I have thoroughly enjoyed watching this year’s Oscar awards night especially that my most favored movie to triumph won smashingly that night, in a fashion that I had expected, just like the way “Titanic” did it some years ago.
“Slumdog Millionaire” was such a runaway winner that it bested other nominees from almost every category it was nominated in, from “Best Picture” category to “Best Sound”.

It was kind of a unique feeling seeing or experiencing for the first time how oriental culture takes hold of the rein away from the West, as we are so accustomed to, and never let’s go, even just for one night, in music and in visuals. A.R. Rahman’s music just scintillated the night away that his musical number with M.I.A. on stage that night was just one for the books.

Maybe it’s time that we see the oriental side of the spectrum; maybe it’s time that the world recognizes that the Asian artistic spirit is just about to make a comeback and be here for good, not in hostile competition with the Western Culture that we all had adored for so long now, from art to music, but in a harmonious and Zen-like co-existence.

Slumdog’s sound and soundtrack had particularly made some extraordinary strides that for the first time an Asian musician won the nod in the movie scoring category. In this line, I would like to share how haunting and sublime the movie’s sound and music through this video, “Latika’s Theme”:

It’s a music that was played in the most emotional moment of the film, when Dev Patel’s character, Jamal, was finally about to be reunited with Latika, his love interest for a very long time, after a very long and tumultuous search, one that had caused even the violent demise of his older brother Salim.

It’s a haunting sound, like a sound from a long time era, an ancient sound that perhaps this was a sound that ancient India had been cradled in, upon a magnificent era of art and architectural achievements - from Angkor Wat to Taj Majal.

Slumdog Millionaire should remind us all how India, or the people thereat, had once the most advanced culture on the planet, having had the oldest religion in Hinduism, the direct precursor to another well-patronized religion in Buddhism, where it’s founder had been an ancient Indian prince called Siddharta Gautama, who was later on to be more popularly known as Buddha or “the enlightened one”.

In the story of Siddharta, he was once a very young and richly prince of great nobility and surrounded by all the grandiosity that life could ever provide, from gold to pearls, and had not known any form of misery or suffering whatsoever. One day, Siddharta heard a sound from somewhere far afar, and he was so enamored by the sound of the music that he had followed it. In his pursuit of the sound that he had not had heard previously, he was led to the outside portion of their home, to a place where he had never been to before, and there for the first time he saw a lot of poor and miserable people, many sick and dying. The scenes of misery and struggle had baffled him entirely that when he returned home, he had somehow chastised his mother for not telling him that in fact, life is not all joy and merriment but in reality, also of sorrow and pain. This realization had been the main instigation for his extensive soul-searching later on, one that had led him to the forest, and stayed hungry for days and nights to come, in pursuit of enlightenment.

When I heard “Latika’s Theme”, I somehow felt how Siddharta Gautama must have felt when he said that there was indeed a very beautiful music somewhere out there.

IT'S PERPLEXING.

The most talked-about film today has something fishy going on that’s not worth mentioning at all. Golden-Globe’s “Best Drama Film” winner “Slumdog Millionaire” --- it’s producers to be particular --- has apparently left some of its heroes out in the cold, especially the kids that the filmmakers had plucked out of the Calcutta slums to play important roles in the British-made film that portrays and focuses on the lives of three young kids, growing up in filthy streets amidst the virulent political turbulence in India that had occurred some time ago, specifically about the harsh and often-bloody confrontation between the Hindus and Muslims there, where one of them kids had gained the chance to become a millionaire when he grew up, that is, in the most unusual way --- winning India’s version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”.

I’ve seen trailers of the herein-mentioned film and I can appreciate how it had garnered many accolades so far and in fact it remains as the top bet to win top honors in the upcoming Oscars awards night on Monday. British film director Danny Boyle ( Trainspotting, Sunshine) has certainly achieved some cinematic milestone with this recent work of his.

But then, this controversy; the child actors and actresses employed in the film were merely paid paltry sums and remain to be living in squalid habitats still, as they were before, even if “Slumdog Millionaire” had already surpassed $100 Million in gross ticket sales. Now that’s a lot of money to be talking about and it’s nearly criminal that these adorable kids don’t get as much as they should be getting. They should get to live in mansions from now on if you ask me and be driven in limousines everyday of their lives. That’s what they deserved.

I can sense some lawsuit brewing hereat. A sharp and snooping lawyer could surely spot some goldmine of a lawsuit and I have no problem with that whatsoever.

When I was just new to being a music lover, like really being into music, sometime just after my high school days, I had a thought then that I didn’t have much interest in dance music. Not that I were just being typical of most rock music lovers, who shows no restraint at all in showing (off) their contempt for “dance” music, like it was only for sissies and phonies. In fact I could like them so well in the past. When I was a very young kid, like somewhere between 8 or 10 years old, I had often jibed and feel the beat of songs like “Brother Louie” or “Tarzan Boy” being played in game arcades that I had frequented then.

Perhaps, it was my great leaning to New Wave that had somehow made Petshop Boys reasonably chic and modish.

Or perhaps, Depeche Mode was really a dance band when they started making music in the mid-80’s that we countless millions of soul who had loved them in their early days really and actually had loved dance music, without us knowing it.

One day, about several months ago, I passed by my favorite video rental store and got hold of the tribute concert video to Leonard Cohen titled “I’m Your Man” , and I just got blown by it. It was a very good concert video/musical, and could be just second to U2’s “Rattle and Hum”. There was this fat guy in that show who just appeared on stage and sang Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will” and I thought it was a fabulous number, the way the fat guy sang it was so terrifyingly haunting that I kept on watching that part of the concert over and over again.

The thing is - I never knew the name of the fat guy even if I had gotten so interested with his so enchanting voice. But I tried searching in the net and I later found out that his name was in fact Antony Hegarty. I thought that I liked to hear most of his song and wondered if ever he had some works before and truth to be told, indeed he was in a band, two of them in fact, Antony Johnson and the Aeons and Hercules and Love Affair.

This was how I discovered the sumptuous and wonderfully-crafted album Hercules and Love Affair, the self-titled debut album from the band with the same name.

The album is a dance album that’s why I was having some soliloquy about dance music in the beginning part of this post.
Now I wonder if finally, dance music is just as pleasurable as rock music. I wonder even if dance music is finally making a huge comeback, back to its heydays in the 80’s.

And for a dance band, Hercules and Love Affair’s album is so seriously wonderful and lyrically emotional that it was not like any other dance album that I’ve got ever known of.

In the beginning song “Time Will”, Antony Hegarty sang “Don’t Lie to me. Don’t Make it Up… I cannot hold half a life.” Now that’s just an emotional outbreak that just got me so wedged with this album.

In “Blind”, the band showed exceptional liveliness with a very jibing bass intro that makes the body move effortlessly and being so caught up by the ever so melodic vocals of Antony, making it one of the most original pieces of music that I have heard so recently.

And as if this wasn’t enough, the album moves on to higher ground in the extremely vigorous “Raise Me Up” with meandering lyrics that sang “They put you down. They pushed your face down. You kissed the ground.”

Naomi Ruiz also maintain vocal duties in this band and she is sometimes called “Fabulous Naomi” and the first time you hear her sing, it would be no surprise why she is called that way. Her voice is smooth and flowing like a crystal afloat an ice field, that in “Iris” and “Athene” she just turned the songs into full bloom naturally. She immediately reminds the listener of EBTG’s Tracy Thorn, so confident in voice and one who needs no vocal acrobatics whatsoever.

Almost every song in the album is as catchy as a fresh rainbow, almost all. It’s a being rare that way. Every song in it could actually be played on FM radio and that’s ultimate radio-friendliness that doesn’t happen every day.

Rating : 9/10

It would definitely be worthwhile to be taking note of a major achievement gained by Philippine cinema as Ishmael Bernal's “Himala” had just been chosen as the “Best Asia-Pacific Movie of All Time”, an award given by the highly-credible CNN news network.

Just when we all thought that Philippine cinema is such in a doldrums, spewing mediocre if not atrocious movies one after the other, this international recognition has single-handedly brought our filmmakers to the world map. Perhaps, as I would greatly hope so, this tribute to the Filipino’s once vaunted ingenuity in filmmaking should put new vigor into our movie industry, inspiring local producers to invest more on quality films, rather than the irreverent dosage of cheesy love stories and hackneyed fantasy films that they have been feeding the local moviegoers in recent years.

The state of Philippine cinema today is such in a horrendous state. I remember a time when each year, at least one notable production would be in the offing, finely crafted and aimed to educate and enlighten aside from being delightfully entertaining. I remember a time that even teen movies were created so artfully that aside from gaining hordes of profit from adulating young fans, they also become socially relevant for the message they had conveyed. For example, the film “Bagets” was one movie that could easily be said to have been aimed at attracting young moviegoers as it starred several young and highly popular moviestars at the peak of their careers. And despite that it appeared to be a teeny-bopper of a movie, it was intelligently crafted, especially the script which was reflective of the social problems involving the youth at that time like family alienation and lack of direction in life.

Years ago, local movies are so full of memorable scenes and dialogues, even if they were love stories. For example, who could forget that line when Gabby Concepcion had relayed to Sharon Cuneta that she was his “number one”, and Ms. Cuneta answered, “Ayoko ng “number one’, kasi merong “number two” at saka me “number three”.

But nowadays, local filmmakers churn out almost all the time shallow and mind-numbing love stories and I bet we are all so full of them that we could not take them no more. It’s perplexing for example how every local movie released nowadays are so singular in theme and premise, about some lovers traipsing and running around sand beaches, about how some girl was such in a miserable state of being and some hunky-dory rich handsome guy would suddenly appear in her life, usually in a limousine with a bunch of roses and chocolates in hand, ready to become her hero and savior and would finally take her away out of her miserable life. I mean, gosh, haven’t we all got fed up with these kind of saccharine stuff? Does that really happen in real life? I’ve never seen one from our neighborhood if you ask me.

Fortunately, “Himala” is one bright light for Philippine cinema, a flicker of hope, a light to be followed. I’ve actually seen this Nora Aunor-starrer for about three to five times already, except that, I could not seem to remember the details even if I’ve seen it so many times before. It’s like a mystery to me. Perhaps, there’s an advantage in that as it would always be like the first time whenever I decide to view it again. I have the same feeling whenever I watched “Casablanca” where despite that I’ve like the polished black and white production with the guy named Sam in it, I almost always forget the details of the story, like I thought Humphrey Bogart was always going from place to place looking for Ingrid Bergman, and never really had found her, that I felt like if he was alive today, he would still be looking for her, like a mad man. It felt that way, even though websites about the movie actually tells a story different from what I thought it was.

“Himala”, according to some details I remember about the movie (to which I’ve seen the last time about a year ago as a lunch movie treat from a local television channel), is a very powerful and well-made movie, with the script so tightly knitted that it stands unparalleled at that. The shots by Director Bernal were magnificently done, using spans that are so reminiscent of the filmmaking techniques often utilized by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.

Nora Aunor’s acting is the highlight of the movie and without it “Himala” would have been entirely mediocre and insignificant.

Truth to be told, if I am to judge the greatest Filipino movie of all time, “Himala” would have not been at the top of my list. It would have been Peque Gallaga’s “Oro Plata Mata”, a sprawling period saga that was outstanding in its production that seeing it for the first time was such a blast. It was almost a perfect movie for me --- good script, fine production and glanderous climactic end.

But “Himala” was the chosen one and even noted now as not only best here in our country, but also in the entire Asian sphere, and noted by none other than the very creditable CNN. Maybe I should agree with the choice.