Skyfall (2012)

As posted on Print the Legend by Choc:

Directed by Sam Mendes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Berenice Marlohe, Naomie Harris

Rottentomatoes: 95%

IMDB  8.3

*minor spoilers ahead*

“Shaken, not stirred” — That’s how Skyfall, the 23rd Bond film, felt like to me. The essentials are the same, yet it feels like  a whole new drink altogether, as thoroughly refreshing, if not better, than the ones before. The flavor is uneven in an exciting kind of way.

Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) has crafted one of the most uniquely beautiful Bond movies of all. Skyfall takes the franchise to uncharted realms thematically, even visually, but at the same time, guides it home, to where it all began, setting up an exciting future to the greatest film franchise ever. Daniel Craig’s hard-edged, anti-Bond Bond, which many thought was undone by Marc Forster’s meandering Quantum of Solace, has the persona on firm footing this time around.

Read the rest of the review on http://printthelegend.blog.com/2012/11/02/movie-review-skyfall-2012-55-stars/

Looper (2012)

As posted on Print the Legend by Choc:

Directed by Rian Johnson

Starring: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt

Rottentomatoes: 93%

IMDB  8.1

Joseph Gordon-Levitt teams up with Director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) once again in this time-bending tale of cat and mouse.

JGL is Joe, a looper, an assassin in the present year 2044. A looper’s job is simple: kill or be killed. Joe’s targets are sent to him from the future, the year 2074, where time travel will have been invented but immediately outlawed. In 2074, the forensic know-how and technology are so advanced that criminals cannot get away with murder. Therefore a brand new  enterprise has sprouted where criminals illegally use time-travel to send the intended recipients of their murderous affections 30 years back in time, to 2044, where guys like Joe kill them without fanfare and dispose of the dead bodies.

Joe’s life is of relative convenience. In between jobs, he gets high, makes love to way too gorgeous hookers, and saves half of his paycheck in dreams of going to Paris where he’d like to spend the rest of whatever semblance of life he is living.

Read the rest of the review on http://printthelegend.blog.com/2012/10/19/34/.

We’ve been doing it wrong!!!

As posted on Print the Legend by Choc:

Introducing a real product called Squatty Potty.

Beer Trick: Freezing SanMig Light before your eyes

As posted on Print the Legend by Choc:

We all like a subzero beer but here’s another reason to like it more –

You can perform a cool little trick with it. Watch it freeze before your eyes. =))

Here’ my first try, a video taken with my phone so its not the best quality but here it shows how it’s easy enough for me to do it on my first try. =)

Here’s where i saw it, and how.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_H5ZIoZSBo

Smoking at Work

As posted on Print the Legend by Choc:

Breathing through a stick of Marlboro lights in the smoking area on the side of my office building, which was uncharacteristically empty on a cold rainy night, I was so bored I was half-consciously counting the number of puffs it took me to finish my cigarette.–  Fourteen.

Fourteen breaths for one cigarette. Is that how many breaths I lose, kind of literally, with every cigarette I take?

How much smoking happens in my office anyway?

Suppose Yosi Kadiri, is to come to the office and heroically offers:

PS: I need to learn Photoshop badly..

“I will liberate you from the clutches of this deadly vice.. I will smoke your cigarettes for you and suffer this bodily corruption for your freedom.”  

What is he up against?

Last time I heard, there were about 600 employees in my office. Last time I read, about 28% of the Philippine adult population are smokers.

Assuming the office is a cross section of the Philippine adult population, then there’d be around 168 smoker employees in all. Let’s say each one smokes about 3 sticks per day and takes 14 puffs to finish one cigarette, then on a given day, there will be 7,056 breaths made through 504 cigarettes in the office.

For perspective, a normal person breathes about 12 times per minute, and If we are to “convert” these 504 sticks of cigarettes into one “Godfather” cigarette” it will be more than 80 feet long.

That is to say, poor Yosi Kadiri will have to climb up the 9th floor and smoke this “godfather” cigarette which will extend from his lips to the ground 9 floors below.

And to finish it, he will have to puff it for 10 hours non-stop.  Good luck.

The “Recipe” for a smoother Online Life: If This Then That (ifttt.com)

As posted on Print the Legend by Choc:

Online Life is catching up with the real one in terms of complexity and sheer effort in trying to organize it. Twitter, Facebook, News Aggregators, Blogs, Emails, etc.  There are simply too many things to keep track of to give a semblance of order in our daily web activities. We constantly need to log in to countless platforms to check out whats happening, send/get content from our favorite blogs/sites, that you wish you had some personal secretary to do these things for you.

This is why If This Then That (ifttt.com) is a great tool that i think is under-utilized by the majority of netizens. I myself have not even heard of it or any friend using it, until a few days ago when a co-worker mentioned it. ifttt.com’s game plan is simple:

And that’s just what it does. With almost comically simple steps, If This Then That interacts with the web platforms you are using and performs both the repetitive, and a lot of sophisticated tasks as well, for you.

For more information, view the full article here.

Dredd (2012)

As posted on Print the Legend by Choc:

Movie Review: Dredd (starring Karl Urban’s mouth)

Image from TheMovieBlog

Dredd 3D (2012)  (Dir. by: Pete Travis)

Starring: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby

Rottentomatoes: 76%

IMDB  7.8

**

What sorcery is this? How can both the time-tested critics of rottentomatoes and the cinephiliacs of imdb.con both  miss wide off the mark here?  76% on rotten and 7.8 on imdb?! Mind blown.

This movie fails on so many levels I just don’t know where to start.

As a sci-fi movie, it’s insulting. I don’t even think this qualifies as science fiction at all. All sci-fi movies (the good ones anyway) all have two things in common, their “conditio sine qua non” so to speak. First, in science fiction, the socio-political landscape is markedly different, this is why sci-fi is so interesting (for me at least) because this different “background” as often shown, happen in the future or in a different “universe” from our own. “Universe” in cinematic terms, is the “world” where the movie happens (not necessarily a collection of galaxies). Sci-fi is often misconstrued as that movie featuring hi-tech gadgets, and quirky costumes, but it’s not simply that. A good example is the movie “Never Let Me Go (2010) ” starring Keira Knightley and Spider boy Andrew Garfield, adapted from Ishiguro’s 2005 novel of the same name. In Never Let Me Go, there were, literally, nothing that would indicate that the story is happening in a different “universe” from ours. There were no fancy gadgets or fancy costumes, it looked absolutely normal and of this world. Yet, this movie was science fiction at the height of its power.

The Wrestler (2008)

The Wrestler (2008)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky

"The Wrestler" centers on Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke), a wildly popular professional wrestler from 2 decades ago who now barely makes ends meet as an aging wrestler in the independent circuit. With his health beginning to fail from his physically demanding job, he tries to amend his life by quitting wrestling, reconciling with his daughter he abandoned long ago and pursuing Cassidy, a prostitute he's been infatuated with for quite sometime. But his efforts failed him, and then he receives an offer to do a high-profile rematch with his nemesis "The Ayatollah", the match could be his ticket to bring back the old days once again.Failing health and all, he must decide whether life is better lived inside the ring, or outside of it.

Knocked Up (2007)

Article written by Choc:


I finally had the chance to see Judd Apatow's follow-up movie to his monster hit the 40-yr old Virgin. I've read reviews about this one and after watching the movie, I can understand why so many women think this movie is sexist (and too vulgar). Even its ridiculously pretty star Katherine Heigl is on record calling this movie "a little sexist," and elaborates:

Knocked Up 2007 - Directed by Judd Apatow

"It paints women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as goofy, fun-loving guys. It was hard for me to love the movie."


I don't think that's the case however.

The Painted Veil (2006)

"Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people."

-The Painted Veil

An in-depth review by Choc:


Everybody says it, and everyone likes hearing the word, but what does "love" really mean?


One cynic said: "Love is just a ploy, devised by the gods to continue the species..."


Surely, not all of us share the sentiment of this hater. Most of us would rather intoxicate ourselves with the effervescent words of the great sages of love... this is why as high-school students, naive and idealistic, WE ALL loved Shakespeare...

Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

Don't have enough time to read the book or even the review? Watch this video as it highlights the major plot points, characters and themes used in this cornerstone of modern literature.

Created by Jack Collins, AcademicEarth.org
 

Now, as reviewed by Choc:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradburry

Fahrenheit 451 is about a dystopian future where books and critical thoughts are outlawed. "Firemen" who no longer serve to fight fires because houses have been made fire-proof take on a radically different task-- to burn books. 

Guy Montag is the story's protagonist, he is a fireman who does his job with unequaled satisfaction and pride, standing immovably on his sense of purpose, affirmed by the firemen's informal philosophy: "BOOKS ONLY MAKE US UNHAPPY." Montag however has not read a book in his life, he therefore is a sort of blind follower to the Firemen's creed. 

Montag's neatly packaged disposition however is tested when he met Clarisse, a 17 year old, whom he became friends with.

Clarisse is almost an anachronism, she seemed not to belong in the book, she was a romantic in the true sense of the word, in that she sees beauty in the simplest of things, like the morning dew on leaves, the way raindrops fall on your face, the intricacies of facial expressions and such. She has a personality worthy of a Butler Yeats poem, suggesting meaning in the immaterial and wonder in the mundane. 

This quality is something uncanny in the story's social landscape where people no longer "wonder" because they are dumbed-down by the absence of creative thought and ideas that books provide. 

Clarisse asked Montag questions like: "are you happy?" and "have you ever read any of the books you burn?" these questions, as far as Montag is concerned are mere rhetoric, but in the contemplative silence of his lonesome (after the mysterious death of Clarisse) he is forced to give the questions more depth, and in the process lets his DOUBT crack his erstwhile invincible belief in the system and spur his curiosity about books. 

Already curious and in doubt, Montag was forced to watch as his fellow firemen burn an old lady along with her books, this was not unprecedented by any stretch in his job but what disturbed Montag was the repose and the lady's calm acceptance of her fate, she WILLED to be burned along with her books, as if her life rested on the very books themselves. 

The ensuing feeling montag felt can only be expressed in his own words:

"There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing." 

Montag then sets off to read some of the books he had saved unwittingly and joined with others who had been "intellectuals" in the past, professors, writers etc. and together they planned a return to intellectual liberation. 

***

In the story, books are outlawed because they "ONLY MAKE US UNHAPPY", but how true is this claim? 

We've all heard of the saying "a book is a loaded gun in the wrong person's hands". You only have to ask john Lennon for an affirmation of this.. his infamous killer--mark chapman was carrying the book "Catcher In the Rye" when he killed the musician, chapman didn't resist arrest but offered the book to explain why he killed Lennon... essentially he thought of lennon as a "phony".. 

Or who could forget the opening and closing words of the communist manifesto---a spectre is haunting europe.... the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains ... these words effectively launched the socialist and communist movement..

Rizal and "Uncle Tom's Cabin", women's rights and "The Feminine Mystique" heck! who knows what Harry Potter or The Twilight Saga has done OR HAD BEEN doing in our collective psyche, the effects of which will only manifest itself in the future... 

As I understand the novel, I think that aside from the caveat the society is suffering from a dumbing-down of it's people due to the waning interest in the Subtle (now replaced by the Obvious), and the eschewing of activities that make people think, I think that the story also tells us books OR KNOWLEDGE is the force that shapes us and the world. True, that knowledge can be dangerous, and it had in fact altered the course of history many times, it started wars, political movements, murder and mayhem. But these turning points in history are mere by-products of KNOWLEDGE-- the most rewarding of all gains... and thus, something that we cannot do entirely without. 

When Einstein discovered the relationship between, mass and energy.. He paved the way for nuclear and atomic bombs,.. would you readily forfeit this monumental discovery for the bad effects it spurred? 

When Newton wrote his laws of physics he essentially wrote the foundation of war rockets. 

Ideas and knowledge do not kill people, even guns do not kill PEOPLE..

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE.. and mankind will forever have this burden on his shoulders-- 

The burden of knowing...

Source: http://choc27.multiply.com/reviews/item/5

Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

I finally grokked.

This novel by Robert A. Heinlein had temporarily altered my perspective in so many ways -- it even changed my definition of water. No joke. For the lack of better word, it was written well, creatively well. I found myself hating and loving some of his characters. Like they really existed in this world and not just written by a god-like mind. It also had a hint of satire, the way they look at religion, society, politics and money.

Though it was written decades ago, you'd find it amazing that the concepts he touched are still the very same concepts that are happening now. It goes without saying that though everything changes, basic wants and needs are still the same, perhaps on a different scale, but they still evoke the same emotions, feelings and desires. 

Definitely a good read guys, all book lovers should read this! But be prepared for a culture shock. By the way, this is the first and only book that had me laughing out loud. In public. Alone. Guess that goes to show you how brilliant Heinlein really was.

For a more in-depth review, here's what Choc has to say:

"Stranger in a Strange Land" was 1st published in 1961. It had been elevated as the "The Most Famous Science Fiction Novel Ever Written" by many fans and critics alike. Quite a feat, but very ironic for the fact that this novel had been suppressed, kept underground for a time, on account of its iconoclastic themes and infuriating innuendos. The book left no sacred cows untouched, it had views on God, Religion, Government, Church, True Love, Sexual Love, Jealousy, Technology and even Tattoos!

The Novel is about a Human Being, born and raised on Mars. After 20 years, he is "rescued" and sent back to Earth. Have you ever wondered how the Earth's Culture and Mores would look and feel like to an alien? That is, more or less, the premise of the book.

The Martian is Michael Valentine Smith, he'd been on Mars and reared by martians for 20 years and this martian upbringing is so dynamically complex and different from earthlings that his honest beliefs and interpretation of our society will surely elicit OUTRAGE, ASTONISHMENT, AWE and AMAZEMENT in EQUAL servings from any Earth-raised creature...-- yours truly included, for I have never experienced all these varied emotions brimming while reading one and the same novel.

Take for example in one portion of the book, Mike (the man from Mars) tells the reader about how he views romantic and sexual love in humans. In Mars, martians, are asexual, there is no male-female distinction between the Martian race, therefore there is no sexual act (or rather no sexual act "as we know it" in Mars) Mike therefore is also ignorant of sex, but during the course of the story, he inevitably "grokked" or found out about this amazing union brought about by the male-female distinction, Mike even went to as far as proclaiming that the greatest asset Earthlings have is this BEAUTY in DIFFERENCE..

Right about at this point -"BEAUTY in DIFFERENCE"- I was nodding in agreement, after all, if you really think about it.. the difference between men and women has been so long embedded in our psyche that now it's more of a nuisance than a beauty, men are from Mars and women are from Venus right? but whenever you hear those words, they're always spoken in bad context.. men whine about why WOMEN won't understand, women for their part have these support-groups for their friends who suffer the ever-lasting incorrigibility of Men.

Clearly, no one stops to think that this very "difference" is what makes love AND life NOT DULL. Just Imagine if all men were great, all infallible, all Romeos. Just imagine if all women were great, all infallible and all Juliets. Then finding the right one "wouldn't" feel as blissful since practically ANYONE is the right one! The greatest moment in Love is finding out that your investments of emotion and love, have gathered more than proportional dividends.

And this great moment is brought about by this: "BEAUTY in DIFFERENCE"

OH WELL... for all I care the author could have simply meant PHYSICAL DIFFERENCE to permit sex, but I'm too romantic for such a bland interpretation. =)

But when Mike offers his views about monogamy, saying that since SEX is a means of true happiness, and true happiness is to be shared, therefore sex is to be shared... WHAT THE F*CK (no pun intended), heck! even my Philo professor will admit that the logic is impeccable! But the alien is talking about "Plural marriage" and "communal lovemaking"! One character in the novel thus explains to Mike that it could not happen here on Earth because, -HOW INCREDIBLY IRONIC- because... of LOVE.

The alien asks why?

Because a human being doesn't like his wife to enjoy the "beauty in difference" with another, that's just unthinkable. Because a husband loves his wife.. that's why.

Mike answered:

But it is not love that hinders the sharing of this "happiness" but JEALOUSY... which is not present in real TRUE love, a love that has jealousy isn't love...

At this point I was beginning to hate MIKE! HECK I was furious at him! I prefer the love with jealousy THANK YOU... at this point on it was very hard for me to keep on reading but I did...

The author intended for this book to push our sensitive buttons... and the fact that it did find mine, just tells me all the more why this book is brilliant. It is intelligently written and very provocative, and really a unique reading experience for me.

Things Fall Apart (1959)

This book is considered to be Achebe's magnum opus. Lots say it's a modern Greek tragedy because it has the same elements like the use of a tragic hero, pride, karma, etc.

The story is really simple. There's this man named Okonkwo who had a bitter childhood so he did his best to rise up from the ashes. When he was older, he became so successful that the people in his community looked up to him as a leader. Little did they know that inside his powerful and brave facade lay his need to be in control and the fear that others would find a weakness in him, thus driving him to make decisions which he would regret later on. It's based on African lifestyle, so you'd naturally expect lots of polytheism and polygamy involved. It also has a hint of politics, masculinity and the myriad of struggles within a society.

From Choc:

I enjoyed this book for the marvel of being transplanted right in the midst of this African tribe and indeed witnessing how things fell apart right before my mind's eyes..

Religious overtones apart, this to me represents the all-encompassing power of an idea. How ideas can bring down security beliefs, how it can bring structures to its knees, how it can create so much dissonance that blind-allegiance to ideologies become obsolete.. This story is one that echoes throughout history... ideas are in constant opposition, it is the hope of humanity that this chaos will inevitably bring forth: synthesis.

I Love You by Choc

I LOVE YOU =)

 

I love you

more than the sea loves its shore,

even stronger than the falls 

when in great depth it pours.

I wanna hold you close 

and let you feel that I care,

I won't let tears leave your eyes 

with the love I'd gratefully share...

I could imagine the sound of your kiss,

it can silence everything,

it could sweeten a sweet moment

and fill it with great bliss..

Your soft eyes of honesty,

their innocence have smitten me,

it has made life worth living,

and all truth worth telling.

You smile with great sincerity

and I can't help but to fall.

I'd never thought there'll be someone

who will conquer my heart, who will conquer my all.

April 2002

Choc

Of Love and Botchok =p

Botchok and I; Bolinao, Pangasinan 2011

For what is thy balm that holds you near?

When nature sparks, nothing seems to gleam.

Thee solely conjure the magnificent flight,

That compels others to go into plight.

For what may seem an endless delight,

Imperturbable by anything, whatever they might.

Bound for happiness but sprinkled with sorrow,

This pursuit that will take us to ‘morrow.

September 27, 2007

Fam Mam

Trying to Find Out Who Really Won the Pacquiao - Marquez Fight (November 2011)

Attached are the Scorecards side by side with the compubox tally of the Pacquiao-Marquez 3 fight. Looking at them it's interesting to note the following items to help in the ongoing debate regarding the result of this fight. 



Scorecard Rounds 1-6 (from michaeldsellers.com)



Scorecard Rounds 7-12 (from michaeldsellers.com)

Findings:

There were 6 "easy" rounds to score, which were unanimously given to either fighters: 

• Pac - 1,3,6
• Marq - 4,5,7

It's interesting to note that rounds 4 and 5 were unanimously given to Marq, BUT THESE ROUNDS WERE WON BY PACQUIAO according to compubox figures.

Now this means that judges were actually favoring to "better" shots by Marquez over the #of hits made by Pacman--Which is rightly so in my opinion. The compubox figures therefore do not dictate the fight's winner, in fact, if im not mistaken, in their 2nd fight, Marquez actually won the compubox but lost in the judges scorecards.

Moving on, if we cancel the obvious" rounds out, then the fight's winner now depends on the remaining rounds that were more "competitive" and therefore harder to score.

These remaining 6 rounds were won by a fighter through a "Majority," i.e. 2 out of the 3 judges scored it in favor of one fighter: 

• Pac - 2,8, 9,10,11,12 --> rd 8 was actually won by Marq in the compubox 
• Marquez - NONE

So far, it looks like that i can no longer use the argument that "cleaner hits" were not given due weight since obviously, the judges did so with rounds 4,5, and 8. Now all I need is a copy of the fight so I can try to score it for a second time, especially the 6 "majority" rounds that all went to pacquiao. Hopefully after seeing the fight again and scoring in a more detached and objective manner, I'll stop debating anymore (with myself or others) and be able to definitively say who won this fight.

The Match:

Pacquiao-Marquez Part 3

So after replays and replays of the fight (muted and not), this is the most objective i can get to scoring the fight:

I scored it 115-113 for Pacquiao: 

Rd 1 - Pac

Rd 2 - Marq ---> i gave this round to Marq because he had the more telling shots even though Pac was the aggressor.

Rd 3 - Pac

Rd 4 - Marq

Rd 5 - Marq

Rd 6 - Pac

Rd 7 - Marq

Rd 8 - Pac --> Marq countered very well in this rd practically negating all of pacs hits, but pac initiated the action. Here i think its correct to give it to pac for aggression since no one had the advantage in clear hits. (for every pac punch, marq countered with one of his own)

Rd 9 - Pac

Rd 10 - Pac

Rd 11 - Marq

Rd 12 - Pac --> both fighters tentative in the final rd. But Pac landed a solid punch at the close of the rd.

I scored it exactly as Judge Dave Moretti had, including which rounds were given to whom.

After 11 rounds, i had it 105-104 for Pacman, therefore for me, the 12th round decided it all. Had Marq won this round, i would have scored it a draw at 114-114.

Thoughts:

When you see the fight for the first time, Marquez definitely "looked" like he won  because he took his rounds in such a dominant fashion. In rounds 5 and 7, he was all over pacquiao, schooling him with accurate and crisp hits. The most memorable hits of the fight were definitely by Marquez. On the flip side, i cant remember a single round that pac won in similar fashion. Pac won more rounds in the cards but not as convincing as the rounds won by Marquez, but the fight needs to be judged an per round basis which favors the more active pac.

To give you an idea how hard this fight is to score, note that there were at least 5 rounds that could have gone either way. If you had given just 2 rounds, just 2 of the 5 rounds to a fighter, this is a 4-point swing in the cards, and you end up REVERSING the result.

Pac might have won the fight, but he wasn't necessarily the better fighter, and its perfectly ok for me to say that. In my opinion, Morales is a better fighter than Pac, but we all know how Pac annihilated him. It happens, and thats boxing.    

Trying to Find Out Who Really Won the Pacquiao - Marquez Fight (November 2011)

by Choc Sarao Nov 14 2011