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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
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Bibliography
The Great Little Hunter
Pinspired Philippines, 2022
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
Follow the Spy
Recent Crumbs
Blogs I Read
© 2002-2021
IAN ROSALES CASOCOT
Sunday, September 18, 2016
6:46 PM |
A Singleton Finds a Good Ending
I watched Sharon Maguire's
Bridget Jones's Baby (2016) because I thought it was going to be nostalgia fodder, and nothing more, for my 20s. Has it been that long? Yes. But the film proved to be funny and witty, and also a gentle reassurance, especially for people my age, that life deepens and starts, really, in your 40s. It is a worthy successor to the 2001 original and the 1996 Helen Fielding novel, and makes the brilliant choice to wilfully forget the 2004 sequel (that one helmed by Beeban Kidron) and the last two Fielding novels (where she kills off Darcy). There is great satisfaction watching Renée Zellweger return to an iconic role with cheerful humility and gusto, and flaunting the wrinkly truths about getting older with comic panache. All the hijinks of the original -- the earnest chronicling of a singleton's shenanigans, the bumbling presentation that derails Bridget's professional life, the mischief of good friends and the quirkiness of parents, the comical duel of the men in Bridget's life -- return but sharpened with 40-something reality: people are having babies, the biological clock is ticking, life is unsensational beyond the glowing ending of a romance story, and Emma Thompson makes for a great gynaecologist. The titular baby itself -- with the question of whether Colin Firth's Mark Darcy or Patrick Dempsey's Jack Qwant is the father being the plot's driving conflict -- serves more or less as a device for this eternal truth: the heart wants what it wants. I hope people get to watch this movie. It's not everyday we get romantic comedy this good. It's a difficult genre to pull off, and most directors muck it up, plus it doesn't get the same critical consideration of manlier subject matters. I laughed so hard from beginning to end. It was more than worth it.
Labels: film, review
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