Antichrist, controversial? Not so.

Lars von Trier's Antichrist is a jarring film about sex, the power that comes with it, and how people deal with such power. It also deals with the nature of man - what is good, evil and if either/both are inherent in us.

I like it because it made me think. I like it because it didn't disappoint. I was expecting to throw up for some graphic scene or another, but I didn't. It was tolerable. I just don't get where the controversy lies. Is it because shock art is overrated? But I *was* shocked at some point, so that makes it effective, doesn't it?

It wasn't as graphic as I was made to expect it to be. Battle Royale had more senseless, supposedly ickier gore and violence in it, and I'd laughed and snored my way into that film. The graphic scenes in this film came naturally to the story. If Freud had been watching, he would be slow-clapping in his seat; in his head thinking, "BRILLIANT." After all, he'd maintained that sex and aggression are natural in human beings.

There were definitely scenes where we - the Mogwai audience of ten - would be induced to a collective gasp, to which I think, would cause Von Trier to snigger to himself. I'd think he'd be glad that he managed to jolt us back to our senses - with the omnipresence of violence not just in the moviehouses but in our own homes in the form of primetime news desensitizing a majority of us. The frequency and intensity of the collective gasps increased as the film progressed. It was like Von Trier was consciously and continuously pushing the characters, the film, and the audience towards the edge - a feat made successful by a crowd wincing and groaning in unison.

Some critics are saying Antichrist is not any different from Von Trier's early works, which makes it pretty dull and redundant. Others even go as far as calling Von Trier as being boxed into his own creative playpen, unable to go beyond what he has produced before.

In my opinion, if that's what the guy wants to do, what gives him pleasure, what flays his Muse to life, then fine - let 'im at it. The artwork is always the artist's prerogative. It's up to the artist when he/she wants to move on to a different subject matter. If he/she ever wants to.

Sure, the critics' job is to show the artist where he/she is at fault. But an artist (ideally) must never change what he/she intuits as his/her work for the sake of pacifying the critics. (Futile, because they never get completely appeased.) It's the artist's duty to him/herself and the art form he/she married to progress - grow - in one way or another. Stasis is never a good thing, especially in art; so it would be the artist's loss if decides against stepping out of his/her comfort zone (ah, that term.).

But I digress. Going back on topic -

I attempted tabula rasa throughout the film, but couldn't help but snicker in some of the scenes and go, "Seriously!?" in my head. Reminds me of when Sir Doy commented in his Writing for Film class, "Since when has violence become so funny?" But while I get where this film's violence is coming from, there a couple of things I don't quite understand:

- The psychology of the characters. Why is the wife like that? Had she been psycho even before their kid died, or was the psychosis an effect of the guilt over the kid's death?
- The husband's dream sequences. I know they mean something. (They must.) But I'm not sure what, exactly.
- The choice of symbols. The fox, the doe and the crow. Are they or are they not representations of the Three Beggars? If yes, why did he choose those animals out of so many others? The doe for grief, the fox for pain and the crow for despair. I don't get it.

Other things that distracted me constantly were a couple more technical stuff: jump cuts, 180-degree line-crossing, and continuity slips. Maybe it's part of the whole feel of the movie - disjointed, chaotic - or maybe I'm just too used to clean-cuts from the usual Hollywood fare or maybe the auteur just doesn't care in particular, but the intermittent disconnection from what should have been a relatively-smooth plot kept me from thoroughly immersing myself in the milieu.

But I suppose I should still be glad that there was an actual story to be pulled away from in the first place. Coming off from a couple of Cinemalaya films I'd seen before, I'd prepared for the possibility that this film would be so esoteric, the plot would practically be non-existent, and where the auteur would just be stringing you along for a ride in his train of thoughts, but to no particular end or effect.

My take on indie films is that they are still films. Films are still vehicles for stories, and telling stories is a sense-making activity. That said, even indie films, no matter how experimental or confounding, must still create some grain of sense in the end. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time, effort and resources.

Did Antichrist make sense? To some degree. The treatment made sense, but the nitty-gritty of the story... not quite.

I think there are two things Von Trier was trying to get at in this film:
1) Shock the audience. 2) Profundity.

Did he succeed? On the first count, somewhat. I gasped along with the crowd towards the end, after all. On the second, most likely. But not in a particularly good way. Either it's so profound I don't get the whole of it, or I'm that ignorant to not see what's supposed to be right in my face. The subject of the story is profound enough, it's just the execution that I'm having trouble with.

I'd watch it again, but only because I didn't get the whole gist of it the first time.

I give it FOUR STARS for effort, and because I believe there's a lot more that can be gleaned from this after the shockwaves have settled and the mechanics of the story have been understood a lot better.

*Edited because writing cannot be done in a vacuum.

It was raining the whole day...

...like the heavens were mourning along with us.




You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

- David Harkins, Tribute to England's Queen Mother -


The rest of us can only dream of achieving what you have achieved in your lifetime.

Nag-iisa po kayo, Madam President.

Paalam po.

National Artist for Visual Arts and Film: Carlo J. Caparas

We really should stop bashing Malacanang's choice this year. I mean, CJC can't be THAT bad, can he? Coming from someone-who-almost-majored-in-Film's POV, here's what I know about him:

a) He's a very efficient director. (Hey, shooting a whole film in seven days is a feat. I'd know. We spent TWO YEARS doing our 20-minute feature thesis. Who cares if it's rancid pito-pito? A film is a film is a film!)
b) He's well-patronized. (If he can't captivate a wide audience, Ch. 2 and 7 won't have spent millions serializing his comics for TV. Oh, wait, sorry-- My bad. His stories. He had illustrators draw his comics nga pala.)

And besides, I've never really seen any of his... oeuvres to judge. Sure, I've seen Brocka's and Bernal's for Film Theory and Practice under Sir G; but not... y'know, SUCH great work at par with the likes of Insiang, Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag and Batch 81.

Reminds me. Is anyone free next weekend? I really should catch up with my gawdamazng works in Philippine Visual Arts and Film: The Vizconde Massacre Story (God Have Mercy On Us!), The Marita Gonzaga Rape-Slay (In God We Trust), and that epic Tirad Pass: The Last Stand of Greogorio del Pilar-- the one where Bonifacio is killed by the Spaniards. Really. Revolutionary.

Ay, wait. I might be busy this weekend pala. Anyway, you guys can go here or here.

Enjoy in my behalf. In the meantime, I will be joining the flame wars over at BenCab's statement on the National Artist Brouhaha.

the masochist.

Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest.
Do you still want to a writer--and if so, why?
Bennett Cerf, publisher/co-founder of Random House

Even at the worst of times, when nothing goes right, when the prose is clumsy and the ideas feel stale, at least we're doing something that we genuinely love.
There's no other reason to work this hard, except that love.
Melissa Scott, Sci-fi/Fantasy writer


My tummy hurts, and it's not just because of the usual Angel-every-after-thirty-minutes-pangs-of-hunger (TM).

I just made a checklist of things to do (write) towards August (aka Finals, Death Month) and I suddenly get the urge to throw up, shrivel up (my brain, at least) and keel over.

Consequently, even if grad school work is upto my eyeballs, I don't seem to have it in me to pick a bone/rant about how slave driver-y my profs are. (And no, it's not because Sir G can read this at any given time either.) Like the job I have that doesn't really pay well, I really, actually, definitely like my courses; even the coursework (readings, writings, reportings, more writings) shoveled over our near-dead personas every week. (Masochist nga eh!)

The only problem, really, is time.

(And yeah, the fact that I am a pathetic human being that lacks the ability to create shadow clones and the facility to grow three extra brains to handle all the thinking needed in the next few days weeks.)

I just wish I had more time in a week to alternate betweek work-work, school-work and re/writing-work. Things would definitely be a lot more enjoyable and a lot less stressful that way. :(

Imma turn in now. It's really hard to do anything when a toothpick is the only thing that can keep your eyes open for more than thirty seconds.

one more reason to passionately dislike stephanie meyer

SM said, "Let there be Twilight!"

And there was Mary Sue Bella and Gary Stu Edward.

And then there came the hordes of adolescent girls.

There came Robert Pattinson in pastywhite!foundation--

And there were hordes of adolescent girls with banshee screams and raging hormones.

Elsewhere,

There had been the (almost) Great Book Blockade of 2009 that began from a brilliantly corrupt Customs official who wanted to cash in on the Twilight book importations that were coming in by shiploads.

And then there was the release of these.

And now, there's this:

Harlequin takes aim at teen readers with new imprint

"The 60-year-old publisher of classic bodice-rippers is rolling out its newest imprint: Harlequin Teen.

"These books specifically focus on teen protagonists, which is not something Harlequin has done a whole lot of," says the publisher's Natashya Wilson.

Add Harlequin to the list of publishers that have fallen hard for teen readers, thanks to the seismic sales of Stephenie Meyer's teen vampire series Twilight.
"These will be titles specifically developed for readers of Twilight," says Wilson..."

Sample title slated for 2010?

• Intertwined by Gina Showalter, Aug. 25. The book stars a teenage boy who has four souls living inside him and who is irresistibly drawn to a vampire princess.

Copycat, much?

Start rearing a whole generation of rabid, hormone-driven fangirls, why don't we?

Full article here. Eat your heart out.

Thanks to good ol' DOB for the heads up.

Advice: Stephen King

Everything You Need To Know About Writing Successfully
Full article here.


1. Be talented

This, of course, is the killer. What is talent? I can hear someone shouting, and here we are, ready to get into a discussion right up there with "what is the meaning of life?" for weighty pronouncements and total uselessness. For the purposes of the beginning writer, talent may as well be defined as eventual success - publication and money. If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.

Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We're not talking about good or bad here. I'm interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who's good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check's been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented. The biggest part of writing successfully is being talented, and in the context of marketing, the only bad writer is one who doesn't get paid. If you're not talented, you won't succeed. And if you're not succeeding, you should know when to quit.

When is that? I don't know. It's different for each writer. Not after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six thousand pinks, it's time you tried painting or computer programming.

Further, almost every aspiring writer knows when he is getting warmer - you start getting little jotted notes on your rejection slips, or personal letters . . . maybe a commiserating phone call. It's lonely out there in the cold, but there are encouraging voices ... unless there is nothing in your words which warrants encouragement. I think you owe it to yourself to skip as much of the self-illusion as possible. If your eyes are open, you'll know which way to go ... or when to turn back.


2. Be neat.

Type. Double-space. Use a nice heavy white paper, never that erasable onion-skin stuff. If you've marked up your manuscript a lot, do another draft.


3. Be self-critical.

If you haven't marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don't be a slob.


4. Remove every extraneous word.

You want to get up on a soapbox and preach? Fine. Get one and try your local park. You want to write for money? Get to the point. And if you remove all the excess garbage and discover you can't find the point, tear up what you wrote and start all over again . . . or try something new.


5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft.

You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right - and breaking your train of thought and the writer's trance in the bargain - or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don't have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it ... but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.


6. Know the markets.

Only a dimwit would send a story about giant vampire bats surrounding a high school to McCall's. Only a dimwit would send a tender story about a mother and daughter making up their differences on Christmas Eve to Playboy ... but people do it all the time. I'm not exaggerating; I have seen such stories in the slush piles of the actual magazines. If you write a good story, why send it out in an ignorant fashion? Would you send your kid out in a snowstorm dressed in Bermuda shorts and a tank top? If you like science fiction, read the magazines. If you want to write confession stories, read the magazines. And so on. It isn't just a matter of knowing what's right for the present story; you can begin to catch on, after awhile, to overall rhythms, editorial likes and dislikes, a magazine's entire slant. Sometimes your reading can influence the next story, and create a sale.


7. Write to entertain.

Does this mean you can't write "serious fiction"? It does not. Somewhere along the line pernicious critics have invested the American reading and writing public with the idea that entertaining fiction and serious ideas do not overlap. This would have surprised Charles Dickens, not to mention Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Bernard Malamud, and hundreds of others. But your serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way around. I repeat: if you want to preach, get a soapbox.


8. Ask yourself frequently, "Am I having fun?"

The answer needn't always be yes. But if it's always no, it's time for a new project or a new career.


9. How to evaluate criticism

Show your piece to a number of people - ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story - a plot twist that doesn't work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles - change that facet. It doesn't matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I'd still suggest changing it. But if everyone - or even most everyone - is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.


10. Observe all rules for proper submission.

Return postage, self-addressed envelope, all of that.


11. An agent? Forget it. For now.

Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you've done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able to take your pick of good agents.


12. If it's bad, kill it.

When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.

Advice: Kurt Vonnegut

EIGHT RULES FOR WRITING FICTION
Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999)

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.


HOW TO WRITE WITH STYLE

1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers

Full article here.

pogmolodon

Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute.
Or you might not write the paragraph at all.
Franklin P. Adams, Half a Loaf, 1927

I already have the story in my head. I already have it played out. All I have to do is write it, and yet I seem to have lost the ability to. Puwede bang mamamatay na lang?

Pag inuntog ko ba ang ulo ko sa pader, madidislodge yung words na kelangan ko para maipakita sa papel kung ano yung nangyayari sa utak ko?

Nakakainis. Gusto ko ng maisulat 'to para tapos na.

~

I think I know what the problem is. N's pointed it out to me before. Mashado daw akong conscious magsulat. IMO naman, mashado akong takot sa kung ano'ng kalalabasan nya at ano'ng icocomment ng mga taong titingin kaya nde ko masimulan yung dapat kong tapusin.

Sana puwedeng i-turn off by will yung inner critic ko habang di ko pa nabubuo yung kuwento sa papel. Shut up muna sha, mamya na lang pag nagrerevise nako. Mas kailangan ko sha doon. :(

wish granted.

A writer never has a vacation.
For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.
Eugène Ionesco, Romanian-French dramatist and playwright

The grad school profs are having a meeting on Saturday, so us MFA kiddies don't have classes. w00t!

Time to cook up something nice for the Muse of Poetry this weekend. *rubs hands evilly* I swear. It's ironic that I can't write that one genre that made me fall in love with the art in the first place.

And FINALLY enought ime to get cracking on those journal discourses and creative essays (emphasis on the 'ssss') and revise the flash fiction Sir G gave back last week.

Which means STILL no HP6 for me over the weekend.

Gah.

the beginning of the end

The way you define yourself as a writer is that
you write every time you have a free minute.
If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.
John Irving, US novelist (1942 - present)

It was fourth-grade English class. Our homework was to write a poem about anything, and with much amusement, I started writing my very first piece of poetry.

I don’t have the poem now, which is unfortunate, but if I remember right, I think the poem was about birds and trees and friendship, or something. I remember it had rhymes in it, and I remember deciding then that the only thing that can rhyme with love is above. Unless, of course, I manage to factor in a dove into the next line.

Anyway, like most (productive) things nine-year olds do, it was praised by my teacher. Not really sure if it was more for the effort or if my English teacher really found anything spectacular in it, but like any nine-year old kid who had been praised in class, I decided this was something I must be good at, and therefore must do a lot.

(I guess I should also mention that back then, I part-timed as poster girl for child psychology-based teaching methods.)

Fourteen years later, here I am; leading a double – no, quadruple – life as a Band-Aide to a rising indie funk-rock band, an all-around Creative Entity in an events and advertising agency, a not-so-very-likely (enterprise-less) entrepreneur, and most importantly, a MFA Student struggling to become a Writer.

There’s a full-blown essay on the raison d’être behind my jumping into very costly grad school; but I think for the purpose of this introduction, it would be enough to say that while I believe writing is something that I need to do for the rest of my life, I am still, at the very core, a creature of utmost indolence and therefore need something to push me into writing, writing and writing some more.

And as if weekly writing exercises and reading assignments for class aren’t enough to get me into the habit, I present to you my newest time-squeezing torture device.

This blog.

I’m betting that the content is going to be mostly drabblish, but hopefully, once in a blue moon, I’d get to write some real insightful pieces about writing, being a writer (or trying to be) and all other what-nots related to it.

I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that the Gods of Laziness give this one to me.

If not forever, at least for as long as I can finally laugh in the face of writer’s block and the big ol’ P word.

Wish me luck!

See, Fallen, dear. This is why Revenge is bad.

In watching that horror horrible movie House of the Dead, my friends and I learned that we can get out of the cinema with our sanity intact and movie ticket cost reimbursed within the first ten minutes of the film.

In Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen, the first explosion came SIX minutes into the film. Maybe that should have clued me in?

Needless to say, what everyone with half a mind said was true. It WAS an orgy of robots, explosions, and exploding robots. I told R I was coming in there for the effects, and on that level, I didn't feel disappointed AT ALL. The effects were nice, like J (plus everyone and their mother) said. But like the saying goes, too much of one thing is bad. In this case, very bad.

Mr. Michael Bay, sir. There's such a thing as overkill, y'know? Well, okay. Either you knew it and that was the whole point of this sequel, or you didn't and you just went overoverboard. Any which way, I can say without doubt in your mind that what you said in that interview was true. You DID enjoy making this movie. You delved into your fetish for blowing things up SO MUCH that you forgot how to tell a proper story.


Anyway, before anything else, lemme get fangirlism outta way:
- John Turturro = Stellar. I love you always.
- Shia = Brilliant. Really. I just hope he finds himself a Coppola/Scorsese/Burtonesque director. (Read: Run away from The Bay, kid. RUN AWAY.)
- Bumblebee is the coolest Autobot on Earth. I'm sure he'd make a great fillet-o-fish. Or rellenong bangus, at that.
- Tyrese is hot.
- Josh Duhamel is hotter.
- Optimus is HOTness ROBOFIED.


And finally, Angel's list of things to get revenge on:
(If there's a pun somewhere there, it's intended, yes.)

Also - { SPOILER ALERT! }

- The bad guys outnumbered the good guys by a MILE. It was kinda understandable though, this being a movie about the bad guys getting revenge and all. But glossing over the good guys like that? Yurusenai. I didn't even catch the name of that Corvette! That's my car!

- WHERE WAS ARCEE?! I've been expecting some hardcore female Autobot action and WTF happens? What? That's right. Nothing. With a capital N. Apparently, she was supposed to be a three-in-one deal; prolly why the rider holograms all looked alike. An attempt at the Maiden-Mother-Crone archetype? Wow. Someone ought to win a teddy bear for that.

- Was Michael Bay channeling Chekhov with all those anti-climactic funny inserts or have I had too much Fiction class? Hmm. Probably not. Because if he did, the way Megan Fox impossible-to-be-true body was slathered all over the motorcycle in the beginning should have had her riding Arcee towards the end.

- Circly-round shots are dizzying. Especially when the moment you're circling and trying to preserve is along the lines of Megan and Shia all kissy-kissy and cheesy-cheesy with lines like "I adore you. That's the same as the other word." John Lloyd called. He wants his line back. Also - barf bag, please?

- Where are the Autobots? What? Aren't those guys Decepticons?

- Oooh, me boss pala si Megatron? Ay, wait. Basag na pala sha. Sus. Fine. Tara, uwian na.

- Jetfire would be how a fanboy would look like if he were a robot and he got old. I knew the moment Optimus died that someone was gonna have to sacrifice a life. But it just HAD to be the fanboy, hadn't it?

- Megatron (matapos i-talk-to-the-hand at isnabin ni Optimus): "WAH STARSCREAM! UWI NA TAYO! Me Part 3 pa naman eh!"

- On that note, Starscream should get the Dakilang Julalay Award of The Year. Bagong bayani ng mga inalisputang robots yan.

- The epic-est fail of all "epic" battles: Optimus vs. The Fallen. It's like the story of my lovelife too: It was over before it even started.

- Also, Sam's death and resurrection with the Prime brothers? I can't decide whether it's simple deus ex machina or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows meets Dumbledore in the afterlife.

- Sooooo, yeah. Where was I? Right. Questions. Where did that chihuahua-acting Decepticon go right before they hung out the Pyramids? And Sam's roomie - Whasisname - where'd he go after S7 guy (Turturro) went all hero-ey? Answer me those, and I'll tell you why Sam continued dragging Mikaela across the desert while he had Bumblebee drive his parents off to safety.

Answer: It's so the 14-year-old boys can FINALLY see how her boobs jiggle as she runs off in slow-effin-motion.

Gah.

I shouldn't even say this anymore, but since Pointing Out the Obvious is Aki's Useless Skill #57, I'll go ahead and say it anyway.

Sequel sucked. I liked the first one better; Megan was definitely hotter there.

2010 Hollywood and Beyond

Are they running out of creative juices out there in Hollywood or have they just realized now what us geeks have known all these time?

(Y'know, that Japanese anime pwns Hollywood any time. Oh, and yeah. That us otakus are also shameless cash cows. >_>)

There's been a growing trend of Hollywood-produced anime-to-movie live actions in the recent years, have you guys noticed? There's been Speed Racer last year, Dragonball this year and oh, wait what's that? Akira, Avatar (The Last Airbender), Eva (Neon Genesis Evangelion), Full Metal Panic and ohholyshit, Keanu Reeves as SPIKE fuggin' SPIEGEL in a Cowboy Bebop adaptation?

Wait. Lemme calm myself.

...

Is it just me or does Hollywood seem to have mistakenly equated stoic with easy cool?

Because really, Spike Spiegel is in a league light years far from the likes of Neo, Constantine and - Heaven curse yer Mother Planet - Klaatu.

Guh.

Calm down, otaku. Just because Speed Racer and Dragonball sucked balls blue doesn't mean that everything else that follows will suck just the same.

So. Two sides fighting here. There's disgust, and then there's hope. I wanna go hope - primarily because I'm optimistic that way; but also because sci-fi westerns with a jazzy foundation couldn't be THAT hard to adapt to real-life-flesh-blood-tears right? Serenity/Firefly went along fine and Aeon Flux was par excellence, after all; so it should be easy NOT to mess up Bebop (of all things, gawd), right?

*breathe*

Right.

Anyway, if all else fails, there's always this:



Straight out of an effin' storybook. Tim Burton, I will SO have your babies.

And more importantly, this:

*froths at the mouth*

I wish all Hollywood directors were as visionary as this guy. In his hands, I will gladly commit any anime's spirit. Seriously.

Then again, come to think of it, where would all the fun in bashing subpars go, right?



*More wonderfully wonderful Alice in Wonderland stills here.

The MFA application essay

For me, writing is an affliction. A terrible, terrible affliction.

This essay, for instance, had been torturous to write. In my desire to write The Great Graduate School Application Essay that will give me the 101% chance of getting into the Creative Writing program, I had spent one too many long-suffering nights bleeding over the keyboard for the words that would best describe my dreams, my goals and my ambitions to the Graduate Admissions Powers-That-Be. Unfortunately, the keys that I had been hitting for the most part had been the DEL and backspace keys.

You’d ask, what’s the big deal, right? It's a fairly simple task. There're five questions. I have five answers. This should be a breeze.

Right. But, no. Not really.

Because how exactly am I going to impress upon the Powers-That-Be that learning, training, immersing in Creative Writing is something that I have absolutely wanted since I was nine years-old? That childhood fairy tales, speculative fiction and surrealistic novels are no longer enough to satiate my hunger for bizarre realms and so I need to be able to create something more? Something of my own?

I want to explore this world a different way. I want to give an alternate view of how things began, how things will end and what happens in between. I want to be able to weave Eastern and Western mythologies together – not to make things all the same, but to show how differentiations like that are better off like many rivers flowing into one sea, instead of being two lakes closed off to one another.

I want my universe, my characters and the stories that go with them to be immortalized through writing. They've all been hanging around me too long and I need to get them out of my system and move on. Properly. Otherwise, they'd just keep coming back to haunt me endlessly.

I'm not aiming to be a famous writer. Fame would be a likely by-product of worldwide readership but it's not my ultimate goal. I just want to inspire as many readers as possible to make them move an inch at the very least, or just have something in their heads click. I want them to have "Hmm..." and "AHA!" moments reading the books I will write in the next five, or ten, or for as long as I can still type or hold a pen between my fingers.

You can say that it's my own way of changing the world, one reader at a time.

I'd say it's just my way of putting Philippine Literature into the limelight, and in a permanent spot on the map of World Literature.

Some romanticized person might probably even hazard saying it's the grand entrance of Philippine Literature in the world scene.

I... wouldn't know what to say.

I just want to write, write, and be read by as many people as possible. I want to bring pride to the country and to my fellow Filipino writers; and writing is the only way that would make it possible.

And I think, I don't know how else to stress that.

I suppose we could put it this way: If say, for example, I did not believe that writing is what I have been called to do for the rest of my life, I would have spent the many painful nights of essay-writing partying out or sleeping in. I couldn’t have cared less for the constant mockery of the blinking cursor on a pristine document, because in place of my word processor would have been a DOTA window. Or Youtube. Or Facebook. Or something. Anything.

But with this essay and the rest of the happy application family in your hands right now, maybe I can now officially consider myself a masochist.

Or just extremely ambitious and persistent.

Your call.

.....

The guide questions for the essay can be found here.