BOOK REVIEW: Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin by Bob Ong

This is the first book I finished reading while on vacation. Bob Ong has always been one of my favorite authors. His satires on everything Filipino are funny (obviously) and too true. In this book, he had made a "script" for several genres. One for action, one for horror, and one for the general love story or soap opera.

He exposed the idiocies of the plots and stories that almost did not change since the boob tube was introduced in the Philippines. It's not that I did not know this before (there's a reason I don't watch Philippine TV except for news, reality shows, and sports). It's just that he made it really plain and exaggerated for the readers to get the point. I remember in particular one Mara Clara remake episode that was being advertised. The scene was Clara was trying to make Mara eat shrimp knowing that the latter is allergic to it. What did Mara do? She cried, "Clara, waaaaggg!" Too stupid. We all know that is you would say any word in Tagalog that has the letter "A" in it, your mouth would open. She could just have shut her mouth and punched Clara in the face.

I manage to annoy all of my roommates when I watch all of the soap operas on TV because I can't help but comment everytime I see another stupid scene so I stay away from it for the preservation of our relationships. hahaha.

I highly recommend this book to all scriptwriters, moviemakers, and all Filipinos. We spend the most time in front of the TV, make sure your IQ do not drop 10 points everytime.

MOVIE: The Seven Year Itch

This is the first time I've ever seen Marilyn Monroe acting. She really knows how to act, I'm surprised. Comparing her to some of the famous blonde 'actors' of this generation, she's way better! Plus, she is not thin, at all. She has a real woman's body which is really sexy.

The movie is nice. I really giggled in some parts, especially when she saw the air-con. It was fun seeing the reaction of people when a house has an air-con then. She's such a darling. One thing that disappoints me though was the iconic steam-blown dress. It's just a really small part in the movie and it was not shown as it was in the posters.

Nevertheless, I like that the movie maintained the family values of a man experiencing a seven-year itch in marriage.

MOVIE: CASABLANCA

So, I've finally decided to watch classic movies. I really never bothered to before because I had a feeling that they would be boring. I mean, they don't have the technology then and people were too romantic those days.
I started with "Gone With the Wind" because it is such a classic, I've been hearing about it since college (I was too "cool" when I was in high school, the only classic I heard about was MTV Classic). I saw the book but never got to read it because I am not really a sucker for novels.
After I watched the movie, I realized that classic movies are not that bad, they are adorable. So I decided to watch an older one, Casablanca. This one is in black-and-white, much older than Gone With the Wind. And boy, am I surprised! There was never a dull moment in that movie. All the lines were carefully thought of, they are very witty and the story itself is amazing. It is clean and yet, you could feel for the characters.
I am now hooked. I might look for Audrey Hepburn's movies, Marilyn Monroe's and whoever I find. If only the movie writers now are as clever, we would not need to hear the actors swear to get our attention.