movie notes on a Saturday

It’s 5:42 AM and well, my eyes are just inching a bit into Sleeplandia but not yet totally there. The black Kopiko has done its job once again.

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1:02 PM

After hashing out some stuff on the computer for my resume, my battery went kaputt, so it was time to leave the library. It was already past 8 then. When I came to the Vinzons jeepney stop, there was a long line there. Seems like there was traffic somewhere. After some 30 minutes or so of standing up, and with people leaving the line to get to their destinations faster, I finally boarded the 2^nd jeep. I’ve been thinking about ordering Pasta Puttanesca for takeout. And then I remembered Ender’s Game because I’ve been wondering about it in the library. And true enough, it was showing in Trinoma. Next show was at 9:55 pm, about 20 minutes away, so there’s nothing to be done about the grocery I was supposed to do. Bought a chicken burrito from Mexicali and wintermelon milk tea from Gongcha instead. And there. Settled inside the cinema. Weird that cinema 7 is not directly connected to the other cinemas. So that’s the place where not so popular movies are shown I guess. Still, there was a sizable crowd.

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11.18 pm

So it starts. I believe the opening was really nice, giving an overview of the current situation in Ender's time. Short but informative. 'Course things are changed a bit. Most noticeable thing is the boys are older. In the book, Ender was just 5 turning 6. Really just a child. Here he was shooting into puberty. When he shouts, you can hear the crack in his voice, he hasn’t matured yet, but is almost there.  And they are tall boys. Bean is already part of his launch group. Dap is no ordinary student but a full-fledged sergeant at the IF. Anderson is a black woman, with the conscience. I believed it was the other way around.  Abigail Breslin as Valentine -  wow, she’s really grown up. And his brother Peter is a looker. I didn’t really get a sense of how sadistic Peter was. Because in the book, that characterization was repeated, over and over. And Valentine and Peter's side story  – Demosthenes and Locke – wasn’t used anymore. So was Ender’s journey with Valentine to find a home for the queen of the buggers. I also expected Petra to be more eccentric, but here she was just goody two shoes, normal looking. And they’re exploring a romantic angle between her and Ender, not with her and Dink. 

The isolation thing was not too nicely done. Again, my basis was the book, so with what I've seen, it seemed the movie was not giving enough reason to justify the way the story’s been going. I’d have liked to see more of the Battle Room scenes in the book explored in the movie. But well, that’s the limitation of a movie adaptation. I’m not sure if Ender's brilliance was justified (like how he made sense of things), nor his frustration, nor his internal and external struggles, nor the changes in how his schoolmates and the officers saw him. The Battle Room was very nice though. And Bozo Madrid was really hateful there. A real Spanish looking warfreak smaller than Ender who just wants to get his own way.  My friend Nicole did say Asa Butterfield doesn’t have much talent to speak of. It showed. He didn’t have to act a lot. It seemed the movie was more predominated by the special effects, since of course, it was set in a more technologically advanced future.  It was just amazing though having to see the battle scenes made into something visual - like when he had to reorient himself during the final battle by saying that the enemy’s gate was down. Yeah, that was something else. And to be able to zoom in from where you are at the other side of the galaxy and zoom in right to the surface of the planet they were attacking - coolness!Well, I should watch it again once I’ve sufficiently distanced myself  from the book. Just so I could appreciate it better. 

I actually read or maybe heard somewhere that it combines stuff from Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. Well, so far, all it was was the whole Ender’s Game, from beginning to end. If it was longer, it would’ve been fine. Shoot, I really wanted it to end up really really nice. Since Orson Scott Card was the producer or was he part of the screenplay (?), somehow I thought it would be okay. When I watched the trailer over a month ago, I had goosebumps. Something I love being turned into a movie. Oh, I really thought it would be epic. I have to find that aspect of it. 

Oh well, I should give it some time.

And just before launching into my impression of Ender’s Game, I watched The Internship. It seems like it was officially sanctioned by Google, because hell yeah, their setting is the actual campus in CA. Complete with the free food, slide, sleep pod, dance classes and electric cars. And two old timers, Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson are trying to make it , to get a job even though their tech knowledge is nowhere near basic. Is that how they really get interns and eventual employees? It was really fun and challenging. I like Lyle. And the Indian girl is so beautiful. But the two main characters are really the cohesive glue of the team. I love their people skills and the veritable Geeklandia as well - they play quidditch, with brooms!  

an epic Saturday

It's been a long long day.

My last shift for the week started  Friday night spilling over into Saturday early morning. I replaced someone in a call so I had to look for another station not yet halfway into the shift. Before I could go back to my self-designated station (no station ownership in our account), somebody had taken over so I had to look for a new station to use. So I was in a relatively new environment; therefore, was not so calm in processing calls, but made it through. I also found out the results of my 2nd monitoring by the QA staff. Two perfect scores in a row now. Lately, I think I've really gotten the hang of relay. Most of the time, my speaking pace is just right and I don't panic too often when facing unusual situations during calls. So far, no instances of tardiness yet for this month so my stats are all good. And I did manage to find a redeeming sight for the night, however brief or late it was.

Then Maan, having been denied a birthday leave, was present  and treated us teammates to some yummy chicken, pasta and pizza breakfast after our shift. Not everyone in the team was present due to prior commitments, so there was plenty of food still left after first servings. I was really full of delicious food afterwards. Pepperoni pizza craving, check!

Picture taken by TL Rogie, edited by me. Maan, bday girl, is at rightmost

So my initial plan to zoom straight to the bus station was thwarted but it's okay, since there was a lot of story-sharing over the food we shared. When we were ready to go home, we were confronted by lines of people crossing streets and intersections. Apparently, they were already in line for Willie Revillame's show which will be taking place at the Araneta Coliseum, so we had to take longer paths than normal to get to our destinations. The lines snaked all the way to one side of Farmers Plaza going to EDSA and the other snaked all the way through McDo and then the other along Puregold going to Aurora Blvd.

When I got to the station, an air-conditioned bus was getting ready to leave. I promptly boarded it, but there were no more seats. Since I needed to get home already, I took the offer to sit in the middle aisle on small plastic chairs. This particular bus had its first drop off at Marquee Mall in Angeles, Pampanga where I was finally able to transfer to a regular seat. And the whole time, I was fast asleep. I also missed the next stop in Tarlac. But I was awake long enough to appreciate the sight of agricultural life in Tarlac, before transitioning into the semi-urban landscape of Rosales and Villasis in Pangasinan. I didn't see much of the way after that. We haven't even arrived at Urdaneta before I fell asleep again. And next thing I knew, the bus was already parked in the terminal, there were no other people inside the bus except me and the music still playing. So the trip was shorter than usual, taking only 5 hours given that this was a day trip.

We had pancit and goto for lunch. Then I started washing some laundry I brought home to ready them for the coming week. I also had a good conversation going with my mom with Karen interjecting in between. We talked about kids and how she mentioned that she and Dad would like to have a kid in the house, meaning grandkids and not adopted ones or another one of their own, how the Mislang females seem to be destined to be spinsters and about finding the right person to be with for a long long while. I also asked her about possible assets they could pass on and preparations for those if ever the need arose.

When I was almost done, they cooked fishballs. We ate them in the "garden area" where I also had orange black tea while Dad had coffee and Karen had hot chocolate with bananas. Then RJ said he needed to fill the gas on his motorcycle. I asked him if we could go to the beach and he agreed. The sun was still pretty high up so I was confident I could still catch the sunset and the pretty colors that go along with it.

We went straight to the so-called Japanese garden in Tondaligan beach. It was still lacking many elements to be called an authentic Japanese garden. There was a Japanese style alcove and a marker about the Japanese people who contributed to build the area. Also on the left part of the horizon, the sun was already starting to set. Playing with different exposures and light and aperture settings on the digicam, I had plenty of shots of the faraway sun  interspersed with silhouettes of the coconut trees whose leaves were swaying strongly with the strong wind. Then RJ and I went down to the beach. There were a number of people swimming, many of whom were kids. The wind was making waves crash every so often on the shore. Oh how I miss swimming in the beach. Hopefully, I get to do that next weekend. I was able to see the sun so quickly change colors to red and disappear behind the mountains and then finally leave the horizon.

Eventually, it became darker but there was an amazing reverse pyramid strip of blue sky down the orange and reddish glow cast by the setting sun.

When there were no more opportunities to take pictures and some serious talking was done with, RJ and I decided to go home. This is only my second time to ride a motorbike and as a passenger too. I was a bit nervous when we started the ride to the beach but I eventually got comfy. On the way back, I could see the stars in the sky. The speed RJ was driving on allowed me to savor a relatively cool and unpolluted air. I felt really close to nature after spending some time at the beach and now, this ride back under the open sky. In the distance, we could also see streaks of lightning appearing in different spots. There was one particularly humongous cloud whose back was being lit by lightning, but because of its size, we only saw the flickerings of light on the back of the cloud. It was refreshing for me to be riding through the streets from Bonuan to Arellano in the open air and being able to gaze at the wonders of the sky.

Then I mentioned the De Venecia highway and RJ suggested we go there. When we got to the point where we were supposed to turn back, he suggested we go to the City Mall which is at the end of this highway. So I agreed. We just walked for awhile, reaching the atrium. Then I decided to go into NBS to take a look at what type of postcards were on sale there. And I would say it was pretty serendipitous that we went in there because the branch doesn't only sell the new line of the Philippine Postcards brand which I see in bookstores here in Metro Manila. They also have stocks of pretty old postcards printed by the same company. But they were a bit more varied. Not everything had gorgeous pictures though, but at least, they had a feeling of authenticity to me. So off I went picking up some 11 old pieces. I was getting ready to pay for P150 or more for all of them when the cashier started ringing them in, and most of them were at P1.50 each. Some were at P3.24 or P4.25. The two P12 postcards I bought were the newly printed ones. So now, I have enough cards for the UNESCO Swap over at World in Postcards. I ought to go back there tomorrow and buy more stocks of the same cards for future uses and also for my own copies.