Edmund

High camp

B____’s motto from a High School slam book: “Beauty is useless, but character is the best” (sic).

I hate how stupid sports always interrupt my favorite TV shows. No Survivor tonight because of a stupid basketball game. I hate basketball. I hate sports.

That word again!

I’m watching the First Season DVD of Jersey Shore, one of my guilty pleasures. I should’ve kept a score sheet from the start—the word “like” is uttered like every five seconds per episode.

“When I’m good, I’m very good. When I’m bad, I’m better”

I saw this at the grocery today. It’s an obvious homage to Mae West—it was even scanned as “Mae West” at the check-out counter! The pin-up girl looks more like a Susan Hayward and/or Marilyn Monroe type though.

Sharonian

On the way home, I was almost tempted to dine at the Chinese restaurant. But never mind that . . .

I just ripped to my computer the soundtracks of two of Sharon Cuneta’s greatest films, Bukas Luluhod ang Mga Tala and Bituing Walang Ningning, both from 1984. I’m gonna put them in my BlackBerry and mp3 player as well.

I ordered the CDs two years ago at a Filipino online store—I forgot which. The CD sleeves arrived in a semi-horrible state, but the discs are good. I didn’t bother to return them, as these ’80s heirlooms are quite difficult to find now.

I remember my friend R____ from High School. We were both Sharonians—but she was more intense. We used to insert sampalan scenes and Sharonesque monologues in our school plays. She had the cassette tape of the Bukas Luluhod ang Mga Tala soundtrack, and M____ and M_____ used Sharon Cuneta’s version of Here Comes the Rain Again in it for a dance number. Total Eclipse of the Heart appears in the said soundtrack too, but it was actually used in the film Bituing Walang Ningning. The nerve of them to remake Bituing Walang Ningning!

Backlog

I totally forgot all about the category The Masters of Cinema Series. I’ve been doing a lot of things lately that I actually didn’t pay attention to the Series’ latest releases. So here it goes . . .

#84. Phantom. Directed by F.W. Murnau. Germany, 1922. 1:37:1. Black and White. 93 minutes. Silent. — The visuals are stunningly haunting and the story is rather farfetched. Bottom line: except for Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Murnau’s films give me the creeps.

#85. Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (The Grand Duke’s Finances). Directed by F.W. Murnau. Germany, 1924. 1:33:1. Black and White. 80 minutes. Silent. — This is a comedy but it still freaks me out—Max Schreck is here without the Count Orlok make-up!

#86. There’s Always Tomorrow. Directed by Douglas Sirk. USA, 1956. 1:85:1. Black and White. 84 minutes. English. — I love Douglas Sirk! This will take you back to that particular time period—the hair, the clothes, the dialogue . . .

#87. Soul Power. Directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte. USA, 2008. 1:78:1. Color. 93 minutes. English, French. — A documentary on the Zaire ’74 music festival. I’m looking forward to see Celia Cruz (!) and the young Muhammad Ali in it.

#88. For All Mankind. Directed by Al Reinert. USA, 1989. 1:37:1. Color. 80 minutes. English. — This has already been released as a Criterion Collection Blu-ray Special Edition last year. All I can say is this has got to be the most boring documentary ever. It almost convinced me that the moon landing was fake.

#89 – 91. The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse Boxset. — This collection contains the classic and spine-chilling Dr. Mabuse trilogy (made in 1922, ’33 and ’60 respectively). The trilogy, for me, stresses the fact that evil dehumanizes not only its victims but also the perpetrators of evil themselves.

#92. M. Directed by Fritz Lang. Germany, 1957. 1:20:1. Black and White. 117 minutes. German. — This will be released as a Criterion Collection Blu-ray Special Edition in May. I hate it when Criterion and Masters of Cinema releases overlap.

#93. House (Hausu). Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. Japan, 1977. 1:55:1. Color. 93 minutes. Japanese. — I haven’t seen this teen horror cult classic yet. And neither have I opened the case yet.

#94 – 99. Lubitsch in Berlin: Fairy-Tales, Melodramas, and Sex Comedies – Six Films by Ernst Lubitsch, 1918-1921. — I’m not a huge fan of silent films. And of Ernst Lubitsch.

Every part of . . .

The first part of the Hannah Montana Season 3 finale will be on TV tomorrow. My DVD arrived today—just in time. I wouldn’t have to wait for next week for the second part. It’s all right here, as one of Hannah’s songs go.

Of mugshots (2)

So I received my new driver’s license in the mail today. The picture wasn’t as bad as I feared. I actually kinda look good in it. (Hey—when you look good, you look good.) But I’m not gonna post a picture of it here—for security reasons ☺.

And speaking of security . . . I better have my passport renewed as well. Not that it’s expired or expiring. It’s just that I don’t look anything like the person in the photo there anymore. I don’t want to have any problems when air traveling—you know how it is nowadays.

I’ve been noticing this poster at the community college for quite a while now. What ever happened to Rex Goudie, a Canadian Idol contestant from time immemorial? The poster must’ve been there since the early 2000s!

I went to bed early last night, so I decided to just videotape the Oscars. When I woke up this morning, I found out that nothing ever came out of the effort. I don’t know how to play around with VHS machines anymore—they now (like the typewriter) seem very unfamiliar  to me . . .

Inglorious Basterds didn’t win Best Picture. But my bet, Christoph Waltz, did win Best Supporting Actor—I should’ve put money on that bet. There’s talk that he’d next be starring with Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in the film version of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants.

I never finished reading the book—although I like anything that’s set during the Great Depression. I didn’t like the way the book began. I saw an audiobook version at iTunes. I heard the snippets. The “old man”—an actor portraying the voice of old Jacob, I think—who was reading it sounded really bad. I’ll just wait for the movie.