the house of trixxx

© Joselito Briones

i have been both very busy and very lazy at the same time. busy because i've been banging like a madman on my keyboard, working on a full-feature-length screenplay. very lazy because in doing research, i've been spending a lot of time on my ass watching movies, tv episodes, and documentaries on the subject of the screenplay via netflix. i've also been reading books and watching dvd's i borrowed from san francisco public library (photo above is my library card).

no, it's not a paid gig, i'm doing it on my own and for myself.  keeping myself occupied. 

the status:  i am temporarily calling it "the house of trixxx".  yes, it's about what it sounds like it's about.

it is now completely outlined and i've fleshed out almost half of it. 

the plan:  i'd probably want to do a an amateur no-budget movie out of this.  or more likely, a web series.  i'd probably post a kickstarter fundraiser for this project end of this year or early next. 

the why:  because!!!  and why am i telling you this?  because if i didn't, i'd be too chicken to make anything of this when i'm done writing it (or worse, i might not finish writing it).  so there.

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royce' - what i did christmas eve

courtesy of eric and mals! super yummy and silky dark chocolate. finished the box and did marathon viewing of lord of the rings trilogy.

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weta cave

 
these are photos are from the weta cave, from when i visited wellington.  just posting now because they're doing a new movie, "The Hobbit".  weta is the production company co-founded by Peter Jackson, famous for "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "King Kong", "District 9",  and weta cave is a mini-museum at the corner of the workshop.  it's actually quite small, a sort of mom-and-pop gallery/store with a video room.  it would've been much more fun to see their actual production room and meet the people who do the awesome visual effects and characters. photo above is of the life-size model of gollum, from "lord of the rings", displayed in the mini-museum.  don't know which character or from which movie is the one below, but he sure is scary.

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first beach day this year

the other night i rented "the endless summer" from iTunes, and it made me want to go to the beach. not to learn how to surf, you crazy?  just to go to the beach.  so this weekend i did just that.

woke up mid-morning.  had breakfast at "the flying pan" where for the last three weekends i've ordered the same thing (spanish-style egg white omelette with smoked salmon, wheat toast, fruit bowl, orange juice, long black coffee) and left tip, tho not customary here in hong kong, just so they'd remember me and my order, but they always manage to give me a wrong omelette anyway (once with egg yolks, once plain - without the things that make it "spanish", and once without smoked salmon).  i'll give it one last time next weekend and if they still don't get it right, i'll just make my own omelette breakfast.

i asked rene, benj, and josen to come with me to the beach but they said they'd rather go to a soho bar to drink the afternoon away, so i went by myself. dumped everything in my tote (photo, above): my big-ass towel, pretty floral shorts, sunscreen, sunnies, and most important - a nice book to read (isaac asimov's "the complete robot" compilation).  took the mtr in flipflops, got lost in shaukeiwan, especially after asking locals who pointed me at the wrong direction, then finally got to the minibus (craziest drivers in hong kong) that took me to shek-o beach.  my first time going to this beach - really nice weather, and rather crowded so i just went and stayed in one end.

i had a ticket for "x-men: first class" in the evening so i didn't stay in the beach very late.  movie was great. it wasn't until the movie was over and i was brushing off popcorn from my shirt that i realized i locked myself out from my apartment yet again. (i was in such a hurry from getting home from the beach to going to the moviehouse, while being on the phone with rene and benj who were still drinking in soho and asking me to join them, that i forgot my keys again). so i had to go to emi to borrow her copy again.

when i finally got in i got an email notification from iTunes saying there's a new doctor who episode that i can download. yay! only it turns out it's just a teaser.  new episodes won't be availabe until fall.  sigh.

anyhoo. i love my color today.  next time i'll try a different beach.


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what was i thinking?

 © Joselito Briones
i opened maya and got scared by the buttons.  how can anything have so many buttons?  i decided today is not maya day, hopefully i can recover from the shock.  i was already in geeky mode tho so i decided to walk to wanchai instead.  298 and wanchai computer center. tech/geek/nerd paradise.  used to be that if anyone needed pirated copy of any software, or any movie, these are the places to go to.  they've cleaned up of course. no more pirated software and cd's and they're are not as seedy (nor as smelly, tho they still are, kinda, and very stuffy.) as they used to be.  but still full of interesting things - computers of course, electronics, gadgets, comics, action figures, robots, and every imaginable kind of iphone case or any other phone case - from the simplest to the most ridiculously pimped up (blings!). i placed an order for an LED signage display and walked back to central.

when i got back to my flat, i felt dirty and overdosed of wanchai computer center - so i decided to do the complete opposite to balance things out.  i went to palace ifc and watched a gay movie.  alfred molina (spiderman 2's doc ock) and gary oldman (batman begins' comissioner gordon) as lovers.  they were so good!. and vanessa redgrave. but then she's (almost) always good. it's an old movie. "prick up your ears".  the british council brought it in as part of this year's hklgff.

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the latest harry potter movie - rather boring and uneventful that i'm just putting the whole blog entry in the title field.

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another useless info

© Joselito Briones

Did you know that in moviehouses in Germany (in the commercials part of the screening in the beginning), the last ad would always be for an ice cream, immediately after which all the lights would be turned on, and from some corner, an usher would yell, "anybody want some ice cream?" (in, German of course), carrying with him a box of the goodies for sale?

Photo above also from the recent trip to Miami.

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Duplicity

© Universal

Saw this movie tonight at Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz. Smart dialogue and great chemistry between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Some predictable outcome (SPOILER ALERT!), i.e., when you see that Wilkinson's character became the moral one among the characters, and this being a holywood movie, you just know he's gonna be on top in the end. Over all tho a very entertaining movie.

Verdict: recommended.


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No cat needs saving

© Joselito Briones

On my last birthday, having mentioned to him that I now want to make a full length film (ha!), supportive as he always is, Wil sent me a big box of books on film making - everything from screenplay writing, directing, story bording, and digital videography. I managed to read through the books in two weeks and was psyched to get started, so I thought what better way to practice skills than to try to shoot footages on our forthcoming trip to the English countryside. Guided by the screenplay writing book "Save The Cat", I started doing a screenplay, planning to use only the (would-be) available resources - friends to be in it, locations we're gonna be in anyway. It was gonna be a totally camp "Emma" (location, location), but it proved too much in the end. The project is cancelled and instead (as per Wil's request) we're gonna do a video montage to a song. It's his birthday, and the weekend trip to the English countryside to celebrate his and Marco's birthday, so yay! Should be fun.

Happy birthday Wil!


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poker face

© Joselito Briones

This was a test on focus pulling (shallow depth of field, focus shifting from one subject to another). This is a 400x300 crop from an HD1920x1080 video.

execution

© Joselito Briones
This is what I get for being too cheap to get a steadicam. Ah well.

bewitched princess

© Joselito Briones
this one is also from lleida, in catalunya. the models were there to have their photos taken, so they were surprised when i asked them if i could shoot video instead. on the first two takes they looked at the camera a lot. then they eventually relaxed and totally camped it.

video taken with Canon 5D mark II, processed in Photoshop Extended.
audio track "revenge" by plain white t's, provided by youtube

bloody catwalk show

© Joselito Briones
this one's from lleida, in catalan

Jason Bourne

© Joselito Briones

This is another photo from the "Bourne Ultimatum" premiere in Leicester Square in London the other day. My guess is that one wouldn't think him a celebrity if one bumps into him somewhere, he looks like your everyday nice guy next door. He's constantly got that almost-shy constantly apologetic smile on his face. It's a credit to his acting and on-screen persona that he can carry both art films and action blockbusters.


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Star appeal

© Joselito Briones

I was in Leicester Square to buy tickets for a West End musical and I stumbled upon the premiere of "Bourne Ultimatum" in Odeon Theater. The stars of the movie were there, including some other celebrities, so I was just happy snapping away.

Photo above is of Julia Stiles, who's now been in all three Bourne movies. She's very beautiful in person, and seemed nice enough to fans. Oh and her hair, perfectly set.


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Comically interwoven lives

© Joselito Briones

It's raining here today, so Eric and I decided to go see a show in Broadway, with Jane. Unfortunately, the shows we wanted to show weren't available on a discount at TKTS, so we decided to watch a movie instead (yes, we're THAT cheap). We saw Spiderman 3. It's as comic-y as anything can get, silly plot, silly acting, but very expensive execution and special effects. The sandman sfx was really good. We watched the movie in Astoria, in Queens (Steinway). After the movie, we went for a coffee (starbucks, photo above) and then dinner (pizza, quesadillas, mozzarella sticks, ribs, etc.) around the area from the cinema, spending about 4 hours just sitting and eating and chatting and laughing.


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My Dear Mr. Bond,

Promotional photo of "Casino Royale" from Sony Pictures

Damn good movie, this one. When's the last time you did "woaaahhhh!"'s and "holy crap!!!" in the movies? As with the last few Bond movies, the opening credits alone was worth the ticket money already. So cool!

Daniel Craig puts the character back to its original erhmm... character. One played to perfection by Sean Connery and softened to parody-status by Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan (OK, fine, Brosnan's still the best Bond, first few times he did it, if one takes into account the "fit" of the characterization with the times). Craig didn't really have any choice, with Hong Kong movies having redefined the adrenalin-level standard of action movies, he might as well have refused to make the movie if he was just gonna do another Brosnan film.

The chase alone, on feet, in the beginning, was enough to carry the whole film, action-wise. That guy Bond was chasing was just awesome! I actually wanted him to be able to get away from Bond.

I started getting bored somewhere in the middle, with the long poker game sequences, and wondered why they even bothered with it, before I remembered that the movie's title is "Casino Royale". Another downer was how everything was explained to the viewers... like "M" asking Bond if he knew why he's still alive, explaining how the girl (Eva Green) made sacrifices to make that possible. Like, hello? A five year old would've figured that out by himself (if he's allowed to watch the movie, I mean). And Bond professing his love to the girl??? Come on! I'd rather he act it than say it. Heath never said anything about his feeelings for Jake, did he?

The jokes are better too, more clever. Or maybe it's just Craig's delivery. His face is always so serious that when he delivers a punchline it's usually unexpected, unlike Brosnan from whom everybody expects jokes all the time. The best proof that Craig can really act are the scenes where he was being tortured, the worst when he was all mushy with Green. You'll never see anyone more uncomfortable with a smile.

I enjoyed the movie so much that only when I got back home did I realize upon thinking about the story, that it didn't have a good one.


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P.S. I've noticed that recently more and more people wanders into this correspondence of ours, looking for celebrity pics. I wish they'd come to look at the photos I've taken, but alas, it isn't so. Having said that, in case some random people do wander in here looking for Daniel Craig's naked photos, I thought I'll do the nice thing and direct them to right place. They can be found in this link. Bye, and thanks for dropping by.

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Borat!

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (20th Century Fox)

Roxy time!

Wow... record number of viewers in the cinema. There must've been at least 20 people in the audience. Pop culture rules. (Hm... hello? It wouldn't be called so if it doesn't, would it?)

By now of course, the novelty that is Sacha Baron Cohen is already somewhat worn out. Good thing is, throwing mud on people is still very much in, especially if the aforementioned people are just asking for it... As in his Ali G personna, the best thing about Borat is the way he brought out the true character of the people he encountered and recorded in the movie. Thinking he's someone they don't have to be politically correct with, they blurt out things they wouldn't normally say in public, much less in film. Now, one can argue that they're just trying to be agreeable with him to avoid confrontation, a human trait, don't ask me what it's called because I don't know, which has been thoroughly documented. The thing is, though, it's easy to tell that he wasn't feeding these people the words, he just makes them careless or carefree enough to actually say what they think. And what they do say, sadly, is what everybody else suspect to be their real sentiments all along. The way a man strongly agreed with him when he said something about beating up everything in Iraq including its lizards, and the shocked face the woman next to the man had when she saw his reaction... these are expressions no actor has yet to muster, so any suspicion of these scenes being staged with good actors can be safely put aside.

Another good thing about Borat? The way he doesn't discriminate against whom he supposedly unknowingly discriminates. Jews (Cohen is himself jewish), gays, blacks, minorities, politicians, religious fanatics. Everybody's fair game.

Eventually though, what he failed to do is to learn from what he discovered (or more probably, knew all along) in making this movie. That is, that there's really a lot of people who are stupid. Stupid in the fixed-in-my-own-ways-don't-bother-me-with-any-attempt-to-get-educated kind. The same people who can understand the satirical nature of the movie are those who are capable of understanding to begin with, and to these viewers, this movie is nothing more than reaffirming light entertainment. To the rest, those who are not even aware that this is meant to be mocking and ironic, yet see this as light entertainment nonetheless, would naturally see everything in this movie face-value and have this as something to fuel their own prejudices and stupidity.


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And The Devil's Assistant Wears Jimmy Choo

Promotional poster for "The Devil Wears Prada"

I know, this one's quite old. So... 2 seconds ago! But where I am it's fresh, so bear with me.

Style-wise, it wasn't there yet. It's more Hollywood's idea of stylish and fashionable. It's got all the glamour but very little of style. I'd bet that the gods of the fashion world must've thought it unworthy of even raising an eyebrow for. But let's face it, Nobody makes movies for these visionnaires. Movies are made for the masses, and this ordinary folk here liked the movie.

Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep. Is she capable of doing anything wrong? She was great as the Anna Wintour stand-in Miranda Priestley, head of Vogue stand-in "Runway Magazine". One could only wish she was given a more memorable "visual design". She was beautifully styled, of course, but it was just that. No "Waaaaahhhhh!!!!" factor in her appearance. Any actress other than Meryl Streep would have faded in the background in the movie. Emily Blunt, the actress playing Emily, Miranda's second, was also great. She was very much believable in her role as the fashion/style victim/champion, mostly because she acted really well, and partly because she wasn't beautiful enough to be anywhere close to being in Giselle Bundchen's league, who happened to have a cameo in the movie, as Emily's chum. Adrian Grenier, the token grounded character in the movie, was easy on the eyes, but I had the feeling any actor other than him wouldn't have faded in the background of the movie.

And then there's Anne Hathaway as Andrea, the transformed character. I'm sure if this was made 5 years ago, before Babs conceded to doing a maternal role due to lack of ugly-duckling-turned-big-white-swan role, her forte', Ms. Streisand would've fought to play this character. But, no worries, Ms. Hathaway did a perfect turn in the Babs role. She was most convincing in the metamorphosis that, in the end, when even she was made stunningly beautiful by the movie's make up artist and Patricia Field's choices of clothes, one would really believe in the power of fashion. Now, had they casted Babs in the role and got away with it, THAT would've been real magic.

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What kinda hellish comedy is that?

Publicity photo for "The Breakup"

Sunday night Roxy night again last night.

So yeah, so I got to see "The Break-Up", you know, the one withJennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. Jen looked gorgeous. She should give the movie's lighting guy a bonus.

Anyway, the movie's really funny, I liked it a lot, until of course, when, close to the end, it got too close to home. I mean, come on! They might as well have recorded our conversations in the apartment and used them verbatim. So not funny. Damn fools.


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