kidlat tahimik: Oh My Gulay!

 Today's national heroes day and I woke up early because of the loud radio. I'm on leave only just for couple of days and will be heading back south soon. 

morning has broken.

I then had coffee and god knows how coffee taste in the morning especially in this kind of weather, sunny yet it's very cold. Mom cooked spaghetti and my sister and i helped out. Went for a walk this morning and the weather is so damn nice. 

OH MY GULAY is situated on the 5th floor of la azotea building. the walls are adorned by beautiful artworks made by local artists. The place was awesome, from the chairs, stairs etc. Tons of really interesting pieces such as paintings, collage and wood carvings. We sat right next to the window which showcases an overlooking view of the city. We had mango juice (P60), lumpia vegetable salad with asian dressing (P110) plus their super sosy crepe topped with whipped cream. The crepe was stuffed with mango and peach then glazed with choco syrup.

We both loved their lumpia vegetable. The place is owned by a renowned baguio artist, kidlat salamat. The same person who also owns Ili Likha (along assumption road also in baguio city). We were both happy with the food and of course the place was the coolest we've seen in baguio so far. Thanks to my sister since t'was her idea. Rain, rain go away...come again after our vacation.

Cafe by the ruins

It's a rainy sunday morning.

we went to pink sister's church/convent to hear mass which started at 7AM. It was a very solemn place and i think the church was called as such because all the nuns are wearing pink habit. The homily was about humility. That, we should humble and follow the teachings of Christ.

cafe by the ruins 
(right across baguio city's municipal hall)

This ethnic looking coffee shop will catch your attention especially if you like exotic looking places. I'm just not so happy with how the food tasted. I had their tuna sandwhich (P165) and ruins coffee (P80). My sister had their beef steak sandwich (P165) and mint tea (P80) whilst our mom, camote bread (P165) and coffee. They also serve sweet potato fries. 

Hostage drama vs. Ms. Universe

I hate tragedies.

Last monday, a hostage drama ended in tragedy killing eight hong kong nationals and a few injured. Please see this link.  I heard the accused was dismissed from his job because he was proven guilty for taking part in multiple cases of extortion etc. The brother even hurled serious accusations against the government for illegally dismissing his brother without due process which sounded more like he's justifying what his brother did. Nonetheless, taking you anger out on innocent people is not justifiable neither. What a waste of time, what a waste of lives. The government is now putting the blame on media. That, there should've been media blackout and all the blunder afterwards. In my opinion, the government failed short in so many ways because it only proved that our police force were left off guard. As expected, all the blame was thrown back to our President being the Chief of Staff  then the blame game thereafter. Why not just rectify the problem instead of blaming each other e? The worst thing after the incident, the Quirino grandstand even turned out to be a tourist spot after the hostage dramas wtf? 

On a lighter note, our bet for the ms. Universe beauty pageant won the 4th place. 

flick picks

the karate kid

top billed by jackie chan and jaeden smith. 

Twelve-year-old Dre Parker and his mother Sherry move from Detroit to Beijing after Sherry gets a job transfer at her car factory. After a day in a park, Dre develops a crush on a young violinist, Meiying, who reciprocates his attention, but Cheng, a rebellious kung fu prodigy whose family is close to Meiying's, attempts to keep them apart by violently attacking Dre, and later bullies him at school. During an attack, the maintenance man Mr. Han comes to Dre's aid, revealing himself as a kung fu master. (Wikipedia)

Closer

stars natalie portman, jude law & julia roberts.

In the opening scene, twenty-four-year-old Alice Ayres and Dan Woolf see each other for the first time from opposite sides of a street as they are walking toward each other among many other rush hour pedestrians. Alice is a young American stripper who just arrived in London, and Dan is an unsuccessful British author who is on his way to work where he writes obituaries for a newspaper. Alice looks in the wrong direction as she crosses the street and is hit by a taxi cab right in front of Dan's eyes. After he rushes to her side she smiles to him and says, "Hello, stranger." He takes her to the hospital where Alice is treated and released. Afterward, on the way to his office, they stop by Postman's Park, the same park that he and his father visited after his mother's death. Pausing in front of the office before he leaves her and goes to work, he reminds her that traffic in England tends to come on from the right, and on impulse, he asks her for her name. They soon become lovers. (Wikipedia)

I feel so lazy writing movie synopsis today. 

the evil twin

the evil twin, a korean horror flick made way back 2007. 

one of the twin died because of an accident and the other was left in a coma for 10 years. when she awoke from coma, mysterious murders started happening. So-yeon (was mistaken to be Hyo-jin) is being arranged to marry Hyun Sik (Jae Hee) but she's confused over the situation since she lost her memory. Hyun couldn't love her because he thinks she's not so-yeon. So-yeon was haunted by Hyo-jin's ghost.

movierama

the last song
top billed by miley cyrus.
movie adaptation from a book
by nicholas sparks

the plot was good.

the last song is about the life of a misunderstood and rebellious teenager pained by her parent's divorce. her life changed after her mother sent her to his father's house to spend summer. veronica met will. she learned that her dad is sick and is dying so she decided to spend it with her dad. it was heavy drama and i'm not a fan of sad movies. i wish they could've picked a better actress to play the role of veronica like lindsay shaw for instance.



and the most gruesome award goes to ninja assassin. best phrase to describe this flick? there will be blood.

Raizo lost her special friend Kiriko because she attempted to escape the training facility. she was persecuted in front of him. years later, raizo turned against the clan and attempted to kill Lord Ozunu, their master.  Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) was tasked to investigate money-linked political murders, and found that they are connected to the Clan. She defies her superior, Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles), and retrieves secret agency files to find out more about the investigation. Mika met Raizo and convinced him to see Maslow for protection as well as to provide evidence against the Clan. But Raizo is later set-up by Maslow, and abducted by agents from Europol for interrogation. Although feeling betrayed, Mika is assured by Maslow that he is still on her side and gives her a tracking device for emergencies. The Ozunu ninjas infiltrate the Europol headquarters in an attempt to kill Raizo and everybody inside. Mika frees Raizo and they both manage to escape, but Raizo suffers near mortal wounds. Mika then takes him to a hotel. Resting in a motel, Mika implants the tracking device into Raizo, as the ninjas remain in pursuit. Unable to fend against the Clan, she hides outside the motel until Special Forces arrive to help her. By the time they arrive though, the ninjas have already kidnapped Raizo, bringing him before Lord Ozunu for prosecution. Europol special forces and tactical teams led by Maslow storm the secluded Ozunu retreat nestled in the mountains using the tracking device on Raizo. Raizo and Lord Ozunu confront each other in a sword duel. Mika interferes to help, but is stabbed by Lord Ozunu. Enraged, Raizo uses a 'shadow blending' technique for the first time to distract and kill Lord Ozunu. Mika, seemingly fatally wounded, is in fact saved by a quirk of birth-–her heart is actually on the opposite side of her chest. Raizo later climbs the same wall Kiriko did while trying to escape in the past, and looks out at the surrounding countryside. He then recognizes his freedom for the first time. (Wikipedia)

some more movie bloggies

dogtooth (kynodontas, 2009) 
a Greek drama film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. 

i found the movie eccentric. 

A couple and their adult son and two adult daughters live in a fenced compound. The children have no knowledge of the outside world; their parents say they will be ready to leave once they lose a dogtooth, and that one can only leave safely by car. (Wikipedia)

salt

it's a spy/action-thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce. rumor has it that the movie was originally for tom cruise but the script was rewritten for jolie.

Cast

Angelina Jolie - Evelyn Salt, the film's protagonist and a CIA officer accused of being a KGB sleeper agent.

Liev Schreiber - Ted Winter, the head of the fictional CIA's Russia House and Salt's friend and colleague of 15 years..

Chiwetel Ejiofor - Peabody, an ONCIX agent in pursuit of Salt.

Daniel Olbrychski - Orlov, a Russian defector

August Diehl - Michael "Mike" Krause, Salt's husband

Olek Krupa - Russian President Matveyev

Hunt Block - United States President Lewis

PLOT 
(derived from Wikipedia)

evelyn salt interrogates a Russian defector, Orlov, who tells her about "Day X", an operation organized by a powerful russian which will lead to the destruction of the United States (consist of members called 'MOLES').

Orlov mentions that at the funeral of the late Vice President in New York City, the visiting Russian President will be killed by Russian spy Evelyn Salt. evelyn then was apalled by the accusation, attempted to contact her husband Mike, a German arachnologist, fearing for his safety.

Orlov escapes, prompting Evelyn (or called salt the entire movie) to escape — causing the CIA to think she is really a spy.

She flees to her apartment and finds her husband missing. Salt resumes and grabs essentials as well as a venomous spider.

After barely escaping a highway pursuit, Salt takes a bus to New York City. The next morning, she sneaks into the heavily guarded St. Bartholomew's Church where the Vice President's funeral is being held and shoots the Russian President. She then encounters Peabody where she surrenders but escapes the NYPD.

Salt grew up in the Soviet Union where Orlov taught her and many other children to obey him and ingratiate themselves to the American government. Then, when it came to Day X, he would command them to strike from various positions in the US.

Day X..

Day 1

Salt meets Orlov who congratulates her on her killing. He brings her to a river barge, where he tests her allegiance by having another agent kill Mike in front of her.

Day 2

involves seizing the United States' stock of nuclear weapons. Salt, who had gone to Orlov only to discover his plans, kills Orlov and everyone else on the barge. She then goes to the rendezvous set up by Orlov to meet a NATO mole.

The NATO mole and a disguised Salt went to the White House. Once inside, her NATO counterpart suddenly starts shooting at Secret Service agents and detonates a bomb. The Secret Service, along with Winter, rush the President to the lower bunker of the White House. Meanwhile, the President, believing Russia is preparing a nuclear strike against the US, begins to transmit the launch codes from the nuclear football. Salt infiltrates the bunker and kills the bodyguards. Winter picks up a gun and kills everyone but the President, whom he knocks unconscious.

salt then realized later on that winter was part of Orlov's plan all along. winter then attempted the nuclear football to start the sequence for launching nuclear missiles at Tehran and Mecca.

Salt asks Winter to let her in but before he opens the door, a news program reveals that the Russian President is not dead, but only placed in a near-death state from spider venom. winter realizes that Salt is not on his side but she manages to break in, and after an intense struggle, she succeeds in knocking him down. Just after she manages to abort the nuclear missile launch set up by Winter, agents break in and arrest her. Winter goes free, but later Salt uses her chains to strangle him.

last part of the movie..

salt is put on a helicopter with peabody, and explains everything to him. a skeptical Peabody finally realized salt's telling the truth after receiving an SMS saying that her fingerprints were found at the barge (the hideout for the so called MOLES where salt's husband mike was killed), confirmed salt's betrayal to Orlov. Peabody hit then uncuffed salt pretending he's doesn't believe her. peabody staged an act to let salt escape and jump off the chopper unobtrusively so she can find and kill other MOLES.

my movie experience would have been better if we got a better dvd rip.

here's a snippet...

let the right one in?

let the right one in.
is a movie adaptation of Let Me In, is a 2004 vampire fiction novel by Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist.

 the story is about a special friendship formed between a 12-year-old boy, Oskar, and a vampire little girl named Eli. It took place in Blackberg, a working class suburb of Stockholm, in the early 1980s.

the movie was dubbed in english but you will know that it's not really an english. it was a lengthy movie but i was not bored at all because it was eccentric. Oskar, a 12yo kid who seemed to have fascination with crime and forensics and owns a scrap book filled with newspaper clippings about murders. Oskar often gets bullied in school because he's not your average 12 year old who hangs around with boys his age. eli, the pale looking girl made friends with Oskar. he learned in the long run that Eli is a vampire although he never treated her differently. Oskar saved Eli's life because someone attempted to kill her. Eli did the same and saved Oskar from the bunch of bullies by beheading them. what's with the movie title by the way? trivia: according to folklores, a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited. and that explains why Eli bled until Oskar finally said 'come in.'