The Wheel and Axle

Newt Scamander’s suitcase is the largest Poké Ball in the world, and it’s best that you go and see him use it grandly as he goes around 1920s New York trying to catch some rather Fantastic Beasts, indeed.

All this, plus a rather powerful metaphor and discourse around the very real horrors of child abuse and what its impact can be.

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I like horror, if that weren’t obvious enough, and recently I came upon an Indonesian short film that I had watched online a couple of years ago. Admittedly, I predicted the ending, but that’s probably because I read and watch too much horror. Regardless, it’s still freaky and quite well done, even upon re-watching.

See for yourself. Be satisfied.

Well, if we base it on Wikipedia or IMDB, not much in the last few years.

Too bad. I do think she was perfectly cast (a complete newbie) in the movie adaptation of what is perhaps my favorite musical, Hairspray. She’s since had a few appearances here and there, and I read that she’s also performed on cruise ships, but over-all I guess her career had never really taken off.

She’s a talented singer, though to be fair she’s a so-so actress, and perhaps that’s the reason for her lukewarm career. Then again, she seems trainable; perhaps she could’ve tried Broadway?

In any case, I do hope she’s out there, somewhere, still singing.

Happy birthday, Tracy Turnblad!

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We’ve all been so busy admiring Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep for being such acting chameleons that another chameleon rarely gets the praise she so deserves beyond cineastes.

Of course, those in the know do know how wonderful Tilda Swinton is, who at the age of 56 not only looks much younger but has also accomplished much in her career that spans artsy indie films and huge cinematic blockbusters.

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So they just dropped the latest Wonder Woman trailer, and it is awesome!

Not only do we get more Wondie goodness, we also get to see more of Elena Anaya…

… and I’m pretty positive that, yes, she is classic WW baddie Dr. Poison. The gender-bending villain might seem odd to the casual viewer, but long-time Wonder Woman fans would know that Dr. Poison is actually a very appropriate choice; if I recall correctly, she was the first costumed Man’s World villain at WW faced in the Golden Age, initially appearing in Sensation Comics #2. With the film set in World War I instead of World War II, Dr. Poison also fits right in because modern chemical warfare became widely utilized during the first war.

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I’ve always been more of a Star Wars fan than a Trekkie. This doesn’t mean I dislike Star Trek; I love the latter, too.

It just so happens that Star Wars was more of a fixture in my formative years: not only was I born on the same year that A New Hope was released, but Return of the Jedi was the first ever movie that I saw in a theater (to my recollection).

My oldest brother also had a collection of Star Wars action figures housed in a Darth Vader case, which I loved and was envious of – particularly since he rarely let me touch them. Moreover, I was extremely fascinated with the fantastic worlds that the “galaxy far, far away” presented: heroic Luke, sexy Leia, and dashing Han fighting their way out of Jabba the Hutt’s control as Boba Fett got consumed by the Sarlacc will always be etched in my mind as one of the most epic things, ever.

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To wash the ugly taste of the 2016 Fox remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show out of my violated mouth, I had to rewatch some of my favorites from the original film version.

Enjoy Rocky Horror as it was meant to be enjoyed, darlings: vodka, not milk.

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“Horror” is perhaps indeed the most appropriate term to describe what I felt when I finally saw several clips and performances of the 2016 Fox remake of the iconic and groundbreaking musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Not a transvestite.

I was quite wary of this remake when I read about it months ago. For one thing, they cast Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and while I’m happy we’re providing our trans sisters more opportunities in Hollywood given how shabbily they’ve been treated by the industry, this is one situation where the casting completely misunderstands the material. The character is established as a transvestite, not a transwoman – and the lyrics and story clearly delineate the good doctor as a cisgender bisexual male who happens to love cross-dressing. Casting a transwoman in the role could even be viewed as being detrimental to the trans cause, as it can propagate the incorrect notion that transwomen are not women but are just gay men who cross-dress.

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Doctor Strange is the best Marvel movie since Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

I know it seems anathema to think Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War (i.e. Avengers 2.5, let’s not pretened), and the much-revered Guardians of the Galaxy aren’t as good as the general populace would opine. However, while I did like all these latest films and think they’re good enough, I also feel they’re over-rated – especially Guardians. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become fairly one-note, and in my opinion they’re dragging the entire arc much longer than they should be doing. The formula has become repetitive.

Not so with Doctor Strange, and I feel the film is the one that has finally breathed fresh air into the MCU and not Guardians of the Galaxy.

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My 90s experience, as with a lot of Filipinos in my age bracket, would not have been complete with the Halloween specials of Noli De Castro’s Magandang Gabi, Bayan.

Every year, I looked forward to the Saturdays just preceding Halloween. It was when the show, which was a typical somewhat square news magazine program, would switch gears and feature interviews, footage, and reenactments, documentary-style, of supposed real life supernatural tales around the country: ghosts, aswang, tikbalang, dwende, the living dead, white ladies, black ladies, possessions, ghouls, fucking floating caskets, and more.

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