The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I took this screen cap shortly after we watched Brad Pitt’s latest movie on my laptop. I chose this particular scene not because of Brad Pitt, but because of one of the cans on the table. Yup, you got it, that can of Morjon sardines there on the bottom right corner of the screen cap. Kidding aside, even as I saw some of the trailers for this movie I had already been commenting on how an aged-by-makeup Brad Pitt looked very much like Robert Redford does now.
As for the movie, which is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it can put cynics to sleep and then again it may just keep them awake. It depends on how much caffeine you have in your system at the time that you watch it. Admittedly I read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story just now, and although the main character and his circumstances of having come into this world is used in the movie, the film a totally different story. Personally I prefer Alejo Carpentier’s Journey Back to the Source for suspension of disbelief. This is the main difference between reading a book and watching a movie—a good book can be much more compelling and convincing than makeup and prosthetics.
These days we consider movies as whether they absolutely beg to be watched on the big screen, whereupon we save a few hundred pesos from the latest paycheck and see it at the Mall of Asia. If not then a quick torrent download will do. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with its expansive scenery and attempt to suspend the viewers’ disbelief may deserve the popcorn and rootbeer treatment, but if you’re someone with a good internet connection and an impregnable anti-virus program, pop the corn in the microwave and go for the torrent. But if it’s tire chains you want, click here.
The Bob and Al Show
Reviews from far and wide seem to agree that Righteous Kill was a right disappointment. I’m not about to disagree with them.
Indeed I was quite surprised to find a torrent of the movie online around the same time it opened in Manila. It takes around 3 to 6 months for a top rated movie to appear on the torrent sites. This is because the good uploaders wait for the DVD release of the movie to rip and upload. Finding Righteous Kill online so soon meant that my favorite movie critic, James Berardinelli, was right: “The script and direction are what one might expect from any of a number of similarly written productions that bypass theaters on the expressway to cable and/or DVD.”
I was grateful to have escaped making it the bi-monthly payday night out, Sam and I were about to catch it in one of the theaters at the Mall of Asia when it was first shown. We had visitors that night, and so we postponed our date. Later that night while browsing my suking torrent sites, there it was.
Less than twenty-four hours later I had burnt it on a home made DVD and Sam and I watched it that night. Like RollingStone Magazine said, Bob and Al were “like two Gullivers slumming with the Lilliputians”. It seemed like Donnie Whalberg and John Leguizamo and Carla Gugino and Brian Dennehy were all there because they thought working with de Niro and Pacino was an opportunity devoutly to be wished. The sad thing was even de Niro and Pacino made no effort at all to be larger than life the way the young Vito Corleone and his eventual son Michael Corleone had been. A large part of this can probably be blamed on the script that had fewer twists and turns than a tightrope.
I wanted Frank Slade and Max Cady but all I got were Bob and Al, hanging out with the kids. Not very encouraging, especially after having seen Al Pacino in 88 Minutes (another disappointment) and having had enough of Meet the Parents/Fockers where I’m sure Robert de Niro had a good time. I bet he had a better time playing Fearless Leader in Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Well, I guess my copy of Righteous Kill will be one of the DVD’s that will stay in the CD album undisturbed for a very long time.
MAMMA MIA!
There’s always something new to be learned, no matter how busy or hassled or plain pissed off I am. In the past week I’ve learned quite a few things professionally and personally, I feel I should write them down just so I won’t forget the next time I am busy or hassled or plain pissed off.
Good things. Microsoft Virtual PC. With Virtual PC 2007 SP1 I have managed to install Windows Vista Business Edition complete with Office 2007 as a virtual machine inside this laptop running on WinXp. This is in preparation for my two-week trip down to Masbate next month, to teach school teachers and a few select students how to use the desktops that they will be getting for free as part of our client’s corporate social responsibility project. I’m really looking forward to this trip: two weeks ago it was just a proposal, but now we’ve got the go-ahead and have started on the actual preparations.
I have also managed to setup Ubuntu 8.04 with Virtual PC on this same laptop, and after that the Xampp server so I can install my Joomla! test sites and have them working exactly the way they would be as on a live server. That is always useful for client presentations, tons faster than if I did it online. One thing I have discovered recently is most big companies have tons of restrictions when it comes to browsing. Having a few sample sites on the go can be quite useful when I need to make a presentation to such a company. Running Joomla! on Linux has the advantage of enabling SEF URLs, which is not possible on a Wamp Sever/Windows environment.
We’ve also found a replacement for the guy who left. While not a newbie to the game, this guy we found turned out to be a real fast learner and has managed to fit right into the group. Thank heavens for that. We’re looking into adding one more by the end of the year, on the assistant management side, because if my Masbate trip turns out to be a success other trips to other places may be in my schedule soon. I will need someone to mind the phone and answer fussy clients who wanted one thing yesterday and a completely different thing today.
Bad things. I just find it disappointing (for lack of a better word) that some people think it’s ok to ruin everyone else’s day just because theirs sucks. You probably know the type—guy who wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, maybe didn’t get to sleep on the bed at all, wakes up with a bad hair day and then proceeds to chop of everyone else’s head in the course of the day. I hear it actually makes them feel better to see people around them feeling more miserable than they do. Personally I don’t like miserable people around me. It makes one’s productivity suffer.
So when someone does something to eff up my day just because he effed up his own day, now that really pisses me off. I usually let out an expletive or two, usually in incoherent hanging clauses while I’m hidden behind my monitor. But these days I guess I’ve just grown too old to pick a fight. Instead of replying to a stupid email blaming me for inactivity, loss of business, the general traffic situation on EDSA and the deteriorating Philippine economy, I just take the last batch of instructions from this finicky clie
Weeeknd movies from the net
A solidly old-fashioned courtroom drama such as ”The Verdict” could have gotten by with a serious, measured performance from its leading man, or it could have worked well with a dazzling movie-star turn. The fact that Paul Newman delivers both makes a clever, suspenseful, entertaining movie even better.
This is as good a role as Mr. Newman has ever had, and as shrewd and substantial a performance as he has ever given, although it may not be his most entirely credible. Mr. Newman begins the story as a lonely, washed-up, pathetic has-been lawyer. Not exactly typecasting, and not the sort of thing he does terribly convincingly. Of course, his luck is about to change. Mr. Newman plays Frank Galvin, first seen drinking, playing pinball in the daytime and bribing funeral-home operators to let him pass his business cards to the bereaved, like a South Carolina injury lawyer. Sidney Lumet’s ”The Verdict,” watches him rise to an important challenge, shake off the cobwebs, resuscitate his law practice and fight furiously to help good triumph over evil. As nearmiraculous transformations go, this one’s not bad at all, considering the fact that it’s accomplished in only slightly over two hours’ screen time.
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