injury

I did a bit of iPod housekeeping today. It was time. Out went Bruce Springsteen's Magic, and the whole lot of Mates of State. Some Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros stuff went out too. That made room for the soundtrack of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Ramon's downloadable playlist, a couple of songs from The Temper Trap (thanks Donna!) and The Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Flight.

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Last week, at my out-of-town shoot, I slept in the car in bad way and strained my neck. I have my full range of motion, but for awhile there was an acute pain whenever I'd turn my head or tilt it up and down. Now, it's a dull pain. And my neck still hellishly stiffens up when I sleep. Morning's are literally a pain in the neck.

So you know me during the rare times I'm unwell. I get really depressed, thinking the worst, and getting depressed over that. I feel like I have tumor in my neck/spine or something, or maybe I've broken it. I hate this feeling.

So I did the sensible thing. I went out and bought myself a new book and a pair of New Balance sneaks. The girls are on to something here.

(NB U410Bl, but in black, not this purplish one)

Watching Marley and Me didn't help either. I'm not really an animal movie watcher, but this one also had Jennifer Aniston's legs in it, and I've always felt some sympathy for Owen Wilson. The movie was actually solid, if not a bit heavy in the end. Who would've thunk.

Jay

Some spoilers ahead.

I saw Jay yesterday, and I think it deserved that Cinemalaya 2008 Best Film award. I found it to be intelligent, subtle, and solid.

The writer and director, Francis Xavier Pasion, was a senior Comm major when I was freshman back in the day. I think he was even a founder and the first president of The Loyola Film circle. So it's good to finally see his output, and a deftly made one at that.

Jay is the name of both a murdered gay teacher and the also gay TV producer documenting the aftermath of this death. And being one of those metafilms, it blurs the lines between truth, manufactured truth, and whatever the hell is left. My friends know that I have a bias against self-aware text. But Jay surprised me by being poignant without being annoyingly precious. For the most part.

One of the things that struck me about Jay was how the film was shot on a static, tripod-mounted camera, while the in-film's documentary camera was always moving and going for the money shot. In the static shots, the director even tosses out conventional blocking, and framing techniques allowing heads to be cut and the focus to be on anonymous, overlapping torsos.

I think it's a clever way to say something about the difference between the artificial beauty of manufactured truth and the artlessness of real life. The documentary footage shows a close-up of the mother mourning for her son in the morgue, bathed in warm, golden light. The film reveals this to be a reenactment. For the real event, the camera is set in a corner and we see a wide shot of the mother collapsing into a heap upon seeing her son's dead body in a fluorescent-lit, antiseptic morgue.

While this is all clever filmmaking, it's really the great dialogue and nuanced acting by Baron Geisler and Coco Martin that make Jay a gem. Combined with the stark imagery serving as backdrop, the humor and pathos that make for the authentic condition of the characters is clearly seen. All in all, good calls by the direk.

Yet, this film movie is slightly marred by, of all things, it's ending. I'm not going to spoil that, but I'll say this. This is the problem I have with self-aware text: I like how my favorite things, like books and films comment on life, so I get thrown off when these things comment on commenting on life. Jay's ending is one comment too many.

Jay opened the other day, and is showing in SM cinemas.

Wat Tyler

Let me geek out a bit here, again. I really enjoyed history in school. We had a really good Soc Sci teacher who made the subject less about dates and names, and more about how events changed a people and vice versa. It was good stuff, and despite my dismal high school performance, my Soc Sci grades (and English) made a strong argument for the possibility of me turning out all right eventually.

I've been looking for more non-textbooky history book lately, almost to the point of emailing my high school Soc Sci teacher (which I just did). But in the meantime, I judged it by its cover, and bought a book entitled I Wish I'd Been There -Book 2, European History (edited by Byron Hollinshead and Theodore K. Rabb).

It's got essays by noted historians on significant moments in the history of Europe. Events covered are, for example, the day Alexander the Great died, when Hannibal crossed the Alps, when Handel is fired, and the making of Newton's Principia. Highfaluting but heady stuff.

I got it because I expected to find some easy-to-read but detailed accounts of these interesting days, but I now realize why the book was titled that way. From what I've read so far, there is hardly a surviving, first hand account of these events. Little is written and most is surmised. Hence, all these history buffs wanting to be there.

But the book's still interesting. It sort of gives you atmosphere, the mood of the time surrounding these events. Like in high school, it's interesting to find out how people where thinking then, and how things have changed or haven't.

Anyway, there's an account in the book of a medieval English uprising in 1381, called The Peasant Revolt. The rebels, consisting of peasants, laborers, some clerics and retired, veteran soldiers, had a leader called Wat Tyler. They charged up to London en masse, crossed the Thames, and forced the fourteen-year old king, Richard II, to meet with them.

These were hardly unsophisticated rebels. They were organized and smart. They knew how to wage war from all those years of being forced into soldiering. And being serfs, they knew all about unfair taxes and labor practices.

The rebels banded together because wanted the abolition of serfdom, to be free from obligatory labor and the right to move from their respective manors. Very MLK, it was all about equality.

Anyway. So finally, on June 15, Wat Tyler met Richard II at Smithfield. Tyler came on horseback, to signify his equality with all these snooty knights and nobles. He got off, knelt before the king, got up and shook the king's hand. Then Tyler addressed the Richard II as brother. Had Richard II fist-bumped Tyler back, I would conclude that Richard II, was in fact, a brother.

To make the long story short, Richard rebuffed the rebels. Tyler lost all his affability and asked for water which he drank and spat out before the king. He also asked for a jug of ale, drank it, and got on his horse. Finally some kingsmen got pissed, Tyler and his boys got pissed, and a melee ensued. Wat Tyler was surrounded, felled, and beheaded before his men.

I'm surprised this isn't a Mel Gibson movie yet.

RIP Mike Francis

Wow, Mike Francis passed away a couple of days ago. He was 47.

knowing is half the battle

They also aired a new Star Trek trailer and the Transformers sequel's trailer at Superbowl, but Paramount yanked it off Youtube. Boo! Who the heck doesn't want free viral marketing, I ask you.