MISH-MASH

I’ve not been sleeping well lately. I can’t seem to get a good, restful sleep, just shallow naps that usually get interrupted by something or other. So I end up tired a lot of the time even though I haven’t really done anything. And I just finished an application essay, something I haven’t done since I applied to Ateneo for college. Had to explain my plans to contribute to the development of arts and culture in the country. Which in itself was a work of fiction.

My brain is muddled, so I hope I remember these right:

- Imagine my surprise at seeing Ana Maria Katigbak (known to us as Mookie) on the cover of a teen romance novella. I never even would’ve noticed it if it weren’t standing beside Arnold Arre’s After Eden (which came with a poster! You could also buy some mugs). I swear I did a double-turn, and even checked the indicia to see if I was being tricked by my eyes. But yes, there was her name, and I was so tempted to buy a copy and ask her to sign it next time I saw her, just to see the expression on her face. :)

- Got to see The Bourne Identity, which I thought was a lot of enjoyable, mindless fun. I was curious to see what a Doug Liman action film would look like, since I had enjoyed his previous films Swingers and Go. Matt Damon as action star was surprisingly not as jarring as I had suspected, but the really cool thing for me was seeing Clive Owen on the big screen.

Clive Owen is the coolest motherfucking man alive. If you’ve seen the BMW film series The Hire then you know why. If not, click on over and download those babies. They’re all worth it. The best one, Wong Kar-Wai’s The Follow, is unfortunately no longer available. Anyway, Clive was a kick-ass assassin here. He was also a kick-ass valet in Gosford Park.

- After Bourne Chris, me, and Neva passed by Mich’s workroom on the 16th floor of an empty building (it was around midnight), and found her drunk with her two underage interns, playing loud music and screeching unintelligibly. The depth of their depravity sickens me, as Jerry Falwell said of Larry Flynt.

- Sweet booty from the Bookfair: Grant Morrison’s Animal Man: Origin of the Species, Peter Milligan’s Human Target: Final Cut, American Century: Hollywood Babylon, Dylan Horrocks’s The Names of Magic, Bret Easton Ellis’s Glamorama, and Michael Crichton’s Timeline. There were a lot more books I wanted to get, but decided against it and thought I’d keep my money for a while instead. Of course, this’ll all be gone in a few days, knowing me.

- Joey shot the pilot episode of Brash Young (insert name here) on Saturday. Who knew he was such a ham? :) But he did a good job, was lively and loud and boisterous and cantankerous and jolly and knee-slappin’. And he served some good foodes after the taping.

- Paul E.’s despedida party was a blast. It was raining but that didn’t hamper the proceedings. Good food, good friends, and general ribbing galore. Two games of chess, the last 5 minutes of Shaolin Soccer, 3 riddles, Joey Tolosa’s return from the US, much teasing of Ozzy and his pictures, and practically everyone ended up thumbing through Trinka’s script, even people who didn’t know who she was. We got to see Paul’s room, which has this closet full of every imaginable G.I. Joe and playset (if I had a friend like Paul when I was in grade school I’d’ve probably killed him). A sweet shoebox of things from his girlfriend Michelle, and I found his hidden copy of Heavy Metal, stacked underneath a bunch of Pulp issues. Paul, for shame!

- I correctly figured out who the culprits were in Gosford Park and Batman: Fugitive, and solved 2 of 3 riddles given during Paul’s despedida! Wooh! :) I coulda been a detective.

- Check it out: pics from Quentin Tarantino’s first film in six years, Kill Bill, now in production:

That’s legendary fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping to his right, whose wire-work for The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon have revolutionized Hollywood action. Tarantino doesn’t speak Chinese, and Yuen doesn’t speak English, so they couldn’t communicate with words. They used an improvised sign language (with accompanying vocal sound effects) to discuss the fights and blocking. Cool.

Mmm… Uma.

Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were among the films that made me want to become a filmmaker. He’s a guy who used to work at a video store while writing scripts he’d send out to different producers. Though he’s been accused (and is probably guilty) of trying to be a celebrity himself, there’s no denying he’s got this immense trove of pop-culture esoterica floating in that brain of his, and look at him now: 39 and directing a chop-socky feminist revenge flick, starring one of the most beautiful women in the world and his teen idol Sonny Chiba (and if you’ve seen True Romance, which Tarantino wrote, you know how much he loves Sonny Chiba, the original Street Fighter).