Disarming Negativity

Juillet 9 -15

Disarming Negativity

Soundtrack of the Week <-- Dance Special

1. Don’t Call Me Baby [MADISON]
2. Give It Up to Me [SEAN PAUL]
3. On ne s’aimera plus jamais [LARUSSO]
4. Kembot [AMBER]
5. The Sweet Escape [STEFANI]

Event of the Week: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

• Once upon a time Alfonso Cuarón made a movie called Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which I personally think was the best Potter film. However after seeing Order of the Phoenix I guess Cuarón’s installment will have to settle for second best.
• This movie is so NORMAL, for lack of better term. The director did not see the need to do an extravagant showcase of effects as was done in the previous installments. There was also not much focus on Harry Potter magical concepts that the previous installments focused too much on (parading them in our faces) as if the fans did not do their homework of reading the book. More or less the director assumed that moviegoers have read the book, hence no need to emphasize too much on trivial HP stuff.
• The person responsible for casting Imelda Staunton as Umbridge should be given a medal. It was as if the Umbridge I wanted to strangle (due to much annoyance) jumped out right from the book into the screen. No other actress could have done it better. She really did give justice to the character, from her “girly” giggles to her “ahem-ahem” sentence-starter.
• I loved the video to newspaper article transitions made possible by virtue of the moving news photographs. It was an efficient way to summarize a lot of stuff in the book in a way that it saved much needed screen-time.
• I would have applauded Helena Bonham-Carter’s portrayal of Bellatrix Lestrange but was there really a need to channel Parker Posey, or to some extent, Jennifer Tilly? Was there like a Parker Posey convention in Azkaban before she broke out? And how do you really pronounce Lestrange? I’ve read once in the Internet that the pronunciation really is Luh-straw-hNzh but in the movie it was pronounced plain Le-strange.
• Sirius Black’s death scene was so simple. The next scene (which was intentionally made silent despite all the commotion) showing Harry’s lupasay moments was so effective IMHO. Ang galing ng director!!!
• A lot of stuff was downplayed in this movie more or less due to constraints in screen time. Percy’s loyalty to the ministry was not really an issue in the movie; in fact Percy was only shown like twice. In the book you really feel the tension among the Weasley’s when this matter was discussed. Another was the participation of the “mosquito-press” of Luna Lovegood’s dad in facilitating the truth about Voldy’s return. If the director really wanted a “Hogwarts-Politics” approach to the film he could have included that.
• This movie is serious and you can feel it. It’s perfectly understandable since one of the major themes of book 5 is political or shall we say power politics not just in Hogwarts but in the whole magical community.
• The Ministry of Magic was WOW, from the fountain to the floor tiles to the walls to the hallways, everything!
• The Voldy-Dumbledore final confrontation scene was the extravagant one with all the special effects but IMHO was done in good taste. Voldy had a fire dragon out of his wand and Dumbledore had Voldy rolling wet inside a huge water ball. I remember neither of these two scenes in the book but of course the director has artistic license, so pagbigyan.
• Harry Potter gets his first on-screen kiss. Hermione ceases to become the sole Potter babe as Ginny and newcomer Luna Lovegood enter the picture. That scene where Hermione was laughing with Ron (when they were discussing the kiss) made me think that Emma Watson, in some angles, resembles a younger version of Rachel Weisz.
• What makes this the best among the installments is that it focuses more (I think) on the human more than the magical side of Harry Potter.

Disarming Negativity: Let’s just say I’ve had some “realizations” this week. After hearing some anonymous tip about a judgment made about me based on how I look I’ve decided to take things on a more positive note. If you have seen me last week well I could say that yes I wasn’t that aesthetically pleasing to look at. I hadn’t shaved my facial hair for more or less a couple of weeks. My hair is now beginning to look long and quite “wild.” And so to make the long story short people actually thought that I was some kind of terrorist or something and honestly I FELT IT. Everywhere I go there was just that negative vibe as if everyone’s looking at me or maybe I was just plain paranoid. And so after venting my frustration towards the keyboard slandering faceless people in my thoughts as to why they are so judgmental I have realized that it actually is my fault. Like I always say the world is judgmental and when you face people the first thing they would actually see is well... your face, your clothes, and stuff and they use that as basis for judgment specially if they don’t know you that well. And so I finally accepted defeat. While I have lived in an illusionary world where I don’t really care as to what people actually say about me I have come to realize that it IS in fact affecting me and I am just in denial. While you couldn’t care less about how you carry yourself people will actually see it the other way and so you must at least do a little something to present yourself better. And so what now? Nothing. I think I would just have to get used to wearing a cap. While I am willing to do something to deflect the attention which I think I’m getting because of not presenting myself properly I’m not willing to compromise my uhm... belief that the barber is evil and I don’t want to have my hair cut, thus the cap and the naked lip. That’s just how far I’m willing to go right now. At least if I sort of blend in the ordinary crowd by not looking like a terrorist then at least I could direct my attention to other more important things like my health or academics. At least no more distraction. I’ve also decided to really see things in a more positive way, to actually implement it and not just have it written and not follow it. And so goodbye negativity, at least negativity in the mind. Expeliarmus! =p