Dream Girls

3/5 stars

Aside from the fantastic music, fabulous costumes and excellent cinematography, there's nothing superb with this movie.
I was a bit disappointed because I expected a lot from the movie but as it turned out, there's nothing new about it. Weeks before watching the film, I didn't read a single review about it so that I will still be surprise when I finally get the chance to watch it. After seeing the film, I can say that a lot of the scenes were predictable. It's like I am not excited to see the next scene because I know what's going to happen next.
I also disagree with all the people who loved Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "Am Telling You I'm Not Going". Now I know why she was voted out of American Idol. Her voice is so thick and for me, the song doesn't fit well with her voice. There were parts in her rendition that her voice is garalgal. The ad lib she did was horrible, her falsettos were even more terrible and her belting was awful. Sure! her acting was good but not her singing. For some people, her rendition of the song may have caused them to have goose bumps but not me. I honestly didn't like it. Without any biases, Regine Velasquez's live performance of the song is still far better.
A lot of the people who have seen the film also told me that Jennifer really overshadowed Beyonce in both acting and singing. I am not a Beyonce fan but with all fairness to her, she acted really well. It just so happen that Jennifer's character caused the conflict in the film so of course her character will have more drama, dialogues and will demand for stronger emotions.
After criticizing Jennifer Hudson's overrated rendition of "Am Telling You I'm Not Going" and saying that there is nothing new and superb with the movie, I still don't regret having watched it.
The movie is still worth watching. It's still worth your 130 bucks. The production design is really excellent. I particularly love the way the director interconnected several shots to maximize the use of time in the film. If you love musicals, I highly recommend this film. And finally, though there was nothing new with the film and undeniably there were a lot of cliches, I can say that the story line was fully developed and I can't deny the fact that there's still beauty in predictability.

P.S. Though I didn't like her voice, I do believe that Jennifer Hudson is a great actress and she deserves the Golden Globe and Oscar she has won.

Dave...these past few weeks...

The past two weeks after Valentine's Day were two of the busiest weeks of my life. I don't know how I was able to manage but I did. For two weeks, I never had at least five hours of sleep. I recharge for only one and a half to two hours daily because of reading assignments, midterm exams, reaction papers and other school works. We are now in our 9th week. Five more weeks and the term will be over. I can't wait for that day!

Anyway, there are a lot of things I wanted to share in the past few weeks but I don't have the luxury of time to do so because of my very lovable and very considerate schedule. I felt that I needed to share this things already before I even forget them.

I made a promise to myself this New Year that I will try my best to watch the movies I want in cinemas during their theatrical showing. With all fainess to me, I am really making extra efforts to keep up to that promise. As of now, I haven't missed any movie that I want to watch. I have seen "The Holiday", "Music and Lyrics" and "You Got Me". Two weeks from now, I'm going to watch "Dreamgirls" naman..

other things in my life right now:

- Aside from Grey's Anatomy, I am also addicted to Gonut Donut's Yummy Vanilla and Oishi's Potato Crisps.

- I have realized that I want to read J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series again. I stopped in book 2 (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) kasi in 2004. I don't know I got bored eh.. But this afternoon, I went to the movie house to watch "You Got Me" and before the movie, they showed the trailer of the new Harry Potter movie and once again it awakened my senses to continue reading the series. Since my passion to finish it was stirred, I'm going to read it na uli... FYI: I haven't seen any of the four Harry Potter movies because I was always telling myself that I want to finish reading the book versions first before watching.

- I want to buy a book! I just don't know what book I want. I have three choices right now, "Goddess: Inside Madonna" by Barbara Victor, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or "Orosa-Nakpil Malate" by:Louie Mar A. Gangcuangco (it's really good daw..) Ahhh!! I'm so confused!

- I feel so bad that the new issue of the Kris Aquino Magazine is still on hold because of what's happening to Kris right now. I am honestly disgusting James Yap na... I wish Kris didn't marry him nalang... Honestly, I really think that Kris doesn't love James the way she loved Joey Marquez! basta i HOPE maging ok na si kris. ay! mali! ayaw pala niya yang word na yan... hahahaha!!! can I just say na ang pangit ni hope ha... yucky siya ha...

- ok! fine! i'll admit it na talaga... I am still madly in love with GAVIN! with all my heart and soul... he's still the one talaga!!!

Finally, I gotta go na... it's 3am.. I still have a thick handout that I have to finish reading by tomorrow for my oral exam in philosophy of religion on Monday and I gotta decide what book I'm gonna buy.

till next time!

You Got Me

5/5

"You Got Me" is my favorite. You may say that the movie is jologs or whatever but I don't give a damn! It's so good kaya... Aside from the fact that the movie is really nakakakilig, there were also scenes that I wanted to cry because I was so carried away. I love the movie's ending! It was really nakakakilig and for me it's very unique taking into consideration that I have seen almost all the romantic-comedy movies in town. For a new comer, Zanjoe Marudo gave a superb performance. He proved to everyone that he's not just a model-trying hard to be an actor but indeed an actor in his own right. I don't really like Sam Milby ever since but this movie made me like him. Yes he's very cute! VERY VERY CUTE and he's a good actor. His acting is very natural. Toni Gonzaga was fabulous in this movie. After watching the film this afternoon, I am now Toni's number one fan! She's really good in comedy as well as in drama. She deserves applause for her performance in this movie even though it's a feel good one. It's very natural, it's as if she wasn't acting at all. It just proves to show that she's a good actress and she was able to own her character as Mo. Star Cinema's really great! They have never failed my expectations when it comes to producing world class films. You Got Me was a perfect example of a SHOW DON'T TELL movie. It's definitely one of the year's must see films. I highly recommend it!

Music and Lyrics

4/5 stars

"Music and Lyrics" was also good. Drew Barrymore was in her usual wit and she was really fabulous in this movie. Hugh Grant...uhm.. I never thought that he knew how to sing but he's good. His voice is really favorable and it's more nakaka in love than Ewan McGregor's. Though the movie was predictable, I can say that the dialogues were great and it helped a lot in moving forward the story. Drew and Hugh's chemistry was fantastic. It's the one that could defeat the Grant-Roberts in Notting Hill and even the Grant-Bullock chemistry in Two Weeks Noticed. I love the songs used in this film. Actually, I have downloaded "Pop Goes My Heart" and of course, "Way Back In To Love". These two songs were part of the most played playlist in my iPod. Over all, the movie was great and it's worth every penny.

The Holiday

2/5

Forget about "The Holiday"! If not because of Jude Law and Kate Winslet's opening monologue...the movie is crap! To begin with, Jude Law and Cameron Diaz doesn't have chemistry at all. Cameron Diaz's acting in this flick really sucked but I must admit that her outfits were remarkable. The problem of this film is in the story telling aspect. In my opinion, the story wasn't fully developed.

My love life???

It took me quite awhile to update my blog. I got so busy with tons of school works, reading assignments, addicting TV series, and boy obsessions (or was it infatuation? to be honest, I don’t know what was it!)

This post marks my first for this year and I chose this special day because after all, this day is for St. Valentine (hello? People???)

To be perfectly honest with the whole world, I don’t feel sorry for myself because it’s Valentine’s Day and I don’t have a fucking love life. I don’t even feel depressed or sad about my situation. I have always believed that Valentine’s Day is nothing but a state of mind. I never connected it with love and romance. For me, it’s just a normal day, Kris Aquino’s birthday, my cousin’s birthday, (since I don’t have classes on Wednesdays this term) it’s my “sleep day”.

You see? I don’t think that Valentine’s Day is one hell of a special day.

You can be romantic everyday!

You can go out on a dinner with your boyfriend everyday!

You can have sex everyday!

so I really don’t understand why Valentine’s Day was such a special day for most people. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m the most mushy person you’ll ever meet in your life, I’m the most hopeless romantic person who’ll ever walk in the face of the earth. It’s just that the Valentine’s Day fever was really making me sick. I logged in to my friendster account today and read this in my bulletin board,

“sad ako ngayong valentine’s day huhuhuhuhu”

holy crap!! What a pathetic statement coming from a girl!

What I’m saying here is, if you don’t have a love life and it’s Valentine’s Day, SO??? What’s the problem? Are you gonna die? You’re depressed? Oh come on! For God’s sakes I don’t give a damn if it’s Valentine’s Day. It’s just the 14^th of February, nothing special about it.

My love life???

YES! I don’t have a love life and I won’t be a hypocrite and say I’m ok. After taking up Genders class 6 months ago, I’m more convinced that I am a person who sees love as a fusion of two personalities. I don’t feel complete as a person if I don’t have someone to share my life with. Yes! I believe in soulmates, I’m waiting for magic to happen.

Unfortunately, I have none. I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t have a love life. So what do I do now? Feel sorry for myself? Be depressed to death until someone walks in and sweep me off my feet??? Walk around wearing a placard saying ‘I NEED A BOYFRIEND!’ of course I can’t do that.

so like I always say…

Guess I’ll just have to wait for someone who’ll walk in to my life and see what will happen. And until there’s no one… I can’t do anything…

Wala e…alangan namang ipilit ko e sa wala talaga…

2006: Lessons I've Learned

Two days before we welcome the New Year, here I am counting the blessings God has sent my way this year. I am also here to share the lessons I’ve learned this year and I hope that somehow, in one way or another, those of you who’ll read this will also learn from me.

“Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everythings okay and everythings going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everythings gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face”

If I wrote this entry a couple of months ago, I wouldn’t be this thankful. In fact, the entry will be full of anger, bitterness, and hatred. But life has moved in a very positive way for me and I felt like it is inappropriate for me to still be bitter with what happened in the past.

The start of 2006 wasn’t really good for me. I was in a bad, unhealthy relationship that I formally ended four days before Valentine’s Day. Instead of making me better, it made me worst. And for the record it was the most pathetic, fucking relationship I have ever been in to. I’m glad it was over and the break-up came from me. During the early quarter of the year, I wasn’t also doing well in terms of my studies. At the end of the third term of the last school year, I was threatened to have a GPA of 0.9. I was also eliminated out of the lists of priority enrollees (forever). Hello? What’s happening to me?

During summer, I was very sure that I am happy in my program. I dreamed of having a business degree and during that time, I was a fresh shiftee to the business management program. I even told myself that next term, I will bring back the old me in terms of studying. But this euphoria of being a business management student didn’t last long. A day before the start of the new school year, I finally listened to the voice behind my head saying that NO! THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT PROGRAM FOR YOU! NO! YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO FINISH THIS! For the longest time in my life, I tried to be deaf when these small voices inside my head kept on whispering to me, but not that particular Sunday morning. I came to a point in my life wherein I needed to look back and think about the decisions I made in the past to be able to understand why all these things are happening to me.

To make the long story short, I came to a conclusion that business is not for me. Aside from the fact that I hate math, there’s a deeper reason as to why I dropped all my business courses and shifted back to the College of Liberal Arts and it is because I am not happy with what I’m doing. I am not happy as to where I am at that time. It felt like I was just there, studying all these accounting principles, all these managerial concepts, all these marketing strategies because someone wants me to be there, someone told me you can do that, someone insisted this is for you. And as it appears, I am not living my life for me… I am living it for someone else’s and I had to correct everything. I can’t fix something by committing another mistake. I can’t continue something I know I can’t finish. It was so easy for people to say, KAYA MO YAN! NAGIGIVE UP KA AGAD E! DAHIL LANG SA ISANG BAGSAK NA SUBJECT, AYAW MO NA! WALA KA TALAGANG MATATAPOS PAG GANYAN KA.

It was so easy for them to say those words because they weren’t on my shoes and their studies are doing great. They’re happy with their courses and life seems so good to them. I, above anybody else know myself and my limitations so who were they to tell me what I can’t and can do?

“I'll never give up. Never give in.
Never let a ray of doubt slip in and if I fall,
I'll never fail. I'll just get up and try again

Never lose hope .Never lose faith
There's much too much at stake upon myself I must depend”

It took a lot of faith and self-esteem to be able to get where I am now. It was not easy to be deaf and not mind all the bad things I heard about me from other people’s mouth. It was never easy to just close your eyes, hold your tears so it won’t roll down, and control your temper so you wouldn’t burst out of anger when people criticize you for your wrong decisions. I JUST HOPE THAT PEOPLE WILL LOOK IN TO THEIR OWN LIVES FIRST BEFORE EVEN CRITISIZING OTHERS!

“I believe in the impossible
If I reach deep within my heart
Overcome any obstacle
Won't let this dream fall apart
See I strive to be the very best
Shine my light for all to see
Cause anything is possible
When you believe”

Now, I wouldn’t say I am in a higher ground. I wouldn’t say I am a saint; I’m just a normal human being who has experienced a bit of adventure in life. I don’t regret being a risk taker because you learn a lot from being one.

If there were five most important lessons I learned this year, they were:

1. The virtue of patience – one of the most important truths in life I learned in this experience was wait for the right time. It makes your faith stronger and it helps you feel every single moment of your life.

2. Take everything seriously – I use to slack off in making decisions. I used to be the “bahala na si batman type”. I usually don’t focus much on my life but this experience taught me how to be concerned with every detail of my life because back then, if just one thing went wrong, I’m doomed to failure. We were given just one life, one shot of opportunities and WE SHOULD TAKE IT SERIOUSLY.

3. Learn from your mistakes – the reason why God gives us trials is because HE wants us to learn, HE wants us to correct our mistakes because HE loves us and HE wouldn’t allow us to continue doing the wrong things. I think this is the most important lesson every human being should learn because otherwise you’ll grow old and eventually die learning nothing.

“Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this all on my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance”

4. Let God drive your life – it feels enormously great having God as the one directing you because believe it or not, you can’t do it with your own strength.

5. THANK YOU – it is the magic word. Learn to say thank you as often as you could because our lives was a well of favors and it doesn’t take much to express your gratitude to the people who has been good to you. And it’s a great hobby to say thank you especially if you got what you asked for.

Year 2006 was such a year for me. It was literally like a roller coaster, with all the twists, turns, and the exciting loops. At the end of everything, I don’t have any regrets at all because I needed to go through all of that to make me a better person that I am right now.

Life’s too short to be bitter and it was never right to keep grudges in your heart. I have healed and the pains of the past were genuinely things of the past for me already. I can now face them with a smile on my face. I have finally forgiven.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the people whom I have asked favors with. I may not remember all of you but THANK YOU, anyway. I would also like to say thank you to all the people who have stood by me and who have never left my side. This thank you segment will never be complete if I don’t say thank you to my family for their unconditional love to me. And to Korina (my best friend), who tolerated a person like me, for loving a broken-record friend that I am, for giving me wonderful advices and most importantly for being my friend through thick and thin.

Above anything else, THANK YOU, LORD JESUS CHRIST for a wonderful year. Thank you for all the answered prayers in my life. Thank you for all the blessings you have given me and my family in all aspects of our lives. Thank you! Thank you! And again I say Thank you!

May we all welcome 2007 with joy and thanksgiving in our hearts. Let us always remember that whatever trials we are in to, whatever trials we are going to face in the future, all it takes is prayer and perseverance. Hold tighter to our faiths and everything will fall on their right places.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to EVERYONE!!!

Me | My Dad | My Mom | ~>> bonding with my parents!!! =))

This was one of the happiest days of my life. I bonded with my parents the whole day. My sister still has classes so she wasn’t able to come with us. A planned shopping escapade alone turned out to be a family affair. Today, I felt so loved! It was a wonderful sensation to once again experience the feeling of being the only child. When your parent’s attention was all yours, your opinion and interests were the most important thing in the world. Maybe, I totally missed the feeling because my mom gave birth to my sister when I was three years old so I never really knew how it feels to be the only child but this afternoon, at nineteen years old, guess I have experienced one of the delightful emotions in the world. It was definitely an unexplainable feeling. My parents proved to me today how much they really love me. I really felt that I was their favorite child (at least for a day)… well, I know for a fact that I am my dad’s favorite but my mom’s “darling” is really my sister. It was a nice view to see the three of us: my dad, my mom, and me; I was actually thinking that probably, people thought that I’m an only child! hehe!!!

Glad, happy, overwhelmed were underrated descriptions of my day. Even I can’t think of the proper word/s to describe my day! All I can say is that I am very thankful to God for all these blessings, for all the love, for all the answered prayers in my life. There’s really no room for me to be a bratty pa! =)

P.S. I bought two new pairs of shoes today! I really love shoes so much!

Early Christmas Treats!

Yesterday was an early Christmas treat for me. I was able to get a copy of K Mag’s fourth issue. Actually, I wasn’t expecting for it because last November ABS-CBN Publications said that the next issue of K Mag will be out January 2007. I was surprised when I checked Kris’ YG last Saturday that it was already out. It’s not a secret that I really delight on reading Kris’ Magazine. For whatever reason, I feel so relaxed when reading it and not to forget that I am learning a lot from it because it’s not about “kalandian” and “kaaretehan” lang! K Mag's a wonderful magazine. It's very informative and it perfectly satisfies the curiosity not only of Kris’ avid fans but also the interests of teenagers, young adults, career women, single mothers, and of course members of the third sex who look up to Kris as their icon. As a matter of fact, it’s the number 1 magazine in the Philippines ever since its maiden issue, dethroning Cosmopolitan Magazine. I’m going to read it na before going to bed this morning (I’m an insomiac!)

I got a gift today from one of my godmother. I can’t remember when was the last time I saw her because she and her husband migrated to Canada when I was still a little kid. I’m so touched because she sent me a NIKE rubber shoe and again, it’s not a secret that I love shoes! As in super-duper love!!! Hello??? I invest a lot on my shoes noh because I really don’t buy fake ones especially rubber shoes and sneakers! I can starve myself just so I can save money to buy shoes!!! Anyway, the rubber shoe was so cool! She said she bought it in Florida. =) Love it!!!!

On Wednesday, I’m going to buy another one after my STAT101 final exam. This time…sneakers!

I still don’t know what color but definitely not black!!! I’ll probably buy a new “sporty” jacket too! These two are my Christmas gifts to myself!!! Can’t wait for Wednesday na tuloy!!! Hay!

P.S. I’m so excited about next term!!! As in I bought new stuffs kanina sa bookstore… =)

Furious | Hurting | Jealous...Dave!

I should be happy because after all, everything in my life today came about the way I wanted them to be. I got a 3.0 in my last exam for statistics and I was able to take a nap (big deal!!!) at our library this afternoon. I just don't know why I feel so down right now. It's as if I'm going to breakdown any moment from now. I feel so different. I want to cry but I can't.

I am full of anger, bitterness, jealousy, and pain.

I am still bitter about our situation. Although I already told Korina yesterday that I am on the process of giving up, I still can't deny the fact that I am still hurting and I don't know if there's a way for me to stop feeling this way anymore. Honestly, it's very destructive on my part already but no matter how hard I try to set aside my feelings for him, I simply can't! After all, he's my every single thought! Although I am perfectly aware that we can't be together...that friends are all we're going to be...I don't know why I'm still hoping for something more... I love him so much!

I don't know if I can go back to the normal me anytime soon...

I am full of anger! I don't know with whom or to whom... I just know that I am very angry...maybe to myself!

I envy her a lot! Since last night, she's getting a different kind of attention she shouldn't be having. I hate the fact that their favoritism was very evident since last night. Fine! She maybe their favorite but hey, SHE CAN NEVER BE ME! SHE CAN NEVER DO THE THINGS THAT I CAN! SHE CAN NEVER LEVEL WITH MY ACHIEVEMENTS!