The Departed

Early reviews shows that The Departed is a must see movie and most likely to be a major contender in the next Oscars. I can not help but imagine how great a movie this is. The movie's lead actors alone like Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg and the great Jack Nicholson will immediately hint you that this is a must see movie. We should not also fail to overlook that this flick was filmed by Martin Scorsese. Like all film buffs I will also be one of the hopefully throngs of Filipinos who would make a bee line to see this flick. However, unless you my friends haven't known yet this movie is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong flick "Mou gaan dou" (Infernal Affairs). This is one of the greatest crime/ action/ drama movie that I have seen. The lead actors Tony Leung and Andy Lau were so good. I strongly recommend that you all watch this movie first before watching the hollywood version.

A Philistine at the Ballet Theater

The day before last Sunday I received a phone call from my friend Wildflower inviting me to join her and Prudence to watch a ballet show at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. She told me that I don’t have to worry about the tickets because it was already paid for. So without much trepidation I acquiesced to join them.

I have always considered myself as a “cultured person”. I loosely base this on the fact that I know Architecture because this was my major in college, I know music because I took up piano lessons when I was in grade school to high school, I am a voracious reader and have actually acquired almost 300 books in my collection, I am a patron (ehem) of theater and for the longest time a regular subscriber of the Repertory Philippines. I actually always make it a point to watch the major local theater productions from the likes of the all Filipino gargantuan production of Rama at Sita to the Lea Salonga starrer Miss Saigon. I am also an avid film buff and as early as in my teens have been acquainted with the works of Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, and Alfred Hitchcock.

However, as far as dance is concern I am quite unfamiliar with it. Probably because I can not hold my own on the dance floor and I am what you may call a man with two left feet. So last Sunday with mixed feelings of dread and anticipation I went to the Cultural Center of the Philippines. My friends Wildflower and Prudence were supposed to meet me in Makati an hour before the start of the 3pm show. However, I was still to take a bath by 2pm and thereby advised my friends that I am just going to meet them at the venue. Around 3pm I was still aboard the LRT and sent message to my friends to just leave my ticket at the front desk. I was inside the CCP by 3:30 pm and immediately proceeded to the front desk to look for my ticket. I was a bit worried because my ticket was nowhere to be found in the front desk. I however confidently reiterated to the person behind the front desk that my friend left my ticket in the front desk. To my surprise they just gave me a new ticket and have me seated at the orchestra section. The usher told me to just look for my friends during intermission.

According to the programme, “The company celebrates 20 years of Philippine ballet in a repertory of PBT’s well-loved dance pieces re-staged, commissioned and created by world-renowned foreign choreographers, as well as cutting edge contemporary classical, neo-classical and contemporary masterpieces by Filipino former soloists and members here and abroad who have made their mark on the dancing stage.”

The dancers wore colorful costumes and they look like the Vinta’s of Mindanao. I noticed that the dancers jump a lot and they are very graceful. Half an hour have passed and it was already intermission. I immediately looked for my friends and alas they were nowhere to be found. The curtain was raised and Act 2 began, this time the background takes a medieval ambience. The dancers are garbed with coats just like monks when they marched or danced towards the center of the stage. I particularly enjoyed one number where the dancers were holding candles and they were dancing reminiscent of Pandango sa Ilaw. I noticed that there was not a lull during the whole presentation and the pacing of numbers were pretty tight. To my surprise an hour have passed without notice. Although, I cannot remember the dance numbers and they don’t strike me as very distinct I still found the whole experience refreshing and entertaining. Also, the audience in the orchestra section seems to be a very knowledgeable bunch clapping and shouting BRAVO after each dance number. There were even some Caucasian people in the audience. Being a relatively Philistine in this kind of art I just clap whenever they clap but stop short of shouting BRAVO whenever the audience do so. After the show I immediately went to the main lobby to hopefully see my friends. I saw them coming down from the staircase and found out that they were seated at the much cheaper Balcony area.

Reality Bites

I am a certified couch potato… so if I am not reading a book you can definitely find me glued to the boob tube. Aside from the usual fare of action, drama, sitcoms, David Letterman antics from Late Show, news from CNN, and music from MTV. You will most likely find me watching reality game shows. I am such a couch potato and addicted to reality game shows that I even watch the lamest of reality shows like Beauty and the Geeks, Project Runway, and America’s Next Top Model. I even go to forums to rant and banter about my favorites and most hated participants. I spend time searching information in the net and even read blogs on end about my favorite shows. I have to admit it satisfies my intrinsic sense of curiosity and certain level of voyeurism. It is very interesting to watch how people react to situations when they are put into some sort of fish bowl slash pressure cooker. I could even imagine myself doing the same thing when put in similar situations. Although I watch these shows purely because of the entertainment value I get from it I can not deny that I do learn something from it as well. Like what I said earlier I tend to imagine myself in the shoes of these hapless participants and would probably commit the same mistakes. Hopefully I will learn from their mistakes so that when I am put in a difficult situation I will bungle less than necessary.

Having said all these you can’t blame me if I am extremely excited these days. The big guns of reality game shows have started their season last week. There are even two local franchise reality game shows currently being shown in the archipelago.

Let me first begin with the two local shows, Pinoy Dream Academy of Endemol and ABS-CBN and Philippine Idol of Fremantle and ABC 5. I am an ardent believer of the Filipino’s musicality and artistry. I think the Philippines have an unlimited resource of talented, artistic, and creative people. That’s why having these additional talent slash reality shows is always a big welcome to showcase the vast musical talent we have. Pinoy Dream Academy (PDA) is similar to Big Brother which is another reality game show from Endemol’s. All the aspiring participants also known as the scholars are housed in one dormitory cum academy and are being monitored 24/7. A viewer can even subscribe to the 24/7 telecast inside the academy and dormitory. Needless to say the scholars are under the scrutiny of the public from the time they woke up to the time they are deep in slumber. The selection process was pretty extensive in scope. There was not only a nationwide audition conducted for the search but there were also some selected major cities abroad where there is a large Filipino community where auditions were held. I think this was done to give the show a “global” flavor. The 20 scholars will be trained to become better performers. They will undergo physical fitness training, vocal/music training, dance lessons, and “performance training”. Each week will culminate with a recital. During the recital or gala show there are invited jurors from the entertainment industry. These jurors will make a shortlist of four scholars who have not performed well during the gala show. These scholars are then nominated for expulsion. After a week, one scholar will be expelled from this list. The other 3 scholars that will be saved are chosen either by the public audience thru the highest text votes, by the mentors assessment, and by their peer‘s selection. During the first expulsion last Sunday the scholar expelled was Gemma Fritsgerald a 20 year old native of Australia.
The headmaster of the academy is the Ateneo educated and Australia based member of the APO Hiking Society Jim Paredes, the vocal coach/musical master is Moy Ortiz , the dance master is Maribeth Bichara, the fitness coach is Gretchen Malalad.

Most of the scholars are in their late teens and early 20’s. At the first week of their internship the scholars are having a pretty easy life inside the academy. I was a bit disappointed because the trust of the show delved too much with the personal lives of the scholars and not on their potentials as a performing artist. I think this is also the reason why most of the people in the local entertainment industry are “stars” and not artists. More often than not the focus of attention is the personal life of the person and not their artistic talent. However, on the third week of their stay in the academy the mentors became more strict. The mentors became more quick to reprimand the slackers. I particularly enjoyed watching one of the added “mentor” at the third week of the competition. This particular mentor teaches grammar, diction, etc. He divided his class between the “global” scholars, which are basically half breeds or pinoys born abroad. These kids hardly speak Pilipino, and the goal of the mentor is for them to learn speak Pilipino without the annoying foreign accent. The “natives” on the other hand are taught to speak English with the correct diction. The teacher is quite strict and downright forward with his comments and pretty quick to nip in the bud any signs of noise or inattentiveness.

I have high hopes for this reality game show because I am hoping that the show will really harness the potentials of these very young aspiring artists. Hopefully there will be less emphasis on budding romances. I hope ABS-CBN will finally quit the extremely outdated formula of pairing up pretty young things for a love team.

The next show on my list is the long awaited Philippine Idol, I am not pretty sure if this should also be categorized under reality game show, but since Emmy puts it under this category so there it is. I thought all along that this was just another talent show, but what the heck I am a huge fan of the American version whichever category it falls and am extremely excited with the local version. The auditions were held nationwide Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. There were even some kids who came from different parts of the globe just to audition for the Philippine Idol. There was even this kid who came straight from the prestigious Julliard school of Music but unfortunately did not make the semi-finals cut. During the initial auditions alone I can not help but marvel at the immense wealth of musical talent our country have.

The local version of Randy, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell were Francis Magalona, Pilita Corales, and Ryan Cayabyab. The master of ceremonies is Ryan Agoncillo. This week the
final twelve contestants were completed and some of my early favorites did not make it though. However, the final twelve are still a good bunch. One thing I noticed during the semi-final round was some of the contestants were either close to tears or crying unabashedly when interviewed by Ryan after they have performed to ask people to vote for them. I don’t know if this is because Filipinos are very emotional or either very poor and see stardom as their only ticket out of poverty. Unfortunately, most of the contestants who made the final cut were from De La Salle and Ateneo. This Saturday is the first performance night of the final twelve and I can’t wait to be knocked off my seat with the immense talent I am about to witness.

Last Saturday I saw Survivor Cook Islands. I was excited to see how the new social experiment would pan out. As many of you may know by now the 20 contestants were divided into 4 groups base on ethnicity. The Caucasians belong to the Raro tribe , the Latinos form the Aitu tribe, the African Americans are the Hikki tribe, and the great Asian Americans are the Puka tribe. The Puka tribe won the first immunity challenge and I am not surprised. I figure they’ll end up winning one challenge after another. I truly believe that Asians are the smartest people in the world. The only problem with Asians is that we are a very gentle folks and most people tend to take advantage of our kindness and gentleness.

I am very impressed with the Koreans in the game, especially Yul Kwon he obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in symbolic systems from Stanford University and Juris Doctor Degree from Yale University. Definitely I am also rooting for the two Pinoys in this game, Jenny and Brad. Actually as long as an Asian won this Survivor series I will be very happy.

The next reality game show currently showing on the local TV network is my all time favorite The Amazing Race. This show never fails to stir my interest. Although I am a couch potato I am a closet globetrotter wannabe. I find traveling very interesting. However, I lack the financial resources necessary to fulfill this dream. Hence, I have to satisfy myself for the time being with watching The Amazing Race. This reality game show is very exciting, the fast pace and diversity of contestants, events, cultures that you get to see in the boob tube is the closest thing to the excitement that I figure I will get when I get to travel myself. Usually early on in the show I already know the teams to root for. I usually root for the elderly couple, parent and offspring team, and the funny gay couple. However, this season there is no elderly couple and no parent and offspring team. The gay couple in this season don’t seem funny or outrageous enough so for the time being I have decided to root for the Asian team.

Meryl, Woody, and a Monster

The past month I was able to see six movies. Out of the six movies I enjoyed at least half of it and would strongly recommend that you guys go out and catch these flicks. The first movie on my list is The Devil Wears Prada. As you all may have already know by now this is the movie adaptation of the book of the same title that is based on the life of a person working under VOGUE’s Anna Wintour. I haven’t read the book and is not that interested with it because from what I have read it is not much of a literary find. However, be that as it may when the movie was released some three weeks ago here in Manila I immediately made sure that I would catch the first day screening. I am a huge fan of Meryl Streep and subscribe to the accolade that she is the greatest actress of our generation. And true enough with the reviews I’ve read Meryl’s performance was more than impressive. I definitely think that Meryl deserves an Oscar nomination even though it is still very early and most Oscar bait films are usually released in November and December. Anne Hathaway is also commendable and I think she is more than adequate in this movie, I think she held her own against Meryl.


The next movie I saw and had fun watching was the Monster House. This movie reminds me of my childhood days when I usually believe all the urban legends of my neighborhood. The lead characters in this movie are all adorable. It is amazing how different animation have become since my childhood.

My third favorite movie of the month is Scoop. This is a classic Woody Allen movie. I kept on laughing out loud inside the SM city cinema when I was watching this flick. I can really hear myself out loud because the cinema is almost empty save for some ten souls. This movie received mixed reviews, but if you are a huge Woody Allen fan you’ll definitely enjoy this flick.