Ay Tariray

  How do you solve a quandary like Tom Cruise? I’m serious. To be honest – I actually have little to no thoughts about the guy as a celebrity outside of the usual comment about jumping on couches, and Scientology stuff, and even that is minimal and forgettable. This man is an actor who has lived within the very core of my cinematic foundation.   When I was little, I interchanged him with Brad Pitt because at the time, they were the two biggest male actors in the goddamn universe. And then they did Interview with a Vampire together and looking back; what I vaguely remember is Kirsten Dunst, and not much else. (Oh, and the lighting, many candles, plenty shadow – much early 90s goth romance, too much mascara? I think Antonio Banderas is there for a second – I cant be bothered to find out). Like, he is a mega star.   So big that he’s a black hole in my cinematic psyche. I keep having this thought in the back of my brain that I don’t actually realise how much of a...

  You know how you sometimes open Netflix, or any other streaming service of your choice, and just stare at the landing page for 20 minutes straight not exactly knowing what to watch? Its even weirder when the “recommended for you” list pops up and the movies and shows it recommends are so up your alley and are definitely shows you really actually want to watch. And then you don’t. Instead, you reload Archer and watch it again, right from the beginning, for the 5 th time in the past month. And I don’t even care that the show hasn’t aged all that well (I mean, what has?).   I still love it. Science attributes it to a combination of procrastination, sensory overload and a big fat heaping of nostalgia.   I can certainly agree with that.   Aside from the nostalgia comfort blanket that repeat watches offers, you also end up absorbing more details and features on repeat watches which, if anyone knows me and my particular aesthetics; is my absolute visual jam. ...

A few months ago - I met some new people by attending this fun social workshop where people proposed their script ideas for fun. I, of course, arrived late - and, of course, was also feverishly sick. Anyway - everyone's ideas were fun and outlandish.  The vast majority of pitches were sci-fi or fantasy based and involved gratuitous amounts of imagined CGI.  Needless to say - the budgets for these movies would have been extreme.  I actually didn't really come to the workshop with any ideas.  I mean, I know nothing about pitching a script or story, so I went along just to rub elbows and bask in the glow of other people's talent. To my horror, I was still asked to take the stage and there I stood, red faced and wobbling slightly from fever as I pitched an old idea to a relatively unimpressed crowd.  One girl even vocalised that my idea, and those of others as well (so in this case I wasn't singled out, and I certainly wasn't offended), were pretty crap....

Will you look at that.... I have made a post.  Its taken me two or three years.  I have also finally changed the layout of this place.  Is this fancy enough for you?  I think I want to do a few more changes, but it might not count for much if I don't really end up posting anything on here. Ugh guys... adulting is hard! Every hour of my day is used up like sand in a... sand bucket... But last week, my social media feed got inundated with information about the casting of my favourite game dad, Geralt of Rivia for the upcoming NetFlix series.  I had feelings as a result.  Weird ones. Anyway - I mentioned that I had an essay's worth of thoughts and a friend told me to write them down.  So here we are.  Its a preliminary set of thoughts, and I truncated a lot of it and cut out loads of paragraphs because the article was meant to be for publication in another online thing.  But it didn't happen so I might as well archive it here....

So – 2016 is happening huh? Holy shit do you know what that means?! We are going to have a third Captain America movie.   And a third Star Trek movie. And we just had the latest instalment of Star Wars as a glorious X-mas gift. And what a gift... What a time to be alive. But we've also lost a bevy of awesome people - seriously, was there a statute of limitations that we didn't know about with regards to the coolest music and film icons ever? Nonetheless, I can only feel grateful even as I’m slightly panicking that I have somehow gotten through 16 years of the new millennium and still have no idea what the hell I’m doing.   And there’s so much to do!! So much to see!! So many places to go! I want to continue travelling of course and have recently capped my travels of 2015 with a three week stay back home in the Philippines – the beautiful, beautiful homeland. Except for the times when it isn’t. But you know what – I missed my family, I missed the weird ...