My review on World War Z

I don’t like gore and blood and guts. So any zombie movie would definitely not be on my list of favorite movies. Maybe on my least favorite ones. Then my husband asked me to watch World War Z the other day and I almost gagged. What, two hours of freakshow, ugh! But I remembered he sat through Epic and Monster’s University with my son recently so I agreed. He deserved this :) Besides, Brad Pitt said in an interview that he wanted to produce a zombie movie his sons can watch so I thought maybe it wouldn't be all that bad.

And thankfully, it wasn't. And thankfully too, I didn't read the critics’ review before watching it. Some were a bit harsh comparing it to the book, which I haven’t read and have no plans of reading since I'm not a fan of zombie books too. And yes, some even complained that it was too much PG rated. Duh, not too much twitching and oozing perhaps?

Anyway, I’m writing this as part of an audience, someone who actually liked the film even if I don't like the zombie genre. Despite the rampaging, snarling undead tearing through a metropolis. I still liked it because I liked the good old formula of filmaking I grew up with, good old fashioned edge of your seat suspense sprinkled with a lot of action and coupled with family drama. Not too much CGI where you can't actually tell who the real humans are. It is a movie you can talk about even after you go out the cinema. 

Honestly, it was quite fast paced that sometimes it felt like you were strapped on a roller-coaster ride. The first scenes may look docile, depicting Brad Pitt in a domestic setting. (Yup, he is  Dad here, complete with cooking pancakes and driving a station wagon).

But after that, boom! Hold on to your seats and his family are being chased by a pack of rabid zombies. You are lost with them in a sea of people screaming and running. The reaction of the children was realistic, panic-stricken and confused with the eldest even having an asthma attack. Meanwhile, the supermarket scene was  chaotic with the looting and the absence of law and order. It gives you a chill that something like this might really happen if a national emergency situation arises.

And their race to the rooftop for their helicopter rescue was heart-thumping too. The scenes leading to it, on the darkened halls in eerie silence lighted only by a flare and on the staircase running frantically while the zombies were  chasing them were enough to make you cover your eyes, wanting to open it when they are finally rescued.

But it is not all frantic action, there were wrenching bits too like when Brad Pitt’s character had to tell his wife that he had to leave and help a scientist find a cure so his family can still stay aboard a warship, one of the only safe havens in the world corrupted by zombies. Moreover, the scenes with his children were heartfelt too, giving the audience something warm to ponder on and it served as a little breather from the suspense. It also added a touch of humanity to the monstrosities around. And that for me is what makes this movie different from other graphic, nonsensical zombie movies. It is not all gore and violence but gives you someone relatable to root for, in this case, a father, a parent, one who only wants his family to be safe. Note, he didn't go out and declare he wanted to save the entire humankind but only his family first. He was actually hesitant to leave. And having that one character with a lot at stake is essential in telling a good story. It gives it more depth that is unusual for a movie like this.

Then after a slight lull, it‘s back to the roller coaster ride again. His travel on different parts of the world to find a weakness for the virus was a like being strapped on a ride again in rapid acceleration. The night chase in Korea on the way to the plane and his escape from fast grotesque savages on the way to the airport in Jerusalem was nail-biting. Who can forget the large mound of zombies scaling the walls of Israel  like ants?

And just as you thought here was an easy pace inside the Belarus plane, a hidden zombie was uncovered and yes, all hell breaks loose. The passengers tries to run away from the rampaging undead but how far can you go inside a 747?

Even the innocent halls of a health facility became venues of dread. Scenes with a handful of almost catatonic-like scientist zombies littering the halls, waiting for prey while Brad Pitt and his comrades tried to go around them was effective in fanning quiet panic among the audience. Quite different from the usual mass of gyrating, teeth-baring zombies you often see swarming around, scenes you’ve seen many times in a number of zombie movies.

Overall, I was surprised. I didn't expect I’d enjoy the movie even if it’s about one of my least favorite genres. Honestly, I don’t care if they didn't follow its so called book faithfully. It was their interpretation of the book. Let its author cry foul if he didn't like it. Because I think what really matters is, if the audience was entertained. 

Were they momentarily taken to another place, taken out of their everyday drudgeries and were excited, terrified after leaving the theater? Even talking about it on their way home like we did. In the end, the box-office results will show if the audience liked the film not the critics. Because it’s the first time I've heard clapping after a zombie flick.

Impossible Motherhood Testimony of an Abortion Addict by Irene Vilar: Unflinching, unforgettable

I am fascinated by stories of survival even controversial ones such as this one.

A woman who had undergone fifteen abortions in fifteen years.

But it was a wrenching book to read because I'm a mother. Reading about abortion is never easy. But as a writer,I was curious. I wanted to analyze it, to see what drove the author to expose herself to eventual scrutiny, to possible vilification. Why do it? And as a reader I want to discover the emotions lurking underneath these abortions. To unearth the past that led her to this situation. And to understand.

This book is one of those books I've read quite quickly because I wanted to see the conclusion already. And this in  uncommon because I have a pile of books that are still half-read, waiting for me to pick it up again. My interest wanes fast if a book doesn't give me something to think about or root for.  But here, I wanted to know what happened to the little girl who saw her mother jumped out of a moving car or the young woman who got involved with a much older professor and had more than a dozen abortions? I wanted to find out right away.

However, just as it was an emotionally difficult read, it was also a little difficult to write about it too because re-reading through it again was like re-living through her ordeals anew. Her accounts had been achingly raw and personal like reading through her diary. But that’s what makes this book unforgettable, its unflinching honesty.

"What comes next is difficult to tell. I stood in the middle of an empty room unable to think of anything but how to get him back, wavering between the piercing need to make a move and the dread of never moving again. I had no future other than being in this man’s life. I had to make an appointment for an abortion. I didn't have a choice."

It’s easy to judge her, I know but it’s her courageousness to come out and admit these abortions and delve through the emotions leading up to it makes it an interesting read.

Going past the first few chapters, it would seem that her older lover who didn't want children, prompted her to do it. That and her naiveté as a teenager and her hunger for approval from him. But as you read further after these lines, there is more to it than her desire to keep him.

“He had told me that family kills desire, not to mention love. A child at my age would turn me into one more gender casualty. He was thinking of me, shielding me from a woman’s fate and the shackles of domestic live we all took on when the challenge of freedom seemed too much of a burden to bear. I was pregnant with a child I wanted and he knew he would despise. I was ignorant and uncultured and he was brilliant and smooth.”

“…I locked myself in the apartment unable to move. Without money any action seemed impossible. I was not accustomed to staying still. Doing nothing turned into a death wish that, frighteningly, seemed reasonable. The idea of being exposed  to the man I loved, looking weak, worthless, and alone, plagued my thoughts.”

"I had aborted a pregnancy I wanted, had almost died, and all I could feel was terror at becoming a man’s problem. I struggled to find an explanation, something to make him understand I wasn't a mess, that I could do something right, after all, something to put his life at ease so he could finally write the books his women kept him away from."

And just when you thought, that her helpless pining for him would never end, a surprising twist of circumstance happened, she developed a backbone and became stronger as the years went by. Perhaps, one of her major turning point  as when she had to steer their large sailboat by herself to avoid a storm. He gave her the wheel while he was sleeping down the deck. She got past it successfully and it became the spark that made her trust her own abilities more.

"Early in the morning the next day, we were entering the Gulf Stream. We had sailed under power over the banks some ninety miles through the night and not hit ground or coral. I had steered most of the way with both radar and GPS helping me decipher the treacherous currents. Dead reckoning at night in the banks with a seven-and-a half- draft sailboat was dangerous, if not impossible. When the sun finally came up and I saw the indigo blue of the stream against the white hull of Sarabande and the entrance landmark of Memory Rock behind me, I let go of my tight grip on the steering wheel, finally, and was sent to tears."

She also began to trust her writing abilities more especially when her father liked her manuscript.  That part was a memorable personal and emotional validation of her writing that she needed that time.

"In the morning, my father handed me back the partial manuscript of the memoir I’d been working on and shared with him. I had been awake most of the night, fearful of what he would feel, think, say, when he saw his portrait, the obvious connections between his actions and my mother’s unhappiness and ultimate death…Ashamed, I looked into his eyes intent on assuring him that if there was anything he disagreed with I would not publish the book."

“Honesty, Irene, is the only thing we can hold on to and know it won’t let us down,” he said, shaking his head and staring down at the manuscript on my lap. “That is some book. I’m proud”.

And enlightenment on her part happened when she least expected it. It struck when she separated from her lover and was caring for her dying dog. That moment, she realized why she kept going through the abortions like an abortion addict. It rooted from her mother’s suicide when she was eight, when her mother leapt out of their moving car. When her mother chose death over her family and she chose it for herself too, fifteen times. The care for her dog awakened her. She had to leave it in a kennel while she was on tour, while it was sick and dying. She realized then that we are capable of neglecting the people we love and loves us and that it if we have a second chance again of redeeming ourselves we'll take that chance like her mother could.

"As I dug the shovel into the frozen ground, I thought of my mother’s burial. Her coffin had been wrapped in the Puerto Rican nationalist flag. To think that for most of my life, I had forgotten the love of a mother, yet, remembered it, felt it again, in Oliveira’s eyes. It was as if tending to Oliveira, I was given the chance to see her come back after she abandoned me, and feel all the remorse, all the love, and want nothing else but to repair what she’d been destroyed. I had left my dog in a kennel for over a week blind to the fact he needed me, that he was frail and dying. I was his whole world. My mother left me too, blind to the fact I could not live without her. She was my whole world. It baffles me to this day how by coming to be so delicately known by my dog, I felt my mother’s love revive in me, if for a brief period. I saw how at some moment or another we could be capable of unthinkable neglect. I feel empathy for my mother then, saw that she would have cared for me had she had a second chance."

After her time of clarity, she finally decided to have a child. She finally made peace with having a life growing inside her. And though, she didn't dwell in too much regret or remorse about the past abortions in her text, the phrase”shameful mass of thirty-five years” may have summed this up. 

"I have been called a survivor, but truly I wasn't one. I was a deluded creature in suspended animation…I was not a survivor until I overcame my fear of mothering the child in my womb. It was halfway through my sixteenth pregnancy that I found peace with my maternal desire and fell in love with my situation and the future gestating in me. My daughter Loretta Mae became the coherence emerging from the shameful mass of thirty-five years."

Tonight, after I put you down to sleep, I returned to the room and stood by the crib. It anguished me to realize for the first time. “I will die and have to leave you.” It also occurred to me that one day not in the distant future, you would stand by a crib watching your own child asleep, realizing the same thing. I grew calmer. The calm, as always seems to be the case with me, was made of resignation. But no matter how painful, I look forward to watching you grow, to hearing the sound of your voice to change, all linking the woman I am to the child I once was"

Honestly, I am parts shocked, saddened, enlightened by this book. I have my own opinion about abortion and I admit, I was shocked that she went through with it fifteen times, saddened because there are many women trying to conceive, spending money to have a child of their own. And at the same time enlightened because you realize that it was never an easy choice for women like her, that sometimes their underlying reasons are so deep and painful by that they had no choice but go through with it. 

We may never know the moral issues that they will have to grapple within themselves or the community they live in or if their choices haunt them sometimes but as readers we can only look on and not judge. We can only try to understand their plight and be happy that they have lived through it and are having a better life than what they started with.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed: A Cathartic Journey

Reading this book was not easy. I read it in spurts, the same way I prepared this post. It was like climbing a mountain because errands, procrastination and other distractions occupied some of my time. So reading the chapters of the book and typing sentences for the blog was also done in chunks. And this was difficult to comprehend since this book was hardly boring. In fact, it read so real, it was like taking the journey with the author herself while she trekked the Pacific Crest Trail by her lonesome, seeing the sights, feeling the sore muscles, the hunger, the heat, the pain. 

And though her challenging hike on the different mountain ranges of various states was in in no way comparable to the two smaller mountains I have climbed, the same thoughts reverberated on my mind especially when severe fatigue overwhelmed her at the onset of the hike. Her “Why am I doing this?” mental soliloquy was familiar.

“Within forty minutes, the voice inside my head was screaming, What have I gotten myself into? I tried to ignore it, to hum as I hiked, though humming proved too difficult to do while also panting and moaning in agony and trying to remain hunched in that remotely upright position while also propelling myself forward when I felt like a building with legs. So then I tried to simply concentrate on what I heard-my feet thudding against the dry and rocky trail, the brittle leaves and branches of low-lying bushes I passed clattering in the hot wind-but it could not be done. The clamor of What have I gotten myself into? was a mighty shout. It could not be drowned out. The only possible distraction was my vigilant search for rattlesnakes. I expected one around every bend, ready to strike. The landscape was made for them, it seemed. And also for mountain lions and wilderness- savvy serial killers.”

Hers was not only a physical journey but an emotional, spiritual one because after her mother died and after her  divorce, she needed something to put back order in her life. I guess she found catharsis on this arduous trail.

I stopped in my tracks when the thought came into my mind, that hiking the PCT was the hardest thing I've ever done. Immediately, I amended the thought. Watching my mother die and having to live without her, that was the hardest thing I've ever done. Leaving Paul and destroying our marriage and life as I knew it for the simple and inexplicable reason that I felt I had to- that had been hard as well. But hiking the PCT was hard in a different way. In a way that made the other hardest things the tiniest bit less hard. It was strange but true. And perhaps I’d known it in some way from the very beginning. Perhaps the impulse to purchase the PCT guidebook months before had been a primal grab for a cure, for the thread of my life that had been severed.

And I wonder if all hikers are looking for something to distract themselves, by embarking on a sometimes treacherous trek, why do they put themselves on a back-breaking ordeal? Are they trying to prove something to themselves or to others or is the mountain just a symbol? A symbol that they can conquer something more difficult than what they are facing in life. Because even though, the views are spectacular at the summit, the end part of the journey is really the ultimate gift. After scrambling over rocks, shrubs, dirt and enduring long hours of walking at an angle in over a hundred feet of elevation, it is that heady sense of accomplishment that you cling to after. Or maybe it’s just me and some people just like the view.

And I also know what the author meant when she talked about the part of descending a mountain. For me, that was the most difficult part of hiking even on a day hike because after fatigue have settled in your knees ascending, you have to brace yourself this time on each step going down because you can't help but catch  glimpses of a ravine on your side while the large pack strapped on you is weighing you down. Like her, I  made a mistake of carrying a heavy pack on my two hiking occasions and I paid for it a lot. I was so exhausted when I got to the top and someone had to help me carry it down because I was bone tired already. It was a significant lesson I will carry on my next hiking trip. Next time, lighter is better.

I began panting and sweating immediately, dust caking my boots and calves as the trail turned north and began to climb rather than undulate. Each step was a toil, as I ascended higher and higher still, interrupted only by the occasional descent, which was not so much a break in hell as it was the new kind of hell because I had to brace myself against each step, lest gravity’s pull cause me, with my tremendous, uncontrollable weight, to catapult forward and fall.

Then there was the part where she remembered her father and their tumultuous relationship. She remembered it at a time when she lost her boots and she had to decide whether to walk on sandals on a difficult terrain. It was a crucial part of her journey and I liked that portion of her memoir. It was about calling on that warrior within us, to have that grit to go on when we face difficult challenges and if we didn't learn that lesson from our father, we had to learn it for ourselves.

“Wounded?” was all I could manage.

“Yes,” said Pat. “And you’re wounded in the same place. That’s what fathers do if they don’t heal their wounds. They wound their children in the same place.”

“Hmm,” I said, my face blank.

“The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse and ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.”

“But –I think I have already,” I sputtered. “I’m strong- I face things, I – “

“This isn't about strength,” said Pat. “And you may not be able to see this yet, but perhaps there will come a time- it could be years from now- when you’ll need to get on your horse and ride into battle and you’re going to hesitate. You’re going to falter. To heal the wound your father made, you’re going to have to get on that horse and ride into battle like a warrior.”

But the part that I really liked about this book was when she talked about being a writer. That whatever versions of herself she found herself in, she will always be a writer. I can also relate to that. Because even if I distract myself with other endeavors, my love for words, my yearning to write my thoughts and stories will always be difficult to suppress. I have to write. Moreover, her mention of books like those written by Flannery O’ Connor and William Faulkner which she read at night in her tent was also engaging. Indeed, to become a good writer, you have to read a lot. And a good book will always be a reliable companion anywhere.

…Of all the things I’d done in my life, of all versions of myself I’d lived out, there was one that dad never changed: I was a writer. Someday, I intended to write a novel of my own. I felt ashamed that I hadn't written one already. In the vision I’d had of myself ten years before, I felt sure I’d have published my first book now. I’d written several short stories and made a serious stab at a novel, but I wasn't anywhere close to having a book done. In the tumult of the past year it seemed as if writing had left me forever, but as I hiked, I could feel that novel coming back to me, inserting its voice among the song fragments and advertising jingles in my mind….I had nothing but a long hot day ahead of me anyway, so I sat at my picnic table and wrote until late afternoon.

Overall, this book had been cathartic and enlightening to me too. I understood now why I took up hiking in my late 30s. I know I still struggle with it but I'm still keeping on, researching other "manageable" summits I can try. If the author embarked on her journey after her mother died, I think I started it a few years after my son was diagnosed with autism. I have accepted his condition but conquering mountains have helped me to deal with it better because I feel that no other struggle would be so great after battling severe exhaustion, momentary fear and clambering over rocks and digging through dirt and soil on a side of a mountain.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, raw and enlightening

I didn't know there was a Victorian language of flowers. That flowers were used as a form of romantic communication during the Victorian era. Red Roses for love, Daisy for cheerfulness, Rhododendron meant Beware and many other definitions.

I also didn't know that after the age of eighteen children in foster care were often left to fend for themselves. And many end up homeless or in jail.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is one of the most unique novel I have read in a while. I like her heroine, Victoria Jones, fiery, complicated, troubled like Jane Eyre. I also like the honesty and realism of her writing because it takes talent and empathy to write like an orphaned teenage girl out of foster care, full of hurt, anger when you are so unlike that, married with kids. What a feat. And this is her first novel.

I have tried writing short stories myself and still trudging my way to a first draft of a novel and going through that, I have gained a stronger respect and awe for fiction writers who can deliver their stories with such deep emotion amidst a complicated plot.

They are like actors on pages. Because to convey a character’s emotion with enough realism, a writer has to internalize and put herself in a character’s plight so he can write it the most authentic way he can.  And it’s not easy because when one can be easily colored by one's own experiences. More than that, imbibing the mindset of a character and submerging oneself to its psyche can be emotionally exhausting. However, I think that kind of writing is what makes readers sit up and take notice. Like this book.

I’ve seen Ms. Diffenbaugh’s interviews on YouTube and she is a far cry from the angry heroine from her book. She is soft-spoken and is a doting wife and mother to two kids. But she has mentioned that she had been a foster mother so she has first-hand knowledge on the challenges of foster kids.

And it was her experiences with them especially of one foster daughter she had difficulty reaching out to and her advocacy to give emancipated foster children a better life prompted her to write this book. She knows the power of stories.

Given that, I can't help but admire how Ms. Diffenbaugh combined her fascination with the Victorian language of flowers and her cause for foster children in a story. It's amazing how she combined the character's dark emotions to the fragility of these ornamental plants. And how she made the sense of intensity of the main character radiate strongly in the pages.

And so I wonder if the delicate beauty and silent strength of these flowers attracted her character, Victoria to it. Maybe its capacity to survive on a patch of earth and produce such immense colors and shapes mirrored her desire to bloom and survive any rough road she finds herself in.  Well, that’s just my musing. Because like Victoria, I also like flowers but only taking pictures of them especially during the summer. I also admire the resiliency of some of them especially the wildflowers.

I have read the word redemption surrounding this book. And it certainly is because the path of redemption for Victoria Jones has not been easy. Her reluctance of accepting help and love had been difficult. But redemption will find her eventually in the most unexpected way, one she never imagined it to be. She will learn it not only as a daughter, a lover but also as a mother. 

Overall, The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is a book that will not only let you look at flowers a different way but include you in a sad story that sometimes happens to emancipated foster care children who are in the transition phase of their lives. It brings you closer to their struggles and makes you realize that without proper guidance from adults, they sometimes have difficulty surviving on their own.

And for the author writing this powerful story was not enough, she also established the Camellia Network (http://www.camellianetwork.org), an organization that will let people actively help these foster children as they transition to adulthood. Bravo to that. 

Here are some excerpts on Ms. Diffenbaugh’s book: 

“The morning of my eviction I awoke before dawn. My room was empty, the floor still damp and dirty in patches where the milk jugs had been. My imminent homelessness had not been a conscious decision; yet, rising to dress on the morning I was to be turned out onto the street, I was surprised to find that I was not afraid. Where I had expected fear, or anger, I was filled with nervous anticipation, the feeling similar to what I’d experienced as a young girl, on the eve of each new adoptive placement. Now, as an adult, my hopes for the future were simple: I wanted to be alone, and to be surrounded by flowers. It seemed, finally, that I might get exactly what I wanted.”

“My room was empty except for three sets of clothes, my backpack, a toothbrush, hair gel and the books Elizabeth had given me. Lying in bed the night before, I’d listened to my housemates picking through the rest of my belongings like hungry animals devouring the fallen. It was standard procedure in foster and group homes, the scouring of things left behind by rushed, weepy children. My housemates, emancipated, carried on the tradition.”

“Elizabeth nodded.”I love it”. She stood and brought it to the table, setting it between us, I studied the way the individual flowers clustered around the single stalk, their sharp points fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. Something about the configuration of the petals made me believe that forgiveness should come naturally, but in this family, it hadn’t. I thought about the decades of misunderstandings, from the yellow rose to the fire, the thwarted attempts at forgiving and being forgiven.”

Les Miz, watching it on Broadway and on film

Melodramatic. Superfluous. Over the top. Sentimental. These are some of the words thrown by acerbic film critics on the film.  I don’t blame them. It is and I love it.

While the norm for films nowadays seem to be on the subdued, the minimalist plot centering on the angsty hero, anti-hero, this film flings all that like someone barging through the doors with his ridiculously colored costume and singing at the top of his lungs unabashedly crying, rejoicing and screaming with all his might while the repressed, constipated spectators/critics watch in horror, beating their breast and clutching on their “modern” preconceived notion of what a film should be in the 21^st century. 

(movie stills from cinemablend.com)

I can't understand the pillage of words spewed by these pseudo-intellectual busybodies. Just because a film is heartfelt doesn't mean it's cliché, uninventive. People love it, they are moved by it. They are affected by it, isn't that a film is supposed to do, make you feel, make you think or even make you cry? Or are we at an age where eye-popping CGI or special effects with a thin plot supposed to be the better film? Maybe I’m just an old-fashioned prick but I like a film that still deals with human emotions, human realities even without CGI. And to the critics, those sitting on their high horses ruining the moment for some of us before we can judge the film for ourselves, maybe they should feel their pulse once in a while to check if their heart is still beating. Harsh, I know. But if you could have read what a critic in New Yorker said (especially the one of a Mr. Denby) these lines are way kinder.

Speaking of New York, I have watched Les Miserables on Broadway.  It was the first and only Broadway show I watched in the Big Apple. So yes, I will defend it rather vigorously. New York and Les Miz are intertwined in my memory. I only spent days in that city but it was a heady experience, what with my first subway ride and my first time in the lively Times Square. And also my first time to have the sun shine so merrily in the sky and leave my ears almost frozen like an ice cube. Coming from a tropical country, that was a dumbfounding experience. I always thought that if the sun was up, it was supposed to make the day, well,  warm and sunny but apparently, not always. I thought winter was supposed to be colder or is February still winter? Because I've seen winter, trudged in snow in Vancouver and watched snowflakes form on my hand and it was bearable so the whipping cold in Manhattan was quite a surprise to me.

Going back, I watched Les Miz very high up on a theater one cold February evening in 2002. And the only thing lacking then were binoculars. My cousin purchased tickets on sale so I can't really be choosy, can I? Only grateful. That time I think it was $25. Thank God, the actors had superb singing voices because they still resonated clear to me even if I felt I was stories high.

Honestly, I didn't have any idea what I was watching then. It was a musical and that's that. I was in the "I'm in New York so I should watch a musical "mindset. And along the course of the musical, I became enthralled by the story of Jean Valjean. When the priest gave him his second chance and made a better life for him and others, that part endeared me to this musical. I don’t remember much of the other characters after that, didn't even read Victor Hugo’s novel (yes, until now). It was just Jean Valjean and yes, I also remember him carrying this boy that his daughter was in love with, other than that I can’t recall much.

So when I heard Les Miz the movie was being filmed, I was happy. Who would play, Jean Valjean? I thought. And it was High Jackman. Wolverine. Wow. I like him, he does exude a good moral center and had some experience in musicals so I think he will nail it.

I wasn't disappointed. He delivered well. It’s just a little weird watching him in an almost falsetto-like voice in the beginning but he’s more of an actor than a singer so that’s fine besides the emotions he conveyed on screen was spot on. The first scenes of him pulling on a rope on a chilly morning with other prisoners, gaunt with bloodshot eyes were raw and gritty. He really does have a wide acting range, Jean Valjean was quite different from his tough, sarcastic X-men character. And embarrassing as it may to write this, his portrayal triggered the waterworks in me, I was dabbing my eyes many times. He was that good.

Morever, when he sang, Who am I? Rationalizing his unwillingness to expose himself as the wanted prisoner because other people depend on him, that was one of his touching scenes with my own clichéd tears rolling down my cheeks again and finally his dying scene, that was the clincher. That scene, I feared I would sob out loud but thankfully did not. Just red-eyed after, letting the others go out first then hurriedly sneaked out after.

Anne Hathaway was good too. I love her I Dreamed a Dream scene. It was wrenching. I also love Eponine’s On My Own played by Samantha Banks. She sang the emotion of someone suffering from unrequited love quite well. Then there was Eddie Redmayne who played Marius. That longing look for Cosette made a lot of women swoon including me. 

Then there’s Amanda Seyfried who played Cosette, beguiling with her large, doe-eyes. She didn’t have a lot of scenes but she was believable as the loving daughter of Jean Valjean and the forlorn young lady in love with Marius. The younger Cosette was also good, with her sweet voice and innocent looks, it’s to see easy why Jean Valjean was protective of her. Their scene in the carriage with was quite touching.

On the other hand, Russel Crowe seems to be the odd man here. He looked uncomfortable with the singing that his acting didn't register much on screen. But still, it was a valiant effort, to try some things outside one’s acting comfort zone. That in itself is commendable.

There were criticisms however, why there were a lot of close-ups. My guess is, the director, Tom Hooper wanted to focus on the emotions not the singing. On musicals, where the audience is far away, singing is the focus, they have to exaggerate their singing, their movements because it has to be heard and felt by the person in the last row. But in a movie, it is about seeing these emotions up close, something you don’t always experience in a true musical. It’s a different experience all together and gives the audience to a closer look at the characters and empathize with them.

Overall, the experience of Les Miserables on Broadway and on film were both uniquely satisfying because at its center is Victor Hugo’s story that is not only complex but enduring. It had a lot of sub-plots that were equally engaging.

For me, the transformation of Jean Valjean was the key that unlocked the stories of the other characters. It was his generosity that changed the life of others. He accepted the gift of a second chance graciously and made good with it while others who cannot fathom such blessing like Javert, rigid with his self-imposed ideals imploded. Cleverly interwoven too, in Jean Valjean’s story was the love and sacrifices that people can make for one’s child like Fantine and one's cause as shown by the young revolutionaries’ zeal against the bigger French army. And at the same time, he also showed that amid all the chaos the blush of first love like Marius and Cosette’s can still blossom even at the heartbreaking mist of Eponine’s unreturned affection.

I can’t imagine how hard Victor Hugo worked to weave these stories together. Just telling one story is hard enough so to have complex characters with their own backstory was inspiring. Moreover, re-telling this complex story again through the songs composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil was also  fascinating.It heightened its sense of poignancy, magnifying the highs of love and the despair of loss. Les Miz may be a story written a century ago but it's something we can still relate to today, its story is enduring and will always be fondly remembered by many. I'm glad I watched it.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, a raw account on heartbreak

After the holidays and the onslaught of errands, I finally finished Junot Diaz’s “This is How You Lose Her”. I finished it when I decided to limit my time in cyberspace and slash those moments going after inane topics littered on the net. Sometimes it’s hard to resist the buffet of information spread out there. It’s easy to get lost on the newest drama of the Kardashians or the yoyo-dieting of Jessica Simpson. I hate to admit it, reading entertainments news is a guilty pleasure of mine. So I had to restrain myself and go back to reality and finish this good book.

Because this collection of short stories was meant to be buckled down and read in earnest, taking in the thoughts and insights of individuals on heartbreak in all its vulnerability. And as I immersed myself more into it, I realized that this book was more than stories of teenage angst or guilt but also a glimpse of other people's realities growing up as a minority in the States. 

The author used a lot of colorful Spanish slangs for description and honestly, I don’t mind. I have read J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” so this book’s  familiarity with profanity is not a big shock anymore. With sprinkles of dialect in the dialogues, it lends a “flavor” to the book that not many writers can pull off. It is definitely a far cry from the Western novels I have read in the past, points of view of white males/females from the middle class.

Because this book, though there are some stories of women too, is mostly about the stories of a young Dominican called Yunior uprooted from Santo Domingo talking about his life in his new country, his family, and his adventures with women. And like it or not, with this account comes a froth of machismo and bravado smothered in the language.  But still, it is steeped with emotion.

More than that, this book thrives in contradiction too. I have not read a book written by a man who could describe his women with crude, sometimes demeaning scrutiny and at the same time expose his hurts with gaping, naked honesty when he loses them. You hate him and then feel sorry for him. Because who doesn't remember the wallowing in the sadness, the inability to move on during your worst heartbreak? It is the rawness of the author’s words that sears at you, a rawness that is often camouflaged by roughness that the character is trying to project. But it is there and you feel it.

But this collection of short stories is not all about heartbreak about women. There are also stories about heartbreak in the family. For the young man with all his tough guy swagger, this book exposes some of his vulnerabilities too. Going past all the girls he mentioned here, one can also see the concern of a brother to his sick older brother and a concern of a son to his mother.

What I also liked about this book is its attempt to be true to the author’s roots. He is Dominican and he’s not afraid to show it in his writing. The dialogues of his characters were surprisingly nonchalant, like ordinary Dominican-American kids just talking. He doesn't pretend to be someone else, not a minority that's so westernized his characters feels stilted or put on. Mr. Diaz has a respect for his country, his language, his culture. It may not be the native land of his dreams but still his motherland.

Reading a book riddled with Dominican “flavored” prose has a quirky appeal to it because it reads different. Like trying out an exotic dish. I plowed right through it even though there are some Latino words I can't understand. Besides, I liked the dialogues and musings, they were short and staccato but still delivered a punch. No need to think too much if this character meant this thing or meant something else and no gritting over long winded ramblings from the protagonists. 

Given that, I look forward to reading the author's Pulitzer-winning book, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. I'm sure it will be a new literary adventure for me because it's a new plot carved with prose that is neither old-fashioned, wordy or flamboyant like this one. Honestly, I prefer that kind of writing. I lack the time for reading so this is easier to go back to without re-imagining any frilly details like a character's wardrobe. I like his style, simple and to the point but not lacking in emotional gravity.

Here are some excerpts:

“In those last weeks when he finally became too feeble to run away he refused to talk to you or your mother. Didn't utter a single word until he died. Your mother did not care. She loved him and prayed over him and talked to him like he was still OK. But it wounded you, that stubborn silence. His last fucking days and he wouldn’t say a word. You ask him something straight up, How are you feeling today and Rafa would just turn his head. Like you all didn’t deserve an answer. Like no one did.”

“You try every trick in the book to keep her. You write her letters. You drive her to work. You quote Neruda. You compose a mass e-mail disowning all your sucias. You block their e-mails. You change your phone number. You stop drinking. You stop smoking. You claim you’re a sex addict and start attending meetings. You blame your father. You blame your mother. You blame the patriarchy.. You blame Santo Domingo. You find a therapist. You cancel your Facebook..”

 “For a while you haunt the city, like a two-bit player dreaming of a call-up. You phone her everyday and leave messages which she doesn’t answer. You write her long sensitive letters, which she returns unopened. You even show up at her apartment at odd hours and at her job at downtown until finally her little sister calls you, the one who was always on your side and she makes it plain: If you try to contact my sister again, she’s going to put a restraining order on you”

“It takes a while. You see the tall girl. You go to more doctors. You celebrate Arlenny’s PH.D. defense. And one June night, you scribble the ex’s name and: The half-life of love is forever.

You bust out a couple more things. Then you put your head down. The next day you look at the new pages. For once you don’t want to burn them or give up writing forever”.

Sting in Manila 2012, memorable and inspiring

Attending a Sting concert was part of my bucket list. After watching my favorite artists like Chicago, Phil Collins, John Mayer, he was the only one left I have yet to see. Yes, there are other artists I also want to watch in the future but he was the ultimate one I really want to see in concert in Manila.

So it’s no surprise then that during his opening number and seeing the undulating crowd echoing the lyrics of his popular songs, I was moved to tears. I was so embarrassed because it was unexpected, first time that happened to me. Dammit. I brushed it away lest other people found me weird. Too late, my husband already noticed it and teased me about it after. Oh, great now I’m like one of those screaming, manic fans crying when they see their idols in front of them. I guess I was just overwhelmed :)

Overwhelmed that despite the abyss-like distance of my General Admission seat to the stage, his voice was as clear as ever, sounding almost exactly like his songs I constantly played on my CD player. It was surreal that he was there playing it live and speaking to the audience. And maybe what moved me more was how  he was able to unwittingly prompt people to move in synchronicity with the beat of his songs and loudly sing its lyrics inside a jampacked coliseum. It’s like watching a cult unfold with the frenzy. Meanwhile, green and red glow lights held by some fans also swayed in the background, heightening the state of adulation that night. Added to that was how the audience collectively screamed in glee hearing only the first chords of their favorite songs, almost drowning Sting out before continuing to sing along with him.

Indeed, this concert was not only good entertainment but a sought-after break for many of us there, a momentary distraction from domestic concerns and office woes on a Sunday evening. I have attended other concerts but this one may be the most effervescent of all. The lighting was also insane, changing colors in almost every song, sometimes with numerous rays of light spotlighting the audience like beams on a spaceship. Most of the crowd there seems to be my age, in their thirties and the rest maybe older and a smattering of those in their twenties.

I was ecstatic to hear Fields of Gold, Desert Rose, Everything She Does is Magic, Wrapped around your Finger and my favorite, Every Breath You Take among others. Then he sang songs that are not familiar to me but still, it was a delight just to hear his voice and the strumming of his guitar. I liked the last song he played, Fragile which he dedicated to the typhoon victims. Even in a large crowd and a big venue, the song retained its melancholy essence. The haunting guitar strings filled the coliseum while the audience softly sang with him.

Whenever I recall the concerts of artists I admire like Phil Collins on his piano singing “One More Night” in a drizzling stadium, or John Mayer singing “Edge of Desire” in a rain-soaked open field and Sting singing “Roxanne” in front of an enthusiastic crowd suffused in red lights, I always remember the awe I had while watching them. I say to myself, now that is what every artist should strive for, move people with their craft, let them peek a part of their soul and give their audience something they can relate to like songs of love, heartbreak and hope. Maybe their being songwriters helped a lot. These artists pen the words for their songs then arrange music for their lyrics. No wonder their songs sound more heartfelt. Just watching them was inspiring. It makes me want to produce work that can move people too.

Going back to Sting. I admire his stamina for mounting this world tour. At 61, he seems tireless and has admirably retained his cool vibe, pulling off his skin tight outfit with his slim rock star physique. And because he loves to collaborate with other musicians as heard in his songs like Desert Rose, he has espoused variety to his music. His long career spanning decades is also astounding. Not many singers can achieve that. After being part of the Police, he has led a fruitful solo career and is now an active environmentalist. Moving his concert venue in Manila due to his principles made me admire him more. It was inconvenient for many but I wouldn't expect him to do it any other way.

Honestly, this concert may be the best one I have attended yet. Maybe the most memorable too. And I'm happy that I was part of the crowd that gave a thunderous reception to this illustrious artist. I'm one of the grateful souls that night who clapped wildly, cheered and sang with the man who has demonstrated that good music will always captivate us whatever age we may be in.