i am re-reading the lord of the rings and still agog about it.

below is the film review i wrote more than 5 years ago, after the return of the king, the final movie was shown.

we were already in japan at that time. raj and i watched it at cinema bluebird, a quaint theatre in the small town where we lived. fortunately, the movie was not dubbed in japanese. there were only a handful of people who watched it with us. the movie was almost 4 hours long but it was so good that we decided to stay and watch it again so in effect, we were inside the theatre for almost 8 hours. it was so hard core but this is one of those crazy things i did for love.

 

***

After one year and two months of patiently waiting, it is done.

I have seen the final installment of one of my all-time favorite books – Lord of the Rings.

I cannot put into words the magnitude and depth of my emotions upon watching Return of the King on big screen. But I know that I need to write something about it, if only to preserve my immense delight of being born in a generation when the magical legend of the Middle Earth was artistically translated into a classic film. A film truly worthy of joining the illustrious list of Academy winners.

I started reading Tolkien few months before The Fellowship of the Ring was released in theatres. In one of my occasional visits to a local bookstore, I was drawn to the power of Elijah Wood’s big blue eyes on the cover of the book. Reading the first few chapters was a drag; getting to know the main characters and the key places in the story was difficult for me whose loyalty belonged to Harry Potter and his world. But I kept on turning the pages with curiosity and persistence until I willingly submitted myself to become an invisible member of the fellowship. I went on to read The Two Towers and The Return of King, leaving me an ample amount of satisfaction.

As an intangible element in the book, I was able to be in several places at one time. I was with Gandalf when he battled Balrog to the end. I cried at Boromir’s tragic yet selfless death, an act to redeem himself from lusting after the ring. I silently supported Merry and Pippin when they were encouraging the Ents to engage in the war. I battled with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli at the Helm’s Deep and in Minas Tirith. Most importantly, I cheered Frodo and Sam in the darkest hours of their journey to Mordor.

My most favorite book is ROTK. It was where courage and pureness of heart in the midst of impending defeat from Sauron and his cohorts were vividly illustrated. Similarly, I found its film counterpart the most poignant of all. The heartrending scene where Pippin hummed his sad, little song juxtaposed with slow motion shots of Faramir and his men valiantly fighting the enemies made me cry as I was a wife or a daughter of one of those men.

Although I already knew exactly how the story was going to end based on Tolkien’s account, I still feared for the lives of countless brave men who were at war against the raging force of Sauron’s army; for the perils that Frodo and Sam encountered; and, for the imminent rise of the one ring to rule them all. I loathed Gollum and all his devious antics to regain the ring. I feared blinking my eyes while watching the film and missing the slightest turn of events.

ROTK was evidently Aragorn’s shining moment as aptly insinuated in the title. This time, Legolas did not steal the limelight from Aragorn as he cunningly did in FOTR when he appeared for the first time in Rivendell as the drop-dead gorgeous elf in the fellowship; or in TTT when he effortlessly slaughtered the armies of orcs with his bow and seemingly unlimited supply of arrows. In ROTK, Aragorn proved his innate wits and dexterity as heir to the throne of Gondor. He showed bravery when he faced the spirits of those rebels lurking in the mountains. He demonstrated passion and strength of a true leader when he gathered his men against the guardian Orcs of Mordor. He was a picture of a humble servant when he was crowned the king. Or paraphrasing the words of Elrond, he has indeed become what he was born to be.

The box-office success of ROTK, as well as of the two other films, did not even bank on the common theme of romantic love. There was, of course, the Arwen-Aragorn-Eowyn love triangle but even without this romantic angle, the films were a guaranteed hit simply because it offers us a glimpse of a realm not very different from ours. I would not even speak about the parallelisms of good and evil between the Middle Earth and our present society for so much has been written about it. Suffice to say, ROTK has subconsciously imparted many valuable lessons in life.

It is a tale of friendship and loyalty; patience and endurance; courage and hope; humility and service. Above all, it is about faith even in the most hopeless situation; faith even in the smallest people. Frodo’s journey to Mordor is much like the personal voyage taken by ordinary individuals. It takes faith in the inherent pureness of our hearts to surpass all trials and withstand all temptations in accomplishing our tasks. It is indubitably faith that allows the triumph of good over evil in the end. And when almost all else fails, it is faith that makes our heart stronger and pushes us to continue beyond the core of our limits.

 

 

after all the anticipation and excitement, it is done. i have seen harry potter and the half-blood prince.

and what can i say about the movie?

truth be told, i have mixed feelings about it. on the one hand, i have heard many good reviews about the film that i expected so highly of it. tehnically speaking, it is better than all the previous films in the series. i especially love the scene when dumbledore re-arranged slughorn’s house in one swish of his wand. the characterization are spot-on and the acting is superb. on the other hand, i feel as if things are a bit rushed plot-wise, even though the movie is 2 hours and a half long

the movie does not have much action compared to OotP. it’s a quiet film with the focus being on the memories that define lord voldemort’s rise to power and on the raging hormones of the growing teenage characters in the film, which is perfectly normal to people their age at any school, in wizarding world or otherwise. this is exactly how i felt too while reading the book the first time. and yet, chapters 26-30 caught me by surprise as the narrative became darker and heart pounding with all the commotions that abound. soon enough, a battle in hogwarts began, culminating to the death of dumbledore. from his fall until the very last page of the book, i remember crying my eyes out as if it is the end of the series. in comparison, i think this climax is not successfully achieved in the film. i’m not sure if it’s because i know after all the betrayal that snape would do but it is disappointing to say the least, that there was no chaos to an impending war. in the book, the order of the phoenix, as well as dumbledore’s army or what’s left of them, fights back the death eaters until the end. if my instincts are right, they are saving the battle of hogwarts scene for the last film in the series because it happens under more terrifying and more tragic circumstances. i can only hope they do it exceptionally well to compensate what we have missed in this current film, and because the destruction of the burrow is not good enough to replace the lost action scenes in the book. i think it is unnecessary addition to the film. there was no motivation, no direct outcome, no aftermath to it

i’m happy (squeeing with delight actually like a high school girl) that many of ron-hermione scenes in the book (and more) made it to the movie. i empathized with hermione when she cried after seeing ron and lavender’s first kiss. it’s one of those few occassions that i believed emma watson’s acting. i would have liked to prolong ron and hermione’s fight a wee bit longer just to show how much love there really is between the two underneath the jealousy and pain. i would have liked to see, in particular that part in the book when ron brutally copies the know-it-all-hermione while in transfiguration class. it could have been another emma-watson-moment in the film. i wanted ron to follow hermione around trying to re-gain her friendship while still with lavender. i wanted very much to hear ron saying ‘i love you’ to hermione whether it was consciously or not. but more so, i expected to see ron comforting hermione in the end, when dumbledore dies. this is for me a powerful moment in the book which was left out. but these are all purely selfish and personal reasons. in the grand scheme of things, they are all irrelevant to the the plot. after all, the film is about harry potter and the half-blood prince and not harry potter and the unresolved sexual tension between ron and hermione

as for the harry-ginny romance, some of the moments are more contrived than awkward. this pair worked for me in the book because i see how harry falls in love with ginny, however subtle the signs are. in the film however, it is as if both are trying to acknowledge their feelings right off the bat. i would have liked to watch their first kiss exactly as it happens in the book – after a big quidditch match, harry and ginny’s eyes meeting, ginny running toward harry, him kissing her like no one else is watching, and after they broke apart, harry sought for ron in the crowd, needing to see her brother’s approval. i would have also wanted to see the break-up of harry and ginny during dumbledore’s funeral. it’s one of those heart-breaking scenes in the book when harry makes the ultimate sacrifice and lets ginny go. i have always imagined it to be akin to peter parker and mary jane’s break up scene in spiderman. i have expected a great deal of drama from harry and ginny with this one but sadly, there was none of it in the film

having said all this though, i enjoyed the film on its own merits. i’ve already accepted the fact that story-wise, the movies will never be at par with the books. i’ve always said, and i will say it again, that the harry potter films do not give enough justice to the magnitude and depth of the parallel universe that j.k. rowling. unfortunately for readers like me, there are many intricate back stories, poignant moments and memorable lines in the book that need to be cut down for reasons i couldn’t fathom. (i would gladly sit for a 5-hour long movie just to get a detailed representation of the books and i’m sure many obsessed fans like i am would do the same but i suppose, the business side of moviemaking dictates it’s all impractical to do so). so as much as i would like to be a book stickler, i have learned to yield to the commercialization of harry potter in cinema.

(a separate review of the book can be read here:  http://gladyz.wordpress.com/2006/07/16/a-happy-birthday-review)

is this the moment?

yes, it is!!! <insert mary murphy ‘whooohooo’ scream>

today’s the midnight screening of harry potter and the half-blood prince. technically, it’s wednesday midnight but whatever. my mind’s got no room for technicality. i’ve been waiting for this day long enough. in hours time, i can finally see on-screen HBP.

i purchased our tickets on june 23rd via online (thanks fandango!) and since this morning, i’ve been holding it like an obsessed lunatic, which i am. my sister and i, and even raj, have also been talking about what we will wear tonight for the screening. i think i’m settling for my maroon dress with gold belt, gryffindor colors. i’m sure it’d be a blast watching the movie with harry potter fanatics like we are.

i can’t wait for ron and hermione screen time. oh, the love galore!

my incoherent thoughts are testament to my over eagerness so for now, i disapparate.

i am tone deaf and yet this doesn’t bar me from singing my heart out in a karaoke. when raj and i were living in japan, karaoke was one of the cheap thrills we enjoyed the most. for about 10 dollars before 6pm, we can have two hours of uninterrupted singing in a private karaoke room. after 6pm, the rate changed to 10 dollars per hour. still though, it was relatively cheaper compared to other forms of entertainment in japan. karaokes in japan were also equipped with high tech but user friendly equipment. in addition, they had a good selection of filipino songs which made it all the more luring to us.

last saturday, i went to karaoke here in the island with raj,my sister and her boyfriend. we initially booked for 2 hours and then later on decided to extend for another hour. but my golly! we paid almost a hundred gran for those 3 short hours. there was a wide range of song selection. in fact, i got too overwhelmed with all the songs and artists list that they had. but we think we were ripped off because their timer was advanced by at least 10 minutes and it takes quite a while for the song to load.

i had been suffering from cough and sore throat for the past week and so i thought i would not be able to enjoy the karaoke as much as i wanted to. but i was surprised that my coughing fits stopped as soon as i got hold of the mic and started singing. i suppose that proves my innate ability as a performer – the show must go on no matter what. ha!

here are the songs i always sing in a karaoke – my 10 greatest karaoke hits, in no particular order:

(1) dancing queen
(3) my immortal
(2) i will survive
(4) bituin walang ningning
(5) part of your world
(6) don’t cry out loud
(7) looking through the eyes of love
(8) dadalhin
(9) she bangs
(10) kastilyong buhangin

i caught an interview with kiko pangilinan on TV when he attended the wake of francis magalona. he said that francis’ music represented that of his generation. i don’t know how old exactly the senator is but i am pretty sure that we are not of the same age and between the two of us, i have the right to say that francis was the voice of my youth.

francis was at the peak of his career when i was at the threshold of my youth. his songs mga kababayan ko and tayo’y mga pinoy were released when i was old enough to differentiate rap music from the other genres and to appreciate these songs even more because of their nationalistic theme. at 12, i was treated to a rarity of such filipino pride expressed through contemporary music. but my affinity with francis’ music does not rest alone with the two aforementioned songs. his cold summer nights would always be a personal favorite because it came at a time when i was mending my very young heart that was broken for the first time. the fact that i still know its lyrcis by heart even with the passage of time is a testament to the mark it has left on me. it would always be that one song which would remind me of a time when life was simple and heartbreaks were fleeting as cold, summer nights. this is my rightful claim to francis magalona and his songs.

with his passing, i say, rest in peace francis magalona. and thank you for your music.

shipped!

i was so excited to see this message in my inbox from blockbuster. because of my renewed obsession with roswell, i had to re-activate my online membership with blockbuster.

my sister introduced me to surfthechannel.com and i was able to watch again the first season of roswell. unfortunately, it does not carry the whole of the second season nor any of the sites online. i also went to the nearest blockbuster stores but they don’t have the DVDs anymore. i even asked the clerks and they said that the series is old so they don’t have copies anymore. it was so embarrassing.  i decided then to re-activate my online blockbuster after seeing an email from them that i can get two weeks free if i joined again. it was as if the universe conspired.

on wednesday, i finally received the first three discs.

it’s not like i am watching roswell for the first time. i did see all three seasons of it about four years ago and if you look at my archives, you would see a couple of entries about it. but i have forgotten much of what the show has to offer. all i remember are that  max, isabel, michael and tess originated from a different planet and came to earth after the crash down in roswell, new mexico in 1947, and that i ship michael-maria.

now that seeing the episodes again, i am amazed once more to see the intricacies of the story and the plot. there’s so much more than teenage romance between humans and aliens. the back stories are particularly interesting especially the politics in the planet that these aliens left behind, e.g. how there is a group of renegades who believe that michael would be a better leader than max.

of all the characters, tess is my least favorite. but now after watching the series again for the second time, i feel for tess. i imagine how it must be difficult for her to see her husband fall in love with another woman. she remembers a bit of their past and she looks forward to fulfilling their destiny so it’s harder for her than anyone else. i never want to be in her shoes.

anyway, gotta go back to watching now. later.

i am a self-proclaimed kimerald fan. it started when kim and gerald surpassed my expectations of them in sana maulit muli and proved that both of them were worthy of the prime time slot unlike other stars (yes, kristine hermosa you’re one of them). my obsession with this love team grew stronger with my girl which was the perfect series for them. but not even my strong liking for kimerald could compensate for the bad scriptwriting of my only hope, their follow-up show to my girl, so i eagerly awaited the start of their new prime time soap tayong dalawa, which premiered this week.

tayong dalawa is the story of two men who share the same name and the same father and yet thrive in two opposite poles. jake (cuenca) as david garcia jr. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth while gerald, the other david garcia jr., has been through many rough times even at such early age. later in the seriees, both guys would also fall in love with the same girl, kim. the story is fast-paced, at least on its first week. we were already introduced to the main characters and conflict. the bonds between gerald-kim-jake have already been established. the characterization is spot-on and the script well-written. what i particularly liked was having the premise of the story in context with the country’s history.

david garcia sr. was a former military man who served in the US bases stationed in olongapo. he fell in love with a filipina but had a short-lived affair with a prostitute. in reality, we have known these relationships formed between the men in the military bases and the women outside it. and whether these tales ended sadly or not, they remain the stories of our people and maybe one or two among us have the same predicament like the characters in the series.

with a stellar supporting cast composed of award-winning stars and veterans, i had no doubt on the acting element in tayong dalawa. i am confident that kimerald, kim more than gerald, would rise to the occasion. my only reservation was on jake cuenca because he hasn’t impressed me with his acting, not that i watched any of his shows anyway. my judgment was based solely on his role as gerald’s brother in sana maulit muli. (i would have preferred enchong dee to be the third party against kimerald once more but i suppose, his looks doesn’t really fit into the character.)

as expected, the entire cast delivered noteworthy acting on its first week. even jake, i must admit, held his own. however, in my opinion, gina pareno stood out among the rest. she was a combination of humor and compassion in the midst of poverty. if i may say though, david garcia sr. looked exactly the same even with the passage of time. they could have done something with the make-up to make him appear younger in the earlier years. i was also slightly bothered with kim’s skin color, or at least her face. they didn’t have to make it brown to point out that her mom is a filipina. after all, we would understand that her being light-skinned can also be traced to her chinese father’s genes. in the previews that i saw prior to the start of the soap, kim is her usual self so i don’t know how they would explain the skin (color) transformation. perhaps she would undergo skin bleaching in cebu? or was i just imagining things?

overall, the soap shows a lot of promises. and biases aside, i did love the first week. i am so looking forward to more. hopefully, it will not disappoint.

this video made me teary-eyed at the end. i love the obama kids – malia and sasha because not only do they embody the innocence of the children that they are, but more importantly, they are testament that a loving set of parents equal charming, good kids. i hope that malia and sasha grow to be as wonderful as their parents and that their innocence will not be tainted by the media. and, i echo the bush twins in telling them that i hope they would remember who their dad really is, especially in the most crucial of times. the dad who read them harry potter (props to mr. president) and more.

this video made me a true michelle-barack shipper. i swooned over the latter’s ‘first of all, how good looking is my wife’ remark. my heart squealed in delight when i saw them dancing with such natural grace and sweetness. i envied what they have. i hope that the couples out there would be inspired with barack-michelle, to keep the love alive even after the passing of years, as much as i did. truth is, watching the first couple’s first dance made me think of raj and fall in love with him all over again.

and finally, this video had me rofl. the other day raj was telling me that i should learn beyonce’s dance steps in single ladies and then i saw this instead. justin timberlake is so hilarious although i’m jealous of those legs. unfortunately, you tube does not have the full length, clear version of it. based on some reads, i think uploads of the original skit were flagged down. but fortunately, we are in the era of facebook so click on this link and i assure you, it’s is a guaranteed laugh. enjoy!

i read in the news that mamma mia has become the highest grossing film of all time at the UK box office. i find that strange because i didn’t think the film version was that great at all. but hey, what do i know about brits and their movie choices? my knowledge of the brits is limited to my parallel universe that is the wizarding world of harry potter. unfortunately, they don’t have muggle cinema.

anyway, i had the privelege of seeing mamma mia, the musical on broadway this summer. (shoutout my younger sister who paid for my ticket.) i grew up hearing ABBA songs in our house so i was definitely thrilled to go and see the show. we even brought my mom because we know that she would appreciate and enjoy it as well. i swear i almost cried when they started singing ‘dancing queen’. i had to muster self-control so as not to get up from my seat and sing and dance along with the actors. and when they did the ABBA medley at the end of the show, for a brief moment there, i felt the urge to audition as a back-up dancer for the musical.

i caught its movie version two weeks after going to the broadway and i thought that it pales in comparison with the broadway. the movie cast, do not have the same level of energy and charisma that their broadway counterparts possessed. pierce brosnan singing is somehow unbelievable for me and i therefore did not get him. sorry (to the fans), just my opinion as simon cowell would say.

i have only watched a couple of broadway shows so far – rent (which ended its run in september) and mamma mia so i don’t have the authority to say that the latter is the best show there is. but i would highly recommend it to anyone who’s in new york. it’s guaranteed to make you say (or sing), ‘mamma mia… my, my how can i resist you.‘

a couple of weeks ago, raj and i watched live-in maid, or cama adentro which is its original title. the film, set in argentina during the financial crisis in the country in 2001, revolves around the complex relationship between the employer beba (played by norma aleandro) and the helper dora (norma argentina). beba who spent much of her family’s wealth into failed businesses, is struggling to make ends meet. amidst her glamorous lifestyle which she cannot easily give up, she signs up to sell mud packs. dora, on the other hand, remains loyal to beba even while she patiently waits for her long delayed salary . dora eventually leaves bebaaand tries to find another employer.

the beauty of the movie lies in the subtle depiction of how the lives of the two characters have been influenced by one another. after all, dora’s 30 years of service amounts to almost half a lifetime of companionship. and indeed, we see in the end how their employer-employee relationship has transcended into friendship albeit unconsciously.

i lived in a culture where having a live-in maid is acceptable in society, and being one is a honorable way of survival . in fact, the term filipina became synonymous to domestic helpers way back in the 1990s due to the influx of migrant workers employed as maids abroad.

growing up in manila, we always had a maid at home. as soon as one left, there was an immediate replacement because both my parents were working and therefore needed someone to help them out. the maids we had were often distant relatives from our province so my parents knew them in a way. it was easy to find them. my mom just had to go back to her hometown and pick one herself. or when she didn’t have the time to do so, she would contact one of our immediate relatives in the province, send some money and a maid would be ours to keep. they were usually young, some of them fresh high school graduates, who grabbed the opportunity to go to manila the first chance they got.

our maids did the household chores – cleaning the house, cooking, washing the dishes, laundry, ironing. they took care of my sisters and me. on some occasions, they even helped us with our school projects.

we had always treated our maids as family members and called them ‘manang’. this is the ilocano way of showing respect to female elders. my mom never referred to them as maids though. once she overheard me introducing manang to my friends as our maid, she pulled me in a corner and told me that we were never to refer them as maids. instead, they were ‘kasama sa bahay’, literally translated as house companions. politically correct, my mom was. (but for the purpose of this blog, i am referring to them collectively as maids. apologies to my mom).

our maids were treated with kindness and respect, the reason they usually lasted longer than usual. and they left not because they were unhappy or unsatisfied but because they were either getting married or going abroad. they had their own bedroom in the house; ate their meals the same time as we did, and; used whatever was in our house. they were allowed to take sundays as their day-offs and in the summer, they can  go back to the province for a month. apparently, summer was my least favorite time of the year because that was when my sisters and i had to do the chores by ourselves although my mom limited us to the simple ones like sweeping the floor, dusting the furniture and washing the dishes. my grandma once criticized my mom on how we were raised. she said, ‘your kids don’t know anything (on being domesticated) but to read books. what would their in-laws say?’, to which my mom replied ‘i raised them to be educated, not to be maltreated by anyone’.

i really never became independent of a maid until i turned 21 years old and i never had one since then. of course, i do miss having a maid from time to time especially when i get lazy (more often than not) to do the household chores. but really, i can live without one. contrary to my grandma’s claims, i am raised well enough to run my own house, thank you very much.