I bought three blue ray movies sometime last week and they’re great! I bought Rain Man, The Crow and Face Off and watched it all in just one night. My dad would also install a HDMI wall plate in our living room to organize the cables and I’m gonna help him install it when I get back in a week.

The movies were great and the quality is good. I really had fun doing a movie marathon all by myself. Haha! And I’m looking forward to more when I get back from my trip. I’ll tell you all about it after I’m done.

Yep, finally I got my family to watch LOTR… the three extended version! Haha! My nephew had a sprain on his ankle so he was home the whole with nothing to do. So we watched it. Then my dad and sister eventually got interested too. And even the two little kids watched it too… not the whole movie of course but there were some scenes that got their attention. And my niece, who’s 5 years old, already knows some of the characters… she said she likes the 4 Hobbits.

And speaking of Hobbit… do you know Sean Astin? The one who played Samwise Gamgee? Well, he’s also the lead role in one of my favorite movies (especially when I was still a kid) The Goonies!

His character is Mikey. He was so cute when he was a kid and I remember having a crush on him. Haha! But he’s bigger now… hmmm… maybe he should start drinking diet pills. Haha! He also played the role of Drew Barrymore’s brother in 50First Dates.

I watched the Phantom of the Opera yesterday and I’m loving Gerard Butler! He’s so gorgeous! Haha! He’s also the main character in the movie 300. Anyway, my friends may think I’m weird but I really like watching musicals, and I once dreamed of being a part of a musical. Another one of my wishful thinkings. In Phantom of the Opera, I love the songs Think of Me and Music of the Night. But I don’t like the singing voice of the Phantom in the movie, it’s just not powerful enough but he really is gorgeous! Anyway, a few years I downloaded the whole script of the Original London Musical, I printed it and listened to the whole soundtrack so I could understand the story very well. Haha! I like the songs there better than the ones in the movie. I know I still have it hidden somewhere… I might just dig it up again and listen to the whole soundtrack again. I’m actually watching the movie again, well, not really watching but I have it as my background music, hoping it will inspire me to scrap.

On another note, this totally not related to the Phantom of the Opera… my mom will be arriving soon! Yay! 28 more days and she’s back home! And next month, some of my aunts and uncles will be coming home too for a vacation and I’m really excited cause we might go on a road trip! I wonder if there are cell phone amplifiers available here in the Philippines. My provider is Globe and I have to admit their signal really sucks when I’m in the province. As if I’m expecting many calls… Haha! Anyway, I’ll just go look when I go to Greenhills this weekend.Have a great week everyone!

I watched Spiderwick last night and it was fun and nice. The suspense kept me awake. I really love the cute creatures there!!! I haven’t read the book yet and hope I’ll be able to grab a copy soon. I’ve read that the book is better than the movie, so I can’t wait to read it. I really liked it and I’m sure my niece and nephew would love it too! Anyway, here’s more about the movie…

Starring: Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Nick Nolte, Mary-Louise Parker
Director: Mark Waters
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy

Tagline: Their world is closer than you think

Plot:
Once upon a time, upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures. Unable to explain the strange disappearances and accidents that seem to be happening on a daily basis, the family blames it all on Jared. When he, Simon and Mallory investigate what’s really going on, they uncover the fantastic truth of the Spiderwick estate and of the creatures that inhabit it.

I’ve been watching the extended of The Lord of The Rings trilogy. I finished it already the other day and I’m watching it again… I missed it. I have the three extended DVD versions of the movie and I also have the books, including The Hobbit. I have a few LOTR toys and I also have a copy of the three complete recordings and annotated score soundtracks. And below are my favorite characters from the movie. Of course, I love all the characters but most especially these guys…

That’s Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and David Wenham. Yumminess! And I’m such a sucker for unruly, curly hair… another reason why I love these movies so much! And here’s my favorite of them all…

Yes I’m a tree hugger and I’m a Treebeard fan! On another note, I’m planning a trip next year and I’m really serious about it. And I’d love to have this…

I’m actually looking for one but I don’t think it’s available here in the Philippines. It is a PacSafe 85 Secure Bag Protector, an adjustable high-tensile stainless steel locking device, designed to cover and protect a variety of bags and packs from tampering, pilfering and theft. I almost always travel with a backpack because for me it’s more comfortable because I can bring it frees both my hands.

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forrest Whitaker
Director: Pete Travis
Company: Columbia Pictures
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller

Plot:
During a historic counter-terrorism summit in Spain, the President of the United States is struck down by an assassin’s bullet. Eight strangers have a perfect view of the kill, but what did they really see? As the minutes leading up to the fatal shot are replayed through the eyes of each witness, the reality of the assassination takes shape. But just when you think you know the answer, the shattering final truth is revealed.

I watched Vantage Point the other night and I like it! I actually watched it already in Baguio about a month ago but I was seated at a very uncomfortable chair and was busy texting a friend that I didn’t pay much attention to the movie. It is actually good, and entertaining which doesn’t need to be analyzed. Plus it stars one of my celebrity crushes, Matthew Fox. Haha! I’m not really fond of action films but I got through this one and was not disappointed and it didn’t bore me. Not movie related: I just want to ask, when should one start using anti wrinkle cream? I know I don’t but I know someone who started using it when she turned 30. Should I?

I watched The Oxford Murders last night and I liked it. It is a thriller movie adapted from the award-winning novel of Guillermo Martinez. It was pretty interesting and it kept me guessing until the end but the suspense is not keeping me on my toes. It’s like the movie lacked something. One thing is for sure, And I found it funny because they were mentioning a lot of Mathematical terminologies like the Fibonacci Sequence and it reminded me so much of my college days. Anyway, I’ve read a lot of negative reviews about this movie but for me it doesn’t hurt to watch it. It’s still worth it somehow, especially if you like detective like films.

Starring: Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Leonor Watling
Director: Álex de la Iglesia

Plot:
November 1993. Wood plays Martin, an American student at the University of Oxford who wants Arthur Seldom (Hurt) as his thesis director. In a public lecture, Seldom quotes Wittgenstein’s Tractatus to deny the possibility of truth. Martin contests asserting his faith in the mathematics under reality. Later, Martin and Seldom coincide and find Martin’s landlady (also a friend of Seldom’s) murdered. Seldom declares to the police that he had received a note with his friend’s address marked as “the first of a series”. As Seldom is an authority on logical series, he suspects that a serial murderer is defying his intelligence. Martin, Seldom and Lorna (Leonor Watling), a Spanish nurse, will try to guess the following terms of the series as murders continue.

Work sucks.

Actors: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman
Director: Mike Judge
Company: 20th Century Fox
Year Released: 1999

Unable to endure another mind-numbing day at Initech Corporation, cubicle slave Peter Gibbons gets fired up and decides to get fired. Armed with a leisurely new attitude and a sexy new girlfriend, he soon masters the art of neglecting his work, which quickly propels him into the ranks of upper management! Now the stage is set for Peter to carry out a high-tech embezzling scheme that’s sure to mean the end of his job and a one-way ticket to easy street. Can he pull it off before all corporate hell breaks loose?

Trivia:
Stan, Joanna’s boss at Chotchkie’s, was director Mike Judge. He’s listed in the credits as William King • When Peter is in the meeting room, on the white board behind him there is a complicated flow chart titled “Planning to Plan” • Gary Cole’s character wears a large, gold class ring of the style that are common for graduates from military academies. This ring was originally a prop produced for the short-lived science fiction series “Crusade” (1999), on which Cole played captain Matthew Gideon. The ring was worn in every episode, and was supposed to show that Gideon was a graduate of Earthforce Military Academy. “Office Space” was the first project Cole worked on following the cancellation of Crusade and wore the ring as an in-joke, referring to his previous job • Chotchkie’s gets its name from the Yiddish word meaning a cheap trinket or knick-knack • At the party for Tom, Drew has a conversation with Peter in which he lists all of the men that have slept with Peter’s girlfriend Joanna. Among those he mentions is David Rennie, the film’s editor • The directory that the bank software virus is stored on is C:/LR427/Virus_CDEF. CDEF is a virus that dates back to 1990 and affected Macintoshes. It infects desktop files and can cause system crashes, anomalous behavior, and printing problems. It is obsolete now and was mostly harmless. It should be noted that “C:” relates to MS-DOS and MS-Windows • The infamous “PC Load Letter” error that confounded Michael Bolton is a message that the printer was out of, or not recognizing the refill of Letter-sized (8.5×11 inches) paper. PC stands for Paper Cartridge. Older model HP Laserjet printers commonly display this error. This error also occurs when attempting to print a non-letter-sized project onto letter-sized paper • The iconic red stapler coveted by Milton was created for the film by the prop department. They needed a bright enough color to be seen on film and chose red. After the film was released, Swingline began to receive requests from customers for red staplers. Having stopped offering red a number of years before, they made the decision to start offering the color once more

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Uh… yeah… LOL! This is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen and I won’t get tired of watching it over and over again. The plot, the characters and the dialogue were really funny. Anybody who works in an office or who did, like me, will enjoy this movie. I’m pretty sure you can somehow identify with one of the characters or the scenes from start to finish. And the ending made me realize that some things sometimes have a funny way of working out by itself. Also, I’m not really into rap music but the rap score made the movie more appealing. It really is worth watching and it surely doesn’t get old.

Starring: Julian McMahon and Sandra Bullock

Plot: (from imdb)
Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) is a suburban housewife with two daughters. After driving her daughters to school one morning (Thursday), she arrives home to find a message on her answering machine from her husband Jim (Julian McMahon), referencing a conversation that they had a few days ago. However, his message is cut off by an incoming call. The doorbell rings and a police officer arrives saying that her husband died the previous day in a horrible car accident, on a certain road right around mile marker 220. Distraught and confused, her mom comes over to help out. She leaves her friend a message to call her back. Her mom says that she is tired and goes to sleep in the den.

The next morning (Monday), Linda wakes up and looks for her mom in the den, and her mom is not there. However, she sees her husband still alive. She believes that it the previous day’s events were all a dream.

The following morning (Saturday), Linda wakes up at home and goes downstairs to see a wake for her husband. Linda notices that she has a bottle of Lithium pills prescribed by Dr. Roth. Again, she is very confused. She goes to the backyard and sees that her older daughter has cuts on her face, and no one at the funeral knows why the daughter has these cuts. They all go to the funeral, and Linda thinks that it might all be a hoax, so she demands that they open the casket, despite everyone’s protests. She struggles with the coffin, and Jim’s head rolls out. At the funeral, she sees a woman staring over at the procession. She goes to confront the woman, and the woman said that Linda and she talked the previous day. Linda says that she has never seen the woman before, and the woman drives off. Later in the evening, her family and friends have had a psychologist, Dr. Roth, come to commit Linda to an insane asylum. At the insane asylum, Linda overhears Dr. Roth mentioning to the on-staff doctor that Linda had called him on Tuesday saying that her husband would die the following day.

The next morning (Tuesday), she goes to see Dr. Roth, who she tells that her husband is going to die. She also tells him that Dr. Roth will prescribe a bottle of Lithium pills for her. Dr. Roth says that is precisely what he would diagnose for her. Linda then goes to visit her husband at work, and she asks her husband to take her and the kids away on a trip. Her husband says that he is very busy and says that they will talk about it later. Jim also introduces her to the mystery woman Claire from the funeral. She is the new assistant manager that Jim is working with. Linda suspects that Jim is having an affair. After her kids come home from school, Linda is upstairs, and her kids are downstairs. It starts to rain, and she shouts to the kids to grab the laundry drying on the laundry rack. Linda then realizes that this action might cause her daughter to end up with cuts, so she tries to stop her. However, her daughter does not listen and runs right through the glass patio door, ending up with cuts all over her face. Linda takes her to the hospital. Later that night, Jim blames Linda for the accident and calls Linda’s mom to come over and help out with the kids. She draws up a calendar of the week’s events, and realizes that she still needs to live through Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Without showing him the calendar, she makes her husband promise her that if the next day is Wednesday, then make sure to wake her up.

On Friday, she confronts Claire about the affair with the husband. Claire says that they were going to have an affair but had not yet. Linda goes to the funeral home and makes the arrangements for a funeral for Saturday. She also finds out that her husband had just tripled the amount of insurance on Wednesday morning, right before his fatal car accident. Linda asks her friend Annie if the accident was not ultimately for the best, since his husband was about to break up their family anyway.

The next morning is Sunday, and she tells Jim to go out on a drive with the kids. He readily agrees. Linda visits her priest, who recounts several such premonitions starting from the 17th century. That night, she asks her husband why things cannot be between them as they used to be. It starts raining and lightning, and they run inside. Linda and Jim make love.

She finally wakes up on Wednesday morning, the day of the accident. Jim did not wake her up. Jim has dropped off his daughters at school, and then he went to his insurance agent to raise the payout on his life insurance. Linda runs to the car while trying to reach him on his cell phone but cannot reach him. Jim calls Claire to break off the affair. Jim then leaves the message for Claire on the home answering machine that was heard on Thursday at the beginning of the film. Meanwhile, Linda calls again and Jim interrupts his voice message. Jim tells her that he loves her. At this point, Linda can see Jim’s car in the distance. Jim stops the car to wait for her to catch up. Soon, Linda realizes that Jim has stopped the car near mile marker 220, right where the accident was supposed to occur. She tells him to turn the car around. He does but is almost cut off by an oncoming car. He turns the car off again. Linda tells him to get out of there, but he is unable to either start the car or open the car door. An oncoming tanker truck fishtails and runs over the car, decapitating Jim. Then, the tanker explodes.

In the final scene, Linda wakes up again in her house. Linda and her daughters are moving that morning. Linda is visibly pregnant.

Favorite line from the movie:
Father Kennedy: Everyday we are alive can be a miracle.

Click here to go to the official site of the movie.

The trailer of this movie made me curious that’s why I watched it. I liked it but it’s a bit confusing, especially the ending. I never really knew what happened in the end… I mean did her husband die or not? Maybe not because she was pregnant, but them maybe he did and she got pregnant before he died. Nevertheless, for me the movie is still worth watching even though the ending is not really clear.

Everything you know about desire is dead wrong.

Actors: Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo
Director: Jane Campion
Company: Pathe Productions
Year Released: 2003

In the underbelly of lower Manhattan, Frannie Avery (Meg Ryan), a reserved English professor, becomes obsessed after seeing more than she should of an impassioned couple. After the young woman turns up dead, Frannie is questioned by a homicide detective (Mark Ruffalo) who draws her into a liberating but disturbing erotic encounter. As the body count rises, familiar suspects begin to emerge.

Trivia:
Nicole Kidman was originally cast as Frannie Thorstin.
Mark Ruffalo went on undercover assignments with police officers to prepare for his role.
The costume department bought the entire wardrobe from a cancelled TV show, “The Job” (2001) for $400.
The bar waitress in the first date between Frannie and Detective Malloy was director Jane Campion.

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This movie is graphic but I find it a very good thriller. The mood and the ambiance were just perfect in every scene. And the sexual content of the movie is highly charged but not offensive. I was a bit surprised actually with Meg Ryan’s role. I didn’t expect her to do such a daring and sensual role. And I love her passion for words, how I wish I had that too. What I didn’t like is Kevin Bacon’s role. It’s so obvious that he was just there to mislead and I was kinda expecting some sort of “ending” to his role but there was none. All in all it is a very good movie and worth watching.