Temptation Island

When Ronald first told us about the 1980 Joey Gosengfiao film Temptation Island, I thought he was kidding. How can the dialogue be that stupid, I thought. But apparently when the film was made, the script made so much sense to the writer and the audience. Naturally, if you watch it now you'll find the lines extremely hilarious. How can you NOT break into non stop laughter? The flick stars Dina Bonnevie, Deborah Sun, Jennifer Cortez, Bambi Arambulo, and Azenith Briones who all joined the Miss Manila Sunshine Contest. As part of the semi finals, they board a yacht and go on a cruise. The yacht catches fire and the four ladies, the gay pageant organizer (who manages to keep his white suit immaculately clean and wrinkle free throughout the entire ordeal), and three men jump ship and get stranded on a deserted island. While in the island, they catch fish using panty house, dance out of sheer boredom and hunger, but eventually get saved when become cannibals and chomp on the gay guy. So, if by some stroke of bad luck you get stuck on an island, all you need to do is barbecue a gay person and you get saved. thanks to Hey Jay for the clips! It's being sold in the Regal Films website for $16!

Candy snatcher

Someone's been dipping their hands into my Frazer stash. Now there are only two pieces left.. errr... make that one.

Finish line

Ten teams ran and competed but only one went home with the big prize. Nokia wrapped up its Soul of the Night race event the other night at Embassy. It was fun except I realized too late that them D&G sneaks aren't made for SRO events so by the time the event was over, my feet hurt so much it was screaming for a vacation from standing which I couldn't do because 1) all seats were taken, and 2) I had to run to and from the reception because some guests wanted me to know that they were already there. This year, the race was more exciting and more intense. It also had better looking consumer participants and real celebrities. Last year, the consumers who were paired with "celebrities" didn't have as much personality. They ended up looking like alalays next to their partner. Ideashop did a superb job organizing the entire shebang - from the media launch, race proper, and party.

Mr. Pure Energy Jr (Paolo Valenciano) and Karylle

Kathy, Me, Annie Hosts Marc and Rovi with Pam and Geoff "I look good in ANY angle" Eigenmann

Half of the race team

The winners won a trip to Macau and P100,000. I absolutely have no idea what they'll do in Macau. Maybe they'll lock themselves in the Venetian and ogle at the faux sky ceiling and eat almond cookies and egg tarts all day long. Or they could take the Supercat to Hong Kong and shop to death at IFC.

Laughing matter

Juan sent me the link of this hilarious video of La Greta's song:

Flick Pick: The Orphanage

I first came across The Orphanage in Cecile's blog and wondered if they'll ever show the movie here. I was glad when I saw they were selling the DVD of it at Ruins. El Orfanato or The Orphanage for non-Spanish speaking readers is about Laura who buys the orphanage where she grew up in. Once there, the imagination of her son goes haywire (as if it isn't already). Laura lets all the weirdness slide until things get totally wacko so she calls in a psychic to give the place a good mental feel. The film stars Belen Rueda and Roger Princep and is directed by Oscar Nominee Guillermo del Toro of Blade 2 and Hellboy fame.

If I have a son, I want him to look as cute as this kid

* Spoiler Alert*

Orphanage Lady: Laura! Come inside! Since you're the only "normal" child who lives here, you've been adopted! Yey! Leave the other freak show children to play together. Many years later... Laura to Husband: Hey! Remember that orphanage I used to live in? Let's buy it and make it a home for other children with special needs. Laura's Husband: That's a great idea. I sure hope nothing creepy happened there after you got adopted. Simon, Laura's cute 6-year-old Son: Can my imaginary friends come too? Laura: Well...I guess so although I don't know where to put them. We'll be a full house once we have 5 to 6 special kids here. Anyhoo, take your as-yet unexplained medication. [they start to hear CREEPY NOISES in the house] Simon: Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!! I have more imaginary friends now!! Off with the old, on with the new!! Laura: Cmon kiddo, why don't we go play in that dangerous cave by the beach? You go inside while I collect shells out here. [Simon finds another imaginary friend inside the cave] Back at home... Weird Lady: Hi. Can we talk about your son's file, which by the way, just arrived on my doorstep? I'm a social worker. Like, for real. Laura: Sure, come on in and have a cup of --waaaaaiiiit aaaa miiinnnute. Simon's file has been closed for years. He doesn't know that he's adopted, or that he is HIV positive. Like, shoo! go away! Weird Lady: Oh. Ok. Whatevs. Nevermind. Bye. [Laura locks the file in a drawer with the most elaborate key ever - even more elaborate than the ones Nicole Kidman had in The Others] Simon: My friends want to play a game. They take something you love and then you have to find it! Look, they took my coins! [they do an Amazing Race around the house looking for the coins, which are hidden in the very same drawer the file was in] Simon: You're not my mother! You're a liar! Laura: Uhm...yeah. Sorry. We meant to tell you when you got a bit older but since you already do.... can we have the opening party for the new children's home now? [they have a party with masks, which always leads to confusion and/or panic] Simon: You're not my mother! You're a liar! Laura: *slaps Simon* If you don't want to go out and be a gracious host and serve these cheap hors d'oeuvers, then don't! Laura: Hey, where's Simon? [she starts unmasking everyone at the party including the adults. duh.] Seriously, where's my kid? [they look everywhere but he is totally gone. she looks for him, but finds only a weird kid with a straw mask and a bad case of asthma who shuts her hand in the bathroom door - ouchies!] Police Psychologist: We'll try to find him, and this weird lady you mentioned although there could be a billion women, as you described, who are in their 70's with pale eyes and white hair. Hmm.. Laura's Husband: Here, wear my St. Anthony medal. Give it back when you find Simon. [Laura sees the weird lady on the street, but only seconds before she gets plowed down by a van. That's what you get when you stop in the middle of the street when someone calls out to you] Laura: Hey! That biatch's whistle is the same whistle I hear in my house. [she tries to touch it, but the weird lady, who looks seriously dead, grabs her hand] Laura: Okay, time to bring in a psychic. [they hire a psychic to figure out what's going on] Psychic: I hear them! The children! Someone's poisoned them! Police Psychologist: We figured out who that weird lady was. She had a son who also lived at the orphanage, but he was hideously deformed and wore a straw mask. Some of the other children accidentally killed him. [Laura goes searches for why the weird lady might have been nosing around and finds cremated remains of the other orphans hidden in the shed] Laura: Oh...the spirits are sad because the weird lady killed them with poisoned blackberries in retribution for her son's death. I know what I have to do, and I must do it while wearing this figure deceiving orphanage attendant uniform. [she sets the orphanage up the way it was in the past so the spirits feel at home, and they appear and lead her to the basement, where she finds her son's corpse wearing the stupid straw mask, because he got stuck in the basement after his bright mother jammed the door so he fell down the stairs and died] Laura: Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!! [she pops a frightful amount of pills and flings off the medal as her son and the other orphans suddenly gather before her. Obviously, she's died and gone to orphanage heaven] Laura: I will take care of you now... err... forever rather. [Laura's husband puts a single rose at a memorial for his wife and the kids and then finds the medal on the ground in the room where she decides to go bye bye, glances up knows in his heart that she and their son are together] The End.

Flick Pick: The Other Boleyn Girl

Put together a period film thats set in England, is about royalty and history, and does not have Kiera Knightley in it, then I'm all for it. The Other Boleyn Girl is about an ambitious family that “pimps out” its daughters for the sake of power and prestige. Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) is the saucy flirt, her sister, Mary (Scarlett Johansson), the demure naïf. At the instigation of her uncle and father, Anne comes close to bewitching King Henry (Eric Bana) but makes the mistake of looking more proficient on a horse than he does. So it’s soft spoken Mary (a newlywed) who becomes his mistress, while Anne hatches a plot to flash her dark eyes at the goatish monarch and then refuse to put out. Driven half-mad by thwarted lust, the king discards Mary even after giving birth to a son that he's been perpetually waiting for, rebuffs the papacy, and forms a new religion to divorce Catherine of Aragon—who cannot bear him a male heir anyway, so Henry can claim there’s civic virtue in his vice. You know the Tudor drill. The movie pretty much is all about schemes, schemes, and more schemes. It started reaaalll slow then they fast forwarded the end. One scene Anne's pregnant, then she's conceived in the next. It's a good film to watch though. At least all of them speak with a British accent. After watching it, it sort of makes you want to buy the book (written by Philippa Gregory) just so you'd know about the other details they failed to show in the film.

Flick Pick: Enchanted & Penelope

Long weekends for me always call for DVD marathons that last till the sun almost comes up. For this particular weekend, I wanted something light and entertaining so after having a hearty dinner of roast chicken, steamed broccoli, and pasta, I propped myself up in bed and popped in a couple of DVDs that seemed promising. The first was the Disney film, Enchanted. The movie is about Giselle (Amy Adams) who lives in the conflation of every single Disney trope ever, in an animated, magical fairy-tale kingdom full of songs of her one true love. The evil queen played by Susan Sarandon (who is also a wicked stepmother.. are all stepmothers wicked???) can't have some upstart marry the prince and move in on her territory, so she banishes Giselle from animation to reality: New York, to be precise. Giselle and her oh-so-unfashionable and very Disney designed dress and sunshine disposition are purely nutty in the real world. Giselle is pretty useless walking around the Big Apple, but she still gets her prince: a dour divorce attorney named Robert (Patrick Dempsey, who seems to have sooo much hair on his head) who's obsessed with the practical and is hapless when it comes to dealing with Giselle's wide-eyed naiveté, which generally plays like dementia in this context; even more befuddled are the other fairy tale creatures who follow Giselle through the rabbit hole aka manhole from which they emerge from. There's Prince Edward (James Marsden) come to save Giselle; Nathanial (Timothy Spall) the queen's henchman; and a furry chipmunk sidekick. In true Disney fashion (as most Pinoy slapstick movies), the movie wouldn't be complete without breaking into song and dance once in a while. A scene in Central Park turned out to be an entire production number with ordinary people suddenly dancing and singing along with Giselle. It's entertaining for a while until the really cheesy lyrics get to you, then you wish she'd just shut up. The movie had a very sweet ballad though, So Close, by Jon McLaughlin which is worth downloading.

Still feeling a bit lovey dovey after downloading and listening to So Close a couple of times, I decided to pop in Penelope. Belonging to that odd and, lately, quite fashionable category of whimsical fantasy, "Penelope" unfolds like a fairy tale.

The title character, played by Christina Ricci,narrates the film, informing us of a curse placed on her aristocratic family by a horrible old witch generations ago. The curse dooms a particular female offspring to disfigurement - a pig's snout - that can only be cured by the love of a socially worthy fellow, a blue blood in the film's terms. All the aristocratic twits who come to court Penelope flee in horror at her appearance, which exacerbates her ridiculous mother's (Catherine O'Hara) desperation. Of course, the right young man eventually shows up, an impoverished musician (James McAvoy) who, after the usual artificial misunderstandings of comedy, wins Penelope's heart. Although he fails to qualify as the aristocrat the curse demands, he helps Penelope to learn one of those inspiring lessons about loving and accepting oneself and one's really ugly nose. Reese Witherspoon also stars but isn't one of the main acts.

Other elements that seemed off were: - Parents of Christina are said to be aristocrats but they drive around in an old Cadillac, don't dress the part, and speak with an American accent (at least the wife and daughter) even after obviously residing in England for a really long time - The mom hires a dating agency that specializes in hooking up blue bloods so one of them can marry her daughter. If you were blue blood, would you expose yourself to blind dates? What ever happened to pride? - Piggy stays behind a two way mirror while interviewing the guys put before her. Wacko. - The house wasn't filled with anything an aristocrat might have. Non-existent are the fine art, heirloom pieces, and a staff of helpers. And they never had tea! - When Miss Piggy decides to run away, she doesn't take anything with her but her mom's wallet and the clothes she has on - which she wears all throughout her months long runaway phase. If she were really rich, wouldn't she have trunks of better looking clothes?

Grub Review: Revisiting Kanin Club

You know when a restaurant serves really good food when you've been thinking about it for weeks, trying to schedule a free day when you can go back and eat there again to savor its delectable delights. Today, Speedy G and I had an early dinner at Kanin Club at Westgate. I intended to order Sinigang na Tadyang which I had the first time I ate there but instead we had the crispy dinuguan, crispy liempo, and daing fried rice. The first thing I noticed when I stepped in again is that it seems more homey now. I guess it had to do with the dark brown tables and chairs, which now have a cushion wrapped in a rich and warm dark green and burgundy fabric. I felt so at home that I wanted to indian sit on the bench I was seated on.

Crispy Liempo (P118)

Daing fried rice (P 124)

Crispy dinuguan (P 216)

I would rather the pork pieces were smaller so it would be easier to chew and would turn out to be more crispy.

Turon KC (P 74)

I made it a point this time to save space to sample the turon, although by the time I finished my last spoon of rice, I was already full so I had it to-go instead. An hour after, I remembered about the turon and hurriedly ate it, worried that it was already soggy. Surprisingly, it wasn't at all. Kanin Club's version of turon is filled with ube, coconut strips, and sweetened mung beans. It was really good. They also have serve it ala mode style.

Tick tock tick tock

Stress busters

I remembered this morning that the Krispy Kreme down the block was already open so I walked over and bought a dozen assorted donuts - mostly laden in chocolate and nuts. Who doesn't like something fattening and nutty, I thought. I was expecting it to be a mad house considering how new it is but I guess the donut novelty has long since died down.

The lady must have been partially deaf because she only put ONE strawberry filled donut when I asked for two.