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– Ganoon lang? Mahina ang ani nila sa Banaue, kaya bigla nilang naisip na lumuwas ng Maynila?
– Sa Maynila agad? Di ba puedeng sa Baguio muna?
– We spoke too soon. Poverty porn is not dead, we just exported it.
– They move to a place where they don’t know anyone? Is that possible?
– Don’t they have families?
– Fine, that happens in the west. In the Philippines, it’s extremely improbable. You can barely walk out the door without running into someone who knows someone who knows you.
– The movie didn’t have to start in Banaue. The family could already be in Manila, already destitute and desperate.
– But then they wouldn’t have that shot of the rice terraces.
– Ang gagaling natin. Ang daming opinyon.
– Ibaba mo ang kilay mo.
– Hindi naman nakataas ang kilay ko, ah.
– Oo, pero alam ko ang iniisip mo.
– Bongga talaga si Althea Vega, tume-Tetchie Agbayani.
– Magaling naman ang akting ni Jake Macapagal, masyadong fino (refined) nga lang ang Tagalog niya.
– Hindi naman yon mapapansin ng mga dayuhan. Sila yata ang primary audience ng Metro Manila.
– Hindi kailangang Metro Manila ang title. Maaaring mangyari yan sa kahit aling siyudad sa Third World.
– Kung bumula ang MMDA, may karapatan sila.
– At eto na naman ang babaeng kailangang maging pokpok para alagaan ang pamilya niya. Zzzzzzz.
– Tawagan si Maning. Paradise na ngayon ang Peninsula.
– (Chorus at “Naririto sa puso mo” line) Yiiiiiiiiii.
– Uy, nabuhay ang pelikula nung dumating si John Arcilla.
– Magaling!
– Naging heist movie siya!
– (Aaaaaaa kailangan mo palang ulitin ang Himpapawid!)
– Yung first act, ayoko. Pero sa kalagitnaan, naging thrilling ang pelikula.
– The heist section is very well-executed. I like how they walk us through the plan so we’re on the edge when things fall apart.
– I did not expect that. Give it to the movie: it’s not predictable.
– Impressive visuals. It usually takes a foreigner to see the real grit and grime of this city.
– There’s a cat in it.

Verdict: After a slow start full of stuff we’ve seen in countless Filipino movies, Metro Manila becomes exciting. Watch.

Mat is reading Burning the Days, the memoir by James Salter from which this excerpt was taken.

The war I had survived was the Korean War. I had returned from it two years before, rich with memories of flying as a fighter pilot. I had kept a journal. I had written before: stories and poems as a schoolboy, and later, in the Air Force, a novel, which was sent to a publisher and turned down. The fateful letter, however, offered encouragement. If I wrote another book, the publishers would like to see it. And so, on an iron cot in a Georgia barracks one afternoon, seemingly without effort, I wrote the outline of a novel, and on weekends and at night over the next two or three years completed the book. It was called “The Hunters” and was immediately accepted. That was 1957.

The hour had come. I resigned from the Air Force, probably the single most difficult act I had ever performed, with the idea of becoming a writer. I had been in the military for twelve years. I had a wife and two small children. Thinking every day of the life I had left, unable to believe in myself apart from it, I sat down in despair and tried to write. A few years later, a second novel was published. It was more ambitious but also more derivative, and it disappeared without a trace. But I was, despite that, a writer, and could be introduced, at least for a while, as such. The problem was that I had no way to support myself. Then, almost as if on cue, a door opened to another world.

Read Passionate Falsehoods at The New Yorker.

Elevator to the cinema. Watch OTSO at Shang on Friday.

If you missed the Sineng Pambansa All-Masters National Film Festival Festival last month, here’s your chance to get in on the discussion. All ten movies will be screened at the Shangrila Mall Cinema starting on Friday. Each film will have a whole day’s screenings.

October 11 (Friday) – Otso by Elwood Perez
October 12 (Saturday) – Lihis by Joel Lamangan
October 13 (Sunday) – Sonata by Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes

October 18 (Friday) – Ang Tag-Araw Ni Twinkle by Gil M. Portes
October 19 (Saturday) – Tinik by Romy Suzara
October 20 (Sunday) – Bamboo Flowers by Maryo J. Delos Reyes

October 24 (Thursday) – Bahay ng Lagim by Celso Ad Castillo
October 25 (Friday) – Badil by Chito Roño
October 26 (Saturday) – Lauriana by Mel Chionglo
October 27 (Sunday) – Ano ang kulay ng mga nakalimutang pangarap? by Joey Javier Reyes

Life goes on, and a large chunk of our life is movies.

Last Wednesday we saw the opening film of Pelikula, the 12th annual Spanish Film Festival, ongoing at Greenbelt 3 Cinema 1. Blancanieves, Pablo Berger’s adaptation of Snow White, is Los Hermanos Grimmer: a silent period film in exquisite black and white, lushly scored and brilliantly acted. There were two competing Hollywood versions of Snow White last year—forget them. The silent period film The Artist won the Oscar for Best Picture—forget that. They all pale next to Blancanieves, a retelling that captures the beauty, terror, joy and sadness of the fairy tale. Except that it happens in the real world.

In Berger’s adaptation, the heroine is Carmencita, an orphan deprived of her father’s love by her wicked stepmother (Maribel Verdu from Y Tu Mama Tambien). The setting is Spain in the 1920s, and the absent father is the king…of bullfighters. Yes, there are dwarves. And poisoned apples.

Blancanieves is rated PG-13. The last screening is on Friday, 11 October at 9:30pm.

NASA vet weighs in on Gravity: Spectacular realism

Gravity by Alfonso Cuaron is every bit as awesome as we hoped it would be. It’s been seven years since Cuaron’s last film, the brilliant and criminally underrated Children of Men; from the opening shot of Gravity, we could see why the follow-up took so long. Stunning in its detail, magnificent in its evocation of the cold, silent vastness of space, Gravity is a movie that grabs you by the neck and doesn’t let go.

As kids growing up in the era of the Apollo space missions, we dreamed of walking through that immensity. Gravity reawakens us to that possibility.

For all its technical achievements, the real strength of Gravity lies in its human characters. With his reassuring presence, George Clooney is the wise mentor—the Obi-Wan—in this space drama. Playing the astronaut who is violently separated from her craft and set adrift in space, Sandra Bullock reminds us of her star-making performance in Speed as the girl driving the doomed bus—except that the girl is now a rocket scientist. It’s an amazingly empathic performance that comes with considerable physical challenges, and she is completely believable in it. We feel her terror and desperation, and her strength. Cuaron and Bullock have taken us to space. (We especially like the images of birth and evolution.)

We saw Gravity twice in two days, first on a regular screen, then in IMAX 3D. Our cat had just died so we thought, “Based on the trailer, everyone in Gravity is likely to die. We feel like death, so we might as well see it.” The underlying philosophy being: When in the depths, try to hit rock-bottom, see if you will bounce. The strangest thing happened. The film brought us to the brink of hopelessness and utter despair, and it made us want to live. And reserve seats on the commercial space shuttle flight. Space is vast. Life is huge. Never fear.

[Gravity in IMAX 3D is extraordinary but not essential. The 3D glasses at SM Aura IMAX fit better than other theatres’ 3D glasses, but there was a distracting blue glow at the bottom of the screen. It turned out to be the reflection from the blue lights on the floor. Could you fix that, please?]

Hindi na kami puedeng mag-review ng Sana Dati. Sa kakabenta at panood namin ng pelikula, parang kami na rin ang gumawa. Kaya’t ipapaubaya namin ang mga rebyu ng Sana Dati at iba pang pelikula sa inyo. Paki-post sa Comments.

Sabi nga pala namin sa aming mga kaibigang walang panahong manood ng mga bagong indie: Sige kayo, pag tinanong kayo kung ano ang inyong mga paboritong pelikulang Pilipino, luma lahat ng sagot ninyo. Pagkakamalan kayong matanda!

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Sana Dati, reviewed by swanoepel.

OMG OMG Napanood ko na yung Sana Dati.

Don’t tell me natalo si Lovi ng Best Actress sa Cinemalaya. SHUT UP!!! Ninakawan si Lovi Poe ng award. (Note: Masasakit na salita deleted. Nakakaloka yatang makipag-away sa Vilmanians and Noranians.) Hay naku!!! Message ko sa mga jurors ng Cinemalaya ng nagpatalo kay Lovi Poe eh pfffftttt at DUH!!! Bulag kayo!!! Napaka-natural ng acting ni Lovi walang ka-OA-yan at RAMDAM KOOOO…

Mga characters na bentang-benta sa ‘kin sa movie: Mga Agaw-Eksena.
– Si Auntie. Siya yung tunay na buhay na Aunt/referee ng sister at niece nya (totoong totoo) kahit na sandali lang siya sa eksena, ramdam na kasali siya sa movie.
– Si Acting PokPok BFF. Nakakatuwa siya, keber na keber ang peg at mga linya niya, very very kakatawa at natural na natural ramdam ko na naman.
– Si Emcee Beki. Umagaw din ng eksena ng bonggang-bonga: parang walang script, natural na natural ang akting.
– Si Longkatuts sa house. Si Ate man agaw-eksena, naramdaman din sa movie ang kanyang presence.
and Last But Not the Least:
– Si Engot Receptionist ng Cocoon Hotel. Ganda ng presence niya sa screen, na- capture niya ang puso ko, love at first sight ba tawag doon (Di siya ganun kagwapo pero ang dating ay umaapaw).

A subdued review of the same movie by eam.

Just watched it yesterday and I thought TJ Trinidad was good. With the ending scene plus “Indak” playing, it was heartbreaking. And I just remembered that Armi Millare also has a very good song called “Delubyo” in Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros.

Read the synopses here.