Posts Tagged ‘Movies’
2009
08.13
Tags: Books, Dan Brown, Eternal Recurrence, Filipinos, Foucault's Pendulum, Friedrich Nietzsche, Himala, Lila, Lullaby: 100 Years of Songs, Matter, Movies, Robert Pirsig, spirituality, The Da Vinci Code, The Matrix Trilogy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Umberto Eco, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Posted in Art, Books, Education, Filipinos, Gender Issues, Life, Movies, Nietzsche, Philosophy, spirituality, Theater | No Comments »
Read “The Da Vinci Code” in 2005, after deliberately ignoring it for quite some time because of the hype. And then saw the movie later.
Well, the wealth of information (esp. regarding symbols) is generally sound. But it doesn’t hold a candle to the erudition of Umberto Eco’s “Foucalt’s Pendulum.” (I have yet to understand the elaborate explanation of how Foucault’s Pendulum works…)
One thing I liked in the novel is the rather sympathetic portrayal of the head of the Opus Dei, Bishop Aringarosa. (Not so in the movie.) I’ve heard a lot of negative publicity regarding the Opus Dei and their founder Jose Ma. Escriva. (From the late Larry Henares, in his TV show and Philippine Daily Inquirer column, as well as from a Filipino priest who studied in a university run by the Opus Dei…) Bishop Aringarosa may be ultra-conservative in his theology but in the end, when the time came for his faith to be tested, his heart proved to be ultimately in the right place.
Also, it had a more hopeful, happy ending than “Foucault’s Pendulum,” which was darker and more poignant. Eco’s novel bewails the lack of understanding that so-called believers/enlightened ones have. Parang si Elsa sa Himala: “Walang himala! Ang himala ay nasa puso ng tao!”
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2009
06.14
Tags: Movies
Posted in Art, Filipinos, Life, Love, Movies, Music, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Psychology, spirituality, Writing | No Comments »
I remember this film I saw in one of the French Spring Film Festivals, “Chance or Coincidence” about an “eventologist” (or someething) whose “other” job is to find connections/meanings in the chance occurences of life. I don’t remember the details of the story, it’s a love story (I think). I liked it, and also this Nat King Cole song in it, with the words “For all we know/care…?” Ala lang, baka lang alam n’yo. Am being whimsical here. It might have some meaning in the greater scheme of things. Hehehe.
Was also fascinated by “Sliders” (the TV series with Jerry O’Connell?) and “Sliding Doors” (with Gwyneth Paltrow).
In the TV series (based on a scientific theory, the “many-possible worlds” theory), the character played by Jerry, with his friends and professor (John Rhys-Davies), travel through a wormhole that leads to a parallel universe. Same time, different world. In some episodes, they even get to meet their alter-egos.
The movie “Sliding Doors” is premised on this one triviality: whether Gwyneth’s character is able to get on the subway on her way home or not. And the two parallel lives of Gwyneth play themselves out, each radically different from the other — all because of missing/not-missing a train ride. The movie however makes this intriguing, though perhaps unwarranted, conceit. The two Gwyneths (almost meet physically in an elevator) become “reconciled” during this scene by having only one singular experience, implying that the events which would follow from now on would be the same, even if they diverged earlier. Perhaps her inner reconciliation brought about the reconciliation of two divergent worlds? Perhaps she is owned by a destiny that’s greater than all the numerous happenstance of her life?
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2009
06.05
Tags: Body, Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity, D.H. Lawrence, Filipinos, Kierkegaard, Love, Matter, Morality, Movies, Nietzsche, Philippines, Philosophy, Platonism, religion, Sex, Soteriology, spirituality
Posted in Books, Education, Filipinos, Gender Issues, Life, Love, Movies, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Psychology, spirituality | No Comments »
Some people say that Christianity has been misunderstood. It looks to me more like it is Christianity which has misunderstood! The world, perhaps even Christ!
I’m not associating Christ with Christianity. When Nietzsche wrote “Der Anti-Christ” (usually translated as “The Anti-Christ”), his polemics was directed more to Paul and Christendom/Christianity, (a note in the translation says that it is probably more fitting to translate it as “The Anti-Christian.”) The same with Kierkegaard, his beef was with Christendom (the bureaucracy of Christianity). Christianity, as we know it today, is according to biblical scholarship, largely the work of Paul the Apostle.
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2009
01.15
Tags: Batman, Ethics, Freedom, Movies, Philosophy, Power, Responsibility, The Dark Knight, truth
Posted in Life, Movies, Philosophy, Psychology | 2 Comments »
Good thing I posted the whole thing in a forum… powtah. Eto, re-posting…
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The Prom(ethean) Knight: Thoughts on the “Dark Knight”
By Michael Ian Lomongo
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In Greek Mythology, Prometheus is the Titan who stole fire from the Gods and was then punished by being chained to the mountains of Caucasus, where a vulture came every knight to feed on his liver. He is cast by different authors either as the benefactor of mankind or as the one responsible for the evils besetting mankind.
Yes, since childhood, we have known Batman as a comic superhero. Perhaps the most plausible among the superheroes, since he has no known superpowers. He’s just an extremely wealthy guy with superb fighting skills. Plus the machinery and gadgets to supplement those skills.
But he is, in fact, a masked vigilante. A “freak.” Even if his intentions are noble, in essence, he operates outside, or at least within the fringes, of society’s laws.
Bruce Wayne himself recognizes this. He too dreams of a Gotham City without Batman. A time when superheroes and masked vigilantes would be unnecessary. A world wherein justice truly works. Where he would simply be Bruce Wayne.
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2008
05.25
Tags: Authenticity, Books, Buddhism, Illusion, Masks, Movies, Philosophy, spirituality
Posted in Art, Books, Life, Love, Movies, Philosophy, spirituality, Theater, Translation, Writing | No Comments »
Mwahahahaha! Just had to let the cosmic laughter resonate, no, reverberate in my body…
Everything is grace! Even when shit happens… Divine piss, holy shit!
I have always been wary of spirituality/religiosity that denied/denigrated the body. Non summus angeli! (We’re no angels!)
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2008
03.03
Tags: Agnosticism, Existentialism, God, Heidegger, Hume, Jokes, Kant, Life, Movies, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Rorty, Schopenhauer, spirituality, Superman
Posted in Filipinos, Jokes, Life, Movies, Nietzsche, Philosophy, spirituality | No Comments »
Jokes for philosophers:
1. Philosophaster: Who’s the most punctual philosopher?
Philosopher: Immanuel Kant.
Philosophaster: And why?
Philosopher: It is said that Immanuel Kant used to take his daily walk in the afternoon in Konigsberg with such regularity and punctuality. It soon came to a point that his townmates knew what time it was when they saw Kant walking.
Philosophaster: Nope.
Philosopher: Who then?
Philosophaster: Martin Heidegger.
Philosopher: Really? And why?
Philosophaster: Because he wrote a book entitled “Being On Time.”
Note: “Sein und Zeit” (“Being and Time”), written by Martin Heidegger, cited by existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre as a seminal work. Heidegger, however, refused the tag “existentialist” as if it were “The Plague.” He was probably thinking: “Camu/s na lang. Wag n’yo na akong idamay.”
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2008
03.03
Tags: Literature, Movies, Pantheism, Philosophy, spirituality
Posted in Art, Filipinos, Life, Love, Movies, Philosophy, spirituality, Writing | No Comments »
* Off the top of my head, here is a random list of films I’ve seen and liked/loved:
1 Leolo (probably my all-time favorite; a Canadian film in French)
2 Splash (with Tom Hanks and Daryll Hannah, with a beautiful song – One Fine Day or Love
Came for Me? – by Lee Holdridge and Marvin Hamlisch)
3 Insiang, Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag, and Ora Pro Nobis (Lino Brocka)
4 Kakabakaba ka ba? (Mike de Leon?)
5 Alapaap (Tata Esteban)
6 Groundhog Day (with Bill Murray)
7 All About My Mother (Pedro Almodovar)
8 Carlito’s Way (with Al Pacino, and the beautiful Penelope Ann Miller)
9 Santa Sangre (Axwl Jodorowsky)
10 The Girl on the Bridge (a French film in black and white)
11 Immortal Beloved
… and many others…
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