Kobe Paras Plays for UP Maroons

I have never watched a UAAP basketball game in my life.

When it was required, as a freshman, to watch the matches of UP, I would just sign in my attendance at Araneta, and then I would leave 10 minutes later. Bad student!

Anyhow, that might change if this boy plays well.

I will be joining a legion of my 'sisters' who pretend to watch basketball 'the game' as opposed to watching 'the boys' in the game.

I will now know what Vice Ganda has known all along. Charot!

Movie Review: The Autopsy of Jane Doe kept me at the edge of my seat!

There's a good horror movie showing this week in local theaters called 'The Autopsy" but I'm afraid it will be pulled out immediately because nobody knows about it.

In fact, I had a 'private screening' of it in an SM theatre tonight, I was the only one watching - which made the experience even creepier.

I heard about the movie during the 2016 Toronto Film Festival which is one of the best barometers to measure whether a movie - horror or not - is worth watching. The TIFF has now become the Oscar barometer for nominations, and this movie had a solid screening there.

The whole set-up of the movie will already give you the creeps. The two main characters, a father and the son, both coroners - and played solidly by Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch (who is as cute as ever here!) come face to face with a beautiful corpse whose state of her innards do not match the flawlessness of her outward state.

In a way, it is a claustrophobic movie, as everything happens in the family morgue, and aside from the beautiful Jane Doe, there are three other corpses with them, which makes things even more creepy.

I've had to cover my eyes several times because the autopsy procedure is so graphic and I cannot bear to see so much blood and guts spilled around, even if I know in the back of my mind, they are just prosthetics.

The first hour is set up so fabulously but unfortunately, the climax was not like Get Out's which was a slam bang affair!

Recommended for watching with a date who also loves horror flicks.There are many scenes which may need some 'cuddle' moments.

Lewis Tan: This Hunk is Driving Me Loco!

I don't really know much about Lewis Tan except that they say he's in Deadpool.  Ok, not quite the movie I enjoy watching.

Anyhow, this guy is a hunk! - in the truest sense of the word!  I couldn't get my mind out of him. It's Lewis Tan's face and body wherever I go now!

Whew!  Well, these attractions usually die down but man, Lewis, you're driving me nuts with how sexy you are!

My Daily Thoughts - January 26, 2018

Well, the new year is already into its first month so let me begin changes in my old habits so that I achieve the goals I want in life.

First is to lose this weight.  I am already at 246 pounds and I really really want to lose all this unnecessary weight.  I want to be lean looking.

So to do that, I will try intermittent fasting which my friend Argel did, and he looked much thinner now!

So I will start it later, Saturday, January 27, 2018, and my window for eating is between 4PM to 12 midnight.

I will just have to take note which time I took a last bite, so I can take in my time to start eating on Sunday, which should be around 2PM.  That means my last bite should be at 10PM.

I think I can do that.  I really wish I could do this everyday!!

Wish me luck!

Another thing I want to implement today is walking!  I have to walk!!  Just to lose all these weight!!  And of course, to save money.  So no more riding Grab for this coming week and ride public transportation.

Let's compare budgets:

This computation is only for Monday to Friday - January 29 to February 2.

Budget 1 is to go cold turkey and really avoid Grab riding.

*Going to school - 50 + going home (39) = 89 pesos per day -  267 pesos per week + gym days (140 + 34) = 441 pesos per week

Budget 2 is to ride Grab on tutoring days

* Going to school - 50 + gym days (174) + 1050 (tutoring days) = 1274 pesos per week

Budget 3 is to ride Grab everyday

* Going to school - 1750 + gym days (174) + 1050 (tutoring days) =   2994 pesos per week

Budget 1 = 441 * 4 = 1764 per month

Budget 2 = 1274 * 4 =   5096 per month

Budget 3 = 2994 * 4 = 11,976 per month less 1,100 (Grabrewards) = 10,876 per month

10,876 - 1764 = 9,112 savings ******** which can go to concerts and traveling etc.

* And anyway, walking is good for my health 😶😶😶

Movie Review: Christopher Plummer Shines in 'All the Money in the World'

It's amazing to see Christopher Plummer, who is already 88, deliver such a tour de force performance in Ridley Scott's movie, All the Money in the World, for a role that had already been done (by the disgraced Kevin Spacey), so it had to be reshot.

Otherwise, nobody would watch the movie!

He played the billionaire Paul Getty in the movie and the way he handles himself shows glimpses of the billionaire's eccentricities, greed for more money, and the icy demeanor he has shown to his own flesh and blood, even when they need him the most.

I am not going to divulge much of the movie except that both Michelle Williams and Mark Whalberg are good in it.

It's set, once again, in Italy (two Italian set movies in 2 nights!) but this time, it's gloomy and dark because of the movie's theme and the events it presents.

There is a particularly violent scene where a vital body part is cut off, so I hope for your sake, that you've eaten all your popcorn by that scene.

There is a lot of discussion about money in the movie and the dangling of threats and demands which may be a no-brainer to family-oriented societies like the Philippines.

Is there a way you can measure how much you love a family member? Your son, your father, your grandson?

In this movie, everything is calculated that it almost already bordered on the absurd and ridiculous.

I'm sure you'd leave the theatre thinking, with all that MONEY in the world in Getty's stash, why did it have to reach such a long standoff?

Haagen-Dasz Ice Cream Addict!

One reason why I decided to settle in HK before was that I could always buy Haagen Dasz ice cream at any 7-11 store!

So when I get a fix for it at weird hours of the day, like 2AM, while I'm writing, I just go down my flat and walk to the nearest convenience store!

Seeing How the Other Side of the Fence Lives: Book Review 'Crazy Rich Asians'

While we were all busy opening gifts and feasting on the noche buena last Christmas Eve, I was also busy finishing Kevin Kwan's 'Crazy Rich Asians', in time for its Hollywood incarnation to open in 2018.

It's been ages since an almost Asian cast have peopled a major Hollywood production.

Amy Tan's 'Joy Luck Club' was the last one pa ata - and that movie is a MUST to watch on Mother's Day - and bring LOTS of TISSUE because it's a major tearjerker.

Crazy Rich Asians is more fun and crazy and I hope it will be a visual feast - fashion-wise and production design-wise.

This is also the first time that I care about the casting since I love two of the major characters in the book, Nick Young, who is going to be played by Malaysian actor, Henry Golding, and his cousin, Astrid Leong, to be played by Gemma Chan.

It would also be fun to see how Constance Wu attacks her Rachel Wu role, Nick Young's fiancee.

In terms of looks, their faces were not exactly the ones I was expecting but I just hope they do justice to their roles. I have so much love for these characters it would be sad to see them messed up onscreen.

I now fully understand the pressure actors have when they have to do adaptations from characters in well-loved books - especially when you have read the book first - and the movie just comes years later!

I don't know if they will be 100% faithful to the book (usually they're not), but that's understandable, since in movies, you only have 2 hours maximum to present the whole story.

So I won't be surprised if some of the fun moments and other crazy family members will be edited out.

As for Kris Aquino, I don't know where they will place her here but this type of movie should be right along her alley. I'm just happy they put at least one Filipino in the cast!

I hope they put more as they complete this trilogy!

Saoirse Ronan Shines in Brooklyn: Movie Review

Saoirse Ronan will surely snag that Oscar nomination for Best Actress this January as the buzz for her performance in Lady Bird has reached even the local Twitterdom.

Two years ago, she received similar buzz for the movie Brooklyn, which was well-loved by critics and the Academy picked it as one of the Best Picture nominees and there are ample reasons why they gave it so much love.

The immigrants' tale in America has many predecessors already, even from the Irish point of view but it is the sheer force and gravitas of Saoirse Ronan's performance plus the authentic "Irish-ness" of many of its characters which makes the viewers feel empathy and actually care about what happens to them.

As for me, I couldn't take my eyes off Emory Cohen, the love interest of Saoirse in the movie. It's the best 'boyfriend' performance I've seen from an actor in years - he not only is very disarming, but he plays it with such coyness and sincerity, you end up rooting for him, even if his character is Italian-American.

There are many parallels to the Irish immigration experience to America to the Filipino immigration there, a hundred years later. I just wish our stories are as well-documented in film as the Irish experience has been.

Book Review: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - The family that keeps me alive are all Dead

It's always a joy to read a Neil Gaiman book! The world he creates for the reader is just exhilarating.

In this book, The Graveyard Book, the world he creates is this graveyard somewhere in Glasgow, Scotland - and the characters you meet are just the ones you'd expect to meet in a cemetery - but in this interesting plot twist - it will take this graveyard to raise a living breathing baby.

Many interesting things happen to the baby as it grows up to be a young man - and that I will leave for you to read - as this is a children's book - and something that you should finish in a day or two.

Every chapter in the book brings you to a different world - as the graveyard is filled with many supernatural beings - from ghosts, to ghouls, to witches - and of course, bad human beings.

There are several quotable quotes in this book - and I admit that some of them even inspired me and gave me zest again in life.

I will try to buy my own copy of the book so I can highlight the words that mean to me the most!

Ingenue Discovery: Anja Taylor-Joy

Anja Taylor-Joy is easily the standout performer in the horror flick, 'The Witch'.  With a pretty face framed in that dowdy colonial outfit, whose colours have been subdued using camera tricks, you'd have an idea early on her relation to the title of the movie.

But with an angelic face like that, you'd shake your head in incredulity.

She is pretty though undeniably, but she has acting chops, which she shows in several key scenes in the movie.

I won't be surprised to see more of her in the future.

Movie Review: Robert Egger's 'The Witch' Is The Real Deal

My Favorite Hunk of the Week: Emory Cohen

I just saw the Oscar-nominated movie, Brooklyn, today and there is a gorgeous hunk in the movie, Emory Cohen, who plays Saorsie Ronan's love interest.  

This guy gave great acting in the movie and the way he played his character can really make anyone swoon just like that!  It's impossible NOT to fall in love with him!

Happy to Meet Again My Poet-Friend Eric Tinsay Valles

I have been very lucky and honored to have met some real geniuses among my contemporaries - people who have far more intellectual superiority than I have - and yet are also very humble and unassuming.

I am quite humbled that some of them are my friends here in Facebook and that they read what I write and react to it sometimes - because there are many things I could not see or comprehend that they could articulate with startling clarity.

Naturally, most of them are engineers since that was what I took in college, but as I grew older, I've met some who are from the fields of medicine, law and this guy, whom I've always respected very much - who chose to invest his talent in poetry.

Like many UP freshmen, I got lost in the maze and the academic rigors of that school. UP, especially Diliman, is not for the weak-hearted, certainly not for the academically feeble.

Nurturing and caring for their students is NOT in the vocabulary of my teachers then - and I hope until now. The academically challenged will just naturally drown while the rest like me, crawl very very slowly until we f****ing graduate.

So with that backdrop, Eric was one of the people who helped me survive the school. We were both avid Top 40 music followers and I guess that was the glue that made us become friends.

He has an impeccable academic background and certainly set the bar for me as to how smart Ateneans really are.

He loved literature then and with his life work now - I could see that he has really chosen poetry as his work.

He is also a teacher like me but he teaches in a more prestigious school - you cannot get more prestigious than the revered NUS High School of Mathematics and Science.

I guess like many smart Filipinos who knew that the Philippines just could not accommodate their talent (my peers in electrical engineering, molecular biology and biotechnology, genetics, physics) they have had to live expatriate lives because the country has nothing to offer them talent-wise - so the First World countries have become the beneficiaries of their talent.

He is now an active member of Singapore's literature community and he has two poetry books which have been published by Ethos, one of the bitchier publishers here in Singapore - as my sister said, they will not publish you - if you aren't any good!

I am writing this for my friends and parent-friends here who think that making a living as a person of words - a writer, a poet - is not feasible.

Yes, it is feasible. It may not make you a millionaire, but at least, it will make you do what you're supposed to do in this world.

At least Singapore allows talent like Eric's to prosper and has given him the opportunity to truly practice his art.

My Favorite Hunk of the Week: Leo Consul

I was watching Kim Chiu's new video 'Okay Na Ako' and her partner in the video is this goodlooking hunk, whose name I discover later on is Leo Consul - a Filipino based in Indonesia.

He's quite cute and he has a great body!

RIP Azzedine Alaia - You Will Be Missed

One of the fashion world's greats and true masters, Azzedine Alaia passed away today, which is sad, because the way fashion is evolving today, it doesn't allow visionary and creative people like him to get a headstart.

As fashion becomes more disposable and with many pseudo-celebrities becoming the muses of the industry, future fashion visionaries and mavericks should just find a way to transplant themselves outside the industry and work at their pace - and not be consumed by the stressful calendar today's fashion world demands.

It's too bad he didn't design for men - it would've been great to buy one or two pieces from his ready-to-wear collection. His work is so classic and well-tailored, I think you could wear it for decades and not look out of style!

Azzedine was truly loved by his peers and clients. The fashion world is normally very bitchy and very catty but if you read his tributes from industry capitalists, to his designer peers and models and his clients, you can see the love shine through.

That's pretty rare to find among celebrity designers.

RIP Azzedine Alaia.

Enjoying Joyriding around Singapore's MRT LRT System

I haven't really taken to Singapore's MRT and LRT system as I have that of HK, BKK or KL maybe because our trips here are pretty short so we'd just take the taxi (or use Grab) - since the island is pretty small anyways.

However, since my cards weren't working, I had no choice but to take the MRT to the venue of Belinda Carlisle's concert and voila - I found out that it's much much cheaper (of course!) to take the MRT and it's not difficult to get around.

It would take twice the time but at around 1/4th the price. Plus, you can see street fashion - and there were a lot of young people dressed up these days!

To Actually Make A Living As A Poet

I met two gentlemen from Myanmar during this trip, one was a draft artist for an architectural firm, the other one was the poet, Han Lynn.

I didn't even know before that there were poets from Myanmar (Burma if you still didn't know), but to actually meet one was in itself a good point of conversation.

I did not ask about the Rohingyas though lest I be given a lecture on Burmese history but I did ask about Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

Han actually works as a translator of international poetry and his English is pretty good.

He autographed his poetry book and he wrote in Burmese, and it was very cute. He's currently based now in South Africa where he is a poet-in-residence in one of the universities there.

To actually make your living as a poet.

Tell that to your Mama!