Until yesterday, the best online copy of the blockbuster hit that is Avatar was only a Telesync. Yes I have that copy, but no I did not watch it as the low quality annoyed me. However, I gave it to my friends who badly wanted to watch anyway.

But now the DVD Screener has been leaked, and given that only the Academy Awards voters have been given a copy, it probably came from them. Well, thank you, Oscars! I can finally finish watching Avatar.

It’s a long story, what I went through to watch Avatar. Basically, the movie was cut off before it ended. Because the lazy staff of Mindpro Mall wanted to go home early and their stupid managers had gone home. A fun night out turned ugly and we even had a shouting match with the supervisor the following day.

We got our money back after about 30 minutes of yelling and threatening the incompetent staff at Mindpro. They didn’t want to return the money. Their logic was that well, we should have listened when they asked us to enter the moviehouse before the previous screening ended so that we could have caught the end of the movie! What?! They expected us to watch the movie backwards??? And never explained when we bought the tickets that the movie was going to be cut off?!? Fuck off!!!

*Calming myself*

Ah, sorry for the outburst. It was just a very bad experience for me. In any case, I am never watching a movie there again. Boycott Mindpro, you hear?!

Wanted to watch the movie in Manila again, but ah, nobody wanted to come with me see it in 3D. And most everyone had already watched it. So I’m thankful for the torrent, at least.

Here is the link to download the Avatar DVD Screener. It’s a good copy, trust me.

The trailer for Knight and Day is out! It stars Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. Watch it below!

From IMDB, Knight and Day is…

An action-comedy centered on a fugitive couple (Cruise and Diaz) on a glamorous and sometimes deadly adventure where nothing and no one – even themselves – are what they seem. Amid shifting alliances and unexpected betrayals, they race across the globe, with their survival ultimately hinging on the battle of truth vs. trust.

I got caught up a little while ago about a movie on HBO. It’s called Defintely, Maybe and stars, if I’m not mistaken, Ryan Reynolds (Wish I had his physique. Must be all those fat burners). It’s about a young father struggling with a divorce. His 9? 10? year old daughter is mature enough to know what’s  afoot and decides to ask her dad about his life with her mother and how they fell in love.

So Will (the dad) tells about his past and how he shared his life with three very different women, one of who’s Maya’s (the daughter) mother. He changes the names of the women to keep Maya guessing who her mom is. Could it be Emily, his longtime college sweetheart? Or could it be April, the happy-go-lucky, very free girl he met in one cold wintry night? Or maybe it’s Summer, Emily’s best friend and lover of a septuagenarian?

In the end, Maya correctly guesses who her mother might be by the way she brushes back Will’s and then Maya’s own hair. Sometime in the story, Maya takes on the role of adult and helps/convinces Will to follow his heart and be happy.

Memorable qoutes:

Maya: “Dad, I can’t believe you used to drink and smoke and was such a slut!” (This coming from a 9 year old. haha!)

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Will: “I wanna marry you because you’re the first person that I wanna look at when i wake up in the morning and the only one I wanna kiss goodnight, because the first time that I saw these hands I couldn’t imagine not being able to hold them but mainly when you love someone as much as I love you.. getting married is the only thing left to do, so… will you… um…marry me?

April: Definitely, maybe… I have to think about it.

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PS Maya makes me wana have a daughter! I swear I’ll spoil her.

Omigod!!! A Veronica Mars movie is in the works! Rob Thomas, the creator of the hit series Veronica Mars (starring Kristen Bell), will be writing the script while Joel Silver will be producing it.

Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni and Kristen Bell have already been informed about it, and Kristen Bell reportedly wants to do the film. Yes!!!

Finally, we fans might have closure, thank goodness. I have watched this show from the beginning and LOVED it. But it was cancelled much too abruptly (why???), there were so many mysteries unsolved and decisions unresolved, it was just so very sad for me and all the Veronica Mars fans.

I think Kristen Bell is a great actress and Veronica Mars is one young woman that girls can definitely look up to. I do! (Hello, she’s a teenage PI! She was popular, her best friend died, her father lost his job, she got rejected and chose the Outer Banks of school, and became a private investigator! Plus, she was drugged, got raped in her sleep, sleuthed and caught the rapist!)

Wow, I am just so happy about seeing Veronica Mars again. So, is she gonna end up with Logan, or Piz???

Sylvester Stallone is considering Manny Pacquiao to be his co-star in an upcoming action-comedy flick.

Erik Pineda, Pacquiao’s business manager, met with Stallone in his Los Angeles Office on January 6, presumably to talk movie deets. Manny brought along sons Michael and Jimwell, who got rewarded a pair of boxing gloves from Stallone.

The life of Manny Pacquiao may include many adventures, but, Manny Pacquiao, a Hollywood star???

Definitely one of the best movies I’ve ever watched. I’d give it a 5 stars out of 5 rating.

This movie is about love and friendship, loss and survival. Though the trailer promotes this movie as a fantasy flick, it is far, far away from the truth.

In a nutshell, Jess and Leslie are both unaccepted and often ridiculed by their peers. They find friendship within one another, sharing their love of art, fantasy and racing. Leslie selects a dilapidated treehouse as their refuge, and builds fantasies of ruling their made-up kingdom of Terabithia. As their friendship grows, both seem to form close to romantic attachments with one another, and learn to fight back against their adversaries – both real and made-up. Unexpectedly, on a day that Jess has gone to a museum with his teacher crush, Leslie dies in an accident. Racked with grief and guilt upon the discovery, Jess frenetically builds more of Terabithia, as a tribute to his friend, and perhaps hoping to revive the memory of Leslie. In the end, he learns to accepts her death, and begins to allow other people in his life, such as his little sister, whom he crows Princess of Terabithia.

I did not expect much from this movie. For one, there was no hype. For another, the stars are children, and relatively new actors at that. But I had been meaning to watch this movie for a long time, based on recommendations from my boyfriend Gim and one of my friends. I am glad I did not miss out on this movie, it is truly a beautiful and original story, one that will leave you thinking about it long after you’ve forgotten the names of its characters.

The actors are refreshing, and surprisingly for their age, they were able to make their respective characters very real. The dialogue was simple, the scenes cinematic and moving. The CGI was not the best, but then again that wasn’t really the focus of the movie. The soundtrack, though, was very beautiful and enchanting.

Go watch this movie, if you haven’t yet! I promise, you won’t be disappointed. It’s a tearjerker too, so keep those tissues nearby!

Links:

Terabithia on Wikipedia

Terabithia on IMDB

Terabithia the Novel

Terabithia Youtub Trailer

Terabithia Interview

Detox Tip #6: When bored, watch online videos, like maybe in Youtub.

I like this new term of teh Internets “viral“. From now on, it has been entered into my vocabulary and henceforth shall be a category in my bloggah!

It refers to immensely popular stuff on the Internet, like videos, a perfect specimen of which is down below:

Naughty girl happy parents ad – Watch more free videos

Lucky girl.

Detox Tip #5: Watch Movies

Just watched Pirates of the Carribbean: At World’s End last night, with Gim (boyfriend) and Melisse (little sis).

Loved the special effects, was astonished (though by the third movie, shoulda been used to it) by how realistic Davy Jones and his part-men-part-sea-creatures crew looked. They were all computer-generated, no prosthetics save for Bootstrap Bill! Genius animators!! (One of my dreams, btw

I also loved the sweeping views of the sea – lots of richly hued sunsets and sunrises in this movie. Cinematic seascapes keep this girl happy. Hehe.

What riveted me, though, was really the pace of the story. I don’t think anybody could have afforded to get distracted watching the movie. I listened to every word uttered and still a lot of parts went lost by me. The pirate-swapping/backstabbing was more fun to watch than understand, really. I only got the parlay part, the whole Singapore part with Will backstabbing Jack, Sao Feng backstabbing Will and Jack backstabbing everyone else – that? That I got only after I read Wikipedia’s detailed explanation, hehe.

I think the plot was great, but it was maybe too much plot for a movie limited to three hours long. Lots of stuff went not much explained, that’s what I felt. For example, the death of the Kraken was absolutely random! Wikipedia explained that Beckett had actually commanded Davy Jones to kill the Kraken, but I never heard it during the movie.

Though reading Wikipedia greatly enlightened me, some questions still linger. What was really Calypso’s role in the movie? I understand Tia Dalma, and her being Calypso was a nice twist, which of course made me expect much from her. The only thing Calypso served, though, was to provide some answers about Davy Jones’ history. Calypso, in her fury, created a maelstrom, which I admit did provide a convenient plotline for serving great whirpool special effects, but aside from that, I feel her character was hugely neglected and underdeveloped. She should have helped defeat Davy Jones somehow, or maybe turned against those who freed her to try to save Jones, or something! She was freed – and then nothing. How disappointing.

Also, one bugging question: Why did Calypso not show up to meet Davy Jones ten years after doing his duty? Someone tell me! (Gim thinks maybe it was because Calypso became unfaithful to Jones, and his lover was… Jack! Hmm, may be…)

All in all, though, I loved the third installment of Pirates, despite the racy pace of the movie. The lovely scenes took my breath away and the ending was quite a surprise – not as predictable as most movies (read: Spiderman, but hey, loved the special effects on that one too). The love story between Will and Elizabeth was stirring but not overdone. Although I did feel that Elizabeth’s character was treated quite loosely – she professes love for Will but her lips often seem be to interlocked with those other than Will’s (Jack, then Norrington, then an attempt with Jack again…).

Liplocking aside, the hefty P80 entrance fee I paid for Pirates is not going to be missed. Loved, loved, loved the movie – special effects, story and all.

One complaint, though, and it’s not about the movie. It’ s about the moviehouse. I watched at Mindpro Theater, no choice, the only decent theater in Zamboanga. My gripe is that I went home last night quite shocked and so very sad. I thought that Will and Elizabeth were doomed to being able to see each other only once every ten years, forever! Not known to me was that there was a short clip at the very end of the credits that showed Will and Elizabeth meeting up ten years later, with their son! And that the significance of that was that Will was freed of his duties and free to finally be with Elizabeth! A fairytale happy ending!

And why did I miss that? Because damned Mindpro Theater cuts the credits right away!! You couldn’t even listen to the end of the soundtrack or get to read all the cast names. Grr. Isn’t that illegal or something??

Anyway, thank God for Youtub. I’m gonna be looking it up ASAP!

P.S. I finally have a high-speed Internet connection, yay! Had it installed just today. I’m sad though ‘coz I’ll be leaving soon, won’t get to enjoy it much, but at least I can now video-communicate from Manila (hoping I get myself wifi there too). Happiness all around!

Thursday night the Jesuit priests of the Ateneo de Zamboanga, dressed in simple white shirts and pajamas, determinedly marched up the aisle in Mindpro Theater to watch the Da Vinci Code.

As they entered, the packed moviehouse stared in pleasant surprise and grinned. In an instant, the crowd got livelier and more animated – perhaps discussing the Jesuits, perhaps anticipating the movie.

None relinquished their expensive seat up to a priest but many were a friendly greeting, and many pointed out the vacant slots. The priests settled themselves in the center of the theaterhouse, and gradually we all quieted down as the movie began.

As Gim and I observed from time to time from our vantage point, Fr. Kreutz gestured and discussed animatedly with his fellow priests throughout the whole movie.

(Many questions burned in my mind: Was watching movies in a public theater a regular thing for Jesuit priests? Why was Fr. Bill so interested in watching this movie? Were they rooting for a negative portrayal of the Opus Dei, their archnemesis, or not? Had they all read the book already? What were their opinions on the relationship of Jesus and Mary Magdalene?)

We noticed, too, a lot of familiar people in the audience. I saw Brian and the SACSI people, Ma’am Ivy (the Asst. Senior Dean) and the CSIT bunch, my former highschool classmates turned new Nursing graduates, businesswomen in power suits, college kids and their friends / partners, whole families and all. I’m sure the lower moviehouse housed a host of Ateneans as well.

But enough about the crowd. What about the movie? All I have to say is: Good movie. I recommend everyone to watch it. But read the book first.

Usually whenever a book is made into a movie (or vice versa), the first question always is: Which is better? For the Da Vinci Code, the answer is: neither is better, both are terrific, for their own aims anyways.

Read the book to appreciate the plot in detail (which the movie couldn’t possibly capture in only an hour), watch the movie to appreciate the setting (which the book ably described, but still, a picture paints a thousand words).

If you are, however, going to watch this movie with high expectations, don’t bother. It won’t move you, it won’t discuss Jesus’ divinity in-depth, it won’t stir up discussion about Christianity or the Crusade, it won’t address everything that made the Da Vinci Code book controversial.

But it’s a good movie – the perfect visual supplement to the novel.

Just remember – don’t believe everything you read.