When Superman says he believed in truth, in justice and the American way, it was hamhanded, yeah, but the way he said it made you believe in him nonetheless. When Clark removes his glasses and straightens his shoulders and his voice changes, you can believe the transformation because Christopher Reeve just nails it.  

Watching Superman isn’t an exercise in logic, it’s about emotions and believing that good guys always win and true love exists.

And that’s exactly what I felt when I learned that there were plans to film another Superman movie. In a way, I’ve been waiting for this movie for half my life, I haven’t been on the look out for news but whenever I heard about anything about Superman (and did I mention I was a big fan of Lois & Clark? Just don’t please don’t talk about Smallville because SV!Clark is not my Clark) my ears would perk-up and I’d scrounge for any information about the movie. But eventually something would happen and the movie won’t be produced. One particular development left me happy it didn’t push through (C’mon, can you see Nicolas Cage as Superman?). Directors and actors came and went and then, I heard that Bryan Singer had come on board I didn’t allow myself to hope but then I started seeing the trailers and the Superman video diaries and I couldn’t help but hope.

Months crawled by and suddenly it was July and Superman was here, finally, at last! When it premiered in the Philippines I spammed my friends with the news much to their amusement and annoyance, I think. I skimmed blogs for reviews and when the day finally came that I could watch it– 

It was perfect.

It wasn’t a perfect movie I’ll grant you, what with Kate Bosworth (That surfer girl from that surfer movie) as Lois but, oh, I can’t help but love it. The moment the credits started rolling, the moment the Superman theme unfolded, the moment I realized that the font they were using were almost exactly like the ones used in the original Superman movies I have fallen head over heels in love.

It’s not logic, it’s so very far away from logic, it’s about the heart and letting yourself believe that, yes, little girl, a man really can fly.

The whole issue screaming in our papers about what the movie board was going to do with it just made me roll my eyes so much I had to stop reading the papers for fear of having my eyes fall off.

So, last night my sister and I watched Da Vinci Code and was met with posters that had warning stickers screamed, as if it weren't obvious already, that the movie was based on a fictional story. 

And people say I have a problem distinguishing reality from fiction?

Moving along, I thought, overall, the movie was — well, okay. I expected a lot from it but I guess I was expecting it to play like National Treasure.

The parts I did like  were the moments the movie remembered that  Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is an academic and  something of a geek. 

I love the part where Teabing (Ian McKellan) and Langdon argued over facts and symbols and when Langdon trails off and remembers some things.

Tom Hanks has proven himself as a very good dramatic actor but I don't think Hanks playing Langdon more or less humorlessly was the right direction. I appreciated Langdon more when some of his humor showed.

But, I have to say, my point of view character will always be the woman, and I appreciate that Sophie's (Audrey Toutou sp?) taken a more semi-action oriented role. I liked that besides doing the car chase, Sophie is at least competent in taking down folks. She maybe a cryptologist but she is a cop.

I also loved the explosive moment where Sophie confronts Silas (Paul Bettany).  I wanted more moments like that with Sophie and I suddenly wanted to see Audrey Toutou(?) in more action oriented roles. I also loved how skeptical she was through out and the wry humor she applied in learning she maybe the heir of Jesus Christ.

But Ian McKellan stole the spotlight everytime he appeared, he was charismatic and dangerous as all the other roles his played and sold me, partly, on one of the problematic moments in the book for me. He really did sincerely believe in what he was doing, and as I've always noted, obsessed true believers are the dangerous kind. 

All in all, it was an okay movie but not something I'd watched again save for the moments I've noted above.  

Real love.
There was a comment from matociquala with which, I completely agree with — the Wachowski (sp?) brothers have redeemed themselves.

It just hit so many things for me, especially with the current situation in the Philippines. It makes me question my stand on supporting Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

I *like* her, I really do, and I believe she's getting a bad rap and not enough acknowledgment for the things she's done and doing for the country. So, with the recent proclamation banning any sort of large political gatherings and the arrest of some media personalities… I'm really torn.

I like her, but I don't approve of her actions, and yet… and yet, there's this other part that's supporting her because I think the opposition is just making too much noise and making trouble for the Philippines. I think the Philippines need order, needs a chance for its economy to balance out and its disturbing for me to be so… blase about it. It really makes me question what I believe in and then here comes this movie, and V's words about how people who like order and peace would just be complacent and follow the government blindly.

Last February 25, was EDSA Revolution's 20th anniversary. How did we celebrate it? Fireworks? Rousing speeches? Unfortunately, we didn't celebrate anything. On the eve of the 25th, there were two army officers who plotted a coup against the President, the officers were arrested and the coup stopped but on the 25th, on the day itself, the President declared a State of Emergency and the proclamation 1317,
forbidding any large political gatherings.

The police and the military picked-up three opposition congressmen and some prominent columnists over the course of the week, and just recently, the former Secretary for Social Welfare, Dinky Soliman was arrested for leading a
walkathon and… well, for wearing black, which the police say is seditious.

Was I outraged?
I was not.

I should have been, but in fact, I was very annoyed with Dinky Soliman, I really thought — think she's just causing trouble.

It's disturbing.

I was part of the second EDSA revolution and brought down former President Erap Estrada. It was… the most exhilirating thing I've ever done and at that time I thought things were going to change that it could only get better from there.

Boy, was I wrong.

All I feel now is tired and disgusted with politicians, with their endless bickerings and I just look up at the line-up of senators and I shake my head. We have more actors, former coup plotters, Marcos supporters and despair.

So, yes, V for Vendetta really made me face-up with the things I've been thinking in my head.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November

The Gunpowder Treason and plot;

I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

- The Gunpowder Plot

I loved the overacing theme about ideas. Ideas don't feel, it does not know love, pain or desire. But ideas are forever, they exist long after we are dust and ashes.

V (Hugo Weaving), the mysterious masked hero, such as he is, attemps and does become an idea, a symbol. In order to achieve his dream of a world free of oppression he does everything necessary, discarding even compassion to achieve his ends.
He even does monstorous things to Evey (Natalie Portman), a girl with liberal leanings, who has by pure chance, crossed V's path.

No, let me correct that, he has compassion for Evey but no way of showing it but torturing her to make her — in his mind — equal to him. So she would be able to understand him, be loyal to him and his cause.

And he almost, almost succeeds, fortunately, Evey finds Valerie's letter and it is this that keeps Evey from falling in the same path as V. It gives her the courage to leave V, to go on with her life.

Evey wakes up a tiny spark of humanity in V but it is not enough tostop V from fulfilling his mission, because like Edmund Dantes, V is far more in love with the vision of destroying the current order to give way for a more humane society. But the humanity Evey has sparked in him, is enough to wake V to the realization that he could not, should not exist in the society he is trying to create.

One remarkable thing about V that separates him from other masked superheroes is that we learn nothing of V's identity, the one and only time V removes his mask, we never get to see his face.

But, I would like to think that V *is* Valerie, that he was changed so much he doesn't remember that he was Valerie, that the letter he read in his imprisonment and Evey discovered, was a letter *he* wrote.

She became, was turned into a man, *became* V. The Angel of Fury and vengeance. The flowers, the tea and the apron are all feminine things… it may also be possible that V was a gay man, since it was apparent that the regime was against muslims, homosexuality and anybody different.

But then, V is anonymous, V could be anyone, everyone

A scene that gave me the chills was when the detective, never did get his name, but I know it was the actor, Stephen Rea, was explaining to his partner the certainty he felt during one moment, standing in front of the statues of the children killed in a traumatic attack a few years before the movie's start, that everything that happened is connected. As he explains this feeling there's a montage of Valerie, of Dietrich (Stephen Fry), V's liberation from the detention cells and everything that's happened intersped with V creating a dominos of the V sign, then by the end of the scene, the dominos start falling and its just amazing… and the puzzle fallinginto place.
It was a fantastic visual scene.
And boy, did my love for Hugo Weaving grow. He was fantastic. He had to work around the mask but he managed it… he managed to work around it and made V come alive. In the end, I pitied him but also believed him a monster. Wonderful.

And Natalie Portman… she needed this after playing the passive Amidala in the third Star Wars installment.

In fact, they all did well.

V for Vendetta is a powerful, thought provoking movie that is very relevant to these times.
V for Vendetta is love.

For a whole year, I have been living a life of quiet desperation, resigning myself in a job I didn’t like but after a year I finally had the courage to change my path and turned in my resignation.

Most people, my friends in the office, think it was all due to my current supervisor (a woman with a reputation of giving people under her hell, well deserved, I think) but it wasn’t. She’s just one of the factors but not the whole reason.

I am not without blame in this, I freely admit I have dropped the ball at almost every opportunity given to me. This job requires a person passionate about the details and as days weaved into months I realize that two wrongs can really never make a right.

Try as I might, my personality is not suited for this type of work. Try as I might, this job does not hold my interest. Try as I might, I have realized it would be better for the company and far better for myself if I start looking for another job.

A job far suited for me and the path I would like to take.

All my life, I have lived under my parent’s advice. Some of their advices pan out, but I’ve come to another epiphany. I should learn to rise and fall by my own decisions and not be swayed by the opinions of others, most especially my parents’.

I am my own person with different sets of dreams and wants, and though they want the best for me, they are not me.

I owe it to myself to at least try to pursue my dreams, to live my life as I see fit. I want to write and I want to teach, I want to travel and I want excavate. I want so many things in my life I don’t think I have room for my parent’s good intentions.

I want to travel to Tuscany and feel the Italian sun on my face, I want to go to Istanbul and see with my own eyes the beauty of the Hagia Sofia, I want to go to Greece and brush my fingers against the molding but still magnificent pillars of the fallen temples, I want to study the lives of the people before me and write their story, I want to create. To do.

But in the end, I want only one thing — I want my own life.

Because life has got to be something more than endless pursuits of reports and client’s needs. There has to be.

So, hullo, world! And thanks much to you wordpress, without which I would be so blog deprived it wouldn’t be funny.

Officially I now have four blogs: friendster blog –which I really don’t consider to be *a* blog; xanga –which I’m quite wary about– livejournal –which I classify as my fannish blog and not ablog; blogger — which was the first among its brethren and one I will look at with extreme fondness.  

And now, this.

Actually, I really don’t know what to feel about this blog yet — I don’t know if this would be a regular, or what sort of blog it is. Maybe this could be my work blog, musings on work, on the country, politics.

I shall ponder on this.