[Movies] The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942)

I have to admit that what finally prompted me to start exploring the various movies of Bette Davis is primarily because of Neil Gaiman's upcoming computer game, Wayward Manor. When the game was announced, he mentioned that among his influences were stories like The Man Who Came to Dinner, which was a play before it became a movie.

This movie is rather interesting in terms of Bette Davis' overall career. This is well after her initial Oscar win for movies like Jezebel and yet still before All About Eve. So it's certainly an interesting part of her filmography to explore. Plus I was in the mood for a comedy.

So many movies owe a lot to the theater world, especially in this older period of Hollywood. In the same way that studios today are constantly looking at popular books and comics for movie inspiration, the older generation spent a lot of time looking at what had already been successful in the theater world. And that resulted in some interesting film projects and of course the big movie musicals later on.

[Theater] Maxie The Musicale: Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros (Bit by Bit Company)

Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros was certainly a unique LGBT movie experience - one that didn't focus on the usual tropes of the party circuit or living with HIV but instead on a rather innocent story of a boy first falling in love. The only quirk was that it was a gay boy falling in love with a police officer, but otherwise it was a classic first love sort of story. I enjoyed the movie a lot and I should probably take the time to write a new review for it given I had watched the movie before this blog was created.

When the news broke that Bit by Bit Company was adapting the movie into a stage musical, I have to admit that I was quite pleasantly surprised. The movie was already great and I was certainly curious to see how anyone would try to adapt it for the stage. And given how local queer musicals do have a flair for camp and comedy, I had a pretty good feeling about things in general.

This past Sunday, Tobie and I finally got to watch the play at the PETA Theater and it was even better than I had expected - and this is already given rather positive reviews from critics and friends alike. The show was pretty amazing and I hope my review captures even just a part of what made it such a great show for me.

[TV] Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor (50th Anniversary Special)

When I post reviews of TV shows, I do my best to tackle them by season. But in the case of the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, I figured that the special episode deserved a review all of its own. And this is a little quirky since I delayed posting a formal review of the 7th series of Doctor Who precisely because I was waiting for this episode.

To round out this review, I'm also factoring in the two prequel mini-episodes aired before the big anniversary day - these being The Night of the Doctor and The Last Day. It may not seem like much, but it just helps better capture the entire 50th anniversary celebration properly.

And let's face it - a lot of us Doctor Who fans (or Whovians if you will) have been eagerly waiting for this episode ever since the series finale that first introduced us to John Hurt as being another incarnation of the Doctor. Given the promise of a story that would give us a better idea of what had happened during the now infamous Time War that is so often alluded to by the reboot incarnations of the Doctor starting from the Ninth, it has certainly been an event of much speculation and general curiosity. This special episode meant to address that and include a lot of fan pandering as well.

[Games] Marvel Puzzle Quest Dark Reign (Android)

Match three games have been around for ages and at their most basic they're a classic time suck. It's a simple concept that pretty much everyone can pick up on the fly and makes for great casual gaming. The fundamental concept still works and is behind the success of mobile games like Candy Crush.

In 2007, the world was introduced to Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. It was essentially another match three game, but this time married with fantasy RPG combat, in a manner of speaking. Thus you didn't just match tiles for the heck of it - each colored tile would now be used to trigger certain special abilities based on your selected Warlord. Thus the goal was not to reach a certain point level - the goal was to kill your opponent with the right sequence of matches that would make maximum use of your Warlord's powers.

Now D3 Publisher has come up with a new spin on the Puzzle Quest concept - this time working with the folks at Marvel for a retooling of their original game. And despite this being tagged as a "preview edition" based on the title screen, it's already proving to be quite an addicting way to kill time.

[Comics] Kung Paano Ako Naging Leading Lady

Admittedly the main reason we went to this year's Komikon was to pick up a copy of Carlo Vergara's Kung Paano Ako Naging Leading Lady. Sadly, we had been unable to catch the original staging of the one-act play that this comic was based on, so getting a copy of the comic seemed like the next best thing for now.

I first learned about Carlo Vergara through my partner Tobie - he had been a longtime fan of Carlo's work since the Flashpoint comics days and the two managed to become friends over the years due to Tobie's own comic book creating efforts. Thus it was Tobie that officially introduced me to the original Zsazsa Zaturnnah comic some time after we had gotten together. And while I had already watched the stage musical and the movie, it took Tobie to share a copy of the comic with me.

I've had a chance to meet Carlo Vergara a few times and the man is ridiculously humble despite all that he's achieved in the local comic book world. And seriously, his creating a queer superhero like Zsazsa Zaturnnah is a most unique achievement in itself in a world with so few superheroes that properly represent the LGBT community. And so beyond friendship, I'm more than inspired by his creativity and his penchant for telling stories and thus I'm more than happy to continue to support his work.

[Movies] The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

The success of the first Hunger Games movie pretty much ensured that the rest of the trilogy was going to receive a similar treatment. And I did enjoy that first movie - it was a great adaptation indeed. And here we are with the second movie in the trilogy just a year later.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the direct sequel to that prior movie and Jennifer Lawrence has returned to reprise her role as the protagonist Katniss Everdeen. And I have to admit, she totally brought the character to life in a manner that  few other actresses her age could have managed. And I think it's a fair statement to say that a lot of the success of the first movie has a lot to do with her.

Given I had read the book, I knew that this wasn't going to be a particularly happy book. Then again, the overall setting involved a weird post-apocalyptic world that celebrated fighting for their lives in the ultimate reality TV show. But yes, things get worse, as is the way of such trilogies. And things happen in a manner that does make this feel like The Empire Strikes Back all over again.

[Pink Scene] Quezon City World Pride Festival Cancelled

I have to admit, I had considered this to be a possibility but I still wasn't quite expecting it. This week the Quezon City Pride Council announced that they're cancelling the Quezon City World Pride Festival 2013 in order to reallocate the funds for the benefit of the victims of Typhoon Yolanda. Of the different events announced to be part of the festival, it seems that at least the InQCity Independent Pride Film Festival will still push through as another fundraiser for the same cause.

With TFP having announced the cancellation of the Metro Manila Pride Celebrations a few weeks ago, this is looking like the first year without any kind of LGBT Pride celebration (perhaps save for the various White Parties and Pride Parties back in June). More importantly, it may be the first year without an LGBT Pride March. And that is truly saddening. As much as I feel for those affected by the typhoon, the march and what it represents in terms of our overall fight for LGBT rights is still an important (and distinctly separate) issue.

There are talks going around of trying to push through with the March somehow outside of Quezon City, but it seems prudent to wait for an actual official announcement about that before reacting. I'd still want to march, most definitely. Let's see what happens over the course of the next two weeks.

[Movies] Doctor Who (1996)

Today is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, which is pretty much the longest-running science fiction TV show to-date. In yesterday's review post, I regretting not having found the time to watch the 1996 TV movie in time to schedule as a Friday post. But of course one thing led to another and between then and now, I was able to squeeze in some time to watch it together with my partner, Tobie. And we managed it just in time to properly wrap up Doctor Who Week!

And man, it was amazing and horrible at the same time.

The movie remains rather important in Whovian lore given this is pretty much the bridge between the Classic era of Doctor Who and the 2005 revival of the franchise. Sure, it was a weird TV movie that was really a backdoor pilot for a potential US Doctor Who series (that thankfully never happened). And yes, the movie really does carry a lot of the character traits of an American TV movie (throw in a B anywhere you like there). But until The Night of the Doctor mini-episode that acts as the prequel to the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor episode, this has been pretty much the only filmed adventure of the 8th Doctor.

[Movies] Jezebel (1938)

Drat, I sort of wanted to run a review of the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, but I haven't had time to watch it. Not that this isn't a movie worth reviewing of course - it's just that this is supposed to be Doctor Who Week after all.

Continuing my efforts to explore more Bette Davis movies (and don't think I've forgotten my Alfred Hitchcock project), I've come to the movie Jezebel, which seems to rank rather high on various lists of Bette Davis movies worth watching. Plus she did win an Academy Award for this film, so that says something.

Popular movie lore indicates that Bette Davis was originally favored to be cast in the now iconic Gone With The Wind. But when she didn't get the role, somehow Jezebel was determined to be the alternate movie that was provided in lieu of that role.

If anything, this often cited as the moment when her career really took off, and thus watching it is pretty essential.

[TV] The Legend of Korra - Book One: Air

I was a big fan of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender. And it's hard not to be - the show remains to be an amazing story filled with compelling characters in a world that is familiar and yet completely different. Like many others, Tobie and I followed the adventures of Avatar Aang and his friends as he learned more about his responsibilities and ultimately faced Fire Lord Ozai.

Aang's story finally resolved itself after three amazing seasons - and the ending was quite the fulfilling one indeed. But it also pretty much closed the book on telling more stories and so we all wondered if they would ever continue telling us the stories of the Avatar.

Enter The Legend of Korra, which is the follow-up to that first story. Aang's time as Avatar is over and we are introduced to the new Avatar, this being the rather free-spirited Korra of the Water Nation. And she's worlds different from Aang in so many ways - and yet they also share some similarities. The show sets up new adventures for us to explore as we find out what has happened to this world since the end of the first show.

[Games] Star Wars: Tiny Death Star (Android)

I never got into the Tiny Tower crazy when it swept across mobile platforms and became quite the popular time suck. But recently NimbleBit worked with Disney Mobile to launch a re-skin of the game called Star Wars: Tiny Death Star. So yeah, a blatant retooling of an existing game with a Star Wars theme was enough to get me curious enough to download the app.

I initially downloaded the app while they were still offering free credits for all new users. However version 1.1.1 suffered a number of bugs including how the app would pretty much randomize your level progress at times when you restart the app. Updating to 1.1.2 corrected this issue but also forced you to start again from zero without the bonus credits.

So yeah, that slightly soured my first forray into the game. But oddly enough, I'm still playing.

[Books] Straken (High Druid of Shannara Book 3)

Today's review brings us to the end of Terry Brook's High Druid of Shannara trilogy of books, which has been an interesting romp in the world of Shannara. And while this wasn't a necessarily brilliant work, it was still a pretty fun ride.

The world of Shannara and the writings of Terry Brooks in general seem to have quite a number of recurring themes. You can call them tropes or many just key standards of the world that come back and back and back. And for the Shannara books, our big focus will always be the Ohmsford family. This has been a good thing and and a bit of a band thing depending on the particular book and the story worked the family into the narrative. But in many ways, they'll always be the heroes of the series.

This trilogy really took things to a particular level given it has all been about the effort to rescue Grianne Ohmsford from the Forbidding - an effort that involved quite a number of members of the Ohmsford family as well. I appreciate the focus, but man it's like the whole range of possibilities won't let this family get a break. And I really think they could get some time off some time.

[Movies] R.I.P.D. (2013)

Here's another comic book adaptation movie that involves source material that I've never read before. This is also another movie review that I'm writing for a movie that was generally panned by most critics. And while movie was definitely more of the "popcorn flick" variety, I don't necessarily think it was all that bad.

But yes, I think the movie does involve a lot of elements that we now consider to be part of the Hollywood formula for many movies of this nature. And as much as the formula can be rather predictable at times, no every movie needs to be a trailblazer of some sort in terms of expanding our cultural horizons or something like that.

This movie movie is a good amount of fun, but it definitely could have been better in many respects. And as much as I've been known to enjoy a little Ryan Reynolds eye candy in the past, I'm not too sure whether or not it was a good idea to include him in this movie. But let's go through the review proper before we address this at length.

[Technicolor Musings] Betchiwariwariwap Launched!

So a few friends and I have just launched an LGBT social media project that we're calling Betchiwariwariwap! Like a lot of Filipino gay speak, the work's precise meaning is never fully clear but at the very least it's a vote of confidence of support for something (with a heck of a lot of suffixes). For now it's based in Facebook but overtime we hope to expand to other social media platforms like Twitter and Google+.

The project has three main goals:
1) Spread positive, uplifting news / stories relevant to the LGBT community
2) Provide a one-stop shop for information on local LGBT-related events
3) Promote positive LGBT concepts as opposed to limiting stereotypes.

I envisioned this to be a very positive project given there are so many challenges that the LGBT community already faces, we certainly don't to be reminded of such woes on a daily basis. Following the basic principle of taking time to smell the roses, the page is really about celebrating the succceses we've achieved as a global community and to help different LGBT groups and networks get more attention.

So whether gay, straight or at least LGBT-friendly, I'd really appreciate if you take time to like our Facebook page and share it with your friends. And while the posts are often introduced in swardspeak to some extent, the core articles and images are universally understandable.

Join us in making the world a more color place! Bet niyo ba? Betchiwariwariwap!

[Movies] All About Eve (1950)

All About Eve is one of those movies that is often celebrated as a great Bette Davis movie. And when you involve Bette Davis, you also tap into a significant part of LGBT culture that many queens celebrate, primarily in the US. And let's face it, the movie is just overflowing with brilliant barbs and sassy quotes that may gay men relish introducing into a conversation. This movie has become so gay that I was tempted to post this on Sunday as part of my "pink culture" posts.

And like many older movies, it had long been on my radar for viewing but would always get pushed aside for one reason or another. But recently I decided to make a serious effort to acquire a copy of he movie and to finally watch it.

So one lazy evening before work I found myself with enough time to watch this classic piece of film making. And more than two hours later, I was more than happy that I had finally gotten through this epic tale that is truly a classic, whether or not you enjoy dressing up like Bette Davis.

[TV] Leverage: Season 4

My partner Tobie and I got into Leverage a little late in the game and once the momentum really got going, we heard the news that the show was already set for cancellation by the end of its fifth season. And thus we ended up dragging out how many episodes we'd watch at a time in order to make the most of the show.

And thus the delay for these reviews - I mean come on, we still have finished watching the fifth and final season of the show. We're funny that way and it happens over and over again given how Tobie hates it when good shows end. You can only imagine how difficult it was to get to the end of shows that Tobie really loved like Lost and The Office.

And we've certainly enjoyed the unique character dynamics between the Leverage crew - the biggest part of why we've committed to the show through all these seasons. And this penultimate season remains pretty good, but admittedly not quite the best that the show has come up with.

[Games] Jurassic Park Builder (Android)

So I've moved on from Prehistoric Park as my theme park fix in exchange for the licensed work Jurassic Park Builder. As the title implies, the game makes extensive use of characters from the Jurassic Park movies. And instead of Flintstones-style amusement rides, the only attractions that you'll be creating in this game involve various dinosaurs.

So yeah, it's just like the movie in that regard.

The game is nothing amazing and it can be quite the time suck once you get into it. And it's not because of amazingly compelling gameplay but more because it becomes pretty easy to get into a routine and just repeat those same actions over and over again. In that regard, it's not very different from many other mobile games out there.

[Books] Fortunately, the Milk

Neil Gaiman is certainly an author that many of us have fallen in love with. His writing is fantastic and he has a way of developing fiction whose appeal cuts across age groups and backgrounds. And while his more adult fiction remains inappropriate for children at times, his children's fiction works perfectly well for everyone.

This latest book is definitely aimed at younger audiences given it even includes illustrations within the book. I think the last illustrated book that I bought (apart from graphic novels) was The Invention of Hugo Cabret. But the illustrations in this case really complement the story. Plus they're done by Skottie Young, an artist that I have come to enjoy a lot given his work on the Marvel Oz comics.

So here's another great adventure for all you Gaiman fans and for all those who just enjoy the kind of tall tales that our fathers used to tell us. And the precise details of the book make it even more brilliant.

[Movies] Trance (2013)

I can't necessarily say that I'm a Danny Boyle fan, although it does seem inevitable that I'm bound to watch his movies sooner or later. He's one of those known directors that always get a decent amount of notice among movie critics circles. And it's not that his movies are bad or anything - it's just that a lot of times the stories don't quite seem like something that I would watch.

This particular movie involves James McAvoy, which was certainly a major draw for me in this case. His career remains a rather interesting one and it looks like he puts some thought into the types of movies that he gets involved in. So I'd like to put a little trust into his choices - or at least those of his agent, depending how how he manages such business arrangements.

I didn't know much about this movie before watching it, but I was certainly impressed once things started unfolding. While it is by no means perfect, it still had a fairly compelling story supported by a rather interesting cast of talented actors and actresses.

[Pink Scene] TFP Cancels 2013 Metro Manila Pride Celebration

This weekend TFP announced that it was cancelling its 2013 Metro Manila Pride Celebrations for undisclosed reasons. As much as I have been critical of the group in recent months (specifically regarding how they handled their initial marketing for this event) and my history as a volunteer for the group, at the end of the day this is sad news. After 18 years of working to promote LGBT pride in Metro Manila through the annual Metro Manila Pride March and other activities, this marks the first year that TFP will not have an event.

In addition, the closing paragraph inviting others to take on the mantle of leadership for the group is a little unsettling and in itself hints at some of the possible reasons that the event is not pushing through. I'll leave it to all of you to discuss among yourselves.

At the very least, we still have the first Quezon City World Pride Festival to look forward to this year. Among Metro Manila cities, this is the first city-aligned Pride event ever and with luck this may become a model for future pride celebrations in other cities in the Philippines. With TFP's future looking a little uncertain, we may have indeed reached that point when city-level interest and awareness is needed to take the fight for LGBT rights to a more direct level in terms of talking to our local government.

What is important is that we always continue to fight for LGBT rights in the Philippines and celebrate the diversity of who we are.

[Movies] The Usual Suspects (1995)

This review is the result of an afternoon home alone and me deciding that I needed to address some of the gaps in my movie watching history. And due to age, I missed out on catching The Usual Suspects when it first hit theaters. I just can't explain why I was able to watch Copycat around the same period. Oh childhood.

The movie had gotten a lot of attention from the various award-giving bodies. And I've seen a number of references made back to it over the years, so that just added to my annoyance that I couldn't relate.

I do realize that I have a bit of a thing for caper films - or stories that follow around the criminals instead of members of law enforcement or something. It's a fun way to go through the reveal of how things went down instead of the focus on trying catching the criminals. It's hard to explain, but I really think having things the other way makes a lot more sense to me, entertainment-wise.

[TV] Leverage: Season 3

As a show, Leverage is actually over given the show wrapped up with its fifth season last year. And given that, my partner and I have sort of been crawling towards the end of the series in terms of our TV-watching - something that always happens whenever a show that we like is drawing to a close. It's a painful process of letting go, but we'll eventually get there.

For now, I just realized that I'm rather behind in my reviews for this particular show, thus I figured that I might as well address these gaps before we finally get around to watching the last few episodes of the show.

I think what we most enjoy about the show is how much the characters feel like the sort of characters that people create for tabletop role-playing games. And yes, I'm aware that there is actually an RPG system designed for the show. But seriously, each is ridiculously specialized in nature and yet are able to pull up seeming random skills as needed in order to deal with unusual situations that come along.

And the humor is so gamer humor at times - but I must admit that I lack the proper means to convey what I mean by that to my satisfaction.

[Games] Star Command (Android)

I've been quite the supporter of the various Humble Bundle sales given they're a great way to get a heck of a lot of new games at a great rate - plus you control where the money goes. Thus whether you're feeling especially charitable or you just want to make sure the game developers don't get shafted, then the Humble Bundle model works pretty great.

I picked up the Humble Mobile Bundle 2 specifically for this game - Star Command. The game promised a nicely tactical experience with touches of popular franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars. The end result is a most interesting game that has taken up a lot of my free time and has resulted in minor muscle pain due to extended playing on my HTC One. You know how it is when you get into a really good game. It just sucks you in.

[Books] The Adventure Time Encyclopædia

So my partner and I have become rather major Adventure Time fans. We watch the show faithfully, we've started to collect some of the toys that make it to the Philippines and I've eve gone as far as picking up a few of the more child-oriented books that have been released for the series. I regret nothing.

Now this little treasure is the The Adventure Time Encyclopædia, and it is precisely what it promises to be. This is your guide to the Land of Ooo and it's many colorful inhabitants. Thus if ever wanted to know more ab out the show in terms of its characters, locations, and other fun bits, then this is a book that any fan absolutely must add to their collection.

To be fair, the book is not a complete view of everything and anything that has appeared in the show - that's something best left to the online wiki that the fan community tries to maintain. But it's still a pretty expansive book that covers a lot of ground in a rather humorous fashion. And yes, this is more than just a children's book.

[Movies] Thor: The Dark World (2013)

In the Marvel movie universe, at times Thor feels a little like the red-headed stepchild in the corner. As much as Thor is canonically known to be one of the founding members of the Avengers, he's not exactly one that a heck of a lot of people love. And a big part of the challenge of liking Thor is the fact that he's supposed to be a mythological god figure - not exactly the kind of character that people can immediately relate to.

But since Thor appears in the Avengers movies, then he has to continue to develop in his own independent movies, as appears to be the case for all major characters there. And so we now have a sequel - one that had its share of good and bad moments but on the whole just didn't feel quite as amazing as I'd have liked it to be. Of all the Marvel movies that have come out in recent years, I think the Thor movies are definitely among the weaker ones (not counting the prior Hulk movies).

But hey, it could have been much, much worse.

[Pink Scene] Quezon City World Pride Festival 2013

Earlier this year, the Quezon City government announced that it was forming an LGBT Pride Council to "oversee the integration of all city programs and projects for the LGBT community". And while we have a large number of LGBT groups active in the country, there are very few cases when a city government actually takes steps to get involved and it's definitely a big reason I'm glad that I'm a QC resident. 

The Pride Council is led by movie and television director Soxie Topacio and the rest of the group consists of an interesting mix of LGBT advocates and government officials. But of course the real question about this whole initiative is what they're actually going to do to help the Quezon City LGBT community.

Beyond operating a one-stop QC protection center for victims and survivors of gender-based violence and abuse in the city, their first major project for the year is putting together Quezon City's first major pride activity. Called the World Pride Festival, the month-long event promises to be a pretty exciting celebration of the LGBT community and its allies.

[Movies] Rubber (2010)

The movie industry is full of tropes and cliches - something that's pretty much inevitable at this point, whether intentional or not. So it's interesting when someone is able to take all those familiar elements and spin them around into something completely different.

Rubber turned out to be one of those really out there movies that definitely made an effort to be different by dipping into the pool of the downright bizarre. It's not quite a horror movie nor is it an outright comedy either. It's rather surreal at times and there's definitely a generous amount of 4th wall breaking.

Depending on how you take the movie, one might argue that Rubber is either amazingly brilliant and complex or it's ridiculously stupid and absurd. And such extreme reactions to a single film can speak a lot about its merits. At the very least, one has to admire the team for being brave enough to put the movie together in the first place instead of just sticking to what has now become typical or expected in terms of movies.