HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE by jaiskizzy

the gist: shaun from shaun of the dead is now a british magazine editor who gets kicked out of celebrity parties a lot. the dude suddenly calls him up and hires him to be a writer for sharps, a better established publication based in new york. he penetrates america, the magazine, the world of hollywood and desperately wants to do the same to that hot chick from transformers. along with mary jane watson and dana scully, whose ass will he eventually kiss?

this film hits close because i, too, have had the bittersweet experience of working for a magazine. like simon pegg's character, sidney young, i went in ready to shake things up, to introduce fresh blood-ink to the pages. sure i got the chance to do my real passion and get paid for it but it never said in the contract that i had to deal with assholes and complete morons every day. so, i quit that shit and lived to tell the tale. the same cannot be said for sidney. after realizing that his(our) non-conformist attitude was getting him nowhere, he shrugged everything off and wrote the article that was forced upon him. the result: instant success. exclusive party invites, bumping bums with celebrities, even seeing the demise of his enemies. it's great because that's how things are in real life. the easiest way to the top is through someone else's bottom. still, if the only road to fulfilling your dreams is by taking shit from other people, then it's a triumph from shit and nothing to be proud of. but that's just me and my preachy intro.

anyways, as expected, simon pegg was hilarious. liked him in shaun and the bit part he did in missin:impossible 3. here, even with americanized humor, he made the role believably funny with his unlimited supply of witty quips and punchlines. his reactive facial expressions bury the pinoy comedy movie "nye!" and "acheche!" deeper in the corny cemetery. now, jeff bridges. there's a guy we havent seen for a while. after being the bald obadiah stane, it's good to see the dude back in long hair sans the 'stache and beard. his role was small but big, if you catch my drift.

i never understood why kirsten dunst was cast as mary jane in the spider-man movies. peter and harry fight over this snaggletoothed chick? anyways so i really dont get how she bags these "female-character-that-the-main-male-character-goes-nuts-for" roles. she's not attractive at all. like if i was watching flies congregating on dog poo and she walked by naked sucking on a lollipop and twirling pigtailed hair, i wouldnt bother to look. i mean, if it was me who had to choose between her and megan fox, the choice would be pretty obvious. i would definitely, no questions asked, automatically pick my girlfriend over these celebrity bitches. i love you, love.

so...

i liked the story, how it began, how it progressed, but hated how it concluded. i wished it not to go where i expected it to go, but it did and that's where the film failed me. i dont know if the book that this was based on had the same ending but it's the ending of almost about every chick flick that kept tissue manufacturers in business. oh, well... that's why it's called mainstream.


the good: the story and the simon pegg.
the bad: cliche love story ending.
the ugly: the penis.
the verdict: 7 strips of tape on the face.


skizzy old.

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BLINDNESS by jaiskizzy

gist: during rush hour, a japanese guy goes blind behind the wheel with no apparent cause. the mysterious disease seems to be contagious and soon enough, every person he comes into contact with, the optometrist he consults and the other people in the waiting room, suffers the same fate, except for the optometrist's wife who pretends to be blind just to be with her husband. the "white sickness" spreads and the infected are quarantined in a facility where some have lost their sanity as well.

i wouldn't know what to do if i suddenly became blind. i rely too much on my vision, no matter how poor it has gotten. without my eyes, i wouldn't be able to watch movies, read, write, play video games and see my girlfriend's disarming beauty. hence, i wouldn't be able to live. anyways, so i took advantage of my working optic nerves and saw what it would be like if sight was taken away from people in an instant. no explanation, no symptoms and possibly no cure. needless to say, and yet here i am about to say it, it's a disaster. and that's what this film feels like, a disaster movie without floods or meteors or tornadoes and such but is every bit gripping. there were teeth-clenching moments that you'd think im watching a guy about to fall off a cliff but it's just a woman trying to keep her groceries away from the other "shoppers". intense. i guess i shouldn't be that surprised since the movie was directed by the same guy who did city of god and the constant gardener.

i was surprised to see casshern as the first victim. it's obvious that the filmmakers wanted to make the city generic by casting with different races, but this japanese man and his japanese wife and the chinese prime minister seemed out of place. i dont know. maybe it's just me being used to watching asian movies the way they are made. anyways, the story doesn't pick up until the infected are forced into the quarantine facility, where the effects of the sickness are represented by the three wards: the good-natured people, the neutrals, and the sick, evil bastards in ward 3, led by self-proclaimed king, gael garcia bernal. the moment these animals took over, even though they were the last batch to arrive, i was like, if that happened in the philippines, the greedy fucks wouldn't take that long to surface. you just know that even in a small group of pinoys, there's at least one who would immediately horde the supplies for himself/herself.

good, good movie. whether you take the message literally or metaphorically, you'd get it, well, if you're smart enough cause some people would probably just go, so, you'd go crazy if you're blind and shit?! anyway, i wish i could recommend this for family viewing but it has sex and violence so sorry, kids.


good: story, cinematography.
bad: what it all amounts to.
ugly: julianne moore crying.
verdict: 7 phoropters.


skizzy wonder.

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