Independents Day
6pm. Found a bag made out of vinyl tablecloth. I am in my Check Period. Still black, but checkered.
8pm. Saw Raya Martin’s Independencia at the French Film Festival at Shangri-La Mall. So many people turned up to see it, the organizers had to schedule a second screening immediately after the 8pm show or there’d be a moviegoer riot. For an experimental film! Will wonders never cease.
Raya and his stars.
Independencia is in beautiful black-and-white; I think they could remove the dialogue altogether. When it rains in the forest I keep thinking, “That’s why I never go camping.”
Tried in vain to convince Martin from the French Embassy to show the 35mm print of The 400 Blows instead of the DVD. He says the print doesn’t have subtitles. But everyone’s already seen The 400 Blows from the Quiapo Cinematheque, I said, we already know what happens.
The 400 Blows will be screened on Sunday at 5.30pm. Go if you’ve never seen it. And go early because there’s a long queue.
10pm. Went to Joel Torre the King of Manok’s dinner for the American filmmaker John Sayles (Lone Star, Eight Men Out, The Return of the Secaucus Seven). Sayles is in town to cast actors and scout locations for a movie on the Philippine-American War that he will shoot in Bohol in January. This is not his first time in the Philippines, he has lots of Pinoy friends and co-workers. He’s written a 900-page novel about the Philippine-American War that will be published next year. Yay, he agreed to show us an excerpt for Manila Envelope 4. Yay, material for next week’s column.
Krip Yuson wants everyone to know he hates the fucking Lakers. All I know about basketball is that their shorts are too long but LeBron is cute.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 13th, 2009 at 12:01
I’m letting my bro’ speak one line:
Bro – ” I like the blow by blow account. This is like covering a basketball game.”
Tom – Ok, that’s 2 lines.
June 14th, 2009 at 04:10
The Fil-Am war,sounds like a good movie theme. Looking forward to that one. The biopic of Gen. Antonio Luna,now that’s a good movie material. (If I have the money and the connections I would do it. The script would be no problem- I’ll write it. I can already picture the magnificent horses,the carriages, the troops marching in rayadillos,the yanks in blue, the old houses, the mauser and remington rifles,the old railways, etc. Though this is but a dream, I can assure you that Richard Gutierrez and Marian Rivera will not be in the cast.) Imagine,the intellectual chemist-turned soldier, the bravest of the brave being slaughtered by his fellow Filipinos (oops,there goes national honor) simply because he wants discipline within the ranks,and he wasn’t a Caviteno! Incidentally the life story of his equally great brother Juan was likewise tragic and poetic. Any local or foreign film maker care to do a movie about them? The Jose Rizal movie was ten or eleven years ago.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:38
I thought “Independencia” reminded me too much of early Japanese cinema. Then again, at least we’re talking now about the art of filmmaking in the Philippines instead of who’s sleeping with who. I want to watch “Kinatay.”