Bitter Pills, Breathing Spaces

More than two weeks already passed since I watched Sucker Punch and much has been said about it, both good and bad. Personally, I loved and enjoyed it -- so much that I don't even care about its low ratings over at Rotten Tomatoes. To each his own. I think it's an interesting movie, one that is best seen inside the cinemas and not buying from your local... uh... I mean... by-the-corner-of-the-streets disc retailer. I might even venture into buying the original DVD, and that's saying something.

One of the things that I loved about it was Sweet Pea's monologue. I love well-written monologues; to date, my favorite is still the one by Kate Winslet in The Holiday. While my initial intention was to help a friend, I felt the need to capture the monologue itself. Maybe because there's so much in it that reflects certain parts of my life, not to mention that it's nicely written. Nonetheless, I think it should be shared. Perhaps, you may find something something about it that you can draw inspiration from.











Credit: Featured images in this blog can be seen in this link.

One of my resolutions this year was to continue managing my book purchase list. I was successful in 2010, thus I figured it would be a walk in the park when 2011 started. Boy, I was wrong. I guess the lure of new books especially those that I've been curious to read and own was stronger than sticking to a list. To date, I already bought around 10 books and a good number of them are movie tie-ins.




From the picture above, my recent movie tie-in purchases were Jane Eyre, Red Riding Hood and Water For Elephants. I don't know why I like movie tie-ins -- sometimes it's a matter of how the cover looks better than the original one; others would be the extras included like the pull-out posters from the Twilight saga series or the timeline from the Chronicles of Narnia, which are often not part of the original releases. I know that on a marketing standpoint, movie tie-ins would help increase interest in the book, i.e. Water For Elephants. Sometimes, they're sold cheaper than the original editions. At one point, I wondered if Scholastic or Bloomsbury ever thought of releasing movie tie-in editions of the Harry Potter series. I would have bought them without any hesitation.

I don't think that my love affair would movie tie-in books would stop as I enjoy watching book-to-film adaptations. I'm even considering buying such editions of He's Just Not That Into You, Bridget Jones's Diary, The Devil Wears Prada (since I lost my original one) or Eat, Pray, Love. I'm just controlling the temptation to start picking up a copy given the sheer number of unread books -- 60++ so far -- that I have. The fact that I still see them on the shelves of my favorite bookstores along with other movie tie-in books is comforting. I don't feel the need to buy them immediately. However, not all movie tie-in books draw my attention, and there's a couple of them that I wouldn't even dare touch with a ten-foot pole.




I don't need to explain why. Most of my friends would know. =P

And so the spoofed nursery rhyme speaks of a tale of five Austen soul sisters who were all Macfadyen-ed by the end of a 27-hour journey.


In my get-togethers with this circle of friends, the talk about having movie/TV series marathons was mentioned several times. And in one of those talks, Pride & Prejudice became one of the choices given its number of adaptations: from Laurence Olivier's version to this modern-day take.

When 2011 started, I thought that why not pursue a marathon and schedule it during one long holiday weekend. Given enough planning despite the surprising and odd holiday declaration, it happened and this became our line-up:

I came into this marathon knowing that I'm going to be absolutely sleep-deprived but throughly excited at the prospect of watching different adaptations with friends. As you may see from this twitter hashtag, we had tons of fun and fangirl squeals.

Among the three adaptations we watched, for me, the Colin Firth version stayed true to the book. It benefitted from the liberty of being presented as a 6-part mini-series thus every possible detail was covered and some new bits *coughthelakescenecough* were added. The most romantic was the Matthew Macfadyen version, hands-on, if only for the squeals we made for this particular scene in the movie, especially at the 3:45 mark:


That doesn't mean that the Laurence Olivier version didn't have any merits in my book, despite its WTF moment towards the end that sent the most hardcore Austen fans in the den screaming. I loved the campiness of its script! It was not short of wit but it managed to be funny and definitely quote-worthy. This is perhaps my favorite line from this version:


Towards the end of the marathon -- wherein we were re-watching P&P 2005 with commentary -- I mused of the fact that there were five of us in the den, much like there were five Bennet sisters. So I posed the thought as to who's who. I ended up being Jane Bennet since age became the main parameter. The longer I contemplate about the characteristics of each Bennet sister, I think it matched to a good extent as Jane was the one I could relate to the most.


Now that the Pride & Prejudice marathon was over, everyone in the den was excited for the prospect of a next one. There isn't a date yet but a line-up has been determined:

And we're attempting a feat greater than the previous one: the extended cuts of the movies perhaps even with commentary. So, let the journey to Middle Earth begin! ;)

Last night, I went into a frenzy searching for a good movie that will ease my stress at work. In the middle of my hunt, I came across one of my old Madonna CDs, Something To Remember. It was one of my favorite compilations since it featured most of my favorite ballads. I stopped hunting, took out my old CD player, got my good pair of headphones and let the ol' gadget shuffle the tracks. Out came "Take A Bow" and a slow smile crept on my face.

The song reminded me of a lot of things, bitter and sweet. I remembered singing this to a college friend the night before she got married. I remembered hearing this on the radio while lending a shoulder to another friend who discovered that her boyfriend didn't love her anymore. If anything, the song reminds me about realization; that all things -- good and bad -- come to an end.

Nothing is meant to last forever... even something mundane like stress or something precious like free will. When the curtains fall, you have nothing left to do but say goodbye. As soon as the song ended, I did.

I am part of a indie band named Northsound Radio and I am proud to say that we are going to launch our first album, which is entitled Driving Cars & Cutting Hair.

Doesn't the album cover look cool? I'm really proud of it because I designed it. However, that's just about the only thing you'll see about my band. Nothing about what I said above is real. There's a part of me wishing that I were part of a band but all I can manage is creating that fake album cover.

I saw this fake album cover game over Facebook and decided to follow the rules. The friend, from whom I learned the game, shared that it was originally from Multiply. Regardless of its origin, I had fun with it. I even ended up creating an account with one of the sites below. The rules are a bit tedious but believe me, you will be amazed with the results. The picture above is a testament to the game's awesomeness. Ready to take a shot at it? Here are the rules:

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.
5. Post it with this text in the "caption" and tag the friends you want to join in.

I won't be tagging friends in this page but if you find game interesting enough, I dare you to do it and share your results with me. Post your blog links in the comments after you've made one of your own. I'm excited to see your own fake album covers. Cheers! :D

Most of my friends know that I'm a huge audiophile. I like music. For me, it's poetry in motion. Sometimes, I let certain songs express the way I feel. Most of those that I like have strong, solid lyrics. I don't have any bias when it comes to genres but I there are some that I would have a love/hate relationship with. One of them is country music.

I'm a little picky when it comes to country music songs. There's a handful of them in my playlist like Jesus Take The Wheel by Carrie Underwood and What Hurts The Most by Rascal Flatts. But I always admired country song lyrics: they're often personal and grounded. And Taylor Swift's latest single is no exception.


A good number of Taylor Swift's songs are autobiographical in nature, which she admitted once in an interview. The lyrics often chastised the men with whom she had really bad relationships with. However, Back To December is different. The song is a heartfelt apology; I could feel her regret, her longing all throughout. While I have yet to decide if this was really meant for the other Taylor, I am adding it to my playlist. Of all songs she has released, this will probably be my all-time favorite.

I came home today with an assignment: finish a 100-page book and note the lessons gained from reading it. The book was no stranger to me. I discovered it many years ago and I'm happy to say that I'm still able to live its principles, although a bit rough around the edges -- well, at least, for the last four years or so.


I always referred to Fish as the more down-to-earth version of The 7 Habits. However, the assignment has refreshed my memory about one poem entitled "Faith" by David Whyte. It is featured on page 44 of the said book. Hope you will indulge me as I share this and maybe you will find yourself loving it like I do.