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And a fucking good one too. I’m not being crude. This a simple statement of fact.

The beloved author of children’s books and macabre short stories we all grew up with, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (twice made into popular movies) James and the Giant Peach (which became a Walt Disney – Tim Burton production) and The Witches (which also made it to the big screen), was a major operative in the British spy ring operating in Washington D.C. during World War II. The group included Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. The U.S. was an ally, but there were many isolationists and anti-British groups and personages that needed to be spied upon and, whenever possible, neutralized. Read the rest of this entry »

The new Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial, touting a new shrimp tempura product, is annoying, insulting and sexist. I’m not one to rant over television commercials, the intelligence level needed to grasp the point of most spots not being much higher than a worm. I mean, what do you expect, it’s just T.V., right ? And the last person to make an issue of political correctness would be me, being guilty of many intemperate and unjustified jabs on marginalized groups and persons over the years.

But this KFC commercial is just plain stupid. It shows executive-type yuppies, all male, young and good-looking, gathered around a conference table. The alpha-guy, from appearances, is at the head of the table and says ominously that someone in the group in keeping a presumably dark secret. He then brings out some KFC shrimp tempura, and this one dork suddenly and involuntary squawks like a chicken, like a stereotypical fag actually, thus revealing what is hinted at as his homosexual predilections. He is effectively “outed” by the group and the last scene shows him stuffing his face with shrimp and the guys smirking and condescendingly saying that they “accept” him as he is after all. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mummy franchise serves up the same storyline in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, about ancient megalomaniacal warrior-kings coming back to life, but in a different locale. Not a problem, even if you’re a fan of the two previous Mummy movies, as long as you leave all your preconceptions and expectations behind. For one thing, there are no mummies here, in the technical sense. Read the rest of this entry »

The City is of Night; perchance of Death
But certainly of Night

- The City of Dreadful Night, James Thomson

The hype surrounding “The Dark Knight“, and predominantly good reviews, has ensured that this will be the biggest Batman blockbuster of them all. And assures that the franchise will flourish for at least the next two or three sequels.

Of course, the tragic death of Heath Ledger has created an inordinate amount of interest in his portrayal of Batman’s arch-nemesis, the psychopathic killer, the Joker. He doesn’t disappoint. Played with maniacal, almost reptilian, relish by Ledger, he makes Jack Nicholson’s earlier Joker look like Alfred E. Neuman by comparison. Ledger’s Joker is a one-man terrorist movement, as destructive and amoral as a typhoon, singularly focused on the destruction of the Batman and anyone else who might get in the way. He’s scary like a coiled snake, you can’t tear your eyes off him.

He and the Dark Knight (Christian Bale) are drawn to each other, like twins separated at birth. As the Joker likes to remind Batman, they’re more alike than he cares to admit. Everyone is potentially insane. All it takes is a little push. Read the rest of this entry »

The University of the Philippines (U.P.) centennial celebration has brought to the fore the problems plaguing the country’s premier institution of higher learning. Even the centennial theme, “U.P., Ang Galing Mo!”, has drawn the ire of various sectors, among them U.P.’s own outspoken alumni. Where does U.P. get the gall to call itself great, or even good, when it ranks a mere number 398 in the the THES-QS World University Rankings ? Other schools from poorer countries have bested U.P. , which used to be one of the best in Asia. To rank at the bottom of the top 400 is, in the context of global competitiveness, simply abysmal.

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