Scenes from a Three-Day Weekend

Star Docu

Watching the extensive documentary The Empire of Dreams: the making of the Star Wars Trilogy last Saturday, I found it fascinating to know the following: [1] Carrie Fisher nowadays looks and sounds like Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac; [2] in the end shot of Return of the Jedi where Anakin Skywalker, Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi are seen in a ghostly tableau, Sebastian Shaw (the actor who played the adult Anakin) was replaced by Hayden Christensen; [3] the original title was changed to Revenge of the Jedi because 20th Century Fox felt the word “return” was too soft; a few days before the film’s opening, George Lucas returned it back to the original because “a Jedi never takes revenge”; [4] Cindy Williams (of TV’s “Laverne and Shirley” fame) would have made a very young, naïve Princess Leia; [5] Kurt Russell auditioned for both Luke and Hans Solo; [6] Hans Solo was originally written to be a green-skinned alien; eventually he was made human and instead was given an alien sidekick.

The DVD also provided glimpses of Episode 3: Hayden and Ewan McGregor in a furious lightsaber duel; Hayden donning the Darth Vader suit for the first time.

Walk Out

Last Sunday I attempted to participate in this Alay Lakad activity, from the EDSA Shrine to the Ultra. The walk was supposed to start at 8am, but as usual it started really late. So at 8:45am I slipped out quietly and went to the gym instead.

In the afternoon I watched The Bourne Identity. I actually liked the kinetic energy of the film, aided in a large part by the director’s decision to shoot the film with mostly hand-held cameras. This gave the film a jittery feel which echoed Jason Bourne’s shaky sense of self.

While the car chase was well-staged, it was also gratuitous. And the confrontation between Jason and the daughter whose parents he killed in his first mission could have been one highly explosive scene, but I felt the sequence wasn’t believably staged and so it fell flat.

Banzai!

Yesterday I took the day-off (office-approved) and treated myself to a day at the movies. So after working out at a leisurely pace (no more 11am cut-off!) at the gym, I headed for Smegma-mall to catch this Japanese movie, Waterboys.

This 2001 crowd-pleaser is a comedy about five students at the all-male Tadano High School who find themselves—hopeless swimmers all—forming the very first all-male synchronized swimming team. Think Billy Elliot meets Cool Runnings crossed with Speedos.

Like most feel-good movies of this sort, you have archetypes instead of real characters. You have the lousiest member of the swim team, the tough guy who never finishes what he starts, the weakling who becomes a Dance Dance Revolution champ, the math geek, and the closeted queen.

The jokes come fast and furious, a lot of silly dialogue and visual gags: in one scene, the teacher is talking to a classroom full of boys. She turns her back on them and announces loudly that she’s putting up a synchronized swimming team. When she turns around, the classroom is empty except for the five leads, while the classroom door—damaged by the exiting students—falls loudly off its hinges.

But despite the clichés the movie manages to entertain, thanks largely to its charming tone. And it’s a visual feast for girls and gays with a penchant for skinny or wiry-framed Japanese boys in oh so skimpy swimming trunks. The abs! The tight buns! The lead actor is so charmingly cute, I love him already. This movie brings out the pedophile in me. Thank goodness there are really no gratuitous shots lingering on the nearly naked bodies, otherwise the movie would have turned creepy.

After watching Waterboys I wanted to go to the nearest Teriyaki Boy and order sashimi! Mmmm!

I See Kris Aquino!

After turning Japanese, I went Chinese next. I decided to watch Kris “I have STD” Aquino’s starrer, Feng Shui. I never had an intention of watching this movie, but I decided to give it a chance now that I had time to kill.

The movie has more than decent production values (cinematography most of all), the acting okay (Kris’ hoarse voice wasn’t as distracting as I thought it would be), the story serviceable. It’s full of I’ve-seen-that-before moments (the bouncing ball, the video camera capturing ghostly images, the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t ghosts of many an Asian horror film), but despite them the movie still managed to startle, if not exactly unnerve, me.

What’s unnerving was when I was already at home and about to go to sleep. I suddenly couldn’t make myself switch off my desk side lamp. It was weird. Seems that as I’ve gotten older and more willing to believe in ghosts (thanks to people like my “I see dead people” officemate), it has become easier to unnerve me at night. And so for the first time since I watched The Sixth Sense, I slept with the light on.

P.S. – I haven’t seen Boy Toy at all today. Humph!
Plus I noticed my past few episodes have been mostly about movies. I really should get a life!