hipsters

       Rarely do I ever have a Saturday morning with nothing to do. Usually I have Epidemiology class with the rest of my batchmates. Today was an exception; Doc Wong gave us the day off to work on our thesis proposals. I think it was also his way of sparing us from the infamous ACET traffic jam.

Okay it doesn't look too bad here. But it's pretty bad inside campus.

       I thought I'd enjoy a morning off but surprisingly, I got bored pretty fast doing nothing in the condo. So I decided to go to school to return some overdue library books. (Okay, the real reason I went to school was to see the ACET takers. I thought it would be fun witnessing them go through the whole range of emotions as the day progressed - fear, relief, happiness, despair...)

       Anyway, at the library, I chanced upon my two friends AC and Mike (who has been very supportive of me and my blog. Thanks Mike!!!). They had also ran into each other by accident and were just on their way to get lunch out. I tagged along, and we ate at PB & Co.

AC's curry pasta + Elvis sandwich combo

       After lunch, we parted ways. AC went to a Kythe thing, Mike had a schoolwork thing, and I had a sudden urge to take pictures of things thing. So I went to Fully Booked and took pictures of random things I liked. Until a salesman told me to stop.

I have no idea what this is or what it's for, but doesn't it just look so interesting?

       I love cute little things like the stuff up there. Penguin paper clips? Adorable! My friend Jeth once gave me a paper clip in the shape of a whale that he had found on the floor. I was ecstatic. I put it on my lanyard. And then I lost it. u_______u 

       The weird thing with me is that even though I like all these little things, I hardly ever buy them for myself. I know they're useless and have zero functional value, so I end up window shopping a lot more than I actually go shopping. It's fine with me. My wallet stays happy, and so do I.

       Anyway, after I went to Fully Booked, I was too hyped up on school supply energy to go back to the condo. So I walked to school (again), this time just to take pictures. I will probably never post those pictures here because they suck. But I did buy a book from the book sale called The Loneliness of Prime Numbers. I hear it's good. (By the way, you can get P50 J.D. Salinger novels from the book sale! It's in the neglected-looking box on the floor outside Dela Costa.)

       Later in the afternoon, Rap and I left to watch Ang Nawawala. It's the movie I was talking about a few posts back. I've been rearing to watch this movie ever since I saw the trailer in July. What made it even more appealing to me was that it was directed by Marie Jamora, one of my idols. Even more than that, the movie uses only OPM for its soundtrack, giving it 10000 more cool points in my book. 

       Okay, after seeing me being so excited over school supplies, you might be thinking that I'm really easy to impress, and that 10000 cool points isn't actually a lot if I'm the one giving the scores. BUT! For me, it's easy to like a movie. You can make me watch a movie featuring only a hamster and I'll probably like it (but on second thought, G-Force wasn't that amazing, so if you're gonna have a hamster in a movie you might as well make it a real one and not a talking CGI one). 

       But seldom can a movie ever make my pulse quicken, my eyes water, my spine tingle. It is once in a blue moon that I ever stumble upon the perfect combination of score, cinematography, actors, dialogue, and story that really pluck at my heartstrings and strike a beautiful chord.

       Ang Nawawala is one of those movies. I promise you, it's that good. It was charming, offbeat (a polite way of saying hipster?), and laden with golden moments that will make you cry, laugh, twist, scream. Okay, I didn't scream. But you get the idea!

       Here's what I liked about the movie (WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS!)

• The cast. Everybody was great! It was a little awkward at first, seeing Gibson meet the Hipster Crew that would eventually turn out to be his closest friends. Those guys were seriously hipster - hanging out in weird art places, listening to bands you have never heard of (that were still OPM), going to Cubao X, shuffling through vinyl record stores, smoking weed, wearing mustaches, carrying around vintage cameras. All that fluff! As a member of the non-hipster community, it's difficult to not box in these characters as hipsters and think them pretentious. I mean, come on! Being nostalgic about an era you were never born in? Get over yourself and go buy a CD. Or download a song. Listening to a vinyl record just to hear that nostalgic crackle? Sheesh!
• Wait! I totally lost my point in that bullet. My point is that the cast is great. The characters are a little weird, a little stereotypically hipster, but I guess that the underground hipster scene is a reality I can't deny. After all, it's difficult to recognize sometimes, but those creatures in the black framed glasses and  too-skinny jeans are humans too. 
• WAIT I lost my point again! THE CAST IS GREAT, OKAY! The Roco twins! Dawn Zulueta! The other people whose names I do not know! Great! Although Annicka Dolonius, the girl who plays Enid, is a little uninspired sometimes, she still brings Enid to life, making it feel as if Enid is a real person and not just a character in a movie. 
• OMG that's three bullet points and I've only mentioned one thing I liked about the movie. Here's the second thing: the music! Sometimes it feels like I'm watching a music video, because some scenes are constructed with walls of song. But I don't mind. It's refreshing. It's great too seeing that the movie made use of so many different genres of OPM, from the oldies to the more contemporary bands. I think they also featured real indie bands, like Flying Ipis. (Scratch that: I'm sure they featured real indie bands.) 
• The movie did a wonderful job of showcasing Filipino culture. If I were a more popular blogger, I'd probably get a lot of flak for saying this, because Filipino culture is supposedly empty culture and blablablablabla. But whatever, bros! The movie took real scenes of Metro Manila and pieced them together in wonderful montages. I especially loved the scenes of the streets shot from a moving car. You see the Philippines around Christmastime. Parols, christmas lights, firecracker vendors. Random kids playing in the street. Weird, seemingly out of place disco lights that light up some sidewalk carinderia. Gibson's home, in particular, looks like a real Pinoy home habitated by a rich family. When I say "Pinoy home," I don't mean a nipa hut. I mean if you go to a random rich person's house in the Philippines, there's a good chance it will look similar to what you see on screen. 
• The storyline. OH MY GOODNESS. I had a really good feeling that towards the end of the movie, Gibson would attempt to win back Enid by showing her a movie he made using footage that he has accumulated, interlaced with footage of Enid being beautiful and charming and quirky and whatnot. Play an unexpectedly romantic song in the background and boom, you've got the beginnings of a "let's get back together" scene. 
• BUT NO! THAT NEVER HAPPENED!!! In fact (SPOILER ALERT), as far as we know, GIBSON AND ENID NEVER GOT BACK TOGETHER! And for me that is absolutely terrific. If they had gotten back together, that would be fine, but the fact that the movie just ends the way it did (with Gibson tearfully telling his mom who he was), that is just a gazillion times more stunning than the ending I had been expecting. Which is a shot of Enid and Gibson locking lips to the tune of a Ciudad song. Or something. (I'm using a lot of run-on sentences now; forgive me for being excited!) The actual ending was abrupt, shocking, and it made me go "damn" over and over again even as the credits began to roll. Wow. Bold move. Very gutsy. Very well executed.

     
       That's all I'm going to say for now, even though I'm struggling to contain myself. My rating for the movie: 4.7/5. The .3 is because some of the lines sounded a little forced (although which lines exactly, I cannot pinpoint) and because the hipsters were just too hipstery! But definitely, this is one of my favorite films. If you haven't seen it yet, please. Do us both a favor and GO. WATCH. IT. You're totally missing out on a great thing if you don't. 

       After the movie, Rap and I walked around Megamall a bit. I found this really cute store selling wonderful, affordable home decor stuff. Then we went to Forever 21 and talked about the guy who flunked modelling school. Naturally, I didn't buy anything. But I do love looking at all the clothes and stuff. Maybe when I've saved up enough, I'll come back and... window shop some more. 

       So, that was my day. I'm still really excited from the movie. And from the window shopping that ensued. Today was really awesome. Good luck to all ACET takers tomorrow!