i love browsing through houzz.com and see what’s up in contemporary interiors. im currently on the look out for inspiration pegs for a house i dream to build in the boondocks. the universe always advises me to plan ahead. not in connection to my dream house but inspiring just the same, here are awesome hotels recently featured in the website. wearstler! starck! gehry! get your mind blown away!
Monthly Archives: May 2013
PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (2012)
people lambast a movie with an adapted screenplay when it fails at capturing the essence of the original book from which it was based on. some are successful, especially if the screenplay is written by the same author of the book. what happens when the same author not only writes the screenplay but also directs the movie and does a damn good job at it? we get this.
i watched this movie this afternoon and i had to take a break just so i could process my emotions. perhaps the last time i felt this way was when i watched AMERICAN BEAUTY way back in 1999. incidentally, the novel from which this film was based on was published that same year. Â PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is about misfits and wallflowers towards the end of an era in their lives dealing with issues of love, loss, sexuality and relationships. apart from chbosky’s genius, the biggest draw here are the strong performances of the three leads, logan lerman, emma watson, and ezra miller. i especially love lerman’s performance here, it’s rare to see someone so young with that gamut of emotions.
this story was just so beautifully written it hurts. there were moments though where i had to scream, “hipster,” but the movie goes on and these characters just became real to me. love the music too, reminds me of that era when i was in college and we fell in love with everything textured and vintage, except that this movie is set a decade before this. Â mixed tapes, typewriters, floral printed blouses and boots, the smiths, rocky horror picture show, slr cameras, and everything made hazy by the mist machine. it’s so gorgeous and heartbreaking and life affirming that i could only express myself by quoting ricky fitts from american beauty:
Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.
and the only way to celebrate this is to listen to david bowie’s “heroes,” get on somebody’s truck, zip through the mandaluyong tunnel and scream, “im the king of the world.”
Right now we are alive and in this moment I swear we are infinite.
THE IMPOSSIBLE (2012)
this is a horror film. no ghosts, no psychopaths. no people wielding knives or chainsaws. no white ladies, no flying creatures in the night. this is a movie where mother nature wreaks havok and thousands die. this is a horror film. now watch this and thank God we live to see another day. naomi watts is fantastic. tom holland, who played her son, lucas, is A. MA.ZING. and i dont know how they shot this, it’s crazy. and amazing.
although the event struck in southeast asia and affected more locals than tourists, this movie centers on this particular english family vacationing khao lak, thailand and not the thousands of people who lost houses, livestock, and family members. the real family that this movie was based on were actually spanish and the wife chose naomi watts to play her in the movie. a documentary about the tsunami in thailand (you can find this in youtube) showed the wave’s approach not as fast nor as crazy as it was in the film but maybe because it’s a movie. but it happened. and either way, you cant turn your head and not look.
wherein we raided more temples in siem reap
i havent finished posting photos and blogging about our cambodia trip in february actually.  the summer’s almost done!  haha i have a few more and then im done 😉
the day tour for cambodia temple tours continued to the bigger angkor thom area in siem reap. there were really a lot more temples but we got there around lunchtime and that means we’re down to half the day to explore. we asked the tuktuk driver to just bring us to the bigger temples including ta phrom, bayon and angkor thom itself.
found myself a niche 😉
my mom at the temples with all the tree roots eating at it
photobombed!
SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (2012)
this is soo awesome! audrey plaza the lead actually reminded me of a friend, Ica Fernandez haha SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED is a small indie movie from the makers of little miss sunshine and is about a journalist and his interns investigating a newspaper ad posted by a guy who claimed to have gone back in time.
the whole thing feels like it used to be graphic novel by daniel clowes or something, the characters are fun and the actors are actually really good. the movie is deceptively simple but funny and lots of heart, there were scenes where i just laughed out loud (LOL would be appropriate pero i like to spell it out). rotten tomatoes actually gave this a 91% rating! the song on the sitar was really nice as well. there might be small details i would have preferred, changed or smoothened out for the ending but still, this movie rocks.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012)
watched this again two days ago with carlo on 720p. still great. i enjoyed watching this in the theaters in 3D and i still enjoyed it at home. that scene with bilbo and gollum is still winner for me even the 2nd time around. it was somewhat how i pictured the scene when i read the book years ago. it’s true that thorin is just a few baths away from aragorn, he’s too beautiful and i loved this casting right away. martin freeman is perfect as bilbo baggins. cant wait for the other two movies.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD KIND (1977)
this is honestly the first time ive seen this film in full. i used to be a big spielberg fan until i was exposed to world cinema. my most memorable memories of his movies as a child were with E.T. this was his other take on the genre. and i dont like it.
btw, we watched the special edition director’s cut bluray version. i get what he was trying to say but the direction was dismissing so much plot holes and not smoothening out loose ends. it dragged on in a lot of parts, the domestic drama was irrational and stupid, the shared visions, the abductions, etc. i get it but what’s the deal? at best, it was sloppy and i wonder how this became such a classic. star wars was made that same year and it was clearly fantastic. ridley scott’s alien was made in 79 and that was awesome. kubrick’s 2001 was made even earlier in ’69 and this spielberg movie felt more dated than the former.
ive seen E.T. even as an adult and still loved it. this close encounters, i get it but didnt make much sense at all. might need to rewatch cameron’s aliens to wash off the stale taste from my brain. my brain can taste. haha
this is a repost from my facebook wall
benjamin padero 