Water Whirled

I’ve been busy interviewing people for a PR firm’s real estate and pesticide clients. Really boring stuff that I’ll appreciate in the future, I’m sure. For now, I’m just tired.

Was invited to the Super! Party at Embassy tonight. Thanks, Pam! Wanted to go, I wanna meet the other contributing writers, but I haven’t gotten much sleep since yesterday. Waah, next time na lang…

Watched Lady in the Water after finishing one such PR assignment in Makati early today. The film is much simpler than Shyamalan’s previous works, and it’s more fantasy-based and fairy tale-like. I’m actually of two minds about it: I find it an imaginative endeavor, as the writer-director has his own take on magical creatures and mythology that many of the human characters suddenly get acquainted with, and immersed in, respectively; on the other hand, the story gets corny occasionally, and certain characters are just annoying, including the guy played by Mr. Shyamalan himself. Still, watch it and decide for yourself. I’m actually more excited for Bryce Dallas Howard’s appearance in Spider-Man 3 as… woohoo!... Gwen Stacy. That’s next year.

Was surprised that this guy is Freddy Rodriguez, Federico from Six Feet Under. He’s an apartment tenant character in Lady who, weirdly enough, only lifts weights to develop his right arm. It’s probably a prosthetic, or digitally enhanced. His bulked-up arm looks real in the movie.

Sweet Swine Sketches

Was with Benedict last Saturday at the Rockwell Tent for the Fully Booked contest thingy. The competition attracted a huge turnout of entries for both comics and prose categories, and the shortlisted ones were subjected to a people’s choice poll. Anyway, the place was surprisingly spacious enough and quite cold. I hope this year’s Komikon organizers will choose a venue that’s just as comfortable (the UP convention last October didn’t even have any electric fans on in our area).

Benedict got two new sketches of his cartoon character Fero McPiglet. He’s been collecting different interpretations for about two years already, his small sketch pads now filled with disparate versions by over sixty artists, including Arnold and Cynthia Arre, Carl Vergara, Manix Abrera, Leinil Yu, Mannie Abeleda, Reinard Santos, Ian Orendain, Wilson Tortosa, Carlo Pagulayan, Jonas Diego, Gian Fernando, Marco Dimaano, Robert Magnusson, me, John Toledo (who drew him roasted and on a platter), Ner Pedrina, Reno Maniquis, Elbert Or, Ryan Orosco, Jac Ting Lim, Ariel Atienza, Gerry Alanguilan and Neil Gaiman (left, the “Signing Pig” sketch, drawn during last year’s event), among many others. There are superhero Feros, barbarian Feros, a girl (a trannie?) Fero, a skinless Fero, and so on. Cool thing to compile, that.

Dimension-hopping

Watched Superman Returns with John again, but at the Imax theater in Mall of Asia. Wow, those 3D visors are snazzy. I was kinda expecting those cardboard glasses with red and blue cellophane lenses (the ones that we never got during the boring Freddie’s Dead, back in the day). The Imax experience was just okay; only a few action sequences were given the 3D treatment. The trailers of Ant Bully and T-Rex were great, though. You can practically touch the leaping CG characters and monsters. Neat. Oh, one thing, though… the seats we reserved were quite creaky. But I dunno if that applies to the other rows, too.

Well, I hope that another Imax theater opens in a more accessible mall.