Rebecca Ferguson Plays It Blonde and Detached in The Girl on the Train

Rebecca Ferguson plays one of the three important female characters in the movie The Girl on the Train.  She plays the wife of Emily Blunt's character's ex-husband.  At first, she looks lucky for having been the new wife but you eventually learn of the scariness of her situation.  Her character slowly evolves from one of being detached into someone who finds out something very dangerous to her and her baby.

Haley Bennett: Blonde Bombshell in The Girl on the Train

I rarely feature ladies but once in a while, there are new actresses worth featuring here.  One of them is Haley Bennett and she plays a very crucial role in the movie The Girl on the Train.  She plays the role well with enough mystery and sexual tension.  I think her sex scenes are the reason why the movie got an R-16 rating here in the Philippines.

The Unsatisfying Denouement of 'The Girl on the Train'

One of the hardest skills for a film director to accomplish is to create suspense and dread, especially when there is a twist somewhere in the story.

It has worked great for movies like The Sixth Sense and Gone Girl, making you want to watch the movie again and again to find out if everything else in the rest of the movie is plausible, before the twist was revealed.

I haven't read Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train but now I may have to because being a woman writer, I'm sure she did not really mean to create three female characters and make them look so helpless and needy and foolish.

Emily Blunt though, is just superb in this movie, going through lengths to make herself look ugly and disgusting - and she has created a character that's just one sad sack.

However, even with the presence of a good cast, it really takes some skill to make a moviegoer be on the edge of his (or her) seat, especially as the story built up to the big reveal.

In the end, I just felt anger at the women characters, for allowing themselves to be played this way - considering that their characters are not entirely dumb, or helpless, or poor, or uneducated.

Crush Du Jour: Michael Yhang

I saw this guy's pictures by accident in Facebook.  His name there was Michael Yhang.  All I can say is he's super delish and uber hot!

My Student's Reflection Make Me Feel Like I've Done My Job Well

I just want to share an excerpt of an essay that one of my students submitted. Multiply these sentiments 34 more times and words like these make me feel like I have done my job.

Our subject matter now is Poverty and Inequality and I have asked my students to interview minimum wage employees and reflect on their findings.

"After interviewing a minimum daily wage worker, I noticed how hard it was to have a family when you earn P481.00 a day. From analysing it further, it became evident on how everything was costly and having P481.00 a day was not enough to survive. The minimum wage was too low for any worker to survive at least one day in the Philippines, unless you were lucky enough to have extra savings for daily needs.

It was only after writing this paper that I realized how fortunate I was. It also taught me to be grateful of what I have today, that I shouldn’t complain about what I have because I am lucky enough to have these things in the first place. It makes me feel bad because I would sometimes criticize the way a janitor cleans or a waiter’s slow service. Because of interviewing him I wanted to be more considerate of the people who work hard under a minimum wage salary."