Nothing special in terms of the hunt, but this chapter will dwell more on the relationships of the characters. Some discreet revelations and a visit from someone from the original storyline. Oh, and this is somewhat a Christmas chapter, revolving around the month of December.
Shaun of the Dead (2004) review
This 'zombiefest' is a seriously funny, cleverly-written, and well-acted love letter to movies in general, horror movies in particular, and zombie movies in the extreme. You'll find plenty of directorial flourishes referencing the likes of Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, Sam Raimi, and of course, George A. Romero. It's only shortcomings are the occasional tendency to over-extend a joke (breaking the pace by doing so), and in having so much of its comedic potency dependent on how well the audience knows the genre which inspired it.
The titular Shaun (Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the script with director Edgar Wright) is already well-accustomed to the life of a zombie. Every day, he staggers out of bed with even less enthusiasm than a typical reanimated corpse, and drags himself off to his hateful job as the assistant manager of an electronics store. While he's sleepwalking through work, his slobby best friend and flatmate Ed (Nick Frost) plays video games all day and deals a little weed on the side. After work, they habitually meet up at a pub called "The Winchester" with Shaun's too-cute-for-him girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) and her annoying flatmates. Despite the fact that she loves Shaun, Liz is just a little fed up with the numbing grind that their lives have become, and his apparent lack of ambition to do anything about it.
When Liz dumps him, Shaun and Ed go on an all night drinking binge that turns into a next-day hangover from hell. They stagger about the debris-strewn and zombie-infested landscape completely oblivious to what's going on at first, until they are finally attacked by one that has wandered into their back yard (a girl who they at first mistakenly diagnose as being merely drunk). Once they realize the gravity of the situation, and make several laughable attempts to kill a couple of zombies with common household items, they find a spade and a cricket bat in the woodshed and starts whacking his cricket bat through the hungry herds to win back Liz and save his sweetly dotty mum (Penelope Wilton) from becoming lunch.
Shaun's idea of sanctuary, naturally, is the local pub. "You got your pints, you got your pig snacks. What more do you need?" Part deadpan farce -- the survivors are downright unfazed at the sight of the shuffling undead -- and part bloody slapstick spectacle, "Shaun of the Dead" playfully references its inspirations, from "Night of the Living Dead" to "28 Days Later." But it isn't a spoof so much as an ingenious twist on a familiar genre, right down to an inspired coda that answers all the questions left open in every previous zombie apocalypse: What happens next? The priceless solution is as inevitable as it is hilarious.
Wright directs with an eye for understatement, mining deadpan comedy from a dwindling band of survivors constantly on the verge of hysteria, but also registering every loss with genuine empathy and gravity. He gives you reason to care through the laughs. In the argot of the film, it's bloody brilliant. There are moments when the story is gently poking fun of Zombie movies, but always in a way that fans of those movies will enjoy. Sprinkled throughout the story are also sly references to earlier zombie films. "They're coming to get you Barbara," is said by one character in an obvious reference to Night of the Living Dead, and later a radio commentator can be heard saying, "Rumors that it was all started by rage infected monkeys, have not been proven," an obvious nod to 2003 zombie flick; 28 Days Later.
Well-paced, very funny, and featuring a likeably dopey cast that you can root for, Shaun of the Dead is one of the best comedies of 2004.
Well..
I finally transfered all the 'good' stuff from my old wreck-of-a-blog. I've been wanting to do this move for quite some time now but haven't had the time to do it (until now). Most of these things are from the past three or so years. Some of 'em doesn't really make sense but are good reads (at least for some of my friends). I don't know what I'll put in here or if I do put stuff here consistently because I know myself and I won't be able to manage this straight up and knowing the fact I'm currently doing my internship and senior year (yes, senior year) is coming up. The only thing I can guarantee to myself and to the few that visits this place is that I'll be posting stuff here from time to time. Stuff that would be fun to read or watch, stuff that would annoy and offend others, and stuff that would just be boring to the general public domain.
I've done The Bashing Board back in my Multiply account and honestly, I was successful with it. So now, with a whole new batch of 'bashees' and fresh ideas fueled by hate, I'll be posting 'season 2' of The Bashing Board here in Chum in the Water. Sadly, most of them are female. Why? Well, I haven't really been 'socializing' with the male species of my genome that much since..... Erm, yeah, you get the point.
Another thing is the Prelude chapters. I've left off and cut The Bitch and The Witch but I might revamp the whole chapter and post it here and continue from there. The series has a lot of potential and I really want to finish it even though it's gonna take a hell lot of time and effort to do so.
Writing From the Soul (by someone else..)
Writing From the Soul
by Charles Edward Pogue
I once had a producer who, whenever the inexorable, inevitable evisceration of the script began, would try to placate me with, "It's only a movie." Wrong! It's my blood, sweat and tears on each page. My heart, sometimes years of my life and yes... my soul!
Amelia Barr once wrote, "I press my soul upon the white paper." That's what writing is, or ought to be... soul-baring.
And because it is, I refuse to rewrite other writers. I write to give my soul life, not slay someone else's. I think anyone who rewrites a fellow writer without his permission is a carrion-eater. Plain and simple.
I first noticed the rewrite issue fomenting back during the great credits manual debate where our leaders were stunned when the membership reared on its haunches and roared down any attempt to make it easier to replace the original writer. In my short time on the Board, I have seen this issue bubble over the cauldron of discontent.
And why shouldn't it? How many of us have labored on projects for years, our words initiating them, making them viable, attracting the talent, only to be cast aside at the last because of a director's ego or a producer's insecurity? While you expect to get mauled by studio ingrates, you don't expect it from your pal fighting beside you in the trenches.
True, the system fosters betrayal when it's tied to credit, backend money, and a cut of the cable/cassette pie. Sadly, some are all too willing to usurp the passions of their fellows if it means a plumper pocketbook.
Over the past few years, I've heard... and suggested... many solutions to stop this wholesale trend of replacing writers. These were passed on to our recent negotiations committee and, I hope, will emerge in our creative rights discussions with the CEOs.
But perhaps we should look inwardly, too. We are often our own worst enemies, gleefully slashing our own throats on the studio knife-blade.
Every time we casually, callously replace a fellow writer against his will, we make it easier to be replaced ourselves and help diminish the status of writers. We will never achieve parity with the directors as long as we are willing to undermine each other.
Want to take the decision to replace writers out of the studios' hands?
Refuse to rewrite each other.
It's not as impossible as it seems. Several writers have already started non-rewriters clubs. I'd like to make it Guild-wide, unscroll a huge roll of paper across the bulletin board in the Writers' Coffee House, entitle it "The Non-Rewriters Club" and invite every WGA member to sign on. Wouldn't it be great if every time a studio sought a replacement scripter, they heard, "Sorry, I don't rewrite."?
And if we knew our vision might actually make it to the screen intact, how much freer and finer it would flow out of us.
In this era when film has been divested of all its myth and wonder through a glut of dissecting TV shows, magazines, "how to" books, and seminars that lift the veil and reveal the magician's tricks, we hear much about "the craft of screenwriting," but very little about the art.
Good writers should aspire to be artists. And what artist would graft him onto the passion of another? For art is about pursuing one's own passions, expressing one's own voice... pressing your soul upon the white paper... and not having its pristine purity smudged under a bunch of other souls.
The History of Honeywell Pharmaceutical
THE HISTORY OF HONEYWELL PHARMACEUTICAL LABORATORY AND QUEENFLOWER BALM
Honeywell Pharmaceutical Laboratory was founded in 1976 by Antonio Ang Sr. and Luz V. Dellosa under its former name, Sunrise Pharmaceutical Laboratory. In 1989 to 1990, Spade Pharmaceuticals owned by Albert Yu, decided to carry the product and be the exclusive distributor for Sunrise. The relationship was short-lived because of company policy differences. During that time, there were daily ads in broadsheets like Manila Bulletin and tabloids like Peoples Tonite to name a few.
Luz V. Dellosa managed the laboratory until 1991 when management was transferred to Floredeliza S. Castillo, daughter-in-law and wife of their son, Antonio D. Ang Jr. due to poor health.
Under the new management, Sunrise became Honeywell Pharmaceutical Laboratory. They also moved to a new address, from Sta. Mesa Heights in Quezon City to Bagumbong, Caloocan City where the site of the laboratory resides up to this day.
Honeywell manufactures the external medicine, Queenflower Balm, a rubefacient counter-irritant and mild analgesic that deals with Rheumatism, skin itch, swelling and other external skin and muscle troubles. The product is distributed nationwide through Tekson Marketing, located in Binondo, Manila, Hok An Tong Chinese Drugstore, located in Divisoria, Manila and Dyna Drug Corporation, located in Bagong Ilog, Pasig City. Through these main distributors, the product is distributed to all major drugstores nationwide.
The new management made successful attempts to promote their product through commercials in the nineties in PTV 4’s sports programs like Motoring Today. They also embarked in promoting the product via promotional posters, leaflets, fliers and visiting numerous drugstores all over Luzon to promote Queenflower Balm.
An excerpt from "The Fifth Floor"
After two weeks we’ve already secured and renovated the fifth floor. We took the liberty of getting as much supplies that we can stock into unit 504. Good thing that the mall was only a block away. It only took us two days to completely stuff as much food, toiletries and other necessities into the other unit. The task of taking out the corpses in the floor was too taxing for Melody both physically and psychologically. For some strange reason, the power was still on, so I took the liberty of taking the bodies, seven at a time down the elevator to the basement where the furnace was located. The stench of the decaying bodies was starting to be unbearable and outright hazardous so it was a relief for the both of us to have the fourth, fifth and sixth floors to be corpse-free.
Every time that I threw a body into the furnace, it felt like a part of my soul went in with it. Hearing fat and decomp juice pop and boil made my heart ache, it gave me nightmares. I couldn't stop thinking about them, the people that I burned to ashes. Would they do the same thing to my body if the roles were reversed? Better them than us I guess. I still couldn't discern the reason why I'm still alive. Why we're still alive when millions of people died after the plague swept across the globe. I couldn't understand why were we spared from death when everyone else wasn't. Or were we chosen to experience true suffering? As I stare out the window into the dark and lifeless sky, I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that if there is a God, he doesn't have any remorse for those who are still living.
Rising (2005)
There is a silent spark that fades into the dark, overwhelmed by a blinding and deceiving realm that uncovers itself as the mask is taken off. It is our choice to live our lives the way we wanted whether it may be as fruitful or as harsh as it may be, its our choice, our decision. No matter what happens, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves, no one to compliment but us.. "me".
The choices that never choose to relieve why you did what and what you have done; As shameful and as stupid the path we've lived sometimes, the cleansing rain pours to wash it out of the way to leave a brighter sun for the days to come. A silver lining in this dark world, a sign of hope. Did I leave a bad taste in your mouth or do you still want to dig up the dead? Do you still want to see the old, pathetic being that you long for? He has been long gone, erased from reality, never to walk the earth again. He is dead. The man that they have all loved and cherished. He has been taken to the depths of the abyss to rise up and be who he should be, the real him, his true persona. I can hear the cries of those who fell before him again. Those faint, eerie sounds that they make, they are here again, trying to haunt the conscience that is non-existent. This is how things should be.
"Goodbye" (2006)
Before, there were comedians performing on a crimson stage, trying to make people laugh, trying to make people happy. But this crimson stage is in fact a bloody warpath, bathed in blood of many of those who fell before a past who brought hell upon the people. The lonely audience that he once loved has been victims of deceit, victim of a false mask that he had shown to hide his weakness-Emotions. These things have been haunting him these past months. Showing affection, showing love to the people that he treasured the people he loved. People he treated as close friends, as brothers, as sisters. It has been years since he was subdued by people like him, people similar to him in almost all aspects. People, who were cold and desolate, people with no conscience, no emotions, and no heart.
In the past, as the curtain falls, so do a lot of people, a lot of souls go with it to the unending darkness of the abyss that they called home. There were no lights to fade; there were no soft good nights, no comfort zones. Only loneliness and hate. It was as if, there was no day, no night. No paradise to hope for, no paradise to go to. Nothing to waste, nothing to give. The past cannot be erased, cannot be forgotten. Like a godforsaken tattoo that is imprinted in you, that reminded you of things that for so long, until now, haunts you. A symbol of something that one cannot escape no matter how fast and how far you run from it.
There were no summers dream, nothing to fall and slip silent, no dreams, only visions of the inevitable. There were only cold winters nights, painful, slowly consuming you until nothingness picks you as its embodiment. There is only but madness that we cannot make sense of. Madness that drives us to seek for pain, to seek for blood. The past consumes one who is given the situation, given the time, given the pain. And in return, he gives the past the chance to live once more, to unleash something that has been mounting in the back of his mind for a long time now.
As I slowly wake up from a nightmare to another, I slowly smell something that for so long I avoided, something that once again, I long for. As I look up at the crimson colored moon, a symbol of death, of blood, I smile at myself, reminiscing everything for the last time. Looking back at all the happy moments that I cherished. The people that were dear to me, people that I loved. My brothers, my sisters, my love. I need to bid farewell, to leave everything behind for I have become soft, a former shell of myself, nothing but a silhouette, lifeless and weak.
Rants Rants Rants
What would happen to the world if people don't rant, diss, cuss, curse, and cartwheel? What would happen to the world if there were no stupid, annoying, idiotic, fugly people that ruin your day, or even worse, your life? It would be as boring as heaven, just like what I read in a really good book about the end of days. Funny. I gottsa lot of them. Yeah, nothing good ever happens to me. Karma me thinks.. A blood debt to pay I guess. A boring day, a boring life, a boring song that keeps playing in my head. School' a bitch. What's new? School is for learning, studying, experimenting, making out in the library[pretend you didn't read that], more cart wheeling and sleeping in class.. Oh, and dissing, cussing, and cursing stupid people. Both student and professor. Life's a bitch. A lot of people use that. But I guess, if I live on the fast lane, partyin' shoppin', chillin', mallin', ballin', and all words that ends with " in' ", I guess, life would be as exciting as hell. But who wants that right? Well, a lot of people I guess. I want to be as humane as possible when bashing people, but I can't. That's what bashing is for. To devour a person whole then spit him or her out, full of spit. Yeah. I know. Sometimes I envy those apathetic people. Those weird ones. *cough* anton *cough*carlos. They seem to not mind everything that's going on around them. They just go on with their little sentai and comic lives. Yeah, pathetic right? Wrong. They're in their own little world where no one can touch them. Life's a game where you're 'it' all the time. The funny thing is, a lot of people think the same way. We're all 'it' in front of the All-Holy and pure. He just watches us, maybe drinking a beer or two with nachos. Looking on at the bacterial beings known as humans. The only thing that makes everything okay even if it's only temporary is.. wait for it.. wait for it.. No, it's not cable tv asshole. It's, the people that make you happy.. Aw.. Yeah, even if you're having a really shitty day, even if the world is spitting on you, just a glimpse of him or her would make up for every miserable act or deed that was done. Yes. Even for just a minute, your world would shine. A fake silver lining would appear amidst the gray sky. And then.. And then.. *randy orton pose*
The 10 Konyomandments
1. Thou shall make gamit "make+pandiwa".
ex. "Let's make pasok na to our class!"
"Wait lang! I'm making kain pa!"
"Come on na, we can't make hintay anymore! It's in Andrew pa, you know?"
2. Thou shall make kalat "noh", "diba" and "eh" in your pangungusap.
ex. "I don't like to make lakad in the baha nga, no? Eh diba it's like, so eew, diba?"
"What ba: stop nga being maarte noh?"
"Eh as if you want naman also, diba?"
3. When making describe a whatever, always say "It's SO pang-uri!"
ex. "It's so malaki, you know, and so mainit!"
"I know right? So sarap nga, eh!"
"You're making me inggit naman.. I'll make bili nga my own burger."
4. When you are lalaki, make parang punctuation "dude", 'tsong" or "pare"
ex. "Dude, ENGANAL is so hirap, pare."
"I know, tsong, I got bagsak nga in quiz one, eh"
5. Thou shall know you know? I know right!
ex. "My bag is so bigat today, you know"
"I know, right! We have to make dala pa kasi the jumbo Physics book eh!"
6. Make gawa the plural of pangngalans like in English or Spanish.
ex. "I have so many tigyawats, oh!"
7. Like, when you can make kaya, always use like. Like, I know right?
ex. "Like, it's so init naman!"
"Yah! The aircon, it's, like sira!"
8. Make yourself feel so galing by translating the last word of your sentence, you know, your pangungusap?
ex. "Kakainis naman in the LRT! How plenty tao, you know, people?"
"It's so tight nga there, eh, you know, masikip?"
9. Make gamit of plenty abbreviations, you know, daglat?"
ex. "Like, OMG! It's like traffic sa LRT"
"I know right? It's so kaka!"
"Kaka?"
"Kakaasar!"
10. Make gamit the pinakamaarte voice and pronunciation you have para full effect!
ex. "I'm, like, making aral at the Arrhneo!"
"Me naman, I'm from Lazzahl!"
Mang Jose needs you! *points*
The truth is that there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? If you look about, you witness cruelty, injustice and despotism. But what do you do about it? What can you do? You are but a single individual. How can you possible make any difference? Individuals have no power in this modern world. That is what you've been taught because that is what they need you to believe. But it is not true. This is why they are afraid and the reason that I am here; to remind you that it is individuals who always hold the power. The real power. Individuals like me. And individuals like you.
