Last Saturday, I went to see the movie with my college best friends. We are an all-girl group, too, but we number more than the girls in the Sex and the City. We call our group, the barkadang magaganda! :P :)

We've been through each other's boyfriend relationships, break ups, finding the right man, looking for the right man, shower parties, weddings, baptisms of our kids, travel, career, family, bonding etc. Thus, it was a perfect date movie for friends.

To me that friendship theme in the movie is really touching! Isn't it that we do anything and everything for our BFFs? Amidst the glamor and fashion, and the predictable sequence of events, that friendship theme and that love wins in the end redeem the story. :)

That day, too, we celebrated one of our friends' birthday: Happy birthday, again Gina! :)

A young girl (Briony) is secretly in love with an older man (Robbie) who is interested in her older sister (Cecilia). A story of young love and jealousy, which drives Briony to point Robbie to a crime he didn't commit. Briony then went on to spend the rest of her life to atone that blunder.

Simple theme, simple story line, but Ian McEwan is very successful at tying all the events and lives together to deliver a happy ending... in the mind of Briony, all of which finds fulfillment in the pages of Briony's book of the same title.

Well-scripted (as the novel itself was well-written) and well-directed, the movie is a must-see. You'll probably be amazed by the postal service that has remained efficient even at the height of World War II. I was! :-D

"The hardest trick is making them stay." yeah right!!! =))

The movie didn't have those "kilig" moments (at least not to me), but it was light and fun all the way. If you had been through the dating game-cycle, you can totally relate to this movie. (I'm growing to like Diane Lane a lot. I've seen her in Unfaithful, Under the Tuscan Sun and she has this sexiness that is not forced.)

Worth watching!

A "real" witch playing the role of a witch on a TV show = one hilarious movie. A feel-good movie, nothing contrived. Guess, being a Nora Ephron movie ("You've Got Mail," "Mixed Nuts," "Sleepless in Seattle," "When Harry Met Sally...," "Heartburn," "Silkwood") explains it all. My friends and I went out of the movie house twitching our nose and feeling really good.

"Despite a few faint glimmers of fun, the movie is lost lost lost and there's no excusing it." So goes Joshua Tyler's (Cinemablend.com) take on the movie.

I tend to agree with him. Somehow the movie failed to bite me. Something's lacking I don't know what. Maybe I missed it altogether as I was busy minding my kids, who would occasionally run down the aisles and back to their seats again. See the movie didn't get to them, too. The visuals are good, though, looks yummy even. But I felt the lessons in each child's experience with Willie Wonka were a little bit contrived.

"It's got a gorgeous wrapper and a nut in the center, but it's not very sweet." Oh yeah, Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch!!!

It was Rago's first movie, by the way (._.)

There is a lot to be learned from this book. Such insights on facing real politics, experiencing good governance, and taking calculated risks. Hillary's account on campaigning and lobbying makes them such challenging activities.

The book however sounds like a long speech delivered by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hehehe

~During the impeachment trial when she was often asked why Bill and she have stayed together.~

"What can I say to explain a love that has persisted for decades and has grown through our shared experiences ... all I know is that no one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing and fully alive person I have ever met. Bill Clinton and I started a conversation in the spring of 1971, and more than thirty years later we're still talking."

Closer is a different film. Its title is figurative. It may mean get closer, that is know better the person you choose to love or get closer that is examine closely a relationship. It highlights the other side of a romantic relationship, which is to do everything to get the person you love, may it be wrong or right. It doesn't pause to consider the feelings of others or even those they "love." The characters tend to make their best efforts to shake off everything they've built and in the end, unknowingly, restore everything they place value on. It shows real fights and real arguments. Thus, you hear words such as "cum," "cock," and "pussy" spewing into the air as if they were second nature. One review said that this verbal exercise makes this dark film one of the more realistic films in a long while.

It is a welcome break from the gushy side of romance.

We went to see the movie without reading any reviews. Wizheart and I planned to see it, but we also wouldn't mind if we didn't. But what really convinced me to go see it was my friend's text. He said that there was a nice line in the movie about why people marry. So I waited for that part when Susan Sarandon would mouth those lines. When it came, it was a new way of looking at marrying, all right. And it's a nice thought. The line goes something like, "people marry because they want a witness to their lives...so that you won't ever say that you go unnoticed because the other is there to see and care about everything that you do." Awww...

This line and the fact that Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez didn't end up as lovers are the two redeeming factors of the movie. The latter came as a surprise to me. I thought they'd have an affair. The implication that even in the face of temptation or strong distraction, Gere stayed with Sarandon and even appreciated her more is to me moving. It validates the importance of commitment in a marriage and the value of having a good reason to marry.

The movie is one funny movie all right that deserves a few chuckles every now and then. But I think the lines that the writer wanted to tickle the audience's funny bones are too repetitive to be amusing at all. One more thing, Ben (Greg) and Teri (Pam) have lost the "couple" appeal that they possessed in Meeting the Parents. I have to hand it to the casting director though. Robert de Niro and Blythe Danner, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, Ben Stiller and Teri Polo are perfect in their individual roles.

If you want to chuckle and guffaw, never minding the "what should be's" then go and see the movie. ;))

This is not a film which to change the world except to make it a happier place, and it is not one that tries to give a message or lesson to take away.

It's romantic comedy, funny, and endearing for a snappy ninety minutes.

Still, I like the first version much better.

Ever wonder what the year would be like without Christmas?

No carols. No simbang gabi. No shopping. No presents. No remembering of Christ's birth. Nothing...........

Luther and Nora Krank decide that Christmas is a burden. As an accountant, Luther comes up with myriad reasons why the holiday is pointless and merely a drain on their bank account. The money they spend on the holiday could be more effectively put to use were they to go on a Caribbean cruise instead. With their daughter abroad on a volunteer work, the couple sees this as a viable option and set out to take themselves off everyone's Christmas list. However, it may not be as easy as they hoped.

Grisham does not hesitate to poke fun at common troubles and inconveniences as the holidays approach. And the community's reaction to the Kranks' decision reaches a comical level as they openly oppose the tossing aside of Christmas. Grisham goes so far as to create situations where the townspeople defy all reason to keep the Kranks from skipping town. Skipping Christmas quickly becomes a tale of the ramifications of a life without Christmas and how its role in society is vital to the human heart.

Will the Kranks get to celebrate their own kind of Christmas, or will they be forced by their friends and neighbors to rediscover the joy that Christmas brings?

With "Skipping Christmas", Grisham takes his writing up a level to create literary magic. We see here a fun, light, and ever witty Grisham who's famous for his legal-thriller novels.

What I learned from the novel is that it's never easy to defy tradition.

The twist in the story is good, but I expected a more riveting turn. As it is, I found its ending anti-climactic.