The Wheel and Axle

En route to Tehran, we had a layover in Kuala Lumpur. This was actually my second time transitting through Kuala Lumpur this year, the first time being on the way to Yangon last February.

Whereas last time I had an entire overnight to see some places in the city, this time we had roughly five hours before we needed to check-in for our next flight. The great thing is, the KLIA Ekspres can bring you from the airport to the city proper within half an hour, where the connecting KL Sentral train can then bring you to the famed Batu Caves in another twenty to thirty minutes. Dammit, I wish we had such efficient train systems in the Philippines.

(continue reading…)

At some point in the staging of Ang Pag-Uusig, which is Jerry Respeto’s translated adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, you will start to feel extremely uncomfortable at just how familiar everything was turning out to be. This, despite the fact that the play is set in 17th century Salem.

Yet this has always been the power of Miller’s masterpiece. Even though it was, on the surface, a tale of the 1692 Salem witch trials, it ultimately was a cautionary tale of communities being broken apart by paranoia and an authoritarian socio-political climate that allows bubbling hostilities to rise to the surface and bring out the worst in people.

(continue reading…)

Now that’s a real Prince Charming.

I never saw Bad Moms, but apparently it’s getting a sequel, the trailer of which I came across recently because, well, Justin Hartley.

And if Justin Hartley, on his back with his legs up high while talking about his… orifices, weren’t enough to convince me that A Bad Moms Christmas is worth a look (or three), then Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski, and Wanda Sykes being in the mix seals the deal.

(continue reading…)

The first time I watched Kontra-GaPi was as a student in Ateneo. I honestly can’t recall if it was in late grade school or earlt high school, but I distinctly remember how amazed I was at their talent and how much they were promoting native Filipino music and instrumentation.

I’m glad they’re still around, as I found out recently when they did a cover of the Game of Thrones theme for cable to promote the recently-concluded season.

(continue reading…)

The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films will always be one of my favorite franchises of all time, if not my favorite. The books, of course, are even more fantastic.

I always felt that The Two Towers was robbed of that year’s best picture Oscar, and although the academy made up for it the following year with The Return of the King, The Two Towers also deserved the accolade more than Chicago.

(continue reading…)

So finally, after a pre-election mini-reunion tease last year and a recent confirmation of an actual new season, Will & Grace are back tomorrow (US time).

(continue reading…)

… and the horrors wrought upon her by man.

(continue reading…)

Pacific Rim was a sleeper hit of 2013, and its long-awaited sequel is finally coming in March 2018. My only major complaint is that Charlie Hunnam is nowhere to be found (due to scheduling conflicts), but I’ll make do with the also-gorgeous Scott Eastwood. John Boyega’s also cool, as proven in Star Wars, and Rinko Kikuchi’s returning, to boot.

Meanwhile, please, producers. Someone get the right to Voltes V and Daimos. A Godzilla crossover would also not be frowned upon.

Sometimes, satire really bites with hilarious (and yet sad) truths.