Old school and proud of it

© Joselito Briones

I think I'll make it a point from now on to see movies shunned by US viewers. I finally got to see "Superman Returns", it received a lukewarm reception in the U.S. box office, but I really liked it. It's the old school (old sKool is not old school enough) way of doing a superhero movie, the way a superman movie should be. Explorations of internal motivations and angst were kept to a minimum, and the focus was kept on larger-than-superlife conflicts. Good wins over evil, good guy gets really really pretty girl (by the heart, if not as a partner, the other good guy gets that part), and evil's still bald and gets himself a not-so-evil consort (the always entertaining Parker Posey). And it's also a good thing that I didn't pay attention to write-ups about the movie, otherwise I'd have read the spoiler plot already about the superkid.

The movie was shown in English in Roxy, in Nuremberg, and I'm really liking this small theather, because it's so small, not crowded (both times I was there, there were less than 10 people in the audience), and it's got a small-town appeal to it.

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More black and white photos

© Joselito Briones

I was able to take more photos yesterday, and had them developed last night. This time I made sure not to forget to presoak the film...


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Bad Chemistry

© Joselito Briones

Last night, I dug up an old bottle of Rodinal (after having read that it has like a gazillion years' shelf life), and decided to develop the Tmax 100 films that I exposed a couple of days ago when I went walking around Erlangen. It was a disaster (or so I thought). I pulled out the strip from the tank and what came out was this really really thick underdeveloped film. I scanned the negative and added a warm tone with photoshop, and here's the result. Could've been better, but I guess it's alright after all.


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Alyssa

© Joselito Briones

Remember I told you earlier that I've been posting photos in flickr? Turns out that the most popular so far among the photos I've posted is this one of Alyssa, one I took in New York.


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Wanted: Kansas

© Joselito Briones

If it's true, what everybody says about home being where one's heart is, then I'm currently, officially, homeless.


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Cavite

Promotional poster for the movie "Cavite"

Hey Jimbo, I came across the New York Times review for this movie... sounds promising... I hope it gets shown here eventually.

Did I tell you I'm from Cavite?










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The Day I Realized It's Not Much Fun Being...

© Joselito Briones

... Antisocial Here in Erlangen Where I Don't Know Anyone, As It Was in New York Where There Was All These People in The City Whom I Could've Been With and Interact With But Chose Not To, Nor Answer Any Phone Calls Even If My Closest Friends Were Calling and Scared Shit That Something Bad's Happened to Me And Who Are We Kidding They're My Closest Friends So They Forgive Me Eventually

Hmmm... all of the above was supposed to go to the title, I don't know why there's a limitation on the number of characters.


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A Day with the Girls

Promotional photo for "The Gilmore Girls"

I spent the whole day watching reruns of Gilmore Girls.





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Songs on a Rainy night in the Autobahn

© Joselito Briones

Nothing better than a long drive (Erlangen to Mannheim) to get reacquainted with classics.

After half an hour of listening to Ray Brown Trio's jazz versions of standards, I've decided to put on something that'd wake us up somehow. The first song in the complilation CD that I put on more than woke me up though, it made me hyper. The Knack's "My Sharona". I haven't heard the song for a while, but everytime I hear it again it never fails to lift up my mood. I don't even know what the song is about, all I know is it makes me want to bounce off my seat.

At the last hour of the drive, it started raining quite heavily, and having exhausted all the upbeat songs in the CD's that I brought, we agreed to play George Michael. Yes, every card-carrying friend of Dorothy has to have his CD on rotation, or the all-time favorite OST from "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", or of course, any of the tragic divas, else our membership is in danger of being revoked.

"The first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command...my love "

-Ewan McColl

For this drive, we had "Songs from the Last Century". I've forgotten how much I loved his version of "Roxanne" and "Miss Sarajevo", and how pointless is his cover of "The First Time Ever I saw Your Face". I still think this song has one of the best words ever put to music, and nothing will ever surpass Roberta Flack's crisp voice in delivering it (Johnny Cash' version is too devastating).


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Don't you just love it?

© Joselito Briones

It's brag time!

Don't you just love it when you see something that is very similar to something you've thought of first a long time ago? Six years ago, when the Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) animation technology was still relatively new, I did this animation, simply called "Portraits", to show my work in portrait photography. A year later I did another one, "Portraits 2". It was something new then, and obviously not done before, that I had plenty of email inquiry about it. I did a search of the topic in Google groups and this came up. Trust Google to find proof that you're not just writing BS.



Screen capture from DG website

I was going through my email subscriptions when this popped up from the Dolce & Gabbana newsletter (and don't even ask me why I'm subscribing to D&G, they should just keep me informed automatically, considering the money I spend buying their stuff). The technology obviously has advanced since then, because it's so much more interactive, but still...

What do you think?

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