Santa Santita Review

Malen is the last person you'd expect to be a saint. She's 'malandi', stubborn and just downright bitchy. Not only that, she's also disrespectful to her mom Chayong- a 'prayer woman' in Quiapo who basically prays for other people as a devotion and a living. Mike on the other hand, is a callboy whose looks defy his shady deeds and sure enough, Malen falls for him.

But after a tragedy, Malen is forced to become a prayer woman as well, even if only for the money and donations, so she can pay the rent. But the unthinkable happens as the prayers of the people who go to Malen get miraculously answered. Is it truly God choosing her to be a saint, or is she just a Santa Santita?

First off, I have to note that this is simply one of the most unique films I've watched this year so far, and that says a lot especially in Filipino cinema. Yes, it touches the topic of religion and faith, but it doesn't feel as if there's a condescending tone to it, as if it has to actually present a case wherein priests are taken in by greed or corruption and stuff like that.

Honestly, I can't really find the right words to describe the unfolding of the plot without giving anything away. What I can say though is that the acting is great, the cinematography is beautiful, and that it's a pretty compelling watch. One particularly powerful moment involves Jericho Rosales' character holding up and requesting for life restoration. The why you'll have to find out.

The ending's a bit unsatisfactory, although I wouldn't really know how to change it either.

Just a note when you get the DVD: it gives nearly everything away. I recommend it.

Rating: 8.5/10

Lea Salonga the Gamer

I just read the Entertainment section of today's (Nov 6 08) paper, of which I am a fan of Lea Salonga's column. And interestingly enough, she had "video games" in the title, so I immediately started to read. Now, judging from past articles, I already know that, at some point, she plays video games, but nothing boosts one's respect for an already respectable thespian when you have some favorite titles in common (or maybe just some darn good taste in games). In short, Lea's pretty hardcore.

Her 10 picks as written in her article include (click here to read her insights on each title):
1) Tomb Raider series
2) (the original) Super Mario Bros.
3) Final Fantasy X and X-2
4) Bioshock
5) Crisis Core: FF7
6) God of War
7) Viva Pinata
8) SSX series
9) Burnout 3: Takedown
10) Ninja Gaiden

The list took me by complete surprise, really. Hope her "Cinderella" run in Hong Kong becomes more successful than it already is. (And judging from the pretty sloppy writing, you'd see that it's obvious that I only wrote this on a whim.)

On a side note, I'm pretty sad that Joaquin Phoenix quit showbiz. :/ He was a great actor, and thus a great loss to the showbiz world. We need more great actors, really.

Ramiele gets kicked

I think you've heard the news already. Ramiele Malubay, the only FIl-Am contestant who sings better (by a mile) than Jasmine Trias in AI history, has been kicked out of Idol. And though I've always anticipated this, I think it's a bit too early. I mean, Ramiele deserves to at least perform in Idol Gives Back than Jason Castro... or Kristy's Pee Cooked!

Anyway, last night I predicted that the bottom three would consist of Jason Castro, Brooke White and Ramiele Malubay. Well I got 2 out of 3 there, and when I learned that Kristy was part of the 3, I thought, oh no, Kristy is sooo not gonna get eliminated. Why? Because honestly, I thought that she was in her zone that night... and that country was her forte. So it's either Brooke or Ramiele. And either way, the two of them, though I know they may not win (fat chance), does not deserve to be there though I didn't like their performances much. But to be frank, I don't really like country as a whole, just some of it. And David Cook's Little Sparrow cover? Well.........

But still, David Cook just came from the hospital from too much cholesterol or something. So I figured it was more of a sympathetic vote than a creative one. Hehe.

I just still can't get over Ramiele's elimination for some reason though. I actually thought that she would be eliminated after Kristy and Jason. But no, she had to go first. Oh well... As Yahoo! stated in its headline, bye-bye Malu-bye! Boy are you gonna see a lot of waterworks tonight!

Oh, and here's an evaluation of tonight's performances:
--> Top 9 performance of 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton: Jason sucked.
--> The Next Great American Band winner "The Clark Brothers": Uhh... huh?
--> Dolly Parton performs "Jesus and Gravity":

Idol Gives Back Comments
Here's my view of what Idol Gives Back will seem based from the entry in Wikipedia:

"The "Idol Gives Back" initiative will return on April 9 for a second consecutive year, with a special start time of 7:30 p.m. ET, running for 150 minutes. Producers are hoping to exceed last year's $76 million raised. Again, proceeds will go to children's charities in Africa and the United States.

The following celebrities have been confirmed to appear by Ryan Seacrest on American Idol or on his radio show:[37]
Comedians: Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, and Dane Cook
Athletes: Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Kobe Bryant, and Ryan Sheckler
Actors: Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Jack Nicholson, Forest Whitaker, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly
Musicians: Ashley Tisdale, Bono, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Annie Lennox, Fergie, John Legend, Maroon 5, Heart, Gloria Estefan, Boyz II Men, The Clark Brothers, Snoop Dogg, Vanessa Hudgens, and Celine Dion
Idol Alumni: Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks, Chris Daughtry (with his band), Fantasia Barrino, and Elliott Yamin.

"Amy Adams" has also been announced, but at present it is unclear if this is the actress or the former finalist from season 3.
More names are to be announced.

Idol alumni Fantasia Barrino and Elliott Yamin travelled to Angola with the show crew to promote health measures against malaria as part of the Malaria No More program.

Ellen DeGeneres was originally going to reprise last year's co-hosting duties but had to pull out due to "a personal production pressure" according to producer Nigel Lythgoe.[38]"

1) Dane Cook? Uhmm... wasn't he the one in the stupid movie called "Good Luck Chuck"?
2) Cool, Jack Nicholson!
3) Where's Angelina, Brad?
4) Oh God. Ashley Titsdale, Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens and The Clark Brothers. Seriously. This is a singing competition!
5) I guess I can't complain with Maroon 5, though.
6) Screw Jordin. Blake's kinda better.
7) Amy Adams the actress of course!
8) No comment on the Fantasia and Elliott part. Didn't they show us a clip of that already?
9) I personally love Ellen but... I guess something different wouldn't hurt, huh? And yeah, I think her show's more important since it's hers and it's her butter and bread (Idol Gives Back conflicts with the talk show's production schedule, I've heard.).

Lotsa stuff to type about today...

======Pinoy Big Brother: What's the hype for? (IMHO)======

The second season has just ended and now there's nothing to see of the other housemates except their appearances in ASAP or Ysabella (sounds like a hair salon if u ask me lol), etc. But this overhyped show has become somewhat annoying and I'm guessing why the heck people still watch it and/or be intrigued by it. I mean, the crazy housemates do indecent things like most notably, bathe in pig's blood (it was a task... and I'll never eat dinuguan again) as well as put a hand in someone's pants (I don't watch the show obviously, so I don't know any names... oh and this one was explicit and intentional). So reiterating my question again, why the heck do people watch this show???!! (sorry, Mr. Spam) And in case you want to know where I got all that data, it's from reading the paper!

======RSS and How It'll Help the Student Body==========

In case you don't know what this is, it's an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. Just click it and you get to subscribe to the so-called feeds. It may arrive in your Inbox (Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook), web mail (My Y!, Google Reader) or a built-in reader inside the browser (Apple Safari). It brings you up-to-the-minute news, stories, etc. from all the different sorts of sites in the web. Heck, you can even use it to subscribe to my blog! Or to anyone else's even! But how will it help the student body, you ask? Well, this sort of technology can be useful for posting homework online or posting news regarding classes whether there will be any or none, etc. I mean, there are so many possibilities, or rather benefits if schools praticed using this...

======Software Reviews=========================

Apple Safari 3 Beta for Windows/Mac

Overall: 8/10

Stability: 7/10

Speed: 9/10

Ease of Use: 8.5/10

Features: 8/10

Apple's browser has become the preferred one to use in Macs, will it be the next one for Windows? Not quite. But though it isn't a Firefox, it's still a diamond-in-the-rough, hence the word Beta, but it's still quite a fast experience in Vista.<-- reading RSS in Safari

My Vista is definitely, undeniably slow, but if I want to load Safari, it only takes a milisecond compared to the few seconds it takes Mozilla (which means that Apple lived up to this promise) but being a beta, its stability is still needing some work as well as the pop-up blocker (check the checkbox that says "Block pop-ups" and it'll literally block ALL pop-ups, so it's quite a hassle to turn this on and off) which is not so smart. But Safari gains plus points for being a great RSS reader as well as an enjoyable Bookmark organizer. I mean, I've NEVER organized my Bookmarks before! But the New Folder button needs to be on top and not necessarily on the bottom like iTunes. All in all, Safari is still needing some work, but if you want to read RSS without having to connect to the Internet, this is the pick. (RSS feeds that can be read offline are the headlines and its summary)

Realplayer 11 Beta

Overall: 7.5/10

Stability: 8/10

Speed: 7.5/10

Ease of Use: 8/10

Features: 7/10

RealPlayer is THE player that can play almost anything. And now, it can play AND download YouTube videos... but not convert it. Of course, that's not the thing that bogs the rating down (it's a big, great blessing to be able to do just that) but the very strict limitation set in the free version. I mean, you can't burn a CD with out subscribing to Rhapsody! That'd be bad news for us Filipinos because we can't do that! It's only open to other countries wherein the nearest is Australia. But still, it's a relatively reliable player and is more stable than other betas (of players) I've tested. Speed is also faster than the last version (and that was when I was still in XP!) and it still has a user-friendly interface. And of course, the only revoulutionary step it took is the recording and downloading of on-demand, live or YouTube web videos (I think this is the first mainstream player that offers this). It also plays DivX, and other formats where you normally waste more time downloading alone (RealPlayer is 15MB compared to 30MB on DivX!)

============Movie Reviews==================

Vacancy Released by Sony Screen Gems

Starring: Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale

Rating: 4.5/10

Yawn. It's about a couple who checks in a motel which shows slasher flicks which are actually caught in their own room. Now, they want to escape before they're the ones who become the next stars of the motel's next flick. Obvious ending here... and it's not scary at all. It's a bit absurd even. There are just a small amount of cheap thrills and nothing more. So I don't think you'd want to watch this movie anyway.

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer released by 20th Century Fox

Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon

Rating: 6.5/10 (Yes, it's better than Vacancy)

Childish and occasionally funny, Fantastic 4: ROSS is faster, better and has much more action and meat than the very boring first one but it has its cheesy moments. (Cameo: Stan Lee's a regular in Marvel hero films... and this one is funny actually) The comic book fans, as well as the kiddies will like it more than the ones 10 and up. Oh, and the Thing still has bad, blocky presentation but Chris Evans sizzles the screen as the Human Torch, Ioan Gruffudd is better off as a scientist than a partying type of guy (awful dancing scenes!) and Jessica Alba is... Jessica Alba with bad force field effects.

============Music I'm Listening To========================

Teenagers by My Chemical Romance

*And Catherine, it's not the usual "scary" video, lol

Umbrella by Rihanna

The song doesn't get out of your head... (Umbrella ella ella eh eh eh)

Wait For You by Elliott Yamin