Here it is, the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows official trailer! Yay!!

Voldemort: Why do you live..?
Harry: Because I have something to live for!

Harry Potter… the boy who lived. Come to die…

Only I can live forever…

And the part in the trailer I liked the most is below. This looks like the protective barrier over Hogwarts – falling apart. Hogwarts is no longer safe!!

I cannot wait for November 19. Can you?!?

Shucks, Gim won’t be here on the 19th. Hmm. I hope there will still be a CebuPac or PAL sale for November, I want to watch this movie with him!

Oh, here is another version, with a few never-before-seen clips. This is from the Lego HP Collectors edition.

It all ends here…

Check it, the movie poster for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows has been released by Warner Brothers. It’s Hogwarts, up in flames! I have a feeling Part 1 is going to be gloom and doom as hell.

Hope they don’t keep us waiting too long for Part II! Heck, if they played it back to back, I’d stay for 4 hours straight. Wouldn’t you?

Zombies. Mindless, soulless, flesh hungry decaying corpses brought back to life by a dark spell. Only a few people it seems, know that zombies originated roughly 3,000 years ago in the ancient world’s best selling book the epic of Gilgamesh (alongside the other ancient bestsellers like How to get rid of B.O or Where to find the Best acne treatment). But a lot is known about the supposed creators of zombies; AKA the walking dead, the Nzambi in West African culture, or more recently, the inferi, as popularized by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series; these walking dead are brought to life or reanimated by a dark wizard, a voodoo master, or in recent times, by a mutated virus (Resident Evil, I am Legend, etc).

Although strangely, they look like that resuurected mummy from The Mummy Returns

Zombies, were brought to the New World by West African slaves who believe the Nzambi’s were walking corpses brought to life by the use of voodoo. Today, zombies have evolved to become corpses of people infected with a rare strain of virus that infects the nervous system and uses the host body to attack and infect more people. Sort of like a super rabies virus.

In a recent Time magazine article, zombies were reported to be eclipsing vampires in popular culture. The article further states that there still seems to be some doubt as to why zombies are becoming popular when it’s clear that they leave a lot to be desired. Unlike vampires who are clean and meticulously groomed, zombies are rotten corpses (probably smell like rotting corpses too), and are quite frankly, dumb. They just shamble around looking for more flesh to feed on. But I think I know why they appeal to a lot of people.

I for one, am fond of zombies- fond of blasting them to bits that is (Thanks to Call of Duty’s Nazi Zombies). Let’s face it, we all are afraid of death. And the zombie is death personified. It’s like a living nightmare where your worst fears come true. But unlike vampires or werewolves both of whom possess god-like powers, zombies are vulnerable. One well placed shot on the nuggin’ and it’s as good as dead- really dead. When faced with our worst fears, we’d want to see ourselves as conquering it. Vanquishing it. And with the zombie, you could do just that. Blasting my way through waves upon waves of the undead gives me just the right amount of confidence I’d need to conquer my real life fears.

Ready, aim, BANG!

Imagine entering a world of bearded women; shrunken, sharp-toothed beady-eyed humanoids; teenagers with snake’s skin and monkey tails; abnormally tall misshapen men; men with two bellies; men with no bellies; women with detachable limbs; and even mesothelioma lawyers. Welcome to the Cirque du Freak.

The Cirque du Freak: the Vampire’s Assistant is a movie based on the hit novel series the Saga of Darren Shan. It is about the adventure of a teenager who inadvertently destroys an ancient truce between warring vampire factions- the vampires and the vampanese. The vampires are the classic ‘good guys’ who try not to kill their prey while feeding off them. The vampanese, on the other hand, are the exact opposite of the vampires. They kill, they slaughter, they torture, before finally feeding off their victims.

The protagonist, Darren (played by Chris Massoglia) and his secret best friend, Steve (Josh Hutcherson), are lured into the cirque one eerie evening. Steve, a vampire aficionado recognizes one of the vaudevillians as a vampire. He then sneaks into the actors room and asks to made into one. The vampire refuses and sends Steve home. In an ironic twist of fate, Steve’s life is put in mortal danger and Darren is forced into becoming a vampire to save his friends life. So begins the adventures of two teenagers whose fates will be forever intertwined.

Ima freak!

I’m giving this movie 3 reels out of 5. It was engaging enough to keep me entertained. It even had a bit of that Harry Potter feel to it. However, I felt that the movie lacked something. At times it seemed as though the producers were running short of time that they had to cut off bits and pieces- bits and pieces that wouldn’t have been obvious if there weren’t a whole lot missing.

As for the acting, Josh Hutcherson did quite well. I really do think he’s got the talent for playing that brooding angst filled teenager- a role he played so well in Bridge to Terabitha. Chris on the other hand seemed to me a bit too bland. I felt he could’ve exerted a bit more effort into playing the goody-two shoes teenager that the role demanded.

But despite these glitches, the movie did what it was supposed to do- it entertained. And that to me, is the most important thing a movie should do.

I’m really, reely looking forward to 2010.

This will be the year that I’ll be seeing a lot of my fave books on the silver screen. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan is one of these.

It tells of a twelve year old boy who suddenly finds out he’s the son of Poseidon, the greek god of the oceans. This is a tale that’s just chock full of magic, mystery and just the right sense of humour.

I really do hope that the film adaptation will be good. I hope they don’t botch it up (that would give me dark eye circles) like they did Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (although the producers did turn the saga around by changing directors and re-writing the script so that the subsequent installments turned out to be more than ok).

That’s one of the things that I’m apprehensive about when a film is made about a book or a series that I’ve learned to love. The success of film adaptations could best be described as hits and misses- with more misses than hits. Take Eragon for instance. The film version was sooo bad that they had to scrap out a planned sequel.

So. I really do hope that the producers deliver. Among the books-into-movie movies I’m literally bouncing to watch are Prince of Persia and the Sands of time (stars Jake Gyllenhaal, I’m betting she’s gonna love his abs on this one) and Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games the movie (produced by Lionsgate Productions, makers of the Saw series. Definitely promises to be good! ).

Ohh I am so tired of my present job. As of tomorrow I will have worked a full year as a government employee. A shitty crappy full year.

I sit in front of the darned PC that is not even MOed (memorandum of obligation or some silly government term like that) in my name from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, cooking up programs that will never be implemented. (I’ve created three programs to date and only one is in use, since one employee blatantly refuses to consort with non-Excel applications and since one program is being on kept on eternal revisions in compliance with the eternally changing government policies!)

The PC I am using does NOT have access to the Internet (woe is me!) even though I have constantly asked for it. The only access is through the department head’s private PC, which is inside her private office, where she holds meetings with other department heads and the like all throughout the day. What am I supposed to do to connect with the outside world, apparate like Harry Potter?!

Furthermore, co-officemates shamelessly take advantage of my skills. They ask me to print, download, even create, assignments for their children or themselves. One employee even asks me to create programs and flyers for her church. Sometimes I feel as if I am working for them instead for the government.

I think the only real contribution I have is technical assistance when it comes to operating laptops or projectors during presentations and digital imagery when it comes to coming up with creative plaques or certificates. And that is seldom.

I want another job.