Battle Royale 2nd edition

As you may already know, I bought a first edition copy of this novel a few years back at National Bookstore Cubao (the one that's beside Gateway Mall and a few steps away from Breadtalk) and was taken aback by how affordable it was. English translated works by contemporary Japanese authors would normally be more expensive and hard to find, so to say that I was ecstatic to get my hands on this Japanese bestseller at the cost of a John Grisham or Nicholas Sparks novel would be a fairly accurate description of how I looked at the time as I made a beeline for the cash register.

Of course, given its price, the book was not without its faults. For one, it was printed using machine-finished paper, the kind that people would call an improved newsprint, while the cover had a matte finish instead of being glossy. As for the contents, it was edited in a way that can be quite confusing. Without even going into my issues regarding syntax, I remember certain chapters wherein some of the characters' names were inadvertently mixed up and if you're the type who's not used to reading and hearing oriental names, the inconsistent reference to a character's first name or last name to signify his/her relationship or familiarity with another character can slow a reader down. It's a hefty book which consists of over 600 pages, so keeping track of 42 students engaged in a military program where their lives are at stake can be quite a challenge especially if you read this over an extended period of time. 

Roughly a year after buying the said book, a new paperback edition surfaced at Fully Booked. Like most books that line this elite bookstore's shelves, this edition was far more eye-catching than the first. It had whiter pages and the publisher obviously bumped up the standard paper grade. It would also cost you a bit more at Php680 to get the new and improved version. 

 

Given my obsessive/compulsive need to see whether or not this edition was indeed better than the one already in my possession, I eventually bought a second copy, but not until the price spiked up to Php899 (oh wow, lucky me). Apparently, there was enough reason to jack up the price due to recent comparisons made between this Takami Koushun novel and crossover hit, The Hunger Games which would in turn explain that yellow, round sticker on the cover that advertised this novel as "the original survival game".

Fortunately though, all the positive buzz about this edition turned out to be true. It's still a hefty book but at least it is better edited and the overall presentation thereof, including the use of a larger font for the text, makes reading it an easy if not enjoyable experience. As an added bonus, the second edition includes translated interviews with not only the author, Takami Koushun, but also the director of the film adaptation, Fukasaku Kinji and a foreword from Road to Perdition writer, Max Allan Collins. The section on Fukasaku is relatively shorter than that of Takami's, being an old movie promo interview, but it still makes for an interesting read since the additional material touches on the creative process, the inspiration and the intent behind the written and cinematic versions of Battle Royale.

So is it worth to cough up the extra cash to get this edition?

I guess that all depends on how much you value reading a well-edited text. If you're unfazed by a few typographical errors and have a good mind to read and understand the words in the context that they're meant to be understood, then the first edition would do the same trick, especially if you're budget conscious.   

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Save Me, San Francisco : Train Live in Manila

We've had a lot of foreign artists over this year and though my sisters and I made a number of plans to catch some of them perform, we never really managed to watch anything because of our conflicting schedules. Most of the concerts were scheduled on a Sunday or a weekday---which meant braving traffic if you're coming from the other side of the metro and/or rearranging your work itinerary just to get to the venue in time for the concert, which in turn meant that you would really, really have to like the artist or group that's performing to go through all that trouble. I didn't think I'd get to watch Train on their second visit to Manila but luckily, one of  my friends decided to make a night out of it, so I ditched my students (scheduled a make-up class, actually) and made a beeline for the coliseum after a boring day at the office.

I half expected the place to be full, maybe not filled to the rafters like the Jason Mraz concert, but I at least hoped for a decent turnout so that concert promoters can get the band to come back and perform in the future. There was a sizable crowd at the Araneta coliseum, it wasn't empty but it wasn't full, but given that everyone's in a mad dash to keep their expenditures in check for the holiday season, I kind of understand  why the Filipino audience couldn't have given this band a better reception.

Anyway, I felt like I needed a break so what better way to reward myself than to watch one of my favorite adult-contemporary rock bands in concert?

If memory serves me right, I was a sophomore in college when Meet Virginia hit the airwaves but it wasn't until Drops of Jupiter came out in 2001 that I truly became a fan. To this day, my favorite Train album would still have to be My Private Nation, with Save Me, San Francisco coming in at a close second.

I find Train's music easy to listen to and sing along with, and while not being insanely popular as other artists before Hey, Soul Sister became a huge hit, songs like Calling All Angels and When I Look to the Sky tend to stay with you and resonate. I've been keeping my fingers crossed for a comeback ever since their single Ordinary was featured in the Spiderman 2 soundtrack, and though never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that their ticket to mainstream success would come in the form of a sickeningly foppish jingle, I guess I should still count myself lucky that they're out and about.

The concert was supposed to start at 8 p.m. but front act, 6-cyclemind, came on stage about a half hour late and didn't finish their set until a few minutes before 9 p.m. After that, we heard a train whistle/horn and Train opened the show with Parachute, followed by If it's Love---a love song dedicated to their loyal fans. The band then proceeded to play hit songs from their previous albums such as Calling All Angels, Meet Virginia, Get to Me and She's On Fire before launching into a Journey song with one lucky girl, who's obviously no stranger to singing such a karaoke staple.

Being my first Train concert, I really had no idea what to expect, so it was a pleasant surprise for me to see Pat Monahan and the band go out of their way to interact with audience members. I had a lot of fun watching the second batch of Manila Trainettes compete for a signed guitar and pretty much turned green with envy when the frontman jumped into the crowd and mingled with those in VIP and patron seats while singing Marry Me. At this point, my friend looked really disappointed, being someone who loved to document every event with a video or picture, but there was no helping it, since we were stuck with Upper Box A seats.

I tried to console her with the fact that the band sounded great from where we were seated, for it's a fact that one of the many downsides to having front row seats is that you don't get to appreciate the full sound of the band. I'm compelled to sour-grape a little, sure, but usually when you're situated near the stage, one of the instruments end up sounding louder than the others or the lead singer's voice get drowned out by the accompanying sound.

Since this was the Manila leg of a tour to promote their fifth album, Train played a bevy of songs which included the title track, Save Me, San Francisco, the Coke jingle, Shake Up Christmas, as well as Hey Soul Sister, I Got You and as mentioned earlier, Marry Me (though not in that particular order). For their encore performance, Train treated the crowd to Words and of course, the now classic, Drops of Jupiter---and with that, the concert was over. It lasted a little over an hour, which is why my friend's sole complaint was that she wished they threw in a few more songs, made the concert last a little longer.

Overall, I must say that I had fun at this concert. So much fun that I came up with a couple of resolutions; the first being that I should endeavor to get better seats for their next concert and the second would be to get more people to see them perform.

We might not have been near enough to get a decent picture but the music alone was worth the price of admission.

P.S. Being the stingy, fickle person that I am, it goes without saying that the above resolutions are contingent upon whether or not I'll dig their 6th album. Hopefully by then, Pat would've gotten himself a haircut and/or had enough time to run a comb through his hair.

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Concert pictures taken by Kris Rocha for Dayly Entertainment.

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In the Company of Wilfred

"Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination."

- Mark Twain

This year saw the end of Friday Night Lights and the short-lived remake of the V series, and while there were a number of new shows and sitcoms that premiered this fall, I was more or less looking for something different from the slew of supernatural-horror-fantasy and crime procedural shows on U.S. television. November sweeps was fast approaching and the shows that were currently airing were one by one starting to prep viewers for their yearly mid-season break. There was nothing on television and I didn't feel like starting any Asian dramas just yet, and if it was just a matter of reality t.v. it was rather easier to get my fix from History, Bio and National Geographic than resort to watching another talent contest.

Then came Wilfred, a show about a man, a dog (sort of) and that tenuous divide between reality and insanity. Imagine countless afternoons spent with a furry companion who smokes weed, plays devil's advocate and attracts trouble like nobody's business, and you'll more or less have an idea of what's going through the main character's head... or not.

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Depressed, out-of-work lawyer, Ryan Newman (Elijah Wood) was doggone desperate to bid the world goodbye when his next-door neighbor (Fiona Gubelmann) showed up at his porch to ask if he would be kind enough to watch her dog for a few hours. Tired from staying alive up all night and perhaps unable to bring himself to yet again revise the suicide letter stewing in his laptop, Ryan finds himself in the company of his neighbor’s pet, Wilfred (Jason Gann)---who, in his eyes, just happens to be a scruffy, foul-mouthed Aussie in a dog suit urging him to “throw the ball”.

Is he a figment of his imagination, a psychological manifestation of his id or merely an effect of the sleeping pills that he tried to overdose on the night before but failed to do him in?

Before having the chance to make sense of his predicament, he ends up interacting with the object in question---hanging out like childhood buddies, smoking pot in his basement and watching Matt Damon movies; including getting into ridiculous situations and barely getting out of them with some luck and assistance from his canine colleague. In the course of the series, Wilfred gets him to blow off a job interview, steal the neighborhood thug’s weed, kidnap a ginormous teddy bear from doggy day care and even consider paying the cost of repairs for a minor traffic accident by having a sexual escapade with a cougar-wabbit. Yes, a cougar-wabbit.

Whether or not the dog is a blessing in disguise or the devil incarnate, Ryan's misadventures with Wilfred has no doubt given him a new lease on life---one that's irresolutely pursued with a dash of madness and reckless abandon. A life that bored viewers like me would like to see unfold. 

Re-imagined by series co-creator Jason Gann for U.S. television, this version of Wilfred takes on a darker comedic tone, tackling existentialist themes more common to cable network sitcoms than those produced by the "big three" networks. The humor utilized can be a bit crass---it's not laugh-out-loud funny but it does have an ironic edge to it complemented by enough references that would no doubt make sense to a pet owner. Each episode is prefaced by a word that serves as a theme and though at times the situations that Wilfred and Ryan get into seem randomly thrown in along with the list of guest stars that appear in it, at the end of the day, you just can't shake this nagging feeling of concern over Ryan's mental well-being.

Jason Gann does a remarkable job playing Wilfred. He's funny and affable despite being shady and a bit vulgar. He grows on you like a bad habit and often commands the show with his doggy antics as expected of the title character. Also, major props goes to Elijah Wood for his unpretentious, everyman portrayal of Ryan Newman, without which this incredulous storyline would not have worked. There's enough honesty and vulnerability infused into those weary robin's egg blue eyes that just makes the whole thing plausible; the former child star has the acting chops to make viewers sympathize, if not empathize, with such a disturbed character.

The end of season one has brought about a number of questions regarding the direction of the show. For some, it served as sufficient reason to tune in next season to build on a theory about Ryan's true condition, for others, the events of the last episode served as an indication of what really lies behind the cannabis smoke that triggered Wilfred's inception. Whatever the case may be, I hope they get a chance to wrap this up nicely. I'd hate to hear about it being canceled without getting a conclusive ending.

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The Kitchen Musical

Watching The Kitchen Musical is like a tacit admission that you have nothing better to do on a Saturday night. Seriously, anyone who gets to watch this thing on its given timeslot has either decided to stay in for a quiet weekend or was channel-surfing when the television-musical-bug decided to bite. Terrible, I know, but creator CheeK's concept of fusion entertainment---one that combines food, music, drama and dance in one show---has badges of an experiment gone awry and yet like any new dish that makes use of traditional and exotic ingredients, there's always hope that with enough tweaking, he can get the recipe right. There's barely enough to whet your appetite but since it traverses the so-bad-it's-good category, don't be surprised to find yourself tuning in once in a while.

I was quite curious about this show but despite several not-so-well-planned attempts to watch it, I never really had the chance to catch the premiere episode until they ran a 4-hour marathon on Studio23. The modus operandi of the show is quite simple---everything takes place in a posh, cosmopolitan restaurant that specializes in French cuisine called The Avilon where the characters prepare food, interact with each other, bust a move and burst into song.

Our story begins when fresh graduate, Maddie Avilon (Karylle) returns from Le Cordon Bleu and lands a job at her father's restaurant as a sous-chef under the direction of renowned culinary genius, Alex Marcus (Stephen Rahman-Hughes). Young, zealous and brimming with ideas, Maddie ends up butting heads with the uptight and methodical executive chef who detests the very idea of adjusting his refined palate just to experiment on the set menu when a food critic's in town.

From there on out, it takes no great leap of imagination to see how the open antagonism between the two would soon turn into sexual tension as master and apprentice slowly win over each other with every dish that they prepare. Anyone who's seen the show knows that something's cooking in the kitchen and no, we're not referring to the evening special that consists of the four-course meal that they come up with every week.

To seemingly add spice to an otherwise proven formula, a feisty old flame of Alex's named Selena Aragon (Rosemary Vandenbroucke) gets employed as the restaurant sommelier while trusted friend, and colleague, sous-chef Daniel Ray (Christian Bautista), throws his hat into the ring to vie not only for Maddie's heart but also professional independence. Throw in a recovering alcoholic as restaurant manager (Arthur Acuña), a couple of funky line cooks (Juan Jackson, Thou Reyes, Carla Dunareanu and Erwin Shah Ismail), a gay pâtissier (Ikey Canoy), and a gaggle of receptionists/waitresses/bartenders (Oon Shu An, Nadiah M. Din, Juwanda Hassim, Gayle Nerva and Rebecca Spykerman) who can carry a tune and voila! What you have is basically a programming experiment that could have very well been conceived after hours of watching MTV, the CW Network and the Food Channel (maybe even Fox's Hell's Kitchen).   

It's quite unclear to me whether or not the said place has Michelin stars but the web that binds all the characters can by no means be considered veiled nor intricate. There's the standard love triangle that's looking more and more like a quadrangle-pentagon as the series goes on, the resort to cringe-worthy dialogue, and the oft times awkward segue to music and food that has the tendency to drive away viewers who checked in expecting more substance from the show's narrative.

Despite its numerous shortcomings, The Kitchen Musical is still quite unique for an Asian production. For one, it has a core group of characters that can generate sufficient interest from its viewers (something which can be attributed to the innate talent and charisma of the actors in its fold), moreover, it's a nice platform to launch homegrown stars from the Southeast Asian region. It might be accused of riding the musical television trend but at the moment, it's still the first of its kind from this part of the world to target a wider audience.

It's true, the first few episodes were underwhelming and the rendition of some musical productions may at times appear cheesy and amateur but unlike Glee which integrates and showcases song and dance into the story, time stands still in The Avilon whenever a musical number comes on. It actually operates more as a device to set a mood, an avenue to peer into the minds of the characters and an opportunity to convey things that cannot be said out loud as opposed to being a fine blend of lyrical drama. Granted it doesn't always work as intended but when it does, it's nothing short of magic. Their version of Faith was cute and infectious, Hot N Cold was predictably flirty and its take on The Police classic, Every Breath You Take, was simple yet loaded with meaning. I guess what I like most about this series is that it not only makes use of current chart hits but it also taps into music that I grew up with; songs by artists such as Matchbox Twenty, Semisonic, Vertical Horizon, Erasure,  and R.E.M. that don't get the same amount of air play as before but are nevertheless worthy of being rediscovered by a new generation.

To wrap things up, I think the show has potential but it could use a lot of work for the musical numbers usually take a huge bite off the show's running time and therefore there's very little time allotted for the development of the storyline. That said, I'm also quite aware of the possibility that maybe The Kitchen Musical wasn't meant to be taken too seriously; it has after all, sent out an SOS over mushroom soup, presented George Michael's Freedom with sitars and paid a tongue-in-cheek tribute to an REO Speedwagon song that has long since become a karaoke favorite. So maybe it could just go on as it is. In the same way that most people would prefer spending an evening with family and friends in a KTV bar over dining in a five-star restaurant, not everything has to be a critically-acclaimed drama or a high-end spectacle for the general public to enjoy it. 

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 Photo credits: The Kitchen Musical |Facebook and Ron Leyba. 

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The Frazzled Troubadour

Here's the thing, I don't really get out much nowadays with work and my part-time job teaching, so on the rare occasion that I do manage to catch a concert, watch a play or attend a ballet, I only go out of my way to see something that I'm inexplicably drawn to, really interested in or feel strongly about. So when I heard that Manila was going to be the first stop of Jason Mraz's "A Grateful Journey Tour", I immediately marked the date on my calendar and rushed to buy reserved seats [the cheapest kind, mind you]; all prepared for a night where I'll just let myself be swept away by the music, like driftwood caught in a rolling wave. Lol x).

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Falling by the Wayside

お久しぶりです! I know it's been months since I've updated this thing but ever since I got a part-time job teaching college kids, I just never seem to have the time to sit down and blog properly (if there is such a thing). That second job pretty much sucked up all my time and energy that I even forgot basic stuff like renewing my driver's license. To top it off, I still have about a half dozen or so draft entries that annoy the hell out of me every time I log into this thing; oh and it also just occurred to me that this blog of mine turned a year old last April and I didn't do anything to commemorate it---which just all adds up to me being a lousy blogger.

Just when I thought I was making headway finishing up the dramas I dropped and missed out on in the past two years, I find myself falling behind at the tail end of 2011. I don't know, it might be possible that I've gotten more picky and impatient when it comes to my drama viewing but most of the stuff I've seen are not exactly worth writing about while the few that I really liked are kinda difficult to write about.

There's also this little thing called "writer's block" wherein you lose your train of thought and run out of inspiration which, if you're prepping a draft post, is equivalent to the kiss of death.... Sounds a tad dramatic, I know, but more often than not when an idea behind the post falls into a vegetative state, the blogger might eventually manage to revive it by clicking that publish button but seldom does it come out without any infirmities.

So what happens now?

Here's the thing, I have a little over a week before I go back to my so-called [tortuous] "teaching career" so I'll try to do what I can with the little time I don't spend sleeping. There's going to be a slight change in the format such that the posts might not be as long or elaborate; most, if not all of them, will be antedated so that they will be presented in the order intended; and I'll probably scrimp on the screencaps since it takes a lot of time to pick them out and have them uploaded.

I'll also have to push back reviewing Nino's kandou dramas---I've managed to watch all three and have prepared notes and whatnot but I'm not in the mood to work on them at the moment (can't capture a decent screencap, Nino looks atrocious in them). I'm not really sure how much of these draft entries will eventually get released in the blogosphere but I'm gonna give it a shot.

So till next time, dear reader. 

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BECK's Heav[enl]y Silence

"Please don't put your life in the hands

Of a Rock 'n Roll band and throw it all away"

- Oasis, Don't Look Back in Anger (1996)

Last month, I received the subtitles prepared by SkewedStudios Fansubs and Scanlations to the live-action version of BECK with instructions from the project leader to typeset the same, bearing in mind to place it on uber-hakaduper-higher-than-the-highest priority on my list of pending projects. Coming into it, I must confess that I was totally oblivious to the existence of the manga penned by Harold Sakuishi and inexcusably ignorant of the lauded anime version of the series. All I knew at the time was that fans of the manga were stoked to see it and girls were quite happy with the selection of pretty boys appearing in it.

Judging by the trailer, BECK, to me, came off as another "band movie". I wasn't all up in arms to see it but I could surmise that it was going to turn out just fine since its cast would be enough to draw people in. However, how much of an impact it would leave on its audience was difficult to imagine, I couldn't tell how well it would fare against other existing manga-to-screen adaptations like Nana and Solanin, not to mention the Akanishi Jin vehicle, Bandage, which also came out the same year.

After months of waiting, it turned out I wasn't completely off the mark; BECK was neither impressive nor disappointing. It was at times turgid and uninspired but overall, ho-hum okay in a sense that it was hard to hate (but don't expect me to re-watch it). Decently made but certainly nothing to rave about, the movie had a great ensemble of young stars, it played well against the opening strains to one of [punk] rock's most recognizable tracks and it even made for a fairly effective coming of age story except for one major glitch...

You don't get to hear Koyuki sing.   

For those unfamiliar with the story, BECK follows the rise to fame of an indie band composed of a talented guitarist named Ryusuke (Mizushima Hiro), ultra-cool and sought-after bassist Taira (Mukai Osamu), energetic frontman Chiba (Kiritani Kenta) and two newbie recruits in the person of drummer Saku (Nakamura Aoi) and second guitar/vocalist extraordinaire Koyuki (Sato Takeru) to complete the line-up.

Like any film adaptation of a manga series, BECK covers multiple story lines, highlighting the personal journey of each character in varying degrees. Life, love, music and friendship are all featured in this film; and while Ryusuke holds the more outlandish sections of the movie with a rather queer affinity with the band Dying Breed and a gangsta encounter brought about by a deboed bullet-ridden guitar named Lucille, the movie's heart and soul belongs to bullied outcast Koyuki, who not only finds meaning and purpose through the band's music but also manages to enchant and inspire thousands of people whenever he sings.

But again, the problem is that you don't get to hear him sing.    

Now what started as a fateful encounter with a fellow band member, followed by an abbreviated music lesson composed of guitar riffs played on a stratocaster, would soon culminate in one big music festival (the likes of Woodstock) where different kinds of band music would take front and center. It was to be BECK's moment of glory and the clincher----Moonbeams with Koyuki on vocals. His voice was supposed to be so pure and special that it would stop people in their tracks. His was the voice that summoned visions of a better world, a brighter future; so much so, that it caught the attention of sassy, elusive Maho (Kutsuna Shiori) and even gained them the respect of their peers. It was his voice that caused a squabble between the band and its high-octane singer, so all logic and common sense demanded the unveiling of that "Greatful Sound" (sic), which unfortunately, nobody got to hear.

Was it so ethereal that I couldn't hear it? Was it supposed to transcend all boundaries of sound that no rendition could give it justice? Or was I supposed to be happy with just seeing the lyrics on the bottom of the screen? The music in itself was great. Anyone who's been to a concert can attest to that fever pitch, that high, that comes with hearing the opening strains to a song complemented by the sound of the singer's voice, but in this case, you hear nothing....which is why BECK's stage performance felt so incomplete.

Oh well, so much for the mute singing wonder.

N.B. Turns out that Moonbeams as featured in the movie was composed by J-indie rock band Spank Page. If you want to hear what the final song was supposed to sound like, you can check out their performance of  BOY; their version of Don't Look Back in Anger is not so bad either.

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Images courtesy of Ramen Lover at Asianmediawiki and Just Reveal.

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