WELL, CONSIDERING THE FACT I’M GONNA BE IN LAS VEGAS ON NEW YEAR'S EVE (I'm leavin' tomorrow)...let me give a recap on 2001 today:

First of all, what a year it’s been. Obviously, the September 11 attacks top the highlights of what took place in the first official year of the 21st century. The New York Yankees finally lost in the World Series after winning 3 titles in a row (LIKE they don’t have enough titles already), Pearl Harbor wasn’t as good as people thought it’d be, and NASA successfully puts a space probe in orbit around Mars after 2 back-to-back failures in 1999. THAT, and the Lakers win back-to-back titles last June…despite a turbulent year with that feud between the Big Aristotle (aka Shaquille O’Neal) and Michael Jordan’s true heir (aka Kobe Bryant). THAT, and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is kaput thanks to the U.S. helping rebels whup their fanatical ass. But Osama Bin Hidin’ is most likely still alive-- Bastard. And lastly, the Baltimore Ravens win the Super Bowl. Of course, it’s all about the Rams or the Raiders…two former Los Angeles teams. Mostly it’s all about the Rams.

Personally, this year was pretty much a downer for me. I actually grew very cynical and jaded after Denise told me she had a boyfriend, and also, when another girl I used to like in high school indicated to me through a conversation on AOL Instant Messenger how scandalous ladies can be sometimes, or most of the time. I even grew very resentful of people I knew personally who was with someone (my friends included), and even wondered if there was ONE girl out there who didn’t freakin’ have a boyfriend. Yup yup, this year personally sucked.

On the plus side, I managed to write four full-length screenplays this year….the Hard-Cores trilogy (all 3 scripts are 120 pages) and a separate spin-off story (95 pages) to that plot-line. Of course, if you asked me what the story is, you’re gonna be in the dark—since the stories were inspired by personal events that took place earlier this year (specifically, Denise saying she’s spoken for and an interesting night where I chilled with 4 of my friends while they hot-boxed one of my friends’ car!)--causing a real narrative to pretty much be absent from my scripts. Ewan McGregor’s character Curt Wilde remarked in Velvet Goldmine…"real art isn’t based on personal experiences." My scripts can be Neo-Realist films, so SCREW YOU!

Looking forward to 2002, there ARE a couple of things to look forward to…in areas non-romance related. For starters, and in non-chronological order, Episode 2 comes out in May. And second, Spider-Man comes out 2 weeks before Episode 2 does. Third, the Lakers attempt their 3-peat beginning in April…and NASA resumes construction on the International Space Station. Yea, I’m a science guy. Haha! UGH. Oh yea…The Two Towers, the second installment to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, comes out in Winter of 2002. Hopefully, around the time of TTT’s release, Bin Laden will finally be discovered as being blasted to bits by U.S. smart bombs or finally being captured by American or British Special Forces while performing a sex act on an Al Queda male buddy. Whatever.

Anyways, that’s it for now. Here’s hoping next year is better than this year. Either that, or you can call me Cynical Man besides Parman. Or Cynical Boi besides Punkboi. Or Grumpy bastard besides Richard. The list goes on-and-on...

Woohoo, can't wait till Scary Movie 3—Episode 1: Lord of the Brooms comes out next year. It's gonna be a big blockbuster!!!




Disturbing news courtesy of TheForce.Net.

I saw Lord of the Rings again today (one of my brothers wanted to see it) and just wanted to point out that Sean Astin's character IS Frodo's biatch and Cate Blanchett's scenes are a total waste of time...unless Frodo DOES use that bottle that she gave to him in any of the next two LOTR installments. Too bad I won't know till Christmas 2002, not that I'm actually looking forward to THAT epic film, but another one that comes out 7 months before it.



If you don't know what other epic film I'm talking about, then you obviously haven't read my past journal entries.

Well, I saw Lord of the Rings with my friends today and needless to say...it was a great film but NO Star Wars. What I mean by this is that at 2 hours and 58 minutes, you don't know when the movie is gonna end unless you check your watch. Not to say there were a lot of boring scenes or anything, there WEREN'T. But at least you know when The Phantom Menace and Return of the Jedi are gonna end because every SW film has a big battle sequence and a nice John Williams music number at the end. With Lord of the Rings, you get an action scene that you think is gonna mark the end of the film--but then you have several minutes of dialogue, then action again, then dialogue... LOTR doesn't look like it has the same ability to draw repeated viewing by the same moviegoers that the SW films did. ALSO, Rings has very few memorable dialogue (By now you can tell I'm an elitist SW fan, haha).

Also, I like the mythology that George Lucas created a lot better, although J.R.R. Tolkien definitely created an awesome universe for LOTR. But that's another thing, with Star Wars, you ALSO have magic (the Force), you have monsters, you have wierd-looking creatures, and you have cool villians that wear black cloaks (Darth Maul as opposed to the Ringwraiths). Yet, in Star Wars you also have SPACE TRAVEL (duhhh, STAR Wars)--which makes visualizing being in the universe that Lucas created more adventurous than the one Tolkien created. I find it much more exciting imagining myself being in a lone X-Wing starfighter flying through space than being in a small boat going down a river on a trip to Mt. Doom or whatever that volcano is called in Rings. But it's all good. LOTR was a well-down film (despite the fact the death of a major character had its impact diminished by the fact he was still alive and talking incessantly even with THREE ARROWS shot into him). I'd probably watch it one more time at the theater...then see it on DVD.

So Lord of the Rings is being called this millennium's Star Wars, huh (but only better)? We'll see. Independence Day was called "Star Wars for the new generation" back when it came out in 1996...and look what happened. Are people still talking about it? Remember, the visionaries for Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are the books' authors (J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling), not the directors (Peter Jackson and Chris Columbus, as gifted as they are). Which means the real phenomenon occurred with the books themselves. George Lucas is the visionary behind Star Wars itself...not a director trying to be faithful to a popular piece of literature. If Lord of the Rings gets really good word of mouth and makes lots of pocket change (which Harry Pothead, err Potter has done so far)...then you can say it is this millenium's so-and-so. Before then, let's not get our hopes up.

One other thing: LOTR also needs cheesy yet memorable dialogue to be like Star Wars, like "May the Force be with you," "The Force will be with you always," "I am your father" (okay, that one isn't cheesy), and "I was going to go to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!" Nuff said.


Okay, I'll admit that these Sith Lord-looking dudes (Ringwraiths) look cool:

Just wanted to point out that I saw Not Another Teen Movie last Friday. Not as funny as I thought it'd be...but it sure had quite a couple of scenes with gratuitous nudity in it! The chick who is supposed to be like Shannon Elizabeth's Nadia from the American Pie films showed her, uh, bare skin in every scene she was in during the film. And Joy Bisco from The Debut was featured a lot too.

Today, I saw the new full-length trailer to next May's Spider-Man movie...and needless to say: COOL. But Attack of the Clones is still my favorite movie for 2002 since I wanna see it for the film itself. Spider-Man is gonna rock, hopefully, but I'm mostly eager to watch it cuz my two friends and I are suppose to be extras in the World Unity Festival sequence (some scenes from this sequence were shown in the trailer).

21 Reasons Why Star Wars Is Better Than Titanic

1) Titanic's big, but it doesn't have hyperdrive.

2) Star Wars has WAY cooler action figure potential.

3) Yoda could use the Force to lift Titanic out of the water.

4) Leia is a princess, a senator, a freedom fighter, and Jedi material; Rose is just marriage bait.

5) Ewoks throw better parties than either first class or steerage.

6) When flying towards the Titanic, X-wing pilot Wedge Antilles can't say "Look at the size of that thing!" and really mean it.

7) It would be much scarier to get chased around the boat by a raving madman with a lightsaber as opposed to a handgun.

8) Titanic is egalitarian by portraying poor people as sympathetic characters. Star Wars is egalitarian by promoting bug-eyed amphibians to Admiral (Admiral Ackbar of Return of the Jedi).

9) Said bug-eyed amphibious Admiral manages NOT to lose his ship.

10) We know Cal is the bad guy because he sneers at the poor and treats his fiancee like property. We know Darth Vader is the bad guy because he strangles people and blows up planets for fun.

11) Yeah, Leo can dance, but can he fly an X-wing?

12) People have not lost their lives trying to recreate scenes from Star Wars on the bow of a cruise liner. (PARMAN: Never heard about those incidents before )

13) Rose braves icy water to rescue her man. Leia braves Jabba the Hutt.

14) Two words: John Williams.

15) There are always enough escape pods in Star Wars.

16) Do you know what the Empire does to self-proclaimed "kings of the world"?

17) If Luke were handcuffed to a pipe below decks in a sinking ship, he would use the Force to get the key.

18) "I'd rather be his whore than your wife" just doesn't have the same sting as "I'd rather kiss a Wookiee."

19) Han is frozen in carbonite and turned into a wall ornament. Leo simply freezes.

20) We knew the boat was gonna sink. But who could've anticipated "Luke... I am your father"?

21) Han Solo would've missed the dang iceberg!

Courtesy of TheForce.Net

Today, I saw the war film Behind Enemy Lines. Cool film...if you want a jingoistic flick that shows Americans kicking Serbian rear-ends in Bosnia. USA! USA! USA!

"Fox was the primetime master on Sunday as its world TV premiere airing of "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" blew away the competition on the final Sunday of the November sweep. Fox's 7-10 p.m. airing of "Phantom Menace" averaged 17.6 million viewers and 7.9 rating/18 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research. Fox won the night in adults 18-34, teens and other key young demos. "Phantom Menace" opened up with a solid 14.4 million viewers and 6.4/17 in the demo at 7 p.m., peaking from 9-9:30 p.m. with 19.4 million viewers and 8.7/19 in adults 18-49." Apparently the rise in viewership during the latter half of the film can be attributed to a kick-ass lightsaber duel between two Jedis and one tattoo-faced Sith Lord.


SCREENCAPTURES courtesy of TheForce.Net

Rest mouse arrow on pictures to read my witty captions...for one of them, at least

Well, I'm like a week late with this...but I saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on opening day. Did I like it? Well, let's just say I'm not giving it as much credit as it deserves since freakin' AMC theater (where I watched it), didn't show the full-length teaser trailer to Episode 2 before it (which it was suppose to, according to the Official Site). Obviously, AMC (as well as Edwards Cinema) did not want Star Wars fans to buy tickets (yes, SW fans are that obsessive) just to see the trailer...and prevent regular moviegoers from actually watching Harry Potter. Oh well. I downloaded the trailer to my computer the night before Potter came out--but it sure wouldn't have hurt to see it on the big screen. Anyways, I'm NOT about to watch the Jet Li wannabe-Matrix film, The One (which AMC put the Episode 2 trailer in front of), just to catch the preview. I'll just stick to watching the trailer over-and-over on my comp, thankyouverymuch.

Yesterday, I watched the Robert Redford/Brad Pitt film Spy Games. Cool movie! If it wasn't for the prowess of Redford's CIA character, Pitt's character would've been in deep (feces) in that Chinese prison...not to spoil the movie for you, of course. I also want to watch Black Hawk Down and Behind Enemy Lines. Nothing beats showing that American pride post-Sept. 11th than watching movies that deal with the U.S. Special Forces and the regular military. 'Nuff said.

On Friday, I watched Monsters, Inc...and needless to say, I liked it. Along with the short Pixar film that preceded it.


But what I really wanted to say was that the teaser trailer for Attack of the Clones kicked ass--despite the fact it was hella short. Not surprisingly, though, people clapped before and after the trailer was shown, and were quiet during the preview as new Star Wars movie images passed by (QUICKLY) on the big screen. So which scenes from the trailer stood out the most? Let's see...

- Natalie Portman looking GOOD as Padme in the first scene of the preview

- Several clone children going about their business inside a classroom

- Jango Fett's Slave One blasting away at an unseen target while flying through an asteroid field (actually the rings surrounding a new SW planet called Geonosis)

- Obi-Wan floating above a ray of light inside a cave (he's captured by enemy forces on Geonosis)

- THOUSANDS of clonetroopers boarding a transport ship (most likely the final scene in the film)

- A glimpse of the water world Kamino

- The glimpse of Yoda...who is COMPUTER GENERATED in this film

and last, but not least:

- Jango Fett flying in the air in a scene that takes place on Kamino

This trailer was tight...but the real one doesn't come out till 2 weeks from now, when Harry Potter is released.

Just wanted to point out that the official SW site today announced that a short teaser trailer for Episode 2 will be shown before Monsters, Inc. starting this Friday. The trailer was actually talked about on a fan site two weeks ago...with the teaser involving clips of Attack of the Clones being shown as Darth Vader's famous breathing can be heard in the background. Sounds pretty cool, but things get even cooler when Harry Potter comes out in a few weeks...since the full-length teaser trailer is rumored to appear before that film.

I haven't read any of the Harry Potter novels, but most likely I'll see the film...and you know why.

Last Friday, I watched The Debut at the local AMC theater. It is the first Filipino-American film to be released commercially! Before the film started, one of the movie's producers stood before the audience to tell us about the making of the film as well as how important it was in terms of representing Pinoys and Pinays in the American film market (my words, not his). He also stated that they needed as many people as possible to watch the film or else AMC was gonna pull the movie out by this Thursday! So I say to you, my Asian and non-Asian friends: go to the theater right away and watch The Debut!!! Sure, it's only playing at 8 theaters right now (I think all of them in Cali)...so drive to the closest one if you can!!! All right then, that's my contribution to Filipino cinema...


Of course, if The Debut's filmmakers really want to attract moviegoers...try to meet George Lucas in person and persuade him to show the Episode 2 trailer on that film only on the release date (YEA, like that's gonna happen). Speaking of which, I bought the Episode 1 DVD last Tuesday. Now all I need is a DVD player to watch it with.

WOOHOO! Yesterday I went to Fry's Electronics in Anaheim to buy a new computer...which replaces the obsolete 2 GB one that broke down 2 months ago. The new comp is an eMachine...with a 1.0 GHz Pentium III processor, 128 mb of RAM, a CD BURNER (hellz yea...although it's 8x and not 16x), a 10/100 mb Ethernet card and 30 GB of hard drive space. Yuuupp...I'm living the good life now, haha! The only bad thing is I currently need to use the free 700 hr trial of AOL to log online, since Earthlink is down cuz their servers were infected by a virus. In the coming days I need to install Quicktime, as well as the movie trailers that are still on the broken computer...including the Gladiator trailer and both trailers for The Phantom Menace. In the next few weeks, my computer will be graced with the preview to Episode II. Woohoo!


PS: For those of you who think I'm rich and spoiled...DAMN RIGHT I AM!!! HAHAHAHAHA! Just kidding.

Today I saw the Kevin Smith film Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back. Chasing Amy was better...but this film was still hilarious! Jay is a cool character...for the sole fact he cusses in every other sentence that he blurts out! Silent Bob is hilarious for the sole fact he is always, well, quiet--and Jay always makes fun of him in front of other people. It was cool that Kevin Smith included so many cameos in this film...although it kinda annoyed me that some of my friends who I watched the film with don't know who Mark Hamill is. LUKE SKYWALKER, people!! And Carrie Fisher a.k.a. Princess Leia was the nun who Jay was gonna get all crazy on in the car! Speaking of which, you can obviously tell Smith is a diehard Star Wars fan with all the references he made in the movie...the title obviously included.


Anyways, I'm done with watching all of the films of Summer 2001. Can't wait for next year when Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones come out. Woo-hoo!

"Suck me, beautiful!" Today, I saw American Pie 2 with a couple of my friends...and just wanted to say it was pretty funny. The bad thing though, is that Shannon Elizabeth's accent as Nadia is more painful to hear after hearing her talk normal in the first Scary Movie. Oh well. There were still a lot of funny scenes though...like Steve Stifler thinking champagne was getting poured on him even though it was, um...well, you'll know when you have to go to the restroom to unload your kidneys later on.


Last film I wanna see this summer...Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back.

Well, I just wanted to point out that the official Star Wars website has just announced the title for Episode 2. The entire name for the prequel-sequel will be, roll drums (sarcasm?):


I kinda prefer The Clone Wars, A Shadow Falls or The Darkness Within, but that's okay. People didn't like the name The Phantom Menace when it originally came out...and now it's tolerated as much as Jar Jar Binks. No wait, that didn't sound good! Anyways, I neither love the title nor hate it. I'm just like..."EH." As long as the movie itself delivers. A'ight then, latez people.

Hopefully, Lucasfilm won't find this website:



Clone soldier sketches courtesy of http://www.theforce.net
MY APOLOGIES if I'm spoiling the movie for y'all...these drawings are just too cool!!

I saw Rush Hour 2 last Friday and needless to say, it was funny! One of the best quotes from the film (not to imply some racial stuff or anything): Jackie Chan's "I'll b*tchslap you back to Africa" line. Hahaha! That counteracts Chris Tucker's earlier "I'll slap you back to the Ming Dynasty" remark. Hopefully there'll be a Rush Hour 3. Anyways, an import model was an extra in the film...Ms. Natasha Yi. She's hot! It's a good thing I took a picture with her at an Asian model show last November. All I need is an autograph by her and I'd be famous. Zhang Ziyi isn't so bad either (at least in this film), and neither is Rosalyn Sanchez, who played some U.S. Secret Service babe in the film.

I saw Planet of the Apes yesterday and just wanted to say that like Artificial Intelligence, the movie was good up until the ending...which sucked. Is it just me or this is really the first summer where I've seen movies that really sucked big time (Tomb Raider) or ended on a sucky note (see films above)? Oh well. It's next summer that I should be worried about--since next May is when I might see myself running in fear from the Green Goblin in the new Spider-Man movie...and Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu will be doing some major slicing-n-dicing with his lightsaber in Star Wars: Episode 2. That, and the next Matrix film comes out. Did I mention that Apes' actress Estella Warren is pretty hot, though? Also, one of my brothers saw Planet of the Apes last Saturday and said he expected the ending that the film had (he liked the film). I guess I must've been hangin' with an ignorant crowd last Friday if he liked the twist that was given to the conclusion of the Tim Burton remake. Oh well. The following was taken from an article on MSN.com:

Warning: Plot Holes is a column about narrative lapses in the movies. Today's entry gives away the twist at the end of Planet of the Apes.

A scene from Planet of the Apes
While Plot Holes usually delights in ridiculing movies that don't make sense, today it feels obliged to defend Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake. The movie's surprise ending has left some critics scratching their heads: The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell called the finale a "puzzler"; Slate's David Edelstein said it doesn't "make a lick of sense" and asked, "Has Burton lost his wits?"

"He hasn't—or at least, his Apes ending doesn't prove that he has. Yes, the shocker is wildly implausible, but it does hang together with a loopy sort of logic.

Here's the bit that's causing confusion (seriously, if you don't want to know the ending, please stop reading now). After a climactic battle on the apes' planet, astronaut Leo Davidson takes off in a spaceship and flies into an electromagnetic storm, with hopes of returning to Earth in the 21st century. While he's in the storm we see his chronometer spinning backward, and he does eventually crash-land on Earth—in Washington, D.C.'s Reflecting Pool, as a matter of fact. Only now, the Earth is ruled by apes too! In place of the Lincoln Memorial, there's a monument dedicated to Davidson's ape nemesis, Gen. Thade, for "saving the Earth for all apekind" or some such.

But Davidson has just traveled across the universe and time-warped centuries into the past. … So, how can Thade have already conquered Earth for the apes when he hasn't even been born on the ape planet yet?

Answer: Before Davidson leaves the ape planet, there's a quick shot of Limbo, the orangutan slave trader, rummaging through his spaceship and slyly pocketing something. Evidently whatever he pockets contains the secret to space travel. (Maybe it's a manual: "Space Travel So Easy, a Chimp Could Do It.") Thade, who's pointedly left alive at the end of the climactic battle, must have built a ship, flown into the time-warping electromagnetic storm, and landed on Earth at some point before Davidson returned. Then he led Earth's apes in a rebellion against humans, took over the Earth, and had the monument built for him.

Of course, back on their home planet, the apes don't even have simple motors yet. So, whatever Limbo takes from the spaceship allows them to, in Thade's lifetime, master physics, build computers, design spacesuits, test spacecraft, and send the general into space while he's still young enough to conquer the Earth. Remember, we didn't say it was plausible …"

-By Josh Daniel

By the way, yesterday I saw Jurassic Park 3...and needless to say--I hate Tea Leoni's character. The Spider-Man trailer was dope though; although I already saw it on Entertainment Tonight a week ago. Velociraptors are cool.

Yesterday, one of my friends and I watched Kiss of the Dragon. The movie was dope... Just like Bruce Lee, Jet Li beat the crap out of a dozen-plus inept karate students in one of the last fight scenes of the film, and made a guy bite the dust just by sticking an acupuncture (?) needle in the back of his neck! I wish I knew how to use another person's pressure points to my lethal advantage!! J/k. The next film I wanna see is Jurassic Park 3...which comes out next week.

First of all, I hate Netscape Navigator!!! This is the sh*ttiest Internet browser ever invented. I was writing a post about me watching Scary Movie 2 last week when I was trying to scroll down the text box to get to the last sentence of my post. The text box wouldn't scroll down, so I tried to move that gray bar separating the text box with the black bar that has the link to view the Blog webpage and the date I last published a post. So what happened? I move the gray bar, and all of a sudden what I wrote in the text box disappeared!! There was no way to bring back what I wrote. Damn, I'm ticked... Stupid Netscape. Oh well... I would use Internet Explorer instead of Crapscape Navigator, but I'm in the main library in Cal Poly, Pomona right now (the comp back at my house is broken) and they don't have I.E. on their computers!!!


Anyways, let's get to what I originally was gonna write. I saw Fast and the Furious and Scary Movie 2 for free last week...just like my second viewing of Pearl Harbor two months ago...'cause my friend who works at the local AMC theater was able to hook me up with free guest passes. I already talked about Fast in my last post. Scary (too lazy to type out the entire title) was expectedly lame, stupid, gross, perverted and funny. It is the type of movie that you'd enjoy just as long as you don't dish out $5 for it (which I didn't do). The next and last film I'll probably see for free is Jurassic Park 3...which comes out in a few weeks. After that my friend is quitting AMC (or so he said) and is gonna take a trip to New York next month. Looks like I'll have to pay my own ticket for the upcoming American Pie 2--but that film should be worth it. Tara Reid and Shannon Elizabeth are in it, for cryin' out loud!


One more thing: the keyboard I'm using right now is also pissing me off! Stupid unresponsive buttons...