March 27, 2004
a whirl of what ifs
i have a list of the last five movies i've seen (see right side of this blog), and i rated the butterfly effect with a 92 out of a perfect 100. i reconsidered it, thinking it might be a little too high, but... nah. i thought the grade was fine as it was. of course, as experience would dictate it, critics disagreed with me, even stating that the movie was "a bad-movie-lover's heaven, and a good-movie-lover's hell." i guess i'm a bad-movie-lover. tsk, tsk. poor me.
the thing about movies which critics highly acclaim is this: they're good, no doubt about it, but they fail to bring out the more tumultuous emotions in me. yes, they make me smile. yes, they make me sad. yes, they make me widen my eyes in pleasant surprise. but they don't make me pierce my sides in laughter. they don't make me weep in overwhelming sadness. they don't make my jaw drop in awe. (of course, given that this is a personal rule, it also has personal exceptions.)
the butterfly effect made my jaw drop in awe. it was the very idea of changing one's past that pulled me in. i have always been a sucker for movies, television shows, and books which play with the idea of what-ifs and what-nots (sliding doors, sliders, choose your own adventure series) and the butterfly effect is a kick-ass, straight-in-your-face whirl of what-if scenarios. it portrays the reality and gravity of regret, grief and loss in an over-the-top, yet strangely sensible manner. if you had the power to change your past and save your loved ones, wouldn't you do it? wouldn't it make sense? of course, the lead, evan treborn (ashton kutcher), finds out that changing the past may have devastating effects on the future. he learns, as the film's slogan would have it, that to change one thing is to change everything.
one of the critiques critics had for the film was its obscenely genuine cruelty. i would not go into details here (to prevent spoiling those who not yet watched the film), but let it suffice to say that indeed, the film was cruel. but that's the environment the film was working on. the film would not have had such an effect on me if the cruelty was to be taken out of it. i would not have cringed in fear, i would not have choked in dismay, i would not have felt the pain in each of the characters. in fact, the different dimensions (i cannot find any other word for it) evan treborn went through would have seemed ordinary if not for the genuine cruelty which was present in each and every one. i thought that cruelty was the driving force that pushed evan treborn to begin moving back in time in the first place.
another critique is that there were too much erratic movements in the film. evan treborn kept coming back in the past like a raving lunatic. well, i didn't want to reduce such movements in time, because i truly enjoyed these scenes where i felt like i was being transported back in time with evan treborn. besides, i believe there is logical reason why he kept coming back. he wanted to rectify the mistakes he made in the past. of course, he should have realized that everything just wasn't coming together the way he planned, that in fact everything seemed to be going worse. but remember that the more he changed the past, the more wacky his future went, and the more desperate he became. he was then trapped in a vicious cycle that threatened to destroy his mind. in that state, it was difficult for him to think steadily, especially now that so much had been sacrificed, and yet so much remained at stake.
of course, i'm not all roses about the film. if i was, i would have given it a perfect mark. like all critics, i found that ashton kutcher, the host of punk'd, was a poor casting choice. everytime he appeared on-screen i half-expected him to be punking one of his co-actors. hee. i also remember snickering at his acting at some parts. well, i thought he didn't really try to create a new facet for the character, one that would remove him from the "comic" mold he placed himself into. other than ashton kutcher, though, i thought there was fine acting among the cast, especially among the child actors (watch out for evil, evil, evil tommy).
all in all, i say that it was a great film. one of the best indicators of this was that after jeland and i watched the film, we were conversing about the regrets we had in our lives, whether we would change them, and how we would change them. i realized, in the course of our conversation, that it didn't really matter. we may ask all the what-ifs we want, we may even be able to change the course of events in our lives, but in the end, we are all going meet some finality. what really matters is to whom we made the choices in our lives, and whether we stood by them or not.
March 25, 2004
a cranky story
March 24, 2004
study now: pay, drink, eat, sleep, chew, swallow, breathe later
but all of that changed as of 330 pm last march 24. my finals were over. i may be at the end of my wits and senses at this point, but damn it all, my finals were done. i feel, however, that i must go through all of it again. just to digest the totality of the whole thing. just to grasp the hardships i had taken. or just to make sure that i don't miss anything as i write this blog.
let me begin with my previous blog entry. that entry was written amidst the company of articles about premarital sex, homosexuality, invalid marriages, concubinage, and the like. i was studying for my theology exam then. it turned out (and this really is the most maddening thing), that i didn't really need to study the whole thing. i just needed to understand the last chapter of the book. yes, a part of me sighed in relief during the examination proper, but in retrospect, i could have used all that time studying for more fascinating subjects...
...like philosophy, which was my test yesterday. it was a test was done in oral form, and this type of test is the most frightening and vomit-inducing of all. it's amazing, really. you need to study 12X12 hours for a 12-minute talkfest with your teacher. hee. anyway, when i say "vomit-inducing," i do not mean that the subject's gross or disgusting. (quite the contrary, in fact.) i just dry-heave a lot on the oral exam day itself. my stomach seems to be in a constant state of coil and recoil moments before the oral exam starts. fortunately, everything went well. my love of philosophy just soared right there and then...
...which turned out to be the climax of my tuesday, because my lack of sleep eventually overtook me at some point and i lost all interest in studying for my remaining two exams. i woke up, realizing that 1) i wasn't in my dorm; 2) my blockmates sam and joey were staring at me; and 3) i was in mcdonalds with a huge red mark on my forehead. this jolted me out of my stupor (with a lot of effort and self-flogging [hey, hey, not that kind] involved). i bought a cup of coffee, and began studying for my math and history exams...
...and these two i took awhile ago. one right after the other. after the math test was done, my blockmates and i ran from one building to another, and i felt like i was in an episode of amazing race where my partner and i were trailing all other teams. i half-expected phil to appear by the door and eliminate us. of course, phil didn't appear, but my history teacher did. it turned out the race wasn't over. i was racing time trying to solve pesky differential equations during the math test, and still i was racing time figuring out socio-political issues during the history test.
sigh. thank God the race is over.
i have fed myself with pork hotcha and sweet banana (courtesy of tapa king). i have immersed myself in reading the recap of the latest american idol episode (courtesy of twop). i have fulfilled my promise to blog (courtesy of my previous post). but i am yet to fulfill my need for sleep. forgive me for leaving early, but the buck has got to stop here. the road has got to end. the rose has got to wither. the candle-- ok, enough eschatological metaphors already. i'm spent.
good night.
March 21, 2004
quick note
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just a side note: i just saw the butterfly effect (hmmm... this sounds familiar) last night. great, great film. my comments on it this wednesday.
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