The Mundane

Youtube

2007-02-21T06:04:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's wrong with Youtube! Boo-hoo! I'm really pissed off. Can't upload my vid! Now, I'm tired. Irritable. and Weary.

241

2007-02-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

But what good is a heart

When it shudders to speak.

I guess it's too late now.

I wanted to turn you on

My favorite song.

Wanted to be near you

But somebody owns you now.

Photos

2007-02-19T13:37:00.000-08:00

Photography is not all about taking pictures. It also aims to capture a story based on what the pictures' theme is.

in the mood for love...

2007-02-17T03:55:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot about this post. Good thing, I remembered that it's February and everybody is in the mood for love... =)

The movie presents Mulvey's idea about women and how they are classified as the second living objects in this world. Why? Because as the author said, we don't have the "power" or The so-called majestic weapon in order for you to rule the world. Women don't have that. We don't carry that gun...

That's why we are portrayed weak.

Moving on, I like the film (In the mood for love). I like the music. I like how the director playfully made the camera shots to make it look "sexy" to that sense. I just don't like how the woman was made weak in that movie. She was like a whiner. I mean, if she was already being cheated by her husband, why commit the same mistake? Why ask another individual what she should do, when she could have thought about it? I mean, why feel and think you are weak, when you can be strong?

Good thing she was good looking enough to be appreciated by the viewers. hehe. ^_^

Babel

2007-02-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt. I really don't know why women in particular love him. I am not a fan of his acting neither of his looks. Sometimes, the fans would only be interested in watching his film because of him and not about the story. Just like in his movie Troy, why did almost the female population went to see the film? Hm.. maybe it was about the story OR maybe it was because of his butt exposure?

The point here is, actors like Brad Pitt are not seen in their films as the characters they portray but as celebrities with beautiful faces. That's why screen actors, according to Cavell are not really actors establishing characters unlike with stage actors that we can see the realness of them when they perform.

You can just appreciate the scene not because of its realness but because of what you feel in accordance with the scene.

kane.citizen.

2007-02-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

If we'd go back to Citizen Kane's time, it would really be awe-inspiring to witness a film like that. I mean, with all the great shots, the panning and zooming effects, the lights and even the story was incredible. No wonder it had many appreciations during their time..

The story too was not in chronological order that's why we were a bit confused. Flashbacks through people who knew him are really helpful for the audience to establish Kane's personality in one glass .

Well, honestly even if the story was a bit dragging and the lights were really not that great, I still appreciate it because it was a smart film considering that almost all of the elements were combined.

I just had thoughts of Mike Enriquez while watching it. hehe. the voice! the voice! :)

image source: http://www.jurassicdvd.com/catalog/images/CitizenKane.jpg

Epekto ng Cremaster

2007-01-21T02:37:00.000-08:00

How would you enjoy a film that runs for how many minutes, and you were just sitting there without understanding one single scene of it? Weird eh? Yes, that's what we all felt while watching Matthew Barney's Cremaster cycle. It was really "bjorkish (a new term that I created out from her weird gf Bjork)" because of its elicit deeper meaning. But I guess, that's what performance art is. If what Barney made was understandable to the audience, then it'll become a movie but because it has to swirl your mind in order for you to appreciate it, then it becomes an art.

Strange. Odd. Peculiar. Different. That I guess is the artist's ambiguous approach in order for the Cremaster cycle not to be understood.Ü

The Kiamco Effect

2007-01-14T07:45:00.000-08:00

Rich Kiamco was undeniably funny! Witty and spontaneous, that's how I described him. I didn't even need to induce caffeine because my cells were very alive from start to end. I love him. :) He reminded me so much of Carson of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Rob Schneider and Conan O'Brien in one package, even better I guess. He was really a great performer.

I wondered how he gained his confidence like that? UBER DUPER CONFIDENT.

I'm a fan now!

He became an inspiration to us Filipinos that in the BIG and BUSY city like New York, a Filipino can still be an OVER achiever. Indeed, whatever loopholes you had experienced in the past, if you will just have this drive to do whatever you want, go ahead and do it. Even if you'll make mistakes in the path that you'll be taking. Don't stop. Just run. Run towards your dreams.

I really looked up to him as a role model. Despite people's ideals and beliefs clashing with his perceptions, he still proved to them or to us that what the heck? you can't really please everybody so the best thing to do is just let those people see that you're worthy to be called someone.
You can't change the world nor can you change what people think but in your own little way, you can be happy with your self. Take it from Rich. :)

I super love this quote from him: "Love me because I'm beautiful, hate me because you're not me."

Oh yeah, and I'm using his profile/ticket as my bookmark. (^_^)

the other four elements.

2006-12-18T08:26:00.000-08:00

How to examine the

Antigong Agong

On Poetics

Diction

Antigong Agong's diction was combined with the use of the Tausug language, and with Tagalog and English. It really made the play believable to that sense. Though some of them had difficulties with speaking Tagalog and English..tsk. Struggling pero okay naman ang pagkakadeliver ng lines.

Thought

According to Aristotle, thought and diction come hand in hand. Kung okay ang pgkkadeliver, okay ang thought. Whatever the characters are uttering, the meanings behind those words should come out. In the play, the characters had shown the Tausug concept and the Budahu incident appropriately with the way they spoke and acted. They also used appropriate facial expressions and gestures in order for them to impart the essence of the story to their audience.

Spectacle

Aristotle said that, spectacle refers to the overall stage performance. The totality of the play was really appreciated by the audience. I even asked my Atenean friends because the Antigong Agong was also shown in their school, and they spoke the same enthusiasm. The whole production really exerted effort for this play to came out really great. Sayang nga lang, they underestimated the power of make-up. Kulang na kulang. They really looked pale on stage. But nevertheless, if their aim was to look as natural as possible, well then, they over achieved it. :)

Melody

All throughout the play, Antigong Agong catered how magical and enticing the Tausug culture is because of how they played their musical instruments. I was really glued to their performance because their original music compositions really made the audience impressed.

There's no second where you could not have enjoyed it. =)

peaceweaver.

2006-12-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

Yeyness!

I had fun with the Antigong Agong musical play. A lot. And writing about every single detail that happened would not even justify the amount of fun I had during the play. Too bad my phone's at its stupid state once again. I couldn't send the pictures that I took and it just sucks considering I erased some of my old pics just to ensure that I'll have enough space for the play's pics. * sigh.

Going back, the story is about a young man, Samsullah Ahmin, who didn't know where to find the amount of money which is needed as a dowry in the Muslim tradition. He then decided to leave the country and work in Iraq to seek for a greener pasture. When he was about to leave, his fiancee's grandmother decided not to let Sam leave and instead of the dowry, he was tasked to find the "antigong agong" which has witnessed the war against the Americans 100 years ago. The search was began and so with the endless trials they had faced just to find this huge agong.

It also talked about the changes we have to deal with and the fact that something's never change. Even if it was a 100 yr old story in Jolo, Sulu, it will continue to live on a hundred years more because it is already a part of who they are.

I'm inlove now with the Tausug tradition. hehe. Really, I am. Or maybe because I have the tendency to like everything colorful in sight?

What just lacked during that moment is a mocha frappe. Just that. And I will really be at my happiest self. hehe.

It's really a worthwhile experience. :)

extraction from tuhog.

2006-12-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Tuhog is one kind of movie I see myself producing in the next ten years. Not because of its torrid sex scenes and Klaudia Coronel's humongous boobs but the reality I've felt in that movie...

I've been a movie addict since I was 13 years old. It's one way of giving pleasure to myself and I've already been exposed to predictable movies. Sad to say, mostly Filipino movies. Tuhog actually was not one of them. Out of the slightest chance of making it predictable, it actually turned out realistic and superb which really suprised me because I just jerked it off before I even saw it.

We know movies are just movies and actors are just made up in order to give justice to the roles they were given but never did it occur to me that a story could be distorted in its "piggiest" form like that of Tuhog and that really made it an intelligent sex flick. They turned the movie version in the story verrrry different and comical because of the exaggeration of sex scenes. Perla's story was also very alarming because it was really different in the movie version. Imagine her seducing her own father when infact she was the first rape victim of Amang. Cruel. All throughout the movie, it felt like you're watching two different stories in just one concept. It's like a battle of the real life situation and the exaggerated version.

What I also love about it is the undeniable truth behind all the true to life stories made in history. Kudos for opening my mind.

...But then I thought about Aristotle once again, if the movie part of the movie where Klaudia Coronel played Ina Raymundo was just an imitation and a copy of the original, was the essence still there even if it was murdered tragically? And also even if it has the so-called essence, will it still be alright if you take the 75% of truth in it?

Hmm.. Oh well, bottomline: the story just shows how devilish producers are just to sell their movies.Ü

imitasyon.

2006-12-04T05:53:00.000-08:00

Plato and Aristotle speak of the same genre- imitation. If Plato said that everything is an imitation of an imitation, Aristotle however said that there’s only a degree of which of these objects may be imitated. What Aristotle is saying is that, the entire totality of the object may not be necessarily be imitated but the essence will still be present to the object being imitated. Complicated again huh?

Well, it’s like this. If a person, let’s say Manny Pacquiao, who was imitated by Jericho Rosales for The Manny Pacquiao The Movie, Jericho Rosales didn’t have to look, talk, and act or even sing like Manny. He just had to feel the essence of Manny’s life story in order for him to present to the viewers what kind of life Manny Pacquiao had. Even though he didn’t imitate Manny Pacquiao’s features 100%, the essence of Manny Pacquiao in Jericho Rosales was seen. It’s just so happened that Jericho Rosales has a straight Tagalog accent that’s why it’s also hard for viewers to contemplate. =p But aside from that, the role was given justice by Echo.

Last Friday, Tuhog became our favorite movie. Nyahaha. To some, actually. :) It was not really a sexy film for nothing because as a viewer, you could also learn something from it. What the movie had shown was that, an imitation can go over exaggerated and the nature of the piece of artwork will immediately transform to something else. The so-called “real part” of the movie became surreal when it was transformed into a movie. If I was one of the characters, may it be the mother or Ina Raymundo, I would question myself if that was really our story because no doubt about it, the characters were treated like pigs by Amang but it transformed to something else in the movie…something crazy. Well, in the movie, the essence was still there because Amang is still the father of his apo but in a different concept, added with more sex into the movie.

So it’s still the same with Aristotle’s point of view, the essence of the original piece of work may be copied by the imitated work but it will have distinct features from the original. It will never be a clone of the original... just the essence of it.

Photo: http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y291/chickie123456789/Heartbreak%20and%20emo/c650381b.jpg

Deceptions.

2006-12-02T19:46:00.001-08:00

While discussing about Plato’s theory of art as imitation, I remembered the movie Matrix. According to Matrix, nothing in this world is real because we’re all just living in a world full of deceptions...

Years ago, I couldn’t understand what this film was talking about and thought it’s just a smart movie for human brains to pop out. Like it's a movie not for those people intellectually challenged, and I thought I was one of them... Maybe because I haven’t stirred up Plato’s idea of ‘imitation’ yet but remembering what the film was, Neo played by Keanu Reeves, was weighing things and figuring out what’s real and not in this world. That across the emotions that we’re all celebrating lay the possibility that it’s all fraud and deception. Well according to Plato, the concrete world is a first-order imitation which is also imitated for a secondary class of objects and all the following existing forms are just imitations of the previous classes. Complicated huh? Well, it’s like this… Everything around us is an imitation of an imitation from the original perception. That we're three times scratched from the truth, which is hanging somewhere out there in outer space. And that just bothers me a lot, if it’s really true that we’re just imitations from the original, why do we keep on reinventing a lot of things and having this so called "new concept" if it's an imitative concept from the Supreme being? Is the word “innovation” really not applicable in reality? That if a picture copied by an artist from a maker’s work is an example of imitation, what’s the next cycle after that? Where did we all really came from?

Plato also opened another argument that imitation has bad effects. Yes, we enjoy the feeling of imitating other things but sometimes, it leads us to a bad habit and produces moral weaknesses. Plato discussed that the second-order of imitation/ the makers of the concept we have in mind produces good imitations for the welfare of the society. What triggers from the lack of their ordinary uses are those imitators coming from the third-order of imitation (painters, photographers, etc.) because they can only let people be delighted of the piece of artwork they've done through the artworks' appearances but still, people won't have the exact feeling even if they had been delighted with the appearances because no matter how it is imitated perfectly, the artworks' purposes are challenged.

For example, if a dressmaker made a beautiful red gown, a customer can enjoy the gown's features if she could see it personally and enjoy the gown's purpose as for clothing. If a photographer tries to get a picture of the gown and showed it to another customer, the other customer will just be delighted of the gown's appearance but will never have the exact feeling to the customer who had seen the gown personally because she couldn't try it on. So that's why, even if the gown is already imitated by the photographer, the purpose of the gown as a garment is still lacking because what the person can just enjoy is just its appearance.

But still, the picture of the gown can be more or less considered true depending on how it is close to the original garment...

Oh, the headache! This is really a head bang worthy…

Well Plato... I’m just wondering what my original self-look like? Haha. :) If how close am I to the truth?

waltz.

2006-11-26T08:52:00.000-08:00

Beauty. Music for me is life's most beautiful interval.. It's amazing how the beauty of life is just within my reach whenever I seclude myself with the songs of my choice. It may feel weird to just bum at home on weekends and just pretend your mother's usual reprimands are coldplay's new lyrics, but it works for me...really, it does. I like to listen to music since I was a kid. I sometimes confide the answers to my problems because of song lyrics. Pathetic eh? But again, it works for me.

Take Coldplay for example, when I first heard them, I was like a child wanting to be anything she believes. Every stanza was written beautifully and that caught me wanting for some more. Coldplay helped me to believe that living life in the shade of gray, without taking any risks is just like living no life at all.

I wonder if the change that Coldplay brought me can also happen in the Philippines? Music in whatever genre can move the hearts and souls of any beast. Maybe... Pacquiao can do this for us. :) He could sing until his tonsils would turn red and he would trade his boxing career for music. (I don't know. This is just my opinion).

Photo: http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m139/Shontellee13/coldplay.jpg

sunday night and thinking beautiful.

2006-11-26T07:29:00.000-08:00

New blog. I finally did it last night... Err, or just this early morning? What pushed me from my laziness is this image I've seen from Photobucket.com. This maybe my "calling" for a fresh new start of online journal. :)

Photo: http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k202/fribble108/pinktrees.jpg