This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
8:23 PM |
The Compass That Went Nowhere
The DVD of The Golden Compass is soon coming our way, and I think it's fair to say -- after all these months -- that when I saw the movie on the big screen last year, I tried to like it so much (because I love the book) but it kinda ... underwhelmed. It was boring, actually. I loved individual touches of it, but the whole thing just did not work. I remember leaving the theater in Greenbelt with Mark, and we were all so silent, trying hard to mask our disappointment. "It was okay," we said. Which is bad. I think the movie went wrong in pre-production when the makers tried to tailor it to follow all the marketing expectations of too many people, especially people they didn't want to offend, thereby pushing the entire story towards a territory where it would lose its bite, and its magic. They virtually did away with Philip Pullman's anti-Christianity angle, hoping the rabid Evangelicals would not picket, and still go ahead and see the movie. Hell, they still didn't go anyway, and the movie only earned $70 million in North America (but grossed more worldwide). I wish they went ahead and stayed true to the spirit of the book. It would have been a better movie. The rabid dogs would have howled, of course, but at least there would have have been something salvageable in the film.Labels: books, film, issues, religion
