Songs from the heart

I borrowed three DVDs last week to watch over the weekend. I only finished two of them; the third one, I fell asleep after the first 15 minutes. I already made a review for the first one, City of Gods, so I’d be tackling the second foreign film (non-Hollywood, that is).



Les Choristes (The Choir) released in 2004 is a French film directed by Christophe Barratier. Set at the end of the 1940s in rural France, an unemployed music professor, Clement Mathieu (Gérard Jugnot), accepted a supervisory post in a boarding school of rehabilitation for minors. Mathieu was quite shocked to discover the repressive system – with a heavy-hand for punishments – applied by the headmaster, Rachin (François Berléand). In order to get through the antics of the bunch of wayward boys, this new professor introduced to them the power of music.

This is your usual ‘one teacher that made a difference’ kind of movie – a French Dead Poets’ Society – yet it is a film filled with tenderness, beauty, purity and of hope. You can feel the sullenness of the boys’ struggle for independence and self-expression. The soundtrack of the young boys singing, written by Bruno Coulais and features the angelic voice of Jean-Paul Bonnaire, who plays Morhange in the film, will stick to the viewers long after they have finished watching it.

Parallelism of the journey

Over lunch of fish and chips with friends, one of them commented that the Harry Potter series is pretty much the same as the Lord of the Rings. This conclusion was made after he had seen the international trailer of the fourth Harry Potter film, Goblet of Fire. After a serious thought, I actually agreed with him. Coming from someone who hasn’t read the books of JRR Tolkien and of JK Rowling, he’s got some good points.

Here are some points one could easily point out just by seeing the movies: both films have spiders, elves, trolls, dragons and wizards. Shelob has more back-story in LOTR than Aragog of Chamber of Secrets, but the story of the acromantula that Hagrid raised in the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts told his story to Harry in the movie. The elves in these two stories belong at the different ends of a pole. Elves in Tolkien’s world are considered higher beings, while elves in Rowling’s wizarding world are slaves; Legolas is far from Dobby. Dragons are to be featured in the upcoming HP film; though we didn’t see any dragons in any of the three Lord of the Rings films, there are dragons in Middle-earth. Smaug the dragon pretty much figures a lot in The Hobbit, which I do hope Peter Jackson will start working on. Harry Potter revolves in the magical world of witches and wizards, while only five wizards stepped foot in the lands of Middle-earth.

Do the similarities end there? Nope. Take the villains; Lord Voldemort is akin to being as evil Sauron. The Dark Riders are almost as synonymous as the Dementors. Are the Death Eaters the Uruk-hais of Harry Potter? Well, I pretty much think that Lucius Malfoy has more class than those mutant, upgraded orcs. However, as we get nearer to the major characters, that is where the similarities do get closer.

Harry is Frodo. They are both on a journey, chosen to take the task, and with one goal to defeat the Dark Lord. They both have old wizards who served as mentors and died in their journey. Uh-oh, I’m giving spoilers in here. Gandalf fell in the dark pits of Khazadum with a Balrog of Morgoth (a creature of fire), while Dumbledore burst into fire like a phoenix in his funeral. Harry has his Ron and Frodo has his Sam; both loyal friends willing to die for the heroes. Where does Hermione figure in? She’s a compendium of many characters: the Aragorn, the Arwen, the Galadriel, the Theoden, the Eomer, and Eowyn. The character in the Harry Potter books that will move mountains just so Harry could meet his final goal.

So the question now is: will Harry leave and die as an old and withered wizard? Do you think Harry would survive and live past seventeen? I do believe that Harry will vanquish the Dark Lord, just as Frodo was able to defeat Sauron by throwing the ring in the fiery heat on Mt. Doom (okay, Gollum did it). And just like Frodo, when all has come to past, Harry would never be the same. Frodo went to the Grey Havens at such a young age (sixty, perhaps I haven’t touched my LOTR notes for quite sometime now). Harry will die young and be with his parents and Sirius.

Why stay in the City of God, which God has forsaken?

My old schoolmates have a forum, which I am a member and often visit. One of the moderators, Toby Camandang, belong to my class and now gave me a section in that forum. Why, oh, why did I even suggested a section for book reviews and movies? Blame it to my so intruding self, then.

So here we go, first start is a movie released in 2002. Old, huh? It is not a mainstream movie and wasn’t shown in most theaters, but finding its DVD couldn’t be that hard. I’m not sure though, if it’s sold in the pirated section in Quiapo. This was considered a breakthrough film in their country, as the reality of the life of the poor was often glossed over in movies previously released.



City of God is a Brazilian film, directed by Fernando Meirelles with Katia Lund, which tells a real story of three decades of unrest in underground Rio de Janiero. Back in the 1960s, the slums of the city were taken over by youth gangs and only relinquished their hold in the mid-1980s. This is a story of a place Cidade de Deus, a poor housing project where organized crime and drugs flourished and became one of the most dangerous places in Rio de Janeiro.

In this place, grew two young boys who each took a different path: one became a drug dealer, while the other a photographer. Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) was someone who is smart enough to realize that he is too frail to be an outlaw and decided to view his world through the lens. Li’l Dice or Li'l Ze (Leandro de Hora), on the other hand, dreamt of becoming the most dangerous criminal in the city.

This is a story of the passage of the place and the boys who had considered this forsaken place their home. In here, we could see the great division between the rich and the poor. How the destitute were left to their own devices and the affluent not caring what happens to their poor brothers.

Though riddled with violence, this journey to the netherworld where drugs and organized crime are a way of life is above all enlightening and affecting. It is a movie to awaken your senses, incite you and definitely elicits a response.

The way it was shown with flashiness in the visuals, style of cutting back and forth in time, and in somewhat overexposed glow made the viewer feel a bit numb from its violence. It was so heartbreaking to watch boys at the ages between seven to seventeen running around the street brandishing guns in their hands. And the line given by a young boy of probably the age of ten really tugged my heart: “I’ve snorted drugs, robbed, and killed. I am a man.”

Based on a book written by Paolo Lins, who himself grew-up in the City of God, this film was nominated to four Oscars, won a BAFTA film award for editing, considered as a Best Foreign Film by the New York Film Critics Circle and Independent Spirit, and received a Visions Award Special Citation in the Toronto International Film Festival.

Watch it and maybe you’d say what the main character said in the beginning of the film: “A picture could change my life.”

The surest defense against evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even eccentricity

With a little bit of time in my hands, I surfed the net and got across this test to know how weird I am. I would hurt to know if I’m eccentric. So, here’s what I got:

You are 50% Weird. Normal enough to know you’re weird, but too damn weird to do anything about it!

Me, only half-weird? I’m glad I am; this just confirms that I don’t completely belong to the bizarre. Just a bit of an oddball or can be spooky sometimes. Nevertheless being strange can be a good thing; it adds mystery, cuts you above the rest, gives you a certain identity, and allows you more leeway to be a deviant.

There’s another one that I took, a link I got from a forum with old schoolmates. It was a test to check how NERDY you are. How did I fare? I’m really sure that that test was flawed. Oh, for freaking out loud those kinds of test are flawed! Anyways, this was the outcome:

9% scored higher (more nerdy),
and 91% scored lower (less nerdy).
What does this mean? Your nerdiness is: Supreme Nerd. Apply for a professorship at MIT now!!!.

Like I really am all that! Okay, I might have been a bit above the average way back in my primary and secondary school, and just swimming in the median during my college years, but I am in no way a nerd. I am cool! I didn’t hole myself up in my room on weekends to read encyclopedias and do my homework when I was at school; I went to the beach, hang out with friends, and did silly things that normal teenage girls would normally do.

So tell me:
How Weird Are You? or
How Nerdy Are You?

Can you treat pimples at the nether parts of your body?

I’ve heard a long time ago that if you got a bad case of pimple, get a tube of your toothpaste (best if Colgate) and put some on your problem pimple. It has been said that it will dry out overnight. I never believed it, but some people do attest to its effectiveness.

More than a week ago, with a lot of thoughts running through my head, I went to our sink and brushed my teeth without giving so much a thought to it – doing it mechanically. After a minute of brushing, with my mouth covered in froth, a mindless thought occurred to me. Why isn’t there a tinge of mint in this toothpaste? Then my eyes trailed to the tube sitting precariously by the edge of the sink glowing in front of me. It was my Neutrogena’s Deep Clean Foaming Cleanser!

After some cycles of squawking and splitting and gurgling, I was able to wash down its soapy taste with another round of brushing with real toothpaste.

So, if toothpaste can be used to treat pimples on your face, can you then use a facial cleanser to clean your teeth? My answer to that is a resounding NO! It tasted awful. As for the title, nope I don't have pimples in the nether regions of my body.