From Paris With Love: A Humble Movie Review

I am an obvious sucker for action movies, especially mindless action movies that has more plotholes than bullet holes. I am not a typical plothole nitpicker to action movies, but I definitely love Luc Besson’s new juggernaut masterpiece, “From Paris with Love”.

The film’s protagonists James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is your low-level CIA operative who is the personal aide of the US ambassador to France. Throughout the movie, he is learning the ropes of being an in your face CIA operative under the guidance of Charlie Wax (John Travolta), who delivered one of the best anti-hero performance of all time, which consists of kicking asses, knowing 10 steps ahead from his enemies and his extreme obsession with “Royale with Cheese”. There is something about a bald Travolta that exceeds his villain bad-assery in the film Swordfish. He is like a combination of Chev Chelios (Crank) and Brian Mills (Taken), with Meyer’s character greatly reminds me of Ethan Hawke’s character in the Training Day.

As expected, the contradicting duos shown a lot of action mixed with humor, sick humor, especially when Reese gone nuts to retrieve his stolen ring. The major twist near the end caught me off-guard and all the bad guy’s plan went full circle flawlessly, which ended by this unlikely duos of course.

The action sequence were top-notch, the dialogues were witty and overall, the movie is one of those you want to view the action sequences over Youtube over and over again. The professional critics hate this movie because of excessive amount of plotholes, especially the one with a suicide vest and a metal detector. Still, like what I always mention, if it entertains a common movie addict, like me, I absolutely enjoyed it and I personally highly recommend it. The director  Luc Besson is a genius and I can’t wait to see another of his movie soon. I give “From Paris with Love” a 4 over 5 stars.

Somewhere in Youtube: Jollibee Does Traffic Control

A popular local fast food mascot’s is doing some extra work for extra income… in a humane way. He is “rumaraket”.

Monumental Disaster Pedestrians

Driving everyday in Manila is hell. Everywhere there are abundance of idiot drivers and poorly placed road obstructions that are meant as U-turn slots. Aside from those mentioned there is a prevalent accident attraction that you see everyday, and these are the selected pedestrians you wish they are prancing around in a demolition derby, with guns.

I am not a fast driver, I am more one with defensive driving. I only use the car as a tool going from point A to B. Crossing pedestrians are a common sight on everyday driving but there are some pedestrians who are total dicks and rather risk both their lives and the ones in the vehicle. Kudos to the remaining pedestrians who knows when to cross properly or actually uses a foot bridge to cross the road, but avoiding sneaky street criminals atop the bridge is another story. These are the pedestrians you watch out for every single day.

Rush Hour Runner
This pedestrians who want to cross the road as fast as possible to the point of running as fast as hell, even there is a number of vehicles, all in a hurry for some reason, hurling towards you. Most of the time they will be hit and sadly killed on the spot.

Got Stuck on One Side
They are the ones who cross the road who does not look on other direction for some reason. They always look at one direction, mostly the opposite side and does not look at the other way. I don’t know why I always see them on both Legazpi and Salcedo side of Makati. One of the most important things to do before or while crossing the road is to look both ways. Having your neck stuck on one side will have a bigger chance to be… struck by a vehicle driven by a maniac.

Headset Head On
Similar with “Got Stuck on One Side” person, but this time, he is distracted to look both ways because the fool is on his head set, listening to some music, and oblivious around him. They are the ones mindlessly crossing the road, in a very slow pace, in deep trance with the music and not hearing the honks of vehicles blaring all over the place.

Middle of the Road Loaders, Motherfu….
I loathed rampaging buses in EDSA, but combine with this imbeciles, you are closer for more accidents. This kind of people will flag down a public vehicle like a bus in the middle of the road, and ascend the vehicle, still in the middle of the road, while other blood thirsty drivers throwing themselves in the road in scary, rush hour fast manner. Jeepneys are notorious of loading and unloading passengers in the middle of the road. There are times I see a mother carrying her infant, running in the middle of EDSA, just to ascend the bus she flagged down.

Footbridge Allergic Scumbags
The footbridge is one of the safest way to cross the street. Yet, this imbeciles who has obvious footbridge allergy will not use one, even if it is only few meters away. According to these idiots, its faster to cross the road rather than use the footbridge. It is someway true but you are always at death’s door whenever you attempt to cross a Manila street. Use the goddamn footbridge for god freaking sake.

Irresponsible and careless pedestrians can create monumental disasters on the road. There are a lot of simple but 100% effective ways to cross the street, like using the right pedestrian lane and usage of a footbridge or like in Makati, an underpass. Next time you walk around and attempt to cross the road, just stop and ask yourself if I do this may I live another day? if you immediately find a better solution to cross the road, without facing the unruly drivers of Manila, speeding all around the place like Sonic the Hedgehog on sugar rush, do it and live a longer and safer life.

Combatron: My First Pinoy Superhero

We have Darna, Lastikman, Flash Bomba, Captain Barbell with a show that obviously blatantly ripped off Smallville and a lot of Philippine made superheroes. They have their own movies and TV shows but there is only one local made superhero that I looked up to every week back in 94-96. This hero is Combatron, created by Berlin Manalaysay.

Combatron appeared in Funny Komiks, an awesome weekly published comic that also introduced as Eklok, Planet op di Eyps, Tomas and Kulas, Pitit, Super Blag and more characters. Combatron’s look is based on Megaman, complete with his loyal sidekick dog known as Askal, his Rush version. The major difference of Combatron and Megaman series is the deep personification of all characters. Every character, cyborg or human, has personalities and not a static wallflower.

In span of a couple of years, the series introduced to a lot of memorable characters and epic more than 1 issue battles. Berlin did a good job of showing both the passionate and determined side of Combatron. Overcoming every destructive robots send by his first enemy Abodawn and engaging to the insane battles with Death Metal. Combatron eventually faced his greatest enemy, a big robot known as Megadeath. So big, the robot can’t handle one page panel.

Unfortunately, the series was abruptly ended with a terrible ending and was done by a very different artist due to a rumored disagreement with the Funny Komiks and Berlin Manalaysay. In the end, Combatron is not only robot and cyborg battles but also taught us the value of life as portrayed by Empoy, the real identity of Combatron. Empoy’s drive to save precious life both on his enemies and mankind, are remarkably portrayed. Combatron also taught us the importance of faith and it shows the source of his strength, his deep believe with the one above all, or simply God.

Thanks to the internet, you can browse old issues of Combatron, scanned and uploaded by other loyal Combatron readers via Project Combatron (http://projectcombatron.blogspot.com/). Try to take your time and maybe you will also find out why a lot of people followed this series. This site also got the attention of the original creator Berlin Manalaysay and gracefully approved the effort of the loyal Combatron fans. Hopefully he will provide the proper ending to this series, if that happened, one of my nerdiest dreams will finally be complete.

Eject those Passengers

Commuting can be consider as a cheaper way to save money while going from point A to B. You will just pay for the fare, have a seat if you are lucky and just mind your own business. Since you commute and have a number of total strangers surround you, there always be people who are total dicks that you want to throw out of the vehicle or hit a steel chair in the head repeatedly. These are the people who should not ride in any vehicle, private or public, an FX or a bus, a jeepney or a colorum vehicle, ever… including criminals of course.

Space hoggers
This people, mostly fat, thinks they are as thin as a matchstick and hogs precious space. Even if you ask them nicely to move a little bit so someone can move or sit they will just stare at you. If you verbally fight them you will look like an idiot since he or she, unfortunately mostly she, will not listen to you and continue munching their snacks which leads to my next point.

Obnoxious Munchers
We all eat time to time on a public vehicle, eating fish crackers or a ten pesos twin burgers from Minute Burger, but I can’t stand eaters who munch their food like there  is no tomorrow, very inconsiderate dick to other people. I can understand kids being messy with their foods on a bus but grown up people, eating their foods in most annoying way and you can hear every slimy munching possible. There are even times that they will leave or sprout food residues all over the place.

My other co-passenger are my stuff
This is commonly found in FXs, some inconsiderate idiot will buy the other seat so he or she place his or her things to the other chair. This way, another passenger who suppose to be the seater of the chair will wait for another opening. It is okay if you have large boxes and you need more space for it but for a stupid laptop bag or a make-up kit? give the freaking seat to a freaking person you selfish monkey crap.

Freeloading Cheapskates
This cheap bastards are usually seen in a crowded bus or even in a shuttle FX. They will not pay the fare and find creative ways not to get the attention of the ticket conductor on them. They will pretend to sleep with a head set on their ears, probably listening to an annoying novelty song. If they are about to be approached by the ticket handler, they will immediately descend the bus and find another bus to do another free ride shenanigans.

Look at Me I am Important attention whores
I hate seating next to these kind of people. They are the ones talking very loud to each other, wherein they are only a few inches apart and their voice can be heard outside of the vehicle. I observed that most of this loud mouths were either high school students cutting classes because according to them it is cool or college students who probably got their first taste of freedom. People who talks to their cellphone as if they are inside of a room alone, blabbing loudly from nonsense gossip to boasting some insignificant bullcrap.

They are the people I wish there is a nearby eject button that can instantly throw them out of the vehicle and towards oblivion. They should be considerate with other people because we are all just riding in one public vehicle, respect the well-being of the other passengers as they respect yours.