The Carver's House

I will admit that I haven't bought pamphlet comics in a very long time, though I try to keep myself updated on the general goings-on in the American comics industry, particularly what's been happening with the Big Two. I've been reading some of the new X-Men titles as well. Lately, I've been reading some blogposts about the sorry state of the comics industry, how it has failed to attract new buyers, how prices have become prohibitive, how the number of "good titles" have decreased, how film and television adaptations have not substantially improved comics sales, and how "big events" have begun to lose their novelty because of their regularity. Sadly, it seems that the same mistakes are being made. (I recently heard that special effects covers were being considered for a comeback. Did that push through?) One development that had been seen as a way to boost comics sales is the production of film adaptations, with the perceptio...

My uninformed prediction for the win in itals... Best Picture Avatar The Blind Side District 9 An Education The Hurt Locker Inglourious Basterds Precious A Serious Man Up Up in the Air Directing James Cameron - Avatar Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker Quentin Tarantino - Inglorious Basterds Lee Daniels - Precious Jason Reitman - Up In The Air Actress Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side Helen Mirren - The Last Station Carey Mulligan - An Education Gabby Sidibe - Precious Meryl Streep - Julia & Julia Actor Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart George Clooney - Up In The Air Colin Firth - A Single Man Morgan Freeman - Invictus Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker Supporting Actress Penelope Cruz - Nine Vera Farmiga - Up In The Air Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart Anna Kendrick - Up In The Air Mo’Nique - Precious Supporting Actor Matt Damon - Invictus Woody Harrelson - The Messenger Christopher Plummer - The Last Station Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds Animated Feat...

The G.I. Joe movie sucked like anything. Pffft! Seemed like it didn't know what it wanted to be. On one end we got Storm Shadow stabbing and slicing at people, then on the other end we got cheeseball romantic interludes between Ripcord and Scarlett. The climactic CG-stuffed underwater scenewasn't as pulse-pounding as the CG-stuffed Paris chase scene. and their take on the Baroness...well...not the one I remember from the cartoon... One-third into the movie, I was entertaining urges to bolt from the theater. Good thing Channing Tatum was in it. He was the main reason I wanted to watch the movie, and eventually became the reason why I stayed in my seat. The online petition to sanction Wowowee host Willie Revillame has topped 32,000 signatures as of this writing, and the vitriol just keeps spewing. Question is: to where does this online petition go? Wowowee director Johnny Manahan recently spoke with the Philippine Entertainment Portal to air his side of the issue, saying ...

1) So couples can't kiss each other on the cheek when they're near a Mormon church? Security guards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked gay couple Matt Aune and Derek Jones to leave Main Street Plaza in Salt Lake City soon after catching Aune giving Jones a kiss on the cheek. Church spokesperson Kim Farah said the couple was "asked to stop engaging in inappropriate behavior just as any other couple would have been." When the couple became argumentative, they were detained. Read the full story in the Salt Lake City Tribune . 2) New words, such as carbon footprint, shawarma, webisode and frenemy have been added to the 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Strangely, the word missalette --that booklet we've been using for ages in church ceremonies-- gets its first appearance since the dictionary was first published at the turn of the 20th century. See 25 of the new words through Merriam-Webster Online. 3) New reports reveal ...

1) The Lost Symbol , Dan Brown's new novel featuring another Robert Langdon adventure now has a cover, released by the publisher last Tuesday. If we must judge a book by its cover, the new novel is set in the United States capital, “though it’s a Washington few will recognize,” said editor Jason Kaufman. Is this Dan Brown's version of National Treasure ? See the new cover through the New York Times website. 2) A Sacramento, California schoolteacher gave fifth grade students a birds-and-bees orientation when a DVD she distributed to them contained a sex video starring herself. The DVD was supposed to only contain footage of the school's events during the past year, and the sensitive material snuck in reportedly by mistake. Seems like lotsa people have lately been making mistakes with their sex videos. Read the rest on the Snafu-ed blog. 3) Matthew Vaughn's big-screen adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.'s ultra-violent comic book Kick-Ass is well under wa...

Haven't blogged because my mind has gone sluggish, making it hard to work. Plus I've been feeling quite irritable. I attribute these to the nicotine withdrawal--already on my 22nd day--but I've been pushing to keep myself perky and positive. Anyway, the last movie I saw was Ang Tanging Ina Ninyong Lahat , a flick I expected to enjoy because I adored Ang Tanging Ina . The new Ai-Ai delas Alas starrer was entertaining enough, and its dramatic moments did well to avoid the histrionics. The overall film, however, didn't match the sincerity I felt with the first film. Still worth a watch, though. I'm excited to see Thank You Girls . And has anyone seen Love Me Again ? - - - - - - - - - I went to a feng shui event last Saturday. The coming Chinese New Year is the year of the Earth Ox. Lucky number is nine. Lucky colors are purple and green. Keep the north part of the house quiet and the south part of the house active. Monkeys will have a fanastic year. The publishing indu...

Someone, then a small-time film director, once told me that I ought to someday try out helming a movie. He said that my comics work could pass for a good storyboard, that I had a knack for choosing the right camera angles among other things, and all I needed to learn were the little technicalities behind the medium. He admitted that he didn't go to film school, but he found himself directing a handful of films later in his career. I then remembered one of my comics heroes, Katsuhiro Otomo , who had let go of comics to pursue animation with such projects as Steamboy and Memories . And for a time I wondered if I could graduate from static to moving images with some ease. Right now, I don't think so. I don't think I ever will. Not because of the technical aspects, but more of the level of collaboration it entails. I work better alone or in small groups. Put me in a position of directing a huge number of people, and I might just throw the towel in. Another director, this time ...

http://www.myspace.com/x-menorigins Looks good, but a tad antiseptic, IMHO. Its Philippine release date is April 29, 2009.

Have you seen this? I hope they include the theme song... even just in the music bed.

I loved him in I Am Sam , Carlito's Way , The Assassination of Richard Nixon , Mystic River , and Dead Man Walking , because there's always something new and fresh in his performances. Already with two Oscar noms plus one win, Penn's been my hands-down favorite Hollywood actor. Now Sean Penn has taken another Oscar-worthy role in Milk, directed by Gus van Sant. Penn portrays Harvey Milk , who in the 1970s became the first openly gay man elected to a major political post. To be released later this month in the US, Milk couldn't be any more timely with the recent passing of Proposition 8, which effectively limits the California constitution's definition of marriage as exclusive to heterosexuals, thus voiding thousands of already existing gay marriages in the state. Do watch the trailer of Milk.

I haven't read the Neil Gaiman novella, but I did read the somehow unsatisfying graphic novel adaptation by P. Craig Russell . The film adaptation, directed by Nightmare Before Christmas ' Henry Selick, will be a stop-motion / 3D combo, featuring the voices of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher. The visual atmosphere of the film obviously targets a younger set, with a cartoony design looking nothing like Russell's adaptation. A major change from book to film is the inclusion of a sidekick character, a decision that Selick explains in the following video. Coraline is set for release in 2009.

Now this is interesting.

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela , helmed by Icelandic Olaf de Fleur Johannesson and starring Raquela Rios, received an average rating of 57/100 from seven critics reviews over at Metacritic.com. Queen Raquela is about a Cebu-based transsexual, who dreams of living an ultimate transsexual fantasy--to meet Mr. Right and live happily ever after in a faraway land. The film already bagged the best gay/lesbian feature film award at the recent Berlin International FIlm Festival. Speaking of international awards, Dante Nico Garcia's Ploning will get a chance at Oscar glory, the film having been chosen as our representative in the foreign language category. The Judy Ann Santos-starrer beat out Chito Roño's Caregiver by votation. While I didn't like Ploning as much as I wanted to--it was just okay to me--I'm glad it was chosen over Caregiver . The latter film, while engaging (I loved how it ended), looked rushed and felt too safe. By the way, is Thank You Girls still ...

Enteng Kabisote 4 This franchise has proven to be a top moneymaker ever since the first installment came out, so the producers should have been gracious enough to actually invest a little more money to make it really good across all aspects of moviemaking. But life can be unfair. So unfair. The Good: The flashbacks using footage from Okey Ka, Fairy Ko . An unnecessarily long-winded sequence, but great for nostalgia . Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo The first movie ( Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo ) is light years better than this. There were a number of good laughs here, but three-fourths into the episodic Sakal... , I began to wonder if the movie would ever end. The Good: Director Jose Javier Reyes' cameos. Resiklo For all its CG and production design efforts, Resiklo suffered from its own ambitions. The Good: Mylene Dizon, who unfortunately had only a bit part; and the first battle of the resiklo robot; CG is improving overall.

After what seemed like forever, the Film Academy of the Philippines released its official list of nominations for the 25th Luna Awards. The Luna Awards is the Philippine equivalent to the Oscars, wherein industry practitioners call the shots. For this year's race, Star Cinema's Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo earned top nods with eight nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress. In close second is Unitel Pictures' Inang Yaya with six noms, including Best Picture, though director duo Veronica Velasco and Pablo Biglang-Awa weren't cited. The three other Best Picture contenders are Centerstage Productions' Kaleldo , Star Cinema's Sukob , and MLR Films' Kubrador . These three films earned four nominations each. A total of 26 films bagged nominations, with both commercial and indie films represented. To me, the oddity of the lot is Sukob . Apart from Picture and Director nods, the horror hit's other two nominations are for Supporting Actor a...

I've been on a book binge for some strange reason. Maybe I miss the new book smell, or maybe I feel the urgent need to update what I already know. Just tonight I ordered a few books from Amazon, adding to those I've been recently buying off the bookstore shelves. They're mostly self-help books, with a few titles on fitness, health, comics, and drawing thrown in. I've a few selections of fiction, too, though I get those from Booksale. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Caught Spiderman III last Saturday with Marco , El , Jonas and Marcel at the Eastwood cinemas, lamenting thereafter the laughable "plot twist" that did the movie in. As they say, the butler did it. In this third, and worst, installment of the successful comic book movie franchise, we could have been spared the sloppy narrative and sequencing and mostly uninspired performances IF the butler didn't do a Remains of the Day by keeping his mouth shut throughout Spidey's ...

Out of the nine filmfest entries, I was also able to see Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo and Super Noypi . Well... most of Super Noypi . I'm so sorry, Quark, but I only got through about 65% of the film. As the tale wore on, I realized that I wasn't the target market, and the charm of Sandara Park's goofiness could sustain itself for only so long. Unlike other viewer's opinions, I didn't mind Jao Mapa playing Mark Herras' dad. What I did find unsettling was the red background graphic slapped on the bad guy's multi-paneled monitor--a graphic that looked like the PLDT logo. KKK was good. Not great, just good, about 8.5 stars out of 10. Joey Reyes may not have been gunning for cinematic genius, but the Juday-Ryan starrer was highly entertaining, consistent and well-paced. And what they say about Ryan Agoncillo's natural acting prowess? Lo and behold, it's true. - - - - - - - - - - - - While looking through the official site of the Palm Springs International Fil...

Okay...what's better? Friendster , Multiply or MySpace ? In this complex world, I need only one networking site account. I can't even get started on my friggin' website. *sigh* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I attended a wake last weekend. Our high school biology teacher passed away. It's been 20 years since I graduated from high school. Despite two decades having passed, some of the faculty members appeared only five or ten years older. Is that the effect of being around young people for so long? Here's the official, albeit somewhat incomplete, website of Marist School in Marikina. I was Batch '87. I started studying there at first grade, in 1977. Oh, for those who're familiar with the Zaturnnah musical... Tuxqs Rutaquio and Chris Martinez are also from Marist, around three batches lower. Some trivial trifle there...pay little heed.

In the past...they were fairly easy for kids to draw I bet the character designer must really love his job. Click on image to enlarge.

I wasn't able to attend the Gabi ng Parangal , which should come as no surprise. But I wonder what it must have been like for everyone in the Aliw Theater when Enteng Kabisote was declared Best Picture, even if Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo bagged director, story, screenplay, actress, supporting actress, most gender-senstive and Gatpuno Antonio Villegas awards. (I haven't seen Tatlong Baraha , but I'm now tempted to because of its visual effects win.) Apparently, the MMFF Best Picture award includes box office returns in the criteria mix--I read somewhere that it bears a whopping 40% weight. The rest is alloted for deliberation by the judges. By this basis alone, expect the unexpected. Over the years, many eyebrows have found homes in the stratosphere because of the MMFF awards results, and prompted tongues to challenge the judges' credibility. Given the recent history of the MMFF, I'd like to think that talking about the results should make for a fun exercise, something ...