during the past few days, there has been a swelling in me that just wants to explode. it doesn’t involve my father, or my father-in-law. it involves me.
a revelation that tuesday evening has made waking up every morning feel as if something has always been missing. i share this with my wife, i know that. but i feel something else for myself. i can’t put it into words, and perhaps i never will. all i know is that i feel something else apart from the shared emotions my wife and i have over the matter. maybe it’s because fathers’ day was just around the corner. maybe, for once, i just want to be selfish about it.
so i let it gnaw at me, devouring my feelings, and growing larger by the minute. every time it feasts inside me, i wanted to cry. but i can’t, thanks to the rituals of everyday urban life. when i do find the time to cry at night, i grab my xbox controller and play, racing across atlanta until dawn (virtual and actual). pathetic excuse to not cry. but i know i can’t avoid the inevitable. i guess i just wanted to have one good, fucking cry, and then move along.
alone in our loft on this fathers’ day mid-afternoon, i finally explode. while the rest of the household busy themselves with their own concerns, i cry.
secretly. uncontrollably. regretfully.
silently.
no tears. no sound. no nothing.
happy fathers’ day to me.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
why this batman movie scared me
curse chris nolan. now i can't retreat into my childish imaginings of patrolling the city in a bat suit. unless i want to spiral down insane lane, straight towards arkham asylum.
a review of star wars episode iii in empireonline said something like "after watching this last star wars film, millions of twenty- to thirty-something boys around the world just grew up." laughed out loud on that one, because it's so true. there's just not enough reason--and fun--to imagine being in a galaxy far, far away with a fucking cool lightsaber and cutting the hands of those damn, why-won't-you-just-die sith lords. the cycle has been completed, let's move on to the realities of life in a city that is so near, near your freaking nose.
but because it's that time of year for the (American) summer blockbuster, and because movie adaptations of comic book characters have become the fad in the post-LOTR hollywood, there seems to be hope for an extension of this suspended adolescence.
enter batman begins. with nolan directing, this batman movie is simply not gonna be the same as the previous ones. a filmography that includes memento and insomnia suggests that batman begins' trajectory is not burton-esque, and most definitely not schumacher-esque (oh thank god). as it turns out, burton's is german expressionistic, nolan's is french impressionistic (schumacher's is simply american childish).
in the previous batman movies (including schumacher’s), we see how the cold, calculating caped crusader dealt with the insane lot of the joker, the penguin, catwoman, two face, the riddler, doctor frost, and poison ivy. all of them driven by madness into a life of crime.
in batman begins, we see how bruce wayne was driven by anger, guilt, and revenge into developing and realizing an insane idea that he can save gotham city from the criminal and the corrupt. can’t help but compare nolan’s bruce wayne to robert rodriguez and frank miller’s dwight in sin city. i have to do something, i have to be the hero.
kalurong an iya inang…
bruce wayne’s spiral down insane lane began when—here’s issue no. 1—he fell down a well, where bats scared the shit out of his billionare ass. the kid got so scared that any image that makes him recall the guano brigade spooks him. like the theater actors in that opera, which forced him to beg to be taken home. so good daddy thomas obliged. then came that dude who popped bullets into his parents’ bodies, and wayne has his issue no. 2. my fault, my fault.
issue no. 3 came when he got beaten to the punch by falcone in killing the dude who killed his folks. oh he so wanted to return the favor to that schuck that he was willing to risk his princeton ass and wayne billions. but falcone’s men ruined his plans. still in an angry and vengeful state of mind, bruce went gee, now what? a face-to-face confrontation with falcone only muddled his brains, and then he decides to disappear.
issue no. 4: bruce becomes fascinated with the criminal mind. so what does a billionare do with such fascination? he goes to china, learns to be a petty thief, and got the internship of a lifetime when he got himself in jail.
that was when his messianic complex began. and who else to help him find what he was looking for but ducard, a wacko who belongs to this group, the league of shadows, which has this insane idea that they can restore balance to the force when things go awry.
and while he got considerable skills and training on how to be a shadow, he locked horns with the league regarding the way they understand and implement justice.
issue no. 5: i wanna do this the right way. not as bruce wayne, but as a giant bat. by donning a bat costume and having cool gadgets. yeah, right. who in his right, friggin’ mind will come up with an idea as insane as that?! oh i’ll scare the living daylights out of the criminal and the corrupt by becoming what i feared the most: a guano-pooping rodent. be afraid. be very afraid.
and so batman begins.
apart from bruce, the movie also gave us plenty of crazies to feast on. ducat, for one. crane/scarecrow is another. r'as al-ghul too, with his warped worldview. falcone. arkham asylum. and that hallucinogen, and the way it plays with your fears. and towards the end, batman and gotham city faces more of the same. inspired by batman himself, the still-at-large, former arkham asylum patients decide to follow his crazy idea of wearing costumes and becoming something else entirely. the difference is that they chose to be the criminals, not the crime-fighters. so the bat flies off to see what he can do with the villain known as the joker.
with nolan brazenly taking on the neurosis of batman/bruce wayne in particular, and gotham city and its hoods in general, batman begins simply stands out as a very mature interpretation of the bob kane creation. burton stepped into that a bit with his german expressionist batman, joker, penguin, catwoman, and gotham city. nolan went inwards, went deeper, and clawed his way into what the hell batman/bruce wayne was thinking when he decided to go bats. i think it was the guano. remember, when he slowly stood up and closed his eyes, and took a long deep breath while millions of bats swarmed him.
batman begins plays with the lead character’s psychosis. sure, there was enough action, but the movie really plays with the dementia of bruce wayne. good thing for gotham he chose to be good. but he’s still a little loose up there.
which makes one’s fantasy of becoming batman a tad harder. with the action/adventure genre, it is always fun to imagine becoming the lead character/s and play out the adventure. the video game industry’s sales suggests that. the juvenile undertaking is but normal for the forever adolescent, twenty- to thirty-something, city-bred male (guilty). boys will be boys.
but the batman begins experience is different. to imagine being batman in a nolan-inspired gotham city is a scary fantasy into the dark recesses of the human mind. of the fear lurking in those depths. of the dementia one has to undergo every fucking day. that's no fun.
i guess one has to grow up sometime. patrolling the nights of quezon city in a bat suit is not a good idea anyway. the buildings are too damn short. sniffing guano siguro, pwede pa…
over-all rating: 4 out of 5 potatoes (five if i can still imagine being batman)
direction: 4.5 potatoes (nolan rules! ‘nuff said!)
script: 4 potatoes (higher if that vaporizing thingamajig was introduced better; oh, and bruce wayne suddenly having a conscience when ducat and rhas al-gul ordered him to carry out justice, league-of-shadows style; palibhasa may saltik)
acting: 4.5 potatoes (yes, even katie holmes was good, neither over- nor under-acting her supporting role; get over the fact that she’s damn pretty, and that she did dawson’s creek, and you’ll see she is quite good; but personally, i think mary louise parker would have been perfect for the role)
art direction: 4.25 potatoes (the neon lights and nipples are gone!)
cinematography: 4.5 potatoes
sound: 4.5 potatoes (that somewhat piercing sound that gets louder and louder is just eerie)
a review of star wars episode iii in empireonline said something like "after watching this last star wars film, millions of twenty- to thirty-something boys around the world just grew up." laughed out loud on that one, because it's so true. there's just not enough reason--and fun--to imagine being in a galaxy far, far away with a fucking cool lightsaber and cutting the hands of those damn, why-won't-you-just-die sith lords. the cycle has been completed, let's move on to the realities of life in a city that is so near, near your freaking nose.
but because it's that time of year for the (American) summer blockbuster, and because movie adaptations of comic book characters have become the fad in the post-LOTR hollywood, there seems to be hope for an extension of this suspended adolescence.
enter batman begins. with nolan directing, this batman movie is simply not gonna be the same as the previous ones. a filmography that includes memento and insomnia suggests that batman begins' trajectory is not burton-esque, and most definitely not schumacher-esque (oh thank god). as it turns out, burton's is german expressionistic, nolan's is french impressionistic (schumacher's is simply american childish).
in the previous batman movies (including schumacher’s), we see how the cold, calculating caped crusader dealt with the insane lot of the joker, the penguin, catwoman, two face, the riddler, doctor frost, and poison ivy. all of them driven by madness into a life of crime.
in batman begins, we see how bruce wayne was driven by anger, guilt, and revenge into developing and realizing an insane idea that he can save gotham city from the criminal and the corrupt. can’t help but compare nolan’s bruce wayne to robert rodriguez and frank miller’s dwight in sin city. i have to do something, i have to be the hero.
kalurong an iya inang…
bruce wayne’s spiral down insane lane began when—here’s issue no. 1—he fell down a well, where bats scared the shit out of his billionare ass. the kid got so scared that any image that makes him recall the guano brigade spooks him. like the theater actors in that opera, which forced him to beg to be taken home. so good daddy thomas obliged. then came that dude who popped bullets into his parents’ bodies, and wayne has his issue no. 2. my fault, my fault.
issue no. 3 came when he got beaten to the punch by falcone in killing the dude who killed his folks. oh he so wanted to return the favor to that schuck that he was willing to risk his princeton ass and wayne billions. but falcone’s men ruined his plans. still in an angry and vengeful state of mind, bruce went gee, now what? a face-to-face confrontation with falcone only muddled his brains, and then he decides to disappear.
issue no. 4: bruce becomes fascinated with the criminal mind. so what does a billionare do with such fascination? he goes to china, learns to be a petty thief, and got the internship of a lifetime when he got himself in jail.
that was when his messianic complex began. and who else to help him find what he was looking for but ducard, a wacko who belongs to this group, the league of shadows, which has this insane idea that they can restore balance to the force when things go awry.
and while he got considerable skills and training on how to be a shadow, he locked horns with the league regarding the way they understand and implement justice.
issue no. 5: i wanna do this the right way. not as bruce wayne, but as a giant bat. by donning a bat costume and having cool gadgets. yeah, right. who in his right, friggin’ mind will come up with an idea as insane as that?! oh i’ll scare the living daylights out of the criminal and the corrupt by becoming what i feared the most: a guano-pooping rodent. be afraid. be very afraid.
and so batman begins.
apart from bruce, the movie also gave us plenty of crazies to feast on. ducat, for one. crane/scarecrow is another. r'as al-ghul too, with his warped worldview. falcone. arkham asylum. and that hallucinogen, and the way it plays with your fears. and towards the end, batman and gotham city faces more of the same. inspired by batman himself, the still-at-large, former arkham asylum patients decide to follow his crazy idea of wearing costumes and becoming something else entirely. the difference is that they chose to be the criminals, not the crime-fighters. so the bat flies off to see what he can do with the villain known as the joker.
with nolan brazenly taking on the neurosis of batman/bruce wayne in particular, and gotham city and its hoods in general, batman begins simply stands out as a very mature interpretation of the bob kane creation. burton stepped into that a bit with his german expressionist batman, joker, penguin, catwoman, and gotham city. nolan went inwards, went deeper, and clawed his way into what the hell batman/bruce wayne was thinking when he decided to go bats. i think it was the guano. remember, when he slowly stood up and closed his eyes, and took a long deep breath while millions of bats swarmed him.
batman begins plays with the lead character’s psychosis. sure, there was enough action, but the movie really plays with the dementia of bruce wayne. good thing for gotham he chose to be good. but he’s still a little loose up there.
which makes one’s fantasy of becoming batman a tad harder. with the action/adventure genre, it is always fun to imagine becoming the lead character/s and play out the adventure. the video game industry’s sales suggests that. the juvenile undertaking is but normal for the forever adolescent, twenty- to thirty-something, city-bred male (guilty). boys will be boys.
but the batman begins experience is different. to imagine being batman in a nolan-inspired gotham city is a scary fantasy into the dark recesses of the human mind. of the fear lurking in those depths. of the dementia one has to undergo every fucking day. that's no fun.
i guess one has to grow up sometime. patrolling the nights of quezon city in a bat suit is not a good idea anyway. the buildings are too damn short. sniffing guano siguro, pwede pa…
over-all rating: 4 out of 5 potatoes (five if i can still imagine being batman)
direction: 4.5 potatoes (nolan rules! ‘nuff said!)
script: 4 potatoes (higher if that vaporizing thingamajig was introduced better; oh, and bruce wayne suddenly having a conscience when ducat and rhas al-gul ordered him to carry out justice, league-of-shadows style; palibhasa may saltik)
acting: 4.5 potatoes (yes, even katie holmes was good, neither over- nor under-acting her supporting role; get over the fact that she’s damn pretty, and that she did dawson’s creek, and you’ll see she is quite good; but personally, i think mary louise parker would have been perfect for the role)
art direction: 4.25 potatoes (the neon lights and nipples are gone!)
cinematography: 4.5 potatoes
sound: 4.5 potatoes (that somewhat piercing sound that gets louder and louder is just eerie)
boy bauer
i finished watching 24 season 4 a couple of weeks back, and i have been itching to write something about one of my favorite tv shows ever since.
problem is, i couldn’t finish one paragraph without citing at least one significant plot twist. and we all know that 24 operates with a storyline that restricts the flow of information, in that we the audience know as much information that the characters know. and you all know i'm not one to spoil your viewing pleasure with revelations, no matter how small or insignificant. i drop hints sure, but that’s as far as it goes.
i won’t drop hints here. so you can read on. honest.
the first tv channel to show 24 in the phils was rpn 9. during that time, the only thing i knew about the tv series was that it had this gimmick of telling the story real-time. that is, no time manipulation—time is neither expanded nor compressed. what happens in five minutes of story time happens in five minutes of actual time.
cool, i thought.
never got around to watching it though, because abc 5 was the only local channel worth watching that time mainly because of enterprising shows like the misadventures of maverick and ariel, and past shows like the exchange (pero kahit abc 5 na yun, konti lang yung ganung klaseng palabas). i was into cable channels, because they had more brains and brawn. simply put, they were way, way more entertaining.
the show, so i heard, did not get an audience, and was dropped from the roster sometime towards the 12th hour (episode 12). the few audience it had, if it did have any, must have cursed the high heavens.
axn premiered the show much later, and i happened to arrive one night just in time to catch it. i had no intentions of watching it really, but the tv was tuned in on axn when i turned it on. being the couch potato that i am, i didn’t bother getting up to look for the dang remote. was too comfortable in the magic blue sofa (still have it).
the first episode of day 1, as 24’s seasons have become known these days, blew me away. i knew i was hooked when the story clock hit 1:00 am. the next 23 weeks, i was home before 9:00 pm, thursdays. the latest i arrived home was 8:58 pm. didn't miss a friggin’ second.
dragged my wife into watching the show, and later a few friends. then more friends. and the rest is history. a 24 cult has been created within our network of friends.
day 1 has always been my favorite, and although the series has a new contract for two more seasons, i firmly believe that the first season cannot be topped. the stakes raised on day 1 were just much too high. the first african-american with a real shot at the presidency—senator david palmer—was targeted for assassination. jack bauer’s family—wife teri and daughter kim—was constantly in peril. jack’s people at ctu—nina myers, tony almeida, et al.—may be involved in both. a ghost from the past coming back to haunt the principal characters.
day 2 saw jack averting a nuclear bomb being detonated in los angeles. in season one, jack was always on his feet, reacting to what the situation gave him. in season two, we see more of jack’s capabilities. moreover, the season follows up on some of the threads left by day one, and jack confronts an arch enemy and swallows a bitter pill because of it. that was one of the things i liked about day 2: an arch enemy, thus far jack’s most uber nemesis, is in the picture, and promises to be there for quite a while.
day 3 revealed the true jack: clinical, calculating, unorthodox. he was always a step ahead in most situations. he took risks. some paid off, some did not. this time, jack had to stop the use of a weaponized virus. what i like about this season is that it brings the first three seasons to a close, and unlike the last seconds of days 1 and 2, this day ended with jack simply breaking down in tears after a long day’s work stopping the virus from being unleashed.
that ending implied that 24 was coming back. for more. in day 3, jack was at his best. he was damn decisive and efficient. brutally clinical. only his solitary breakdown at the end of the day hinted at his exasperation and frustration. when a call came in, he just had to collect himself, and go back to work.
but when 24 returned for season 4, jack is no longer with ctu, preferring a desk job with the department of defense. the only returning characters this time were jack and chloe o’brien, the ctu computer geek. the threat: a kidnapping of a high government official. or so they thought. or so i thought.
day 4 fundamentally uses the same narrative infrastructures and stylistic systems of the past three seasons. the tv series still relies heavily on restricting information, which leads to many strands of the narrative popping out of nowhere. that has always been both its strength and weakness. stylistically, everything is still there—the ticking clock, the handheld camera shots, the episode endings that leave you wanting for more—which makes 24 what it is.
but some things stand out.
for instance, sean callery’s score. he just keeps adding new, pulsating, suspense-filled music every year.
the writing has become brazen. there are no deviations from the existing narrative structures: the script is still very 24-ish, but there are elements that—if you were american and/or arab-american—have proven to be quite controversial. at least that’s what the reviews say.
couch potato alert: if you do not want to screw up your viewing pleasure of 24, do not go to their website, or do not google the show’s reviews until after you’ve seen the entire season. just trust me.
and most importantly, jack has met his match. i initially thought his arch enemy in days 2 and 3 was the uber enemy. then he had to face this dude in day 4. oh man, if jack was cool, clinical, and calculating in day 3, his nemesis in day 4 is much more cool, clinical, and calculating. again, jack is on the reactive mode. his nemesis here is simply always a step ahead of him.
and while day 3 provided closure for the first three seasons, the ending of day 4 fundamentally puts jack bauer’s story in limbo. if i were a writer in the tv series, i'd probably be going, “shit, now what do we do?” with a new two-year contract, and that kind of ending, what indeed will they do?
finally, i know i promised not to drop any hints, but i just have to spill this out: there is a surprise in the last two episodes that, this couch potato observes, brings the seasons one to three in the viewers’ perspective again.
rambling patatas at patatas sa kanto, tapusin nyo na!
problem is, i couldn’t finish one paragraph without citing at least one significant plot twist. and we all know that 24 operates with a storyline that restricts the flow of information, in that we the audience know as much information that the characters know. and you all know i'm not one to spoil your viewing pleasure with revelations, no matter how small or insignificant. i drop hints sure, but that’s as far as it goes.
i won’t drop hints here. so you can read on. honest.
the first tv channel to show 24 in the phils was rpn 9. during that time, the only thing i knew about the tv series was that it had this gimmick of telling the story real-time. that is, no time manipulation—time is neither expanded nor compressed. what happens in five minutes of story time happens in five minutes of actual time.
cool, i thought.
never got around to watching it though, because abc 5 was the only local channel worth watching that time mainly because of enterprising shows like the misadventures of maverick and ariel, and past shows like the exchange (pero kahit abc 5 na yun, konti lang yung ganung klaseng palabas). i was into cable channels, because they had more brains and brawn. simply put, they were way, way more entertaining.
the show, so i heard, did not get an audience, and was dropped from the roster sometime towards the 12th hour (episode 12). the few audience it had, if it did have any, must have cursed the high heavens.
axn premiered the show much later, and i happened to arrive one night just in time to catch it. i had no intentions of watching it really, but the tv was tuned in on axn when i turned it on. being the couch potato that i am, i didn’t bother getting up to look for the dang remote. was too comfortable in the magic blue sofa (still have it).
the first episode of day 1, as 24’s seasons have become known these days, blew me away. i knew i was hooked when the story clock hit 1:00 am. the next 23 weeks, i was home before 9:00 pm, thursdays. the latest i arrived home was 8:58 pm. didn't miss a friggin’ second.
dragged my wife into watching the show, and later a few friends. then more friends. and the rest is history. a 24 cult has been created within our network of friends.
day 1 has always been my favorite, and although the series has a new contract for two more seasons, i firmly believe that the first season cannot be topped. the stakes raised on day 1 were just much too high. the first african-american with a real shot at the presidency—senator david palmer—was targeted for assassination. jack bauer’s family—wife teri and daughter kim—was constantly in peril. jack’s people at ctu—nina myers, tony almeida, et al.—may be involved in both. a ghost from the past coming back to haunt the principal characters.
day 2 saw jack averting a nuclear bomb being detonated in los angeles. in season one, jack was always on his feet, reacting to what the situation gave him. in season two, we see more of jack’s capabilities. moreover, the season follows up on some of the threads left by day one, and jack confronts an arch enemy and swallows a bitter pill because of it. that was one of the things i liked about day 2: an arch enemy, thus far jack’s most uber nemesis, is in the picture, and promises to be there for quite a while.
day 3 revealed the true jack: clinical, calculating, unorthodox. he was always a step ahead in most situations. he took risks. some paid off, some did not. this time, jack had to stop the use of a weaponized virus. what i like about this season is that it brings the first three seasons to a close, and unlike the last seconds of days 1 and 2, this day ended with jack simply breaking down in tears after a long day’s work stopping the virus from being unleashed.
that ending implied that 24 was coming back. for more. in day 3, jack was at his best. he was damn decisive and efficient. brutally clinical. only his solitary breakdown at the end of the day hinted at his exasperation and frustration. when a call came in, he just had to collect himself, and go back to work.
but when 24 returned for season 4, jack is no longer with ctu, preferring a desk job with the department of defense. the only returning characters this time were jack and chloe o’brien, the ctu computer geek. the threat: a kidnapping of a high government official. or so they thought. or so i thought.
day 4 fundamentally uses the same narrative infrastructures and stylistic systems of the past three seasons. the tv series still relies heavily on restricting information, which leads to many strands of the narrative popping out of nowhere. that has always been both its strength and weakness. stylistically, everything is still there—the ticking clock, the handheld camera shots, the episode endings that leave you wanting for more—which makes 24 what it is.
but some things stand out.
for instance, sean callery’s score. he just keeps adding new, pulsating, suspense-filled music every year.
the writing has become brazen. there are no deviations from the existing narrative structures: the script is still very 24-ish, but there are elements that—if you were american and/or arab-american—have proven to be quite controversial. at least that’s what the reviews say.
couch potato alert: if you do not want to screw up your viewing pleasure of 24, do not go to their website, or do not google the show’s reviews until after you’ve seen the entire season. just trust me.
and most importantly, jack has met his match. i initially thought his arch enemy in days 2 and 3 was the uber enemy. then he had to face this dude in day 4. oh man, if jack was cool, clinical, and calculating in day 3, his nemesis in day 4 is much more cool, clinical, and calculating. again, jack is on the reactive mode. his nemesis here is simply always a step ahead of him.
and while day 3 provided closure for the first three seasons, the ending of day 4 fundamentally puts jack bauer’s story in limbo. if i were a writer in the tv series, i'd probably be going, “shit, now what do we do?” with a new two-year contract, and that kind of ending, what indeed will they do?
finally, i know i promised not to drop any hints, but i just have to spill this out: there is a surprise in the last two episodes that, this couch potato observes, brings the seasons one to three in the viewers’ perspective again.
rambling patatas at patatas sa kanto, tapusin nyo na!
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