a very long post

First things first, for the past few days, I have been trying to figure out how to update this blog without you getting an email every time I do so. I’ve asked the expert and friendster about it but, excuse my ignorance if there is actually one, found no solution to this. Although, in your account, you can adjust the settings regarding notifications. I take no offense and sincerely hope you've figured that one out because, honestly, regardless of how much you love or loved your contacts, there comes a point when you couldn’t care less about your mate’s last lay, or their new gig, or her new hair color.

Second, Apocalypto is worth seeing regardless of how much you hate its ‘drunk driving, anti-semitic’ director. Knowing how one can easily dismiss this effort over the more poetic A New World (comparison might be pointless- try six degrees of kevin bacon between Malick and Gibson, I bet you lose.) this ruthless epic is as resounding as the sound of severed heads falling from the top of  the towering Aztec pyramids.  The Killing Fields-esque scene is only one of the few stomach churning moments of the movie. I guess a sequence that involves stumbling over a dead body…zoom out... I mean multitudes of decapitated bodies, never fails to deliver.

Third, don’t trust the second. I know nothing. I’m not a film student nor have I taken any film appreciation class. My own tomato-meter depends on how a film meets my time and money’s worth, which basically depend on how much slacking hours I have left and how close I saw the movie from allowance/pay day. Nonetheless, if you've been deprived of the cinema for the past 20 years, here's my 20/20. These are the 20 movies made in the past 20 years that stood out for me and which I would have wanted to have created myself (in no particular order, well sort of).
(1) City of God (not mentioned first for nothing)
(2) Schindler’s List (whenever I wanted to cry, I go back to the final moments, the car scene… sniff)
(3) Se7en (Fincher’s finest, over (4) Fight Club (most watched movie of all time)
(5) Y tu mama tambien (politics and sex; check also Filipino movie Curacha: The Woman Without Rest)
(6) Good will Hunting (Elliot Smith, period.)
(7) LOTR: Two Towers (tops ROTK by a hair for that scene where Gandalf arrives at Helm’s Deep)
(8) Memento (everyone’s favorite mindfuck; runners up- Donnie Darko, Mulholland Drive)
(9) L.A. Confidential (for its intricate story telling; runner-up Usual Suspects)
(10) Requiem for a Dream (best downer ever)
(11) Pulp fiction (over other Tarantino’s and Stone’s Natural Born Killers)
(12) Trainspotting (choose life man!)
(13) Silence of the Lambs (arguably one of the best psych thriller ever made)
(14) Matrix (as what most will agree on, this movie transcended sci-fi to the next level)
(15) Gattaca (call me cheesy but this is a movie, aside from Contact, that every science teacher should require their students to watch. speaking of high school movies, go see Brick - wish i saw this in high school instead of that ‘Dead Poets Society’ crap.)
(16) The Criminal of Barrio Conception (easily my favorite filipino movie)
(17) Farewell my Concubine (one of asia's finest but next only to (18) Akiro Kurusawa's Dreams
(19) Closer (makes you want to be a chic; fyi august, this is way better than your Maid in Manhattan.lol.)
(20) The Descent (only beacuse i couldn't stop asking people if they've seen it. intelligent horror is kinda rare; check also 28 days later.)