abre los ojos

2003-01-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

I want to go to New York and watch Baz La Boheme. Come and whisk me away, knock on my door now and I will drop everything, just like that..

2003-01-27T06:18:00.000-08:00

We watched Cinema Paradiso earlier at Fr. Nick’s European Cinema class. I cut Philo and History for that. I had initial misgivings because I perceived the film’s humor to be shallow and ill-executed. And nothing really was happening between Toto and Alfredo, perhaps knowing the hype surrounding it, I had expected it to lay its charm immediately as it first unfolded. But it weaved the first threads of the beautiful story gently. The best parts were the latter parts. Actually the film started to pry open my tear ducts when Toto returned to Giancaldi as a grey-haired man. It was just.. seeing the people he knew once. Visiting the town he grew up in. in many ways kasi I see myself in toto. Too big for my surroundings, passionate for films, for love. Hungry for a mentor. He followed the path that I had been as of late laying for my own future: leaving my home, going far and making all my film dreams come true. The differences between us is that he has a mentor who knew him perfectly and was willing to do anything to see him make his dreams a reality. And toto has a love of his life in the person of Elena. I don’t. I’ve actually met that one person who embodies these two significant roles in my life. You guessed it. But apparently, he is neither to me, so..
Anyhow, Cinema Paradiso has the best film ending I’ve watched ever. It was a reel of film love teams kissing passionately. Grainy, sepia, elegant men and women of the 40s and 50s kissing passionately as only film can rightly express. And Toto was crying. But the thing that makes my heart ache is that this great love, great passion that is replete in the silver screen remains is rea;ity only for the characters who inhabit that fantasyland.

2003-01-27T06:04:00.000-08:00

Their redeeming qualities have to come from other people in order for me to rediscover them once again.
Squashed in the pick-up’s back seat last Friday night, I went with the boys, Allan, Aaron, Kim, Richie and Gilbert to Jackie’s far-flung house in San Francisco Del Monte. Their barkada, m guy friends are a group of 20 something year old boys. Especially Allan. Sheesh.
It was a lovely night of Tequila Rose, Cuervo Gold and Karaoke at Jackie’s. Aaron obliged us with his, I have to say, wonderful rendition of Careless Whisper. Allan sang Ulan with me. And I must’ve sang Thank You quite well. It prodded Allan to turn to me and squeeze my chin. My affectionate, lovely friends. To think that a night or two ago I had been swearing them off as the scum of the earth.
They have a penchant for redemption that they are not even aware of.
.
The thing is, without having the revelation of Philosophy to enlighten me, I have always known what an amorphous, ambiguous thing the self is. I’ve always been a different person at different points in my life. I’ve been a lot of things and nothing. I guess, then, that what you can say about me is that I’m a malleable person.
And I’m beginning to disdain that in me,
Swaying to and fro, as formless as the ocean. It’s being freeflowing, that liquids take the shape of any container you pour it in.
I have got to harden up.
Remember the life-altering experience of David Aames meeting Sophia Serrano in Vanilla Sky? Well, it just struck me last night how much meeting him has been like that internal, rip-roaring roller-coaster ride. I threaten to burst into song at any given second.
The thing with him is that it wouldn’t be this disquieting if I hadn’t felt that spark, the connection everytime I come within his proximity.

2003-01-27T05:43:00.000-08:00

i'm inexplicably happy right now. it's scary because i feel quite inept to handle it. i don't know, perhaps, it's the beautiful films i've seen as of late...
hong kong's comrade: almost a love story, one hour photo, cinema paradiso and of course LOTR: the two towers.
i'm also tickled pink by fr. nick's (my asian cinema prof) comment on my last film paper. the last line went, "you're a real com major" heehee. that definitely kept me smiling all throuought the weekend. yes, i'm that shallow.