~* GAEL AND THE DAWN *~

I've been inside the Mall of Asia (geez, can they make it any more labyrinthine than it already is?!) twice in a span of 1 week just to watch movies. First was last Nov. 3 wherein Charo, Jako & I caught the one-time only screening of a new Gael Garcia Bernal film "The Science of Sleep" during the opening of Cinemanila '06. It was directed by the same guy who did "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- Michael Gondry. I never really make an extraordinary effort to watch foreign language films except when it's a Gael Garcia Bernal movie. I'd endure reading the subtitles if it means seeing Gael on screen.


'Loved the movie :) It's refreshing to see Gael in a non-dramatic/heavy role AND speaking some French instead of the usual Spanish. He's on the funny side this time. His deadpan delivery of punchlines and his boyish charms (as always) were very endearing. The story has the same hyper-realism that Eternal Sunshine had so it was a very visual movie. Charo & I were laughing almost the entire time... the Disasterology-themed calendar, the one-second time machine and his other wacky inventions, his Parallel Synchronized Randomness theory and witty dialogues...

Then last Nov. 8, Tin, Charo, Abbie & I watched the Cinemalaya '06 Best Picture "Tulad ng Dati". Thanks Direk Mike Sandejas for the tickets :) It was an advanced screening/album launch of The Dawn but we didn't stay for the album launch anymore coz we had to wake up early for work the next day. I've always been curious to see the movie (being a music junkie and all). The story is loosely-based on The Dawn's journey as a band from the 80s til present. The guys were ok in terms of acting... a bit unnatural on some parts but hey, they're musicians, not actors;-) Well Jett had some theater experience so that helped. It was my first time to see Ping Medina in a movie (he seems to be in a lot of indie movies and music videos lately). With the right make-up and hairdo, Ping Medina really looked like Teddy Diaz.

It was a pretty cool movie with good rock music, surprising cameos (Stonefree was there! No wonder we spotted Miro inside the theater... Karl Roy, Imago, Raimund Marasigan...), funny scenes (Francis Brew when JB said "no sudden movements" at the rooftop... Buddy Zabala and Raimund facing each other and somebody said "Uy Eraserheads! Asan si Ely?")... and the rockin' face-off between the fictional Ratbunitata band and The Dawn -- pretty wicked guitar-playing by Kiko!

What I liked was this central thought about things "lost" that Teddy points out to Jett during his ghostly appearances in the movie. The idea was: If you lose something, you look for it; if you can't find it, replace it; if you can't replace it, try to forget about it; if you can't forget it, then accept that it's lost. Very apt when I relate to it personally (like hmm, love lost?)

Two good movies indeed! :)