weeklong

I am starting to believe that birthdays in the Philippines tend to be longer than anywhere else. It means that there's a pre- and post-birthday celebration or what-have-yous. As for mine, though the agenda wasn't really my birthday, there was always a feast up to Saturday, which ended, by the way, in the Lobby Lounge of Marco Polo. I'm beginning to live up to the year of the Pig, really.

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Over the week I've watched good indies, which I think were great misses in this year's Oscar race: Paradise Now, a foreign film from Palestine which is a closer examination on the minds of suicide bombers (though this has been nommed last year); Sherrybaby (if it weren't for a strong Best Actress race, I'm quite sure Maggie Gylenhaal would be in it); Factotum (a great perf from Matt Dillon -- again too much of a race in the Best Actor category); and Fateless -- an adaptation of a Nobel Prize winning book about a Hungarian boy's harrowing journey during and after the Nazi occupation in Hungary.

I watched Fateless last night and wondered how this could have been snubbed in the Foreign Language category. The cinematography is breathtaking. The direction of Lajos Koltai is seamless. Though it may be compared to the likes of Schindler's List or The Pianist, what is brilliant about it is that it never over-reaches on the horrors of the war, though there are occasional bouts of violence -- the one experienced by Jews in concentration camps. The last lines (told in voice over) were very moving -- it's an affirmation of hope and acceptance of the past that encapsulates the experience during the Holocaust. Btw, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Daniel Craig in the latter part of the film. Yes, James Bond does a cameo here. photo courtesy of dimitris.glezos.com