Thursday, April 30, 2020
4:54 AM |
The Film Meme No. 6
[6th of 100]. The thing about love stories on film is that they're not very easy to capture or tell, and also most people have a huge reserve of revulsion when presented with anything resembling romance. The former demands chemistry and believability, and the latter demands a nuanced engagement with sentimentality without falling into the saccharine. All these are not easy to accomplish. [God, I hated
The Notebook]. Which is why I forever appreciate a movie romance that works. That this is a remake of a 1934 film [and improves on it], which also paved the way towards a 1994 remake [which fails substantially] tell us that this is a singular achievement, kind of a lightning in a bottle -- approached only in greatness by 1993's homage to it [Nora Ephron's
Sleepless in Seattle]. I love this film. I love how it earns its emotionality. I love its memorable lines. I love its pace, and its twists. I love its classy leads. I love its sublime music. I love that every time I watch that mid-film sequence in the hilltops of Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean coast, I'm still reduced to tears. What's the film?
For the introduction to this meme, read
here.
Labels: film
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
10:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 18.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
9:08 AM |
The Film Meme No. 5
[5th of 100]. It actually took me a while to appreciate the genius of this film. When I first saw this in college, the opening scenes -- an extensive, glorious, sweaty dance rehearsal for a Broadway show presided almost devil-like by a relentless director/choreographer -- were already easy enticement for me, but the rest of the film, told jarringly in quick cuts and in various references to things I knew nothing about, left me cold. Only later when I got to know better the life and accomplishments of the director did I finally dare to go back to the film and appreciate its brutal nuances. This is autobiographical cinema in its finest: an artist spilling out his guts and his story on camera, often in very unflattering light, and not only does he find a strange combination of redemption and tragedy, we also got to have a distillation of every aspect of his genius. What's the film?
For the introduction to this meme, read
here.
Labels: film
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
9:09 AM |
The Film Meme No. 4
[4th of 100]. Wit -- crunchy, biting wit -- is the engine that makes this classic; every single line, and every single reading of the script, is just perfection. The powerhouse cast, I think, has never been equalled as well. [It even has an up-and-coming Marilyn Monroe in it!] And the story, too, is delicious and intriguing: a cunning and ambitious actress bulldozes everything in her path to achieve a dream, and finds that it contains a trap. This was my gateway drug to classic cinema when I was a budding cinevore in the early 1990s. What's the film?
For the introduction to this meme, read
here.
Labels: film
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Monday, April 27, 2020
9:22 AM |
The Film Meme No. 3
[3rd of 100]. Everything is exquisite and precise -- and violent -- in this film, which for me equals the more blatant blood and gore in the director's other masterpieces like
Taxi Driver or
Goodfellas or
Raging Bull. Except that the violence here is done in whispers and lace and knowing looks and social conventions, which is scarier I think. I can't help go back to this picture every so often, to take in the pace, the subtlety, the lushness, the luxuriant cadence of Joanne Woodward's narration. What's the film?
For the introduction to this meme, read
here.
Labels: film
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Sunday, April 26, 2020
9:24 AM |
The Film Meme No. 2
[2nd of 100]. A real-life screenwriting blockage -- how does one exactly adapt into film a book about ... orchids? -- turns into an epic of screenwriting itself, turning on its own conceit so many times its a wonder how this film has beautifully held up. I am so amazed by this film I screen it every year for my screenwriting class. What's the film?
For the introduction to this meme, read
here.
Labels: film
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Saturday, April 25, 2020
9:26 AM |
The Film Meme No. 1
[1st of 100]. This film, which I first saw in Betamax when I was in high school, did two things: first it confounded me in such a way that I wanted to see more of it to unravel its mysteries; and second, it introduced me to the possibilities of cinema I never thought could be done, narrative-wise. A deeply philosophical miracle of a film. What's the film?
For the introduction to this meme, read
here.
Labels: film
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Friday, April 24, 2020
9:05 AM |
The Film Meme x 100: An Introduction
I've been avoiding this meme for so long, despite being tagged by quite a few people. But I was recently challenged by Joop Miranda to post just an image -- supposedly no posters, no title, no explanation -- from 10 movies that had an impact on me. So fine, I'm finally succumbing to this meme. But I'll do this in an extra way: I'll do 100 films which I find to be [personally] perfect, not necessarily canonically great or technically magnificent, just cinema I could return to once and again; and while I will not be putting in a poster or a title, I will nevertheless put in a short explanation, because I don't understand any enterprise that speak of impact without at least a tiny consideration of that impact -- else it's just a bunch of images signifying muteness or nothing. All in alphabetical order, and excluding documentaries. [This is why I am such a meme killer.] This is going to be an effort -- but it will be a good exercise for me to distill my sense of cinema, and also a way to answer the eternal question, "What's your favorite movie?"
Labels: film
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
11:53 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 17.
Labels: coronavirus, philippine literature, poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Saturday, April 18, 2020
8:36 AM |
Kuřata v Hadí Kleci
Excited for this! My short story "Enough of This is True" has been translated to Czech along with the works of 37 other fantastic Filipino writers in this groundbreaking anthology, selected and edited with an introduction by former Czech ambassador to the Philippines Jaroslav Olsa Jr. together with Silvie Mitlenerová!
Link
here.
Labels: books, fiction, philippine literature
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Thursday, April 16, 2020
7:14 PM |
"You just have to let people love you."
1. “Sometimes, you just have to let people love you, Marilla.” This was the line in the last episode of the first season of
Anne with an E, Netflix's adaptation of the beloved children’s classic
Anne of Green Gables, that finally did me in: behold, waterworks. The Cuthberts in this episode are in dire financial straits, but Marilla refuses to let people help, which she sees as pity disguised as charity—until Anne spouts this line and changes Marilla’s outlook on things. It touched me. I’ve always had this great suspicion of people daring to love me, you see, perhaps coming from some great unexplored hurt, and ultimately rises within me as a kind of self-defense: “If no one loves me, I won't be hurt.” Which is pretty much why I am so independent in my ways, always skirting the herd, never asking for help. Renz knows this: me asking for help in anything is the last resort I take, arrived at after going through countless detours where I try to just make-do with what I can, on my own. It’s just me being headstrong and proud; it never makes things easier. And so when I finally do ask for help, from friends or family, and help is indeed extended, I am always astonished, like seeing the world in the light of generosity I never knew can exist.
2. The new normal—the world in quarantine because of the coronavirus, with no end in sight—has had most of us reeling with melted hours and indistinguishable days. We sleep, we struggle with sleep, we fret with the news and from the unseen dangers of going outside our doors. We read, we watch movies, we have chilled with Netflix for so long it no longer means “sex.” In the second week of the quarantine, which now feels like ages ago, what got me through the doldrums was all three seasons of
Avatar: The Last Airbender. Now, in the fourth week of the quarantine, I’ve found
Annie with an E. And I think its tenderheartedness and unabashed humanity is just what I need to get through the thickening uncertainty of these dark days. Perhaps I'll watch
The Secret Garden next, and then
A Little Princess. Who knew that the classics I read in childhood would come back to me to offer comfort? Maybe this is even regression, a fanciful escape to more innocent times—but I don’t mind much: whatever gets me through the day, and still believing in the best of humanity, I’ll take it.
Labels: books, coronavirus, life, psychology, television
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
8:49 PM |
Ray Bradbury's Mr. Electrico
This is a beautiful answer to an interview question, something writers should read.
PARIS REVIEW
... You’ve often spoken of a real-life Mr. Electrico, though no scholar has ever been able to confirm his existence. The story has taken on a kind of mythic stature—the director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies calls the search for Mr. Electrico the “Holy Grail” of Bradbury scholarship.
RAY BRADBURY
Yes, but he
was a real man. That was his real name. Circuses and carnivals were always passing through Illinois during my childhood and I was in love with their mystery. One autumn weekend in 1932, when I was twelve years old, the Dill Brothers Combined Shows came to town. One of the performers was Mr. Electrico. He sat in an electric chair. A stagehand pulled a switch and he was charged with fifty thousand volts of pure electricity. Lightning flashed in his eyes and his hair stood on end.
The next day, I had to go the funeral of one of my favorite uncles. Driving back from the graveyard with my family, I looked down the hill toward the shoreline of Lake Michigan and I saw the tents and the flags of the carnival and I said to my father, Stop the car. He said, What do you mean? And I said, I have to get out. My father was furious with me. He expected me to stay with the family to mourn, but I got out of the car anyway and I ran down the hill toward the carnival.
It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I was running away from death, wasn’t I? I was running toward life. And there was Mr. Electrico sitting on the platform out in front of the carnival and I didn’t know what to say. I was scared of making a fool of myself. I had a magic trick in my pocket, one of those little ball-and-vase tricks—a little container that had a ball in it that you make disappear and reappear—and I got that out and asked, Can you show me how to do this? It was the right thing to do. It made a contact. He knew he was talking to a young magician. He took it, showed me how to do it, gave it back to me, then he looked at my face and said, Would you like to meet those people in that tent over there? Those strange people? And I said, Yes sir, I would. So he led me over there and he hit the tent with his cane and said, Clean up your language! Clean up your language! He took me in, and the first person I met was the illustrated man. Isn’t that wonderful?
The Illustrated Man! He called himself the tattooed man, but I changed his name later for my book. I also met the strong man, the fat lady, the trapeze people, the dwarf, and the skeleton. They all became characters.
Mr. Electrico was a beautiful man, see, because he knew that he had a little weird kid there who was twelve years old and wanted lots of things. We walked along the shore of Lake Michigan and he treated me like a grown-up. I talked my big philosophies and he talked his little ones. Then we went out and sat on the dunes near the lake and all of a sudden he leaned over and said, I’m glad you’re back in my life. I said, What do you mean? I don’t know you. He said, You were my best friend outside of Paris in 1918. You were wounded in the Ardennes and you died in my arms there. I’m glad you’re back in the world. You have a different face, a different name, but the soul shining out of your face is the same as my friend. Welcome back.
Now why did he say that? Explain that to me, why? Maybe he had a dead son, maybe he had no sons, maybe he was lonely, maybe he was an ironical jokester. Who knows? It could be that he saw the intensity with which I live. Every once in a while at a book signing I see young boys and girls who are so full of fire that it shines out of their face and you pay more attention to that. Maybe that’s what attracted him.
When I left the carnival that day I stood by the carousel and I watched the horses running around and around to the music of “Beautiful Ohio,” and I cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I knew something important had happened to me that day because of Mr. Electrico. I felt changed. He gave me importance, immortality, a mystical gift. My life was turned around completely. It makes me cold all over to think about it, but I went home and within days I started to write. I’ve never stopped.
Seventy-seven years ago, and I’ve remembered it perfectly. I went back and saw him that night. He sat in the chair with his sword, they pulled the switch, and his hair stood up. He reached out with his sword and touched everyone in the front row, boys and girls, men and women, with the electricity that sizzled from the sword. When he came to me, he touched me on the brow, and on the nose, and on the chin, and he said to me, in a whisper, “Live forever.” And I decided to.
// Read the rest
here.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
10:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 16.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Sunday, April 12, 2020
9:04 PM |
Quarantine Blues
Everyone has a unique learning curve dealing with the anxieties of the pandemic and the doldrums of the quarantine, enough so that I have resolved never to compare how I’m faring with other people’s experience. Mine has been a road of spurts and false starts, but always with the hope that tomorrow would be slightly better than today.Labels: coronavirus, life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Saturday, April 11, 2020
I want seafood from Hayahay, and a leg of ham [and cheese bread!] from the Silliman Cafeteria. I want lechon de carajay from Qyosko. I want a three-hour body massage plus foot massage plus body scrub from Grand Royal. I want a swim in Rovira Suites, and an afternoon under the sun at Kookoo's Nest. I want to eat lechon manok from Golden Roy's with the s.o. I want to hug my mom.Labels: coronavirus, life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
11:16 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 15.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Friday, April 03, 2020
7:17 PM |
Swirling Into ‘Devs’
I really thought I’d be giving up on FX’s
Devs after an episode or two drenched in picturesque, overwhelming melancholy—but the TV show has a way of defying my expectations and furthering my curiosity, and so now I’m deeply entrenched into this futuristic world of quantum mechanics and such by the sixth episode. It has an emotional and intellectual resonance HBO’s
Westworld wishes it has, but doesn’t. In many ways, I’m amazed at the evolution of Alex Garland, its creator, who I first discovered while I was studying in Tokyo in the mid-90s and I had stumbled upon his novel
The Beach, and later
The Tesseract. His transition to film has been fascinating, first as a screenwriter [
28 Days Later, Sunshine, 28 Weeks Later, Never Let Me Go]—and now as a director.
Ex Machina (2014) was a glimpse into his concerns as a cinematic storyteller, and his adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s
Annihilation (2018) was a sharpening of his sensibilities. I think
Devs is the first full blooming of those sensibilities. I don’t know where this show is going, but I’m here for the ride.
Labels: film, pop culture, television, writers
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
11:00 AM |
“Where is My Q-Pass?”
Today the Enhanced Community Quarantine in Dumaguete starts. People were promised Q-passes, but not so many households have been given this yet by their barangays, and people are panicking.
But I get it now. What’s really happening is not a crisis of lack of passes, but a gap in communication. [Which always happens. How many times have I posted about events with complete information, with people still DMing, “What time? Pila ang ticket?”] I think everyone thinks you need a Q-pass even if you’re just going to stand on the sidewalk outside your house. That’s what I thought—and I think that’s why people panicked. You don’t. You can still go out to buy things from your nearest sari-sari store or carinderia. But you need a Q-pass if you want to go to Lee Plaza, for example, or any place out of your immediate neighborhood or barangay.
Also another source of panic: we never really took note of the barangay as an important component in our lives. Until now. And we had no idea how to engage. Some of us didn't even know where the barangay hall was, until three days ago.
Stay calm, and stay at home, Dumaguete!
Kaya ni nato.
Labels: coronavirus, dumaguete, life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
10:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 14.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
GO TO OLDER POSTS
GO TO NEWER POSTS
