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Saturday, June 15, 2002
By sheer luck, I discovered that American Adobo was playing at the Tara (artsy theater around the corner from me) this weekend, so my brother and I went to see it before I dropped him off at the airport.
It's another one of a series of movies that incorporates food (adobo is a popular Filipino dish consisting of braised meat and spices) into the lives of a group of people tied together by their heritage. In this case, it's five Filipino-Americans (primarily in their 30s and 40s) going through a very rocky and eventful year in New York City. Honestly, if this movie wasn't focused on Filipinos, I probably wouldn't have watched it. It's almost like an Asian version of The Big Chill or any number of "coming of age" movies among a group of friends. In this movie, the main characters went to college together in the Philippines in the '70s (thus, they're a few years younger than my parents and their friends). It also reminds me a lot of The Joy Luck Club, at least the scenes involving the younger American-raised women (i.e. not the concubine stuff).
The movie itself has a soap-opera feel to it, and the characters don't have much nuance to them, although the acting is reasonably done. I could see myself trying to picture different friends/relatives/etc. who most closely resembled the ones in the film. I didn't mind the dialogue, although it was clunky at times. But the script was pretty genuine as it had the characters freely switching between Tagalog and English during their conversations. (My parents and their friends do this all the time, although I was raised primarily on English, so Tagalog is actually very foreign to me. It makes me feel awkward, though, when I see people do the free transition around me. They do hit upon this briefly in the film during the cookout scene where there are a couple of non-Filipinos in the group.)
There are themes of the power of friendship, people finding their place in the world and the right person for them. All of those ideas were done adequately enough. Thankfully, there were a few good scenes where you could see the influence of Filipino culture and social mores on the lives of the characters. Those really helped the movie along (in my opinion) and something that would get non-Filipinos thinking about what motivates their behavior. Among the ideas thrown about: Filipinos are often complacent (thus not challenging what's around them, no matter how good or bad -- "That's why Marcos ruled for 20 years and the Spaniards for 300 years); white people seem to treat Filipinos in America better than fellow Filipinos (as seen in the relationship between a wealthy Filipino woman and her cousin who works as a maid in a New York hotel); the influence of religion (especially Catholicism).
The movie does have its moments, and the tone of the film swings wildly from melodramatic to farcical to touching. It had its holes and it really seemed formulaic, but there's enough of the Filipino flavor to make it unique and entertaining enough. The film's official Web site does a good job pretty much giving away most of the plot plus lots of additional stuff, including an adobo recipe.
posted at 10:55 PM
Back from the sun
I had the laptop with me the whole time, but figured, I'm on vacation, what's the point of logging on and doing all of this stuff. Sorry for leaving the dozens and dozens of you wanting more. Anyways, here's the rundown of the vacation with my brother ...
We left Tuesday morning for the approximately seven-hour trip to Orlando. From Atlanta, it's pretty much a straight shot down I-75 to the Ronald Reagan (nee Florida's) Turnpike. It was a reasonably uneventful drive, thankfully, powered primarily with my MP3 CDs. We left about 10:30 a.m. and got into town around 5:30-6 p.m. If there's ever been an area that screams tourist, it's International Drive in Orlando (where we eventually stayed). Lots of bright signs, hotels of all price ranges, assorted malls catering to the tourist, mini golf, almost every moderately priced chain restaurant, a variety of tacky souvenir shops and shady discount ticket brokers.
We ended up at Pleasure Island, a bunch of clubs over at the Downtown Disney part of the Disney Industrial Complex. The places were OK -- nothing spectacular, although the improv group was decent. The people watching aspect was so-so -- a bunch of parents ready to let off steam after dealing with the kiddies all day, plus some folks like us wanting to do something without having to dodge all the kids.
On Wednesday, we hit Universal Studios Florida, a nice, if inferior park compared to the original in California. Oddly enough, the most thrilling rides involved thrill-ride seats but with the action taking place on large screens in front of us (Back to the Future and the Hannah Barbera ride). The visual effects plus the jarring of the seats made it feel more real compared to the King Kong, Earthquake (and to a lesser extent, Jaws) rides. The Men in Black ride had a nice interactive element -- shooting the aliens across the ride. It was still pretty much the same, all in all, when I was there for the Citrus Bowl during my senior year of college. The one new twist was City Walk, which is Universal's series of clubs, bars, etc. It was cool that they brought in a version of Pat O'Brien's, the famous New Orleans hangout. This area seemed to bring out more people who made it a nighttime destination -- there are decent dinner deals, and the price to get in everywhere was cheaper than Pleasure Island. The whole Universal thing looks pretty good, although we didn't have time for Islands of Adventure.
We ended bypassing the rest of the Disney Universe, since we just didn't have the time. I guess I'll be back in due time. On Thursday, our return trip started at the Kennedy Space Center. I was always pretty interested in all of the space exploration stuff, and I enjoyed it when I was here as a kid. It seemed much improved and still just as entertaining now. We found our way to the VIP tour, and it seemed to be worth the extra price since we got closer to the shuttle launch pads and landing strip, plus had a couple of cool guides (as opposed to a guide who often just played a video). We wished we had more time there, but it wasn't the case. But, we did get the infamous freeze dried astronaut ice cream. (I guess that goes on the display bookshelf for a while).
We went the long way back to Atlanta to handle some other business. Thus, we traveled up I-95 to see our family's lot in Palm Coast (between Daytona and St. Augustine). The development is full of smallish houses, perfect for people to move to upon retirement, or as a summer home. There were some houses on our street, but thankfully, ours wasn't the only lot not developed. After that, we found our way to Savannah where my brother could visit the weightlifting center there. Eventually, we tackled traffic from there Friday back home and in time for the Red Sox-Braves game at Turner Field (oddly enough, my first game there this year).
It was a good vacation, although as with any family vacation, there were the occasional jangled nerves and arguments. But I guess we survived reasonably well.
I suppose there could be more details, but I've written more than my fair share here.
posted at 2:08 AM
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
Goin' South
Well, with my brother in town, we're doing the road trip thing, leaving tomorrow for Orlando and hitting a couple of the crazy theme park places and who knows what else. It looks like I will be bringing the laptop down with me. I guess I'm a geek, but I can also do some travelogue stuff along the way.
posted at 1:14 AM
Different perspectives
Before heading over to the show, I ended having dinner with my friend Lenny, who got the tickets, plus some other friends, including a handful of people I work with (or used to) but hardly ever acknowledged. These are some of the people that just kind of fade into the background since I hardly worked with them or connected with them. But in the midst of our conversation about all sorts of stuff, the topic went briefly to "her" (I've yet to mention her name for a few reasons, although I hope she's reading this and knows I am talking about her -- and thus might respond.) A couple of the folks worked with her, and they weren't saying anything flattering. I wasn't too sure how to react to this, so I just clammed up. All I know is that I really like her, and I guess I'm one of very few who genuinely feel the way. I suppose I really should do something about it, and I guess there isn't much competition.
posted at 1:07 AM
Get the 'F' out ...
Got to see yet another Monday Night Raw show at Philips Arena, my first live event since changing the name to WWE. It definitely didn't have the "Oh my god" moment like the last time I went, when the ECW guys came onto the scene, but it had its moments -- although the Ric Flair-Vince McMahon match was somewhat anticlimactic. The good thing about it was giving a push to Brock Lesnar, who ran in at the end of the match to give Vinny Mac the win.
Shawn Michaels had an OK interview back, and we now have an official face turn by Booker T after he got kicked out the NWO, which shouldn't have happened to begin with. Too much down time altogether, and the action was pretty average, plus no Stone Cold. We did have great seats, though (first row of seats behind the hockey boards at one corner of the ring). There was much amusement with a Goldberg lookalike (musclebound guy with a bald head and goatee).
I've been to better shows, but this was OK since I went with my brother and a former co-worker who's just as rabid a wrestling fan as I.
posted at 12:52 AM
Sunday, June 09, 2002
Reality bites
Well, so much for the Nets in the NBA Finals. That thud you hear is much of the New York area jumping off the bandwagon.
posted at 11:25 PM
Warning to those of you playing fantasy football leagues, if you rely on those magazines as your sole source on information, you're screwed. Those things were written in April and May and published by early June. I know since you can now see my face in Fantasy Sports magazine, doing a mock draft for football.
posted at 10:04 PM
Interesting to see how many dead links and sites I've discovered while cleaning out my bookmarks. I guess I've seen how the Internet has risen and fallen, especially among fledgling sites.
posted at 9:40 PM
The sports night from hell went reasonably well once we were cleared to watch Lennox Lewis pummel Mike Tyson after much confusion during the night that we wouldn't be able to see it. Nice to see who has the power to get stuff in -- it ain't us.
Of course, the hockey game had to throw a nice monkey wrench into the proceedings by having a requisite triple-OT game. But it was fun and kept things interesting once the fight was over -- even if it meant not getting out of the office until about a quarter to 5. It's still a bit weird to come home from work and seeing the morning newspaper on your doorstep. It's even weirder that you know the paper isn't going to have some of the stuff you just worked on. But, hey, I got a head start at tackling the Sunday paper. Still need to go over all of the advertisements and inserts.
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