[Pink Scene] Call to March for LGBT Pride!

Tomorrow is the first of December, and that means it's time for the annual Metro Manila LGBTQ Pride March. But this year there are actually two Pride Marches - one organized by Task Force Pride (TFP) in Malate and another organized by the Quezon City Pride Council and naturally in Quezon City. And while some have started to ask why there have to be two marches as if this was somehow a bad thing, I'd like to stress that this isn't bad at all.

In other countries we see different LGBTQ Pride festivals and marches hosted in different cities - not just states or political territories like NCR / Metro Manila but in actual cities. It's a great sign of support for the LGBTQ community and a good venue for getting more support for our fight for equal rights and full recognition in the eyes of the law.

For TFP, this marks the 20th year of LGBTQ Pride Marches in Metro Manila. The Metro Manila Pride march is the oldest LGBTQ Pride March in Asia and that's a lot to be thankful for indeed. We still have a long way to go in terms of national recognition and advancing any national legislation to protect the rights of the pink community, but that doesn't mean we should stop fighting.

For Quezon City this is the first LGBTQ Pride March to be officially hosted by the. Given the many moves by the city to support the LGBTQ community including a rather sweeping anti-discrimination city ordinance, there's a lot to be said about Quezon City as being a pro-LGBT city. And these efforts definitely deserve some support.

So whether you march in Malate on December 6 or you march in Quezon City on December 13 or both - stand up and be recognized! Show support for LGBTQ Rights! Whether you're a member of the community or a straight ally who wants to show support for your LGBTQ friends, then be sure to join at least one of the Pride Marches this year.

[Movies] Batman & Robin (1997)

When I decided to post reviews for the entire "classic" Batman movies, I knew that I was going to have a tricky time with this last one. Let's face it, Batman & Robin is just one of those movies that seems to dominate a lot of different "worst movie" lists for many reasons and I can't say that I entirely disagree with them. Then again, I'd like to think that the movie still has some merit on its own as opposed to merely being probably the worst movie in the original quadrilogy of Batman movies.

Batman & Robin marked the series really going in a direction that felt completely different from the original vision defined by Tim Burton in Batman. And this shift was clearly not well-received by those fans who started with the 1989 movie, but I can see how it could have served to open the doors to new fans entirely. And this was obviously want the studio wanted - to tap into a much younger fan base and sell more toys.

But yeah, just because you're making a movie being marketed to kids doesn't necessarily mean you have to make a movie so silly, it's beyond the acceptable range of ridiculous. Or something like that.

[TV] Over the Garden Wall

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Over the Garden Wall when buzz started to build around the web. I heard nothing about this project while it was in development and as a limited series it took a while before feedback from the first few episodes of this mini-series started to really get around. But when we finally took the time to watch the show, I have to admit that we were pretty much blown away.

It's hard to describe what exactly Over the Garden Wall is as a television experience, but it did invoke similar feelings to when Tobie and I first really sat down to watch Adventure Time. We knew that we were seeing something pretty amazing from a truly creative perspective, even though we couldn't quite articulate all the things that made us like the show so much.

This is no ordinary cartoon, especially from an American perspective. If anything, it feels like it carries a certain maturity and complexity that one more associates with Japanese anime like the works of Studio Ghibli and other groups. And this sort of storytelling is always welcome.

[Games] Angry Birds Transformers (iOS)

I never really got into the Angry Birds franchise for one reason or another. They're decent enough games but I guess physics simulators just never really drew me in from a gaming perspective. I'm more of a puzzle / strategy kind of guy when it comes to the mobile market.

And then Angry Birds Transformers was announced and I was rather skeptical about the game and I was very much prepared to hate it. But then the first trailer for the game came out, which was essentially the game's opening sequence, and I have to admit that I was now curious. And the whole 1980's treatment for things (including VHS tracking lines!) was an interesting decision.

The actual game didn't feel like the other Angry Birds game and it certainly showed a lot of potential. But I've been playing the game for a while now and it has gotten rather bogged down in that black hole many freemium games setup. Such a shame really.

[Comics] Spider-Island

I've previously written about my love for the perhaps more "classic" Spider-Man for many number of reasons. But the Clone Saga just broke my heart and I never really went back to Spider-Man and practically most of Marvel for quite a number of years. But that doesn't mean I don't still hold some love for the character. And recent comiXology sales have sort of preyed on my overall curiosity about more recent Spider-Man stories.

It started when I picked up the complete volume 2 run of Scarlet Spider and read up on how the heck Kaine went from being the enigmatic, horribly scarred Peter Parker clone to, well, a gutsier, edgier perfect Peter Parker clone. And all roads led me back to the Spider-Island event, which seemed a little ridiculous to read about as synopsis.

But a recent comiXology sale got me to pick the entire Spider-Island bundle for a good deal. And I have to admit, it was a nice experience to get back into reading a Spider-Man focused story. But then this also reminded me of the horrific plot minefield that had been created after the One More Day and Brand New Day story arcs.

I don't think I was fully ready to see a Peter Parker who was not involved with Mary Jane Watson.

[Movies] A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

I'm not much of a Seth MacFarlane fan for one reason or another. I suppose the fact that one of the most common adjectives used to describe his humor includes "juvenile" explains a bit part of the reason behind my general lack of interest. But I recognize that he's developed enough of a fan following to mean that I can't entirely ignore him at this point. And these days, he seems more and more interested in making movies.

A Million Ways to Die in the West really felt like a project that came out of nowhere. Thus far MacFarlane's work has capitalized on his ability to capture Boston humor in his TV shows and even his movies. But to go in a completely different direction by making a Western instead of something in a more modern setting did strike me as rather odd.

But h was able to gather quite the cast for this movie, and so I was a little more than curious to see how things would ultimately turn out. Ted had been a rather entertaining movie that certainly helped demonstrate that MacFarlane had the ability to be more than just a TV creator. In contrast, this movie fumbled in many other ways.

[Movies] August (2011)

When I map out my Sunday LGBT posts, the easiest fallback is to write a review. But in order to write a review, I need something to review. And thus I flip through my rolodex of LGBT content and try to figure out what I haven't watched or read or interacted with. Sometimes I'm looking for a particular type of movie to watch. More often than not I'm just happy to find something that I haven't seen yet.

So I walked into the whole watching August experience with little to no clue whatsoever as to what the movie might be about. And I've mentioned this a number of times on the blog, but I do enjoy these moments since it means that I'm not affected by media bias or even the slants that trailers try to present as being the point of the movie and all that buzz. Hooray to naked enjoyment of a thing!

This movie touches on a number of themes that aren't new but because of how common they are, they develop some meaning. After all, because of how common the subject matter is and how many people can relate to the experience, that makes the content more accessible, right?

[Movies] Batman Forever (1995)

Batman Returns represented the height of the "classic" Batman movie era and certainly a great time for superhero movies. But then Batman Forever came along and sort of represented how things went downhill for this chapter of the franchise. And before you argue that there's an older Batman movie that could probably carry the "classic" label due to tenure, you and I both know the Adam West era is a unique experience of its own that's not necessarily quite Batman.

To be fair, a lot of things changed. Tim Burton was no longer connected to the project and that also meant Michael Keating vacating he titular role. Thus the folks at Warner had to bring in some new talent to fill in the key roles, and their choices probably made sense at the time.

Disclosure moment: I actually had a foolish boyhood crush on Val Kilmer for one reason or another. Maybe it was the stupid way his lip purses out. Maybe I just enjoyed him in the campy comedy classic Top Secret. But for one reason or another, I sort of liked him, and I think this movie had something to do with that.

[Theater] Mamma Mia! (Marina Bay Sands)

As a general rule, I do my best to avoid catching any live theater performance during its opening weekend. It's practically a superstition when you think about it, but I prefer to give the cast and crew that first weekend to get used to the venue and the working environment as a whole and to work to kinks. Even a touring company that has worked together for a few months still needs time to get used to a new stage and all that jazz.

But one thing led to another and circumstances had us catching the Singapore leg of Mamma Mia! on tour precisely during its opening weekend. And while the material in itself is pretty strong and can survive most encounters, there was something somewhat lacking in how things came together. But at the same time, I can totally see how things can still work out for the team given another week of shows or something.

[TV] The Dresden Files: Season 1

While digging through our hard drives for something to watch, I once again came across our copies of The Dresden Files and figured it was about time to finally try watching the show. And while I've yet to read the books themselves (much to the complaints of many friends online), I figured the series might be a soft way to look into the franchise.

Knowing that this adaptation only lasted a single season was a bit of constraint in my mind for how much effort to invest into this show. The general complaints around the show have ranged from its inability to fully capture the tone of the book or just the quirky way the overall narrative was handled. But the show was never meant to be a faithful adaptation of the book series, as stressed by author Jim Butcher himself. But I don't think it's unreasonable for folks to still expect that from the show despite the warnings ahead of time.

I think the show lacked overall direction in terms of a possible meta-plot or really exploring more about the life of protagonist Harry Dresden himself. It stuck to a case-of-the-week format and did little to actually talk about Dresden's history until maybe the tail end of the series. And even then, that wasn't much. But it certainly had a decent enough humorous tone I suppose.

[Games] Munchkin Deluxe

Steve Jackon's Munchkin occupies a special place in the gaming world. It's a quirky little game derived from an RPG insult/accusation for characters that are perfectly designed for combat or something without too much care for the role-playing aspect things. Creating a "munchkin" isn't exactly a bad thing, but at times it can be considered to be unimaginative.

Munchkin as a card game tries to capture the experience of fighting monsters with your little character as you work on increasing your level and gathering more treasure. The monsters are ridiculous long with everything else in the game, and that's the fun part of it all.

This Deluxe edition of the game tried to address a few of aspects of the game that weren't fully addressed in the initial release like providing an easier way to keep score and such. But it's still the same level of Munchkin goodness that helped start an entire franchise.

[Books] Doctor Who: Summer Falls

It's interesting how the folk who handle Doctor Who's expanded marketing have opted to write books based on titles shown or mentioned on the show. It's one thing to directly adapt the events of an episode into a novel. It's an entirely different thing to consider creating a story based on a book cover that was featured in an episode.

Summer Falls is another such novel, similar to the previously released The Angel's Kiss, which was a Melody Malone mystery. I wasn't quite sure what t expect from this book since it doesn't actually feature characters we know directly from the show, given Melody Malone was actually River Song. Instead we just have a story that only exists because the book appeared in the show. That's really not much to go on.

But to be fair, it was a fairly interesting little adventure that naturally has echoes of the show, even though the Doctor does not "officially" appear in the story. And that's well and good enough - it allows the book to try and get along through its own merits for the most part.

[Movies] Big Hero 6 (2014)

Ever since John Lasseter became Chief Creative Officer for Disney after the full acquisition of Pixar, we've seen a steady evolution in how Disney animated movies are being handled compared to before. And while not all Disney features are totally Pixar-like in nature, there's certainly a greater emphasis on more emotionally-driven storytelling and a full celebration of the genre.

Big Hero 6 is an interesting mix of a Marvel Comics intellectual property being turned into a Disney movie - the sort of synergies that come with Disney owning so many different entertainment companies. It doesn't feel quite like a Marvel adventure (if you've seen the earlier Marvel animated movies, you'd understand what I'm talking about) and it's not quite a Pixar movie either. It's certainly uniquely Disney in feel, but certainly in line with the stronger storytelling mindset we've seen in more recent releases.

It's a movie with some decent action and a number of funny bits to be certain. But more importantly, it's a movie with a lot of heart and quite the powerful message to deliver.

[Movies] Get Real (1998)

Since I group my movies by year, I ended up watching Get Real shortly after finishing Edge of Seventeen for one reason or another. I wasn't exactly intending to go on a little marathon of coming of age movies - it just sort of happened. Or maybe I just have a thing for British movies and TV shows that make it hard to switch away to something else.

Get Real has a rather different message though, and one that weighs a little heavier. This isn't a bad thing - again it just sort of happens. It's not like we look at all movies solely in comparison to others after all. That would be rather rude or something.

But it's a pretty lengthy film running at 110 minutes, but given the pacing of things and all that needed to happen, the timing makes sense. Still, it feels like it was a pretty ambitious project for the time, especially since it was depicting a period in Britain's history when homosexuality remained highly illicit and thus hardly talked about. And here you this closeted young man whose only certain thing in life is probably his sexuality.

[Movies] Batman Returns (1992)

After Tim Burton's first Batman movie, the floodgates were wide open for future superhero endeavors. But more importantly the path was clear for another Batman movie - and we got a real killer one.

Batman Returns on its own is one of my favorite Batman movies of all time. It had an amazing balance of origin stories (in terms of the villains) and strong performances all around. But it also indirectly set the pattern for sequels needing more than one villain and theoretically even more villains in subsequent sequels.

This unusual pattern led to some pretty bad movies further down the road as the story would get increasingly confusing and watered down with all the additional villains thrown into the mix.

But this one was just perfect - it had the right balance of all the different elements that just made things work. And if there's one Batman movie from this era that you have time to see, then it should be this one.

[TV] The New Doctor Who: Series 8

The 2013 Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Time of the Doctor" formally introduced us to the latest incarnation of the Doctor. We all know him to be the 12th Doctor (since the War Doctor was something else entirely) and this 8th series of Doctor Who was meant to feature the 12th Doctor at a level that's far more prominent than his eyebrows.

Doctor Who remains to be the longest-running science fiction show on television and it has gotten pretty used to dealing with regenerations and everyone getting used to a new Doctor fulfilling the role. And this was one of those cases when we get an existing Companion in the form of Clara being pretty much the audience guide to this latest incarnation of our favorite Time Lord.

This season featured quite a number of changes in terms of the writing. And while the long-term meta-plot has been a regular feature of the show since the 2005 reboot, this season in particular felt like it had some major themes that it wanted to tackle and it made sure to bring everything together at the very end of things.

[Gaming] Ludo: Boardgame Bar & Cafe

It is interesting to note the recent rise in popular being experienced by board games and other tabletop gaming activities. I can't quite explain what has happened - perhaps web shows like Tabletop have helped increase awareness and to some extent exposure to new board games or even new business ventures like the Gaming Library, that have made it a heck of a lot easier to get some of the new board games locally. Whatever it is, there's definitely a growing market for board game related entertainment.

Enter Ludo: Boardgame Bar & Cafe, which I think has pretty much set the gold standard for board game cafes thus far. At first I was pretty worried that Ludo might not do well, but it seems that we've been quickly proven wrong. The only problem with the place that I can think of is that it's become really, really popular and getting a table can be a challenge, especially during holidays and weekends. And that's not too bad a problem to have at all.

[Books] Raising Steam

I've come to better appreciate the quirky adventures of Moist von Lipwig more and more given the unique stories that have been crafted for him. And while pretty much every Discworld novel involves introducing something new into their part of the universe, I distinctly feel that Moist has been integral to some major innovations given the Post Office, the Royal Bank and now the very first Railway.

Raising Steam is the book that will pretty much open the doors for Discworld literally going steampunk, I suppose. After all, the big focus in the first true railway in Ankh-Morpork, and ultimately the Disc. We've already seen how innovations like the clacks towers have really started to change the way things work around Discworld and this book just pushes things further.

Surprisingly enough, this book also continues to explore some of the complex politics in Uberwald, particularly involving the Low King of the Dwarfs, as most recently brought into focus in Thud! And while at first I wasn't quite sure what Pratchett wanted to accomplish here, in the end the way that the main railway story worked in connection with the Low King's story turned out quite wonderfully.

[Movies] Interstellar (2014)

High concept science fiction movies aren't all that common - they're obviously not very appealing to the general market, and that tends to make them less enticing to studio executives. And it was a bit of a surprise to find out that Christopher Nolan had decided to take on such a project given his general body of work. Inception certainly demonstrated that he can handle such complex plot lines in how he translates the story into a beautiful visual narrative. But this still felt a bit further afield.

Interstellar is a big science fiction movie complete with ambiguous trailers that talk about a need for humanity to leave the planet to escape...something. And while this is a decent enough quick summary of what the movie is generally about. it does not capture the complexity of the tale and the obvious effort to try and be as accurate as possible when it comes to how it depicts various concepts from modern physics and other related science fields.

Tobie and I definitely wanted to see this movie in a proper theater as opposed to home video given Nolan's past work. And as expected, it was a brilliant experience that was slightly dampened by our annoying audience that laughed at weird moments and generally struggled with the concepts presented in the film. But that's life in the big city for you.

[Movies] Edge of Seventeen (1998)

It's easy to dismiss LGBT coming of age movies as a trope of the pink film industry that has probably worn out its welcome. But for as long as there are still young gay men and women who still need to come out and stand up for who they are, these stories will always deserve to be told. For many of us, it's these movies and TV shows and other pieces of media that act as inspiration. For many these are road maps in terms of how to figure out who we are and come to terms with being different.

Edge of Seventeen has been lingering in our movie collection for some time now - something I had acquired because it appears on a number of popular LGBT movie lists. And I wasn't expecting too much when I finally loaded it - I figured it would be a decent enough movie to watch just for the purpose of writing a review.

But then, well, it's hard to explain. The movie didn't just play - it happened. And my own blogging efforts got a little delayed as the movie played on and the story keep me glancing up from my computer. It's not necessarily a perfect movie, but it's one that feels wonderfully familiar.

There's something to be said about watching a coming of age movie once you're finally out of the closet. It gives you a little perspective.

[Movies] Batman (1989)

My Friday movie reviews are always an interesting opportunity to revisit old favorites or to actually spend some time re-examining older movies from a different perspective. And now I think I'm going to dive into the older Batman movies, save for the 1966 Adam West one - I don't think I'm prepared to go back that far.

Instead we'll start with the 1989 Batman movie - perhaps the first major comic book movie franchise to have a decent amount of success given the number of sequels it spawned. And while not all of them were necessarily of the same quality, they certainly made an impact on a generation of comic book fans.

I'll always consider this first Batman movie to be the start of the modern major superhero movie franchises. As much as there were various one-shot films and the old Superman movies, nothing quite captured the market quite like the Batman movies. It also marked an effort to address such movies in a more serious manner as opposed to making them overly campy and cartoonish in nature.

[TV] Miranda: Series 3

So given the glowing reviews that I gave Series 1 and Series 2 of Miranda, it's easy for anyone to see that Tobie and I really got into the show. Although it has been a little painful to note that this third series has thus far been the last full series of the show to air. It has been a painful wait since then, but it seems that there will be some Miranda specials coming our way later this year.

Despite the show's somewhat uncertain future and the fact that folks been waiting for new Miranda content since 2011, this is still an amazingly brilliant show and I'll continue to recommend it strongly to just about anyone. And I was a little surprised to note that I hadn't written a proper review for this third series just yet, and so here we are.

We've been tracking Miranda's unusual love life through several series of the show now. And regardless of all the other people who have come along in the show, I think it's safe to say that we've all been rooting for her to finally get together with Gary.

But like any good sitcom, that can't quite happen right away.

[Games] Last Night on Earth: Growing Hunger Expansion

I had been pretty much sold on Last Night on Earth when I had first watched the Tabletop episode featuring the game. This feeling carried over to when I finally bought a copy of the base game since I immediately gambled on purchasing the Growing Hunger expansion as well. And it actually took us a few game nights before we felt comfortable enough with the base game before finally bringing out the expansion.

The Growing Hunger expansion is pretty basic as far as expansions go - it's all about adding more characters more board pieces and more cards. But this doesn't make it a bad expansion - just not quite as exception as compared later expansions.

I enjoyed reading this Board Game Geek review that cites that this isn't the sort of expansion that would get people unimpressed with the first game to get on the bandwagon, as it were. And that's a pretty decent assessment. It's good and adds more of the same fun that we've seen thus far but it's nothing amazing either.

[Books] Doctor Who: Sands of Time (Monster Collection Edition)

And here we at, at the end of the Doctor Who Monster Collection series of books. It has certainly been a fun little adventure seeing different aspects of the Doctor Who Universe with the help of various Doctors, Companions and of course aliens, monsters and such. And has been quite the worthwhile literary journey.

Doctor Who: Sands of Time is the last of the re-released book in this series featuring the Osiran mummies featured in the classic episode, "Pyramids of Mars". And while they're not necessarily some of the most prolific Doctor Who antagonists in the history of the show, they certainly have a rather rich back story and some pretty compelling motivations.

Of all the different Monster Collection books that I've read so far, I was most impressed with how this one had been crafted. As much as Doctor Who has a time traveler as its protagonist, it's not common for stories to be all complicated because of so much back and forth time travel moments. Time travel has mostly just been  a way to get to where the adventure might be (whether past, present, or future) and not necessarily integral to the plot itself. But this story was rather different in that regard, and the final execution was pretty impressive.

[Movies] Sharknado 2: The Second One

Oh man, I wish I had remembered to post this review last week as part of a lead-up to Halloween or something. Not that I think these movies are scary, but they do try to draw inspiration from B-movie culture, which has historically involved a lot of cheesy horror movies. And you can't get much campier than with SyFy's various movies that have pit giant octopuses versus sharks and squids and who else knows what. And given SyFy's rather close ties with The Asylum, there are some deliciously bad movies out there.

Sharknado 2: The Second One was pretty much inevitable given the social media success that was Sharknado. The success of the first movie was pretty much based in its ridiculousness. As unrealistic as the plot was, it still oddly worked and it was automatically ripe for indulgent campiness.

The sequel tries to capitalize on that "it's so bad, it's good" formula and continued to try and amp up the fun with even more mayhem. And I really can't definitively say whether or not this was better than the first movie or not.

[Pink Culture] We Deserve More Than Just Tolerance

In June, the Inquirer cited the Philippines as being one of the most gay-friendly countries in the world based on their interpretation a Pew Research Center survey. The headline was definitely clickbait since we were pretty much in the top ten countries who answered positively to a particular question. But given its abstract nature, it was easy to confuse.

When we look at how the local media have handled the Jennifer Laude case (and that's not even considering the madness of the comments sections of these articles), we can see a very different picture when it comes to the greater LGBT community. It's easy for Filipinos to theoretically "tolerate" homosexuals - especially those that fit their internal stereotypes about parlor gays, TV entertainers and butch lesbian security guards to rattle off a few concepts. It's easy to be tolerant when it comes to gay people who aren't part of your family. But once the LGBT person is a lot closer to home - especially when it's a family member - then things tend to change.

The absence of laws that protect homosexual rights and provide equal rights including marriage and adoption is a clear sign of where the country is. The fact that the only LGBT party-list group had to go to the Supreme Court to remain valid since their supposed national constituency was cited as a reason for disqualification is another example. The LGBT community as a whole is a big question mark in many people's minds - one that leads to odd questions about "immoral behavior" or whatever you want to call it.

Just this week on a news item about Tim Cook formally coming out as gay was immediately peppered with comments citing homosexuality as some sort of sin with the usual quotes from Leviticus. And to see comments like those on just about any news article that talks about aspects of the LGBT community is pretty disappointing. And when you see or hear this sort of negative feedback on a regular basis, it can be pretty damaging indeed.

No, tolerance is never going to be enough. We're not some pain that people try to ignore since it's too expensive to go to the doctor. We're not a problem to be dealt with or a segment of the population that needs to be cured of some disorder. We're just people, and because of that we deserve equal rights and protection of our freedom to be who we are. We deserve to love freely and to contribute fully to this society in a manner that allows us to be proud of who we are.

And thus we continue to fight for true acceptance and full recognition in the eyes of the law.