(tears to shed for) the celebration of heartache

first, i make an open invitation to anyone to watch shoot 'em up with me. i really need to see this movie one more time, this time, in its entirety.

... and so i write my maiden article about sadness. the backdrop -- the gloomy weather (how appropriate), two newborn playlists in my itunes named heartbreak and angst, a fresh pack of vogue cigarettes i just swore never to purchase again and my terse monologue about how probably every one of them was right. that layla, you are too emotionally high-maintenance and too immature to even spell the dirty word called love.

or in my defense, i probably have always been too neglected.

or as the song goes, it could be i'm searching for a place so small with room for everything where worlds on worlds revolve.

sorry folks... my apologies for my most incoherent entry so far. and i have to abruptly stop this right here. blame my mixed emotions.






p.p.s. congratulations to my good friend/colleague chowie who has just given birth to a baby girl. oh how i want one.... :)

i'm in love with true romance

the tagline: stealing, cheating, killing. who said romance is dead?






let me tell the story of true romance, true romance style.

clarence worley (christian slater, never better) is a hardcore elvis and kung-fu fan. he works in heroes for sale, where he gets to read comics and play music all day long; and that's practically every comic and music geek dream. traditionally, he goes to see movies on his birthday, and for this year, he sees three sonny chiba kung-fu movies. there he meets alabama and it is love at first sight.

alabama whitman (patricia arquette) is the disarmingly cute and clumsy call girl paid by clarence's boss to meet then sex-starved clarence. however, after spending one night together and tallying their compatibilities -- elvis, janis, kung-fu, and getting a piece of pie after a movie, alabama becomes mrs. alabama worley.

now all seems candy-sweet for the newlyweds except that clarence feels haunted knowing everyday that alabama's pimp, drexl, (the superb gary oldman) is getting away slapping and kicking around the girls who work for him, although alabama insists that drexl treated him pretty decent. after a ghostly visit from "the king" elvis, clarence decides to kill him.

what follows is the heated exchange between clarence and drexl, and it tells you that this movie is born from a quentin tarantino script. quentin tarantino writes no ordinary love stories. no roses and candlelight dinners. instead, quentin's idea of romance are gunshots and cocaine and 234 fuck words.






the trouble comes into paradise when clarence takes drexl's narcotics by mistake, thinking that the bag contains alabama's clothes. he sets off, rather amateurishly, to sell the drugs, intending to spend his and alabama's life spending the money. first, he pays his father, clifford worley (dennis hopper.. i cried for you, sir) a surprise visit and asks him to inquire from the police force (his father being a former cop) and determine if the police are after them and then quickly heads off to los angeles to sell his drugs through the help of his actor friend, dick.(michael rapaport) more hamburgers ordered, more giggles from the teasing alabama worley and more violence and bloodbath ensues as the gangsters find out the couple's whereabouts. in the end, the two manage to stay alive and money in hand, escape the massacre scene and indeed spend their lives spending.

now i can discuss this movie heartily as ever until pigs fly but i choose two favorite scenes. the first, as i've already said, deals with clarence confronting drexl. (gary oldman, i still don't understand why you have to do harry potter. you have too much talent for mainstream.)

the second, and this is much more poweful, involves don vincenzo (the brillian christopher walken, who according to my father held me when i was a baby) and clarence's father, clifford (extremely outstanding performance from dennis hopper). clifford endures torture from the unforgiving sicilian don vincenzo who declares that sicilians are the heavyweight champions for detecting liars. after getting his palms cut,(with scotch flavor. imagine the pain) clifford remains resolute and unmoved into telling clarence's location. perhaps resigning to his fate, he aggravates don vincenzo and tells the history of sicilians getting spawned by -- and i have to use this word to describe the aggravation -- niggers. how niggers changed the whole bloodline of sicilian people by banging sicilian women. and how don vincenzo's heart pumps black blood and thrives on the black gene. the hair-raising instrumental background amplifies the mood. both actors are too well into character i'd be scared to meet don vincenzo on the streets and i want to give clifford worley a peachy kiss.



and lest we forget, this story is all about, well...romance. clarence and alabama are very much in love, and the onscreen chemistry between slater and arquette is spontaneous and believable. clarence kills for alabama, and alabama in her own torture scene earns our tender sentiment as she stands ready to die for clarence as well.

now show me a man who will kill for me without fear or trepidation and i will gladly let the rats gnaw at my flesh before i betray him. show me a man who loves me inasmuch as he desires me to shamelessly pull down my underclothes in a highway phone booth and i will acquiesce to two dozen children. in fact, show me one man with the same insatiable energy for movies, a man who appreciates the finer things in life like sugar and red lips, brings me to his family and friends and tells them, "is she a four-alarm fire or what?" and says that none of my fears are too silly, none of my actions are too clumsy, none of my conversations with flowers and trees and the nature overall too weird, and none of my interactions with the opposite sex way too friendly and i will, i swear to aphrodite, borrow alabama's words and say, finally, "when it comes to relationships, if i'm with you, then i'm with you; and i don't want anybody else."

on this young night

there was a car crash
whose driver didn't make it
to the dinnerdate

there was a lotto draw
that aired ten minutes late

there was a steak
re-heated
for the husband
that never came

and there was a full moon
that hid
behind the clouds
when a peddler of dreams
was being
killed.



note: this is a re-post from my old blog, per marco's request.

in pace requiescat, L lawliet

losing you was far more heartbreaking than losing my human boyfriend. (and i mean human, just literally.) L lawliet, why do you have to die?

for the benefit of my non-anime viewing readers, L lawliet (known to the world simply as L) is the eccentric detective (somebody whose name, face and whereabouts are a secret)in the contemporary japanese manga slash anime slash movie, death note (desu noto.) the central theme being justice, this story presents the case of light yagami, an A-list student who picks up a death god's notebook and L, an elusive and highly-intelligent figure (the brains of sherlock holmes, hercule poirot, perry mason and lex luthor combined)who hunts down kira (meaning killer) which is light yagami's alter ego. we see how light's initially virtuous intentions of creating a utopian world by eliminating convicted criminals and minor offenders and suspects alike conflicts with his self-indulgent, and conceited haughty self. declaring that he alone possesses the qualifications to determine the righteous, he pursues L who in turn swears to bring him to his execution in a manner no less than humiliating light in public tv. while light sees himself as a god of the new, evil-free world which he aims to establish using the deah note, L ridicules and regards him as nothing more than an atrocious, abominable and self-absorbed mass murderer.

capsulized in 37 episodes and two full-length movies, the manga also covers universal topics such as friendship (a bittersweet one, ironically formed between light and L) and love (the unrequited genuine devotion of amane misa towards light, and the shinigami rem for misa). the prime attraction though, is the heightened allegro-paced battle of wits, and one could not complain for the lack of cerebral competition (as in the case of light vs L, mello vs near, light vs mello, light vs near)

i could not run out of positive feedback regarding this story. the argument about justice alone could fill up this entry ad infinitum. the introduction of L, however, is death note's best gift. he has the mysteriously charming, inexplicably twisted appeal and nothing feels more helpless than falling in love with an anime character.

very little is known about L. he loves sweets, ("even if you eat too much sweeets, if you're doing enough thinking you won't get fat") dislikes socks, holds things delicately, a sloucher, and was raised at an orphanage. that's pretty much everything that's known about him. or one could say, descriptions of him.

so as a testament of my undying love for you, L, if the only way to be with you is to create you, (maybe your origin or your case works and exploits) then i'd gladly set my brain to its optimal exhaustion. you will become my most ambitious work, my magnum opus. i will think the way you think; for it will be unforgivable if i falter and ruin your reputation. i forgive you for dying; it wasn't fair play that you were up against a shinigami. you will be my next elegy, and it is in your memory that i will finish crime and punishment and take a renewed interest in law as an avenue of justice, retribution and deliverance.


this article was written on paper 3 septmeber 2007.