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Movie #19: Don Jon by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays a porn-addicted Guido and is still adorable.

Snow is coming, fan art by Bego

Mount Vesuvius destroyed the city of Pompeii and its neighbors when it erupted in 79 AD, annihilating the population with extreme heat and burying everything under twenty feet of ash. (This kept artifacts perfectly preserved and allowed archaeologists to make plaster casts of the citizens caught in the cataclysm.)

Kit Harington is gorgeous and his Celtic gladiator Milo kills nearly as many people as the eruption-earthquake-tsunami (Pompeii is directed by Paul—NOT Thomas—Anderson of the Resident Evil series, which specializes in this stuff), so we’ll call it a tie.

Kit shows greater range here than he does in Game of Thrones, and by “range” we mean abs, pecs, quads and glutes. Just about our only complaint Thrones-wise is that Jon Snow is always wrapped in furs when he’s with the Night Watch on The Wall or undercover in Mance Rayder’s army. (In the love scene, Ygritte took everything off and Jon Snow was still covered in fur. Booooo.) Kit Harington is so pretty, if he shaved his facial hair he could be the hero and the leading lady.

Yeah, the movie is stupid fun, but it was intended for stupid fun and not historical accuracy. There’s plenty of swordplay and carnage: nothing looks real so know they’re not really dead. Emily Browning plays the aristocratic young woman Cassia who falls in love with the gladiator, which is perfectly understandable because she has eyes. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje reprises the noble Woody Strode role in Spartacus, and speaking of Spartacus, we’re disappointed that there is no dialogue like this in Pompeii.

Our friend Ruthie always used to misquote this as “Antoninus, do you prefer oysters…or salami?”

Carrie Ann-Moss and Jared Harris play Cassia’s parents, and Harris always looks like his guilty embezzler in Mad Men. Kiefer Sutherland has some fun as the eevil Senator Corvus. In the tradition of Resident Evil, Pompeii plays like a video game in which the hero must battle other gladiators, then the Roman champion, then the eevil senator while rescuing the damsel AND escaping from the giant ash cloud and the earth opening up millimeters from his feet. The dirtier and more battered Kit gets, the lovelier he looks—if the war for the Iron Throne were a beauty pageant, Jon Snow would be King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm and Daenerys would be first runner-up.

Verdict: Watch if you have nothing else to do and you can’t wait for GoT Season 4 to begin.

We suddenly remembered The Last Days of Pompeii, a book we borrowed from the St. Theresa’s library and devoured on the school bus. It’s available online at Project Gutenberg, and we just realized that it was written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, author of the immortal opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night”.

Boboy directed us to this POYKPAC Comedy video in which a couple break up in a conversation composed entirely of movie titles. “Would be fun to have Talong and Engkantadang Kangkarot in there,” Boboy said. Great idea!

Your LitWit Challenge is to write us 30 or more lines of dialogue using only the titles of Pinoy movies. We’ll leave the situation up to you: breakup, courtship, argument, revenge, knock yourself out. Between Bukas, Tatakpan Ka Ng Diyaryo and Huwag Mong Buhayin Ang Bangkay, the possibilities are endless. Between Talong, Kangkong, Itlog, you’ve got salad.

Post your entries in Comments; submissions will be accepted until noon on 2 March 2014. Our Writing Workshop participants are disqualified from this contest.

The winner will receive these two books: Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel Bleeding Edge in hardcover, and an omnibus edition of the Smiley novels by John Le Carre, probably the greatest spy novels ever written.

This LitWit Challenge is brought to you by National Bookstores.

The trumpet is literally smoking.

Thanks to Jackie for the alert.

Artwork by Lynyrd Paras

When we arrived at the Art Fair, one of the first things we heard was, “John Lloyd is here.” John Lloyd, if you’ve been walled up in the basement for the last several years, is John Lloyd Cruz, one of the biggest film and TV stars in the country, and now an art collector.

“Fabulous. We’ll check out the paintings, and then we’ll look for the John Lloyd.”

A complete circuit of the venue took two hours. A thorough visit would’ve required another couple of hours, but we decided to segue to celebrity-hunting.

“Where in the Art Fair is the John Lloyd?” we asked ourself. We looked in the open bar. They were serving Moet. There was no sign of John Lloyd.

“Think,” we told Moira. “If we were handsome and rich, where would we be?”

We ran into Fernando Zobel de Ayala.

“Okay, put yourself in art collector mode. Where would you go?”

Naturally we ran into our favorite art collector and neurologist, Dr. Joven Cuanang.

“Think hugely successful, massive star,” we said.

So we ran into Vice Ganda. Vice Ganda is awesome. We chatted briefly. Years ago, someone had given him a copy of Twisted. We told him how his latest movie caused popcorn to shoot out of our nose.

“Great, we’ve met the most successful star in Philippine cinema, but we still haven’t spotted John Lloyd.” Everyone we asked had seen him ten minutes ago.

“There’s a Swatch event at 6pm,” Moira pointed out. “He’ll be there for sure.”

“Yes, but he’s expected there. We want to catch him in an unofficial capacity. Put yourself in the mind of an influential personage.”

We promptly ran into Don Jaime Zobel de Ayala.

“My feet hurt,” Moira declared. Your feet would hurt, too, if you’d been walking around for three hours on four-inch stilettos.

“Didn’t you bring flats?”

“Yes, in my bag,” he said.

“Then change your shoes,” we suggested, stupidly.

“Not in public!” Moira gasped in horror.

We were wearing flats, but our feet hurt so we decided to occupy a couch. That’s when we spotted the John Lloyd.

He looks exactly the way he does in the movies.

“We hate your movies but you’re brilliant,” we said. Thaat’s right, open big mouth, eat entire foot. (We must note that in our universe, that is a compliment.)

“That sounds complex,” he said, politely. We kicked ourself in the head.

The couch turned out to be the best-situated seat in the house because everyone had to pass it en route to the bar. Moira spotted Anne Curtis, who graciously posed for photos. Check out her total Dyesebel hommage skirt. (Yes, she and John Lloyd made beso-beso.)

Our couch was so comfortable, we didn’t even get up to snap pictures— we just shot everyone from below, which is a flattering angle.

Artwork by Poklong Anading

When are you going to the Art Fair? Report your sightings!

With Emma Thompson and her huuuge collar

With Lupita Nyong’o, stunning in Dior.

Mission: accomplished. Hope she finds the right agent.

Read our previous posts:
Let’s get Althea Vega to the Baftas in style
Which gown should Althea wear to the Baftas?

Movie #15: Blue Jasmine. Movie #16: Dallas Buyers Club. Movie #17: August Osage County.

This post has been updated as the Colin association made us too kind.

Oh, please. “Romantic” is not a synonym for “ludicrous”. This is a movie that tries to make everything “romantic”, including consumption (tuberculosis). Apparently consumption is a fever that makes the afflicted so hot, she has to sleep in a tent on the roof in the dead of winter to keep herself from combusting. She never coughs, though, cause that’s unattractive. Everyone has a miracle! Afterwards, they fly into the sky and turn into stars! Who buys this hooey? Oh right, 11-year-olds who dream of pink unicorns. Past 11, the sappy dimwit market. Marketing term: “Sensitive romantics”.

The lovely leads, Colin (Was it necessary to give him Three Stooges hair?) and Lady Sybil from Downton Abbey, work hard to evoke true love, but they get no help at all from the dumb script and prosaic direction of Akiva Goldsman. This is supposed to be an adaptation of Mark Helprin’s novel—really? If you’re going to make the audience believe in something so far-out, you need to bring the Spielberg, the Jackson, those guys. And does Russell Crowe intend to overact his way through the remaining decade of his career?

Beautiful horse, and the one magical moment was seeing Eva Marie Saint. Watch this movie with friends recovering from breakups. It’ll make them happy they broke up.