore called “he’s just not that into you”. i missed that movie in theaters when it was released last february – never really intended to watch it, wink, wink. :)

when i got to the video shop, i was told i owe three bucks for the dvd. i didn’t know i had to return it before 8pm every day to avoid late charges. i thought that was too much but i couldn’t argue against it as it was clearly indicated on the receipt that i signed off for. oh dear.

good thing i got an extra buck in my wallet so i was able to rent the dvd - and i went home. there was no dinner waiting for me at home except for the boxed left over i brought from guppy’s the previous night when i had dinner with sammi and ginny.

i heated the food and popped in the dvd.

two minutes into the movie i already saw that “he’s just not that into you” is gonna be as contrived a movie as it could possibly get. it looks so good on screen, though, because of the big stars – and attractive, too, if you will, that the producers (thank you ms. barrymore!) were able to gather, but, otherwise, it feels flat, didactic, and just way, way ------ overly long.

the movie begins with a young gigi (portrayed by ginnifer goodwin – who is she???) who was bullied as a child by a boy but was pacified by her mom by telling her that the reason why the boy was being mean to her is because the boy actually likes her – what!? it’s probably true, though. that is the premise, and if you are a sucker for this genre, you’ll easily buy it, too. lol.

the movie addresses the dilemma that single people undergo when they are searching for that perfect relationship and perfect mate. they have this preconceived notion on how to go about first dates, second dates, etc. – what works and what doesn’t, all the stuff.

the title is inexcusably misleading, though. the story revolves around eight or so people - i lost count, let’s review: in addition to aniston, barrymore & goodwin, there’s ben affleck (who i thought was alarmingly thin), jennifer connelly, scarlett johansson, justin long, bradley cooper and that guy from entourage – sorry, i don’t watch that show.

these characters, quite incredibly, move around in a common circle but, surprisingly, everyone do not bump into each other all at the same time! clever, huh? also, the individual stories are not just about one sex group’s dilemma – and it’s not even limited to single folks! to be fair, those stories could have worked if not for the length and the clichéd (and hasty) conclusion the writers did to the various storylines they forced the audience to endure.

oh yeah i got something about the title too. lol... that catchy is clearly just a ploy to get more women to watch this movie because women, even those in successful relationships, would easily identify with the title more than men - although everyone, men or women, have a sad story or two about someone whom they thought would be perfect for them but turned out be “not too into them” in the end – sorry had to use the title somehow.

it's okay to miss this movie - really... :)

happy-go-lucky

finally, after two weeks of seemingly endless days, we finished all our reports and we made our deadline just in time for fedex to pick it up. i dropped our reports to the fedex box a few teeny weeny minutes before the 5pm pick-up time. whoa!

it was a mad dash from the 4th floor to the mailroom in the ground floor lobby. good thing LA did not shake while i was in the elevator, otherwise, i would have been stuck and our two month’s worth of overtime would have all but ended with a penalty for late-submission – and that would have been so bad, ouch.

i wonder how sally hawkin’s poppy would react in such a situation. i bet she would all be cheery and bright whilst waiting for her rescuers. nice!

what a nice segue, eh? or was i trying too hard? either way, it’s already done. – lol.

last night, i was home early. if 9pm is early to you, then we’ll get along fine. on my drive home, i was thinking what to do at home. i know my basic cable is practically dead now since all networks are already on hiatus for the summer and the french open has turned into a bore after rafa was eliminated in the 4th round. (wait! sharapova also lost today. what on earth is happening?)

i was thinking i’d call my newfound bud rowell and invite him to go to guppy tea house along south st. in cerritos (they close late at 2 in the morning and they serve really good pan-asian cuisine – it’s where tweeners hang-out savoring the resto’s signature shaved ice and mixed fruit dessert. oh yeah, they don’t serve alcohol – yes, you may smirk, haha), but i realized he would be working at the hospital. darn!

so, i decided to drop by my favorite video rental and took out this copy of mike leigh’s 2008 extra-bright comedy cleverly titled “happy-go-lucky”.

when i got to my place, i washed the dirty dishes (eewww) that’s been sitting on my sink for what, five days now? – i know it’s so terrible. am gonna change, promise! after i set my brown rice on the cooker, i went to cook my favorite lightly-fried salmon. thankfully, i had the fish brought down from the freezer to the cooler section last sunday so i didn’t have to defrost it anymore. whew, that saved me loads of time. yay.

by 1030pm, everything was ready. i turned my blu-ray on and popped in the dvd while my dinner was waiting on my mini-table (don’t have a full table as it won’t fit my apartment anymore – haha).

sally hawkins is a delight. she plays poppy, who is eternally cheerful and friendly. she dominates the movie from start to end. the movie is basically plotless. what it does is take us through poppy's life and how she reacts to things and people that would bring normal people (like me, like me!) into a violent breakdown. that's true.

her bike gets stolen, and what does she do? she just laughs it off and loudly cries why she wasn't even allowed to say goodbye and off she dancingly walks away.

poppy is a kindergarten teacher. she shares an apartment with her bestfriend zoe and spends all her time laughing off everything.

one day, she decides to enrol for driving lessons and she meets scott who is her complete opposite. scott, played wonderfully by eddie marsan, is grumpy and is the type who hates the world for no concrete reason but just hates the world. poppy tries to inject fun into her lessons but always gets foiled by scott's distant and unaffected demeanor. their unusual relationship would later force poppy to face one of her greatest tests.

watching the movie, the audience is forced to assess his or her own world views. do you want to face the world with an easy smile or to march on with detachment and contempt? in my case, i would prefer to be rather pleasant all the time but poppy's personality is something else. she gets insulted but never shows it. she reacts as if she's having the best conversation ever. she goes to flamenco classes even with a back pain because she promised a friend she would go with her.

she doesn't attempt to please anybody. she is just the way she is. she is genuinely pleasant - though, there are times she gets so irritating, too. mike leigh, who is known for writing his scripts only on the set has created an honest and quite relatable character and in sally hawkins she found one of the most brilliant and delightful actresses ever.

for this movie sally bagged best actress awards at the berlin film festival and the golden globes.

i actually had so much fun watching this movie that i forgot to tune in to nbc at 1145 to catch conan o'brien's debut as the tonight show host. aw... too bad.

but i had fun watching the movie, and you will, too - promise! :)

Jay

Last night, at Laemmle Sunset 5, I saw one of the finest Filipino films I have seen in the last five years. The film is called Jay.

Baron Geisler leads the sterling cast of mostly unknown actors in Francis X. Pasion’s impressive behind-the-scenes look at how TV documentaries are made. The subtle coercions and desire to be famous play like a never-ending dance that renders the movie its bittersweet tone.

The movie is hysterically funny although its subject matter is actually grim. It involves a grisly crime – a gay teacher is found dead with numerous stab wounds all over his body – and a young ambitious TV documentarian who crosses the boundaries of ethical journalism just to be able to capture his “scoop” and present it in the most sensational way.

Surely, we must have heard a lot of unsavory stories about how TV journalists “stages” news to make it more interesting. And the movie attempts to uncover all this in an unapologetic fashion.

Geisler plays Jay, the crafty TV journalist who stops at nothing to make his scoop his most sensational ever. If he had to restage key events because the stock footage was ruined, he would not think twice about it. If he had to make up fake police pursuits because the original aprehension was less thrilling, he would force his way into an actual pursuit. If he had to flirt with uncooperative subjects to make them agree to appear on camera, he would do so without qualms. And what's interesting is that he does all these without losing his charm!

How Geisler plays Jay is the movie's biggest surprise. He is magnificent throughout. There is never a moment where one can sense a hesitancy or awkwardness in his acting. Quite a revelation, indeed!

Flor Salanga, the actress who portrays the victim's mother is also very, very good! She had me fooled in the beginning. Her initial scenes really fooled me into believing that she was a real person and not someone who was “acting”.

Her character, Luzviminda, initially has reservations about the camera following her and making her family’s tragedy into a “reality show”, but when she gets the hang of it and the realization that she could be seen on TV eventually get the better of her. She starts becoming conscious of her appearance and begins to “act” like a grieving mother would on TV.

Like her, most of the characters in the movie are portrayed as hungry for fame. The victim’s younger sister initially thought that Jay’s TV crew was from the Pinoy Big Brother show. There is a teacher who never wanted his face to be seen on camera but scrambled for his foundation just before the take. There is a friend of the victim who cried no end during an interview because she was instructed to look “really sad.”

The movie is never meant to be entertaining the way entertainment is normally defined, and yet it is resoundingly fun. It never takes itself too seriously and never even attempts to correct what surely are production mistakes.

Francis X. Pasion has created a world not far detached from reality. His character's confused understanding of what is ethically and morally right make it all the more credible in a society that is slowly being controlled by media in all its ancillary forms.

And in another clever ploy, Jay, the movie’s title, is the name shared by the crime “victim” and Geisler’s character, which plays as the “victimizer” of sorts. There is no question why the writer did this. If the roles were reversed and Geisler’s character turned out the real victim, there is no doubt that the other Jay, given the opportunity, would also somehow take advantage of the same tragedy. We are indeed only as good or as cunning as our circumstance would allow it.

The Soloist

When a man helps another man, is it an act of generosity or an act of self-redemption? Does generosity extend beyond merely handing out help to actually influencing the person to evolve into someone that suits our definition of a well-adjusted individual? These are the questions that confront the audience as they watch The Soloist.

There are so many things to like in The Soloist. There’s Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Jr., Catherine Keener, Atonement director Joe Wright, and In Her Shoes screenwriter Susannah Grant. Too bad it doesn’t live up to its promise. It could have been a very powerful movie about homelessness in Los Angeles or about schizophrenia - if the movie had only focused on either one. True, the main protagonist, Nathaniel Ayers, (Jamie Foxx) is suffering both from the aforementioned mental condition and homelessness; however, the way it played up didn’t allow the viewers to fully empathize with either of Ayers’ plight.

Nathaniel Ayers is a homeless man in LA’s Skid Row when he was accidentally discovered by Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.), an LA Times columnist, while playing an old broken violin in front of Beethoven’s statue in Downtown LA.

Bored and looking for a good story material, Steve engages Nathaniel in a brief conversation and he discovers that Nathaniel used to be a Cello scholar at Juiliard, who, due to his developing mental illness, dropped out after only two terms. Patiently, he starts to interview Nathaniel and eventually traces his sister and part of his history. His stories start appearing on LA Times and one reader, drawn to the sad story of Nathaniel, sends her old Cello for Nathaniel to start playing again.

Over time, Steve starts spending more and more time with Nathaniel. His desire to make Nathaniel get better and resume functioning normally again begin to influence his judgment and he forgets what he is to Nathaniel.

For Nathaniel, Steve is just a friend. He is nothing more than just someone who is there to listen to his ramblings and his life story during his lucid intervals.

This conflicted view on how one individual plays his part in a relationship, be it friendship or otherwise, has already been effectively tackled in writer Susannah Grant’s In Her Shoes with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. This time, the characters are based on real life and the limitations of the real story is clearly evident in the limited “cinematic” moments that made the film appear too forced while at the same time wanting in high emotion that the movie of this kind surely needs.

Over time, the film tells how Nathaniel developed his illness but the audience just couldn’t care less. It is as confused as Nathaniel. Or probably, it was the director’s intent.

What the film lacks in effective storytelling is supplanted by the excellent performances turned in by the cast. The climax is quite most noteworthy for Foxx’s and Downey’s performances more than its suggestive intent. Scenes involving LA’s homeless are so moving especially when you learn later on that those were actually real people.

Now I know why this movie got bumped off from its original December release.

ghosts of girlfriends past

matthew mcconaughey is connor mead. he is your typical celebrity photographer who changes girlfriends as often as he clicks his camera. he is so good at hooking women that they don't mind being the nth weekend date for the goodlooking playboy. in one instance, he even had to break up with three women all at the same time. how he actually does it is something that made me enjoy this movie.

going into the theater i was so ready to use every imanigable review cliches, like comparing the movie to "ghosts of bad movies past", but then, quite surprisingly, the premise and plot actually worked! yes, it's a chick flick and you could see the ending just by looking at the movie's poster but then perhaps the mention of the philippines during one of the key scenes somewhat influenced me, i dont know but i liked the movie.

jennifer garner is jenny peroti. connor's childhood sweetheart who once left him brokenhearted during prom night. this incident would trigger the change in connor's attitude towards women.

jenny and connor meets again after so many years during the weekend wedding of connor's younger brother, paul. connor's arrival is greeted with both excitement and fear. the ladies are excited to be in bed with him (apparently, weddings are now considered sex fling haven) while the bride and jenny fears that he may ruin the entire wedding just by his mere presence.

typical of connor, he starts making his presence felt during the wedding rehearsal dinner. he tells everyone why getting married is wrong, blah, blah, blah. he fondles the bride's mom. he spills secrets to the bridesmaids. he does everything that is expected of him.

unfortunately for him, his dead uncle wayne (michael douglas, in a role that required no effort at all) comes back and warns him that he will be visited by three ghosts who will take him through his life's journey to find the reason behind his insensitivity towards love and committed relationships.

should i tell you more? you already know where the story is headed.

the movie has some very funny moments and i specially liked the casting of pretty daniel de wulf as connor's assistant. she makes sure that her character's indian accent is not supposed to be funny thus she makes it very cute with her witty remarks.

it is a delight to see jennifer garner in a romantic comedy. she doesn't have to work much in this movie but one can tell that she had fun. matthew mcconaughey is his usual character. i cannot fault him for this. he seems typecast in this kind of role and he may be making good money out of it, otherwise, why would he be doing it?

i got no other complaints. reo speedwagon dominates the soundtrack. need i say more?