It was a spur of the moment movie date with Jen and I’m glad we decided to watch The A-Team! I loved it! It was sooo cool! I haven’t watched the original TV series so there’s nothing to compare with on my part.
I believe the movie was well-made though. It really was an action-packed movie with a pinch of romance, comedy & style, I think it was perfect. Actually, to say that the movie was action-packed is an understatement because from the very beginning all the way to the end, it was just nonstop action!!
If you didn’t know, the A-Team is actually based on the popular hit tv show back in the 80’s, same name, same characters and all..
I love the fact that even though the movie was based on the 80s show, it didn’t try to go back to that era, and all of the characters, the plot, and the situations they find themselves in have all been made very modern and up to date.
The A-Team is an elite combat team consisting of 4 individuals with such unique personalities. The leader of the team, Hannibal Smith was played by Liam Neeson. The other members of the A-Team includes Templeton “Face” Peck. Ranger Bosco B.A. Baracus. H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock.
One of the great performances in the movie too is that of H.M. Murdoch who is the pilot for the team. And of course, who can forget the performance of Templeton “Face” Peck who was played by Bradley Cooper, I think his character gave a lot of comedy input into the movie as well. Actually, the whole cast did such a great job in their performances.
I just love how genius their plans are that makes them successful in any missions they undertake. Maybe that’s why they are called A-Team. A as in Grade A, highest score if we’re going to score them. And even though there are just some scenes that are way over the top, such as when the team has to jump out of an exploding airplane mid-flight in a tank, the most important part for me was that the action really never stopped and the movie really entertained.
If you haven’t watched this movie, I suggest you go catch it. Not sure though if it’s still showing in all theaters but there are still a good number of theaters that is still playing The A-Team.
It’s not just english movies that I try to catch on TV every weekends. I also do browse the channel CinemaOne for famous filipino movies. Last saturday, they featured Bea Alonzo’s movie: And I Love You So.
My apologies because it seems that most of my movie reviews are for old movies and not the current movies playing right now. I guess I just don’t go out much these days and end up just watching tv instead. It’s cool to be able to watch movies I wasn’t able to catch too! There is just too much talent out there and moviegoers really don’t have enough time to watch each & every movie out in the theaters. Thank God for movie channels, at least there’s a chance for us to catch what we’ve missed.
Star Cinema, I believe is the Philippine movie outfit that makes quality movies. I also believe that romantic stories are their specialty. One example is this movie, And I Love You So. It stars 3 eye-candy actors – Bea Alonzo (Lara), Derek Ramsey (Oliver) & Sam Milby (Chris). A great trivia for this movie for those who don’t know is that it’s actually the only Star Cinema movie that was not shown in any SM City chain because of failed negotiations with ABS-CBN.
This is probably the movie where Bea seems to have come out of her shell as she donned several bikini outfits in the movie. Anyway, the story is about love, coping w/ heartbreak & moving on.
The story is very simple. Lara is happily married with Oliver who seems to be the perfect man. They live a perfect & loving life (actually while watching, I was wishing that I could have that kind of marriage too! hehehe). But in just 5 short months, Oliver died because of an aneurysm. Lara, who is just 24 years old, automatically became a widow.
The movie showed how she lived life broken-hearted… until she met Chris who rented the condominium unit that Lara owns. Chris was really determined to help Lara, so he goes with Lara as they do all these different types of activities. In exchange, Lara would help Chris to speak proper tagalog.
The friendship became special in the end. The movie practically just revolves around it. Very good acting, very gorgeous stars, good story too. I loved the movie 🙂
My Rating for And I Love You So: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
It has become a habit for me to watch movies every weekend on television. A few weeks back, I was able to catch the movie, Teeth, through Star Movies. Last weekend, I was able to catch The Spirit.
When I watched the movie, I initially thought that it was directed by Quentin Tarantino because the style is somewhat the same (without blood and all that gore though). Apparently, the Spirit is an adaptation of a comic book series & it was directed by Frank Miller. If you’ve watched Sin City and 300, you will sense the same feel all throughout the movie, but just a fair warning, don’t expect these movies, expect The Spirit to be really more unique and light.
The Spirit was a flop which was quite surprising because I find it quite entertaining and good. The movie had a great cast too including Samuel Jackson, my favorite Eva Mendes, the beautiful Scarlett Johansson, Jaime King & Gabriel Macht.
Let me share the main characters & their roles before I share the plot in this post, I think it will be much easier to understand that way:
The Spirit (also Denny Colt) – the main character of the movie. Played by Gabriel Macht. He is a former police officer who was killed in the line of duty, but because of a serum that was injected into him, he came back to life and is basically indestructible. He is the protector of the city.
The Octopus – played by Samuel L. Jackson, is the villain of the movie and the arch enemy of The Spirit. He is actually the one who injected the serum into The Spirit, and thereafter also injected himself with the serum. Thus, he is also as indestructible as The Spirit.
Silken Floss – played by the sexy Scarlett Johansson, she’s sort of the sexy assistant to The Octopus.
Sand Saref – played by Eva Mendes, is an international and famous thief. She is actually the childhood love of Denny Colt who has become The Spirit.
Ellen Dolan – the doctor that takes care of The Spirit when he becomes wounded and injured and needs to recover. She is also the current love interest of The Spirit, and to make the connections even more interesting, she’s also the daughter of the police commissioner.
I can describe the movie as a lighter take of Sin City the movie, a fun and entertaining and sometimes over the top movie which I think really does justice to comic books too. The Spirit, the main character of the movie, having been resurrected, is an indestructible crime fighter for the city. He has shown great love for the city and has vowed to be its protector.
He is also known to be charming, having women and girls fall in love with him just by a simple meeting with him. He however has had two great loves, 1 is Sand Saref who he fell in love with when he was very young. Unfortunately, due to Sand’s father’s death, they separated. Sand became a well-known jewel thief and had an encounter with Octopus who is Spirit’s arch enemy. Ellen Dolan, on another hand, is the Spirit’s doctor who is very much inlove with him and patiently waiting for him each time to heal him from his wounds. At the ending, the Spirit and Sand did say goodbye to each other. The Spirit looked to be with Ellen at the end.
Silken Floss is Octopus assistant. They used Denny as their test subject for the serum they created that is supposed to be an elixir of life for immortality. Octopus also took the same serum after the test and now seeks for more power by trying to acquire the blood of Heracles which is in Sand’s hands. During the encounter, Octopus got Golden fleece which was the one that Sand wanted. Sand & Octopus got into an agreement for an exchange.
Towards the end of the movie was the encounter between Sand, Octopus & the Spirit w/c for me is the highlight of the movie. I loved how the movie was played out. Well, I think I’m a bit biased as Eva Mendes is one of my favorite American actresses. I had actually wished for Sand & The Spirit to continue their love affair but I guess superheroes don’t really have a love life coz they are tied to the city they are protecting. And actually in the end, it was Ellen Dolan, the doctor that The Spirit chose, but she realizes that The Spirit has a big burden of protecting the city and concludes that they can never be together. I won’t describe the entire movie in detail, but I can tell you that the plot isn’t overly complicated, it’s basically good guy versus bad guy, and the good guy winning in the end. It’s just a bit different because, just like Spiderman, it seems that the superhero really has to choose between love and being a protector of the city and its citizens.
I would not consider this a must-watch movie but it’s a nice movie to catch when you have time. I think if you go into the movie expecting a very light comic book adaptation, and to not take it too seriously, but just enjoy the sequences, then you will really enjoy it. I think, as a superhero, The Spirit is really brought to life with the way he was portrayed in the movie. The Octopus also was a great over the top character that I also enjoyed. So much life in his character, very corny at times, and the costumes were just a great way of reminding me during the movie that this was indeed a great comic book come to life. It’s supposed to be fiction, and in that aspect, it really was refreshing and fun to watch!
Boracay is in itself a paradise. So, it was such a joy that we were finally able to have our offsite office teambuilding at Boracay. Everyone was just excited that of all the places we could have the teambuilding, it was in the beautiful beaches of Boracay that it was held. While we had a lot of activities to do because of the teambuilding, and in Boracay there’s also a lot of things they have for the tourists, we were able to create our very own activities too.
One of our colleagues brought Sky Lanterns with him. During our last night, we helped launch about 4-5 of those sky lanterns. It was such a great sight! I bet the other Boracay visitors thought it was one of the gimiks of Boracay hahahaha! We had like tons of people for an audience in just several minutes!
Sky Lanterns which are also called fire balloons are lanterns that go airborne. They are created from oiled rice paper & a bamboo frame. At the bottom, there’s sort of a ball of wax that you light up in order to heat the lantern and make it go airborne. Sometimes, a candle and a base for the candle is used instead of the ball of wax. Either way, it’s the flame that heats up the air inside so that the lantern can rise.
It was said to be created by the Chinese & was considered the 1st hot air balloon. Wow, who would have thought that these simple yet elegant beautiful little lanterns could have been the first ever hot air balloons!
Lantern festivals are actually held in countries like Thailand & China. Well, we, on the other hand, created our own mini lantern festival in the beautiful beaches of Boracay! 🙂
In the video below, you can see the sky lantern in action. It was such a great joy watching them rise and go airborne. Especially when I realized that it was in the dark of the night, with the beautiful beaches surrounding us, and the waters just beside us, it was really such a wonderful sight to personally see. When the lanterns are far, far away, they will look like stars in the sky but with a different color though hehehe 😛 Instead of color white, they look like small yellow stars. Well, as long as the flame is alive, the sky lantern will be airborne.
I’m glad I was part of the mini-lantern festival that we had at Boracay. Since lantern festivals don’t happen in Manila, it was great to experience first-hand what sky lanterns are & how it works. And having the mini-lantern festival in the beautiful beaches of Boracay, it turned out to be just perfect!
I live and breathe technology because I’m really a techie by heart. I’ve always tried to be up-to-date with the latest technologies. I’m just glad that Noemi tagged me along to the HP New Product Introduction Press Launch.
Traditional media were the main attendees, Noemi & I were actually the only bloggers who attended. At the event, HP shared with us their new line-up of Laserjet printers & enterprise solutions that drives productivity and increase efficiency. They highlighted the ff. features:
HP Smart Install – allows us to begin printing in 2 minutes by connecting to a computer w/ a USB cable. No CD drivers required.
Auto-On/Auto-Off (AOAO) – uses up to 3 times less energy versus normal sleep mode
There were 9 units on display & the HP folks were able to demo some of them. Let me give you a brief overview on each of the 9 new HP products:
HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf MFP (Php 17,140)
HP’s most affordable 4in1 laser multifunction printer (MFP) designed to perfectly meet the diverse daily office needs of home & small offices business users. Users can easily print, copy, scan & fax from one compact machine w/ ethernet connectivity & energy-saving features.
HP ScanJet Professional 1000 Mobile Scanner (Php 10,990)
Scan documents on the spot wherever we are w/ HP’s compact, portable scanner. It has the ability to organize contracts, forms, receipts & business cards on our computers.
HP Color LaserJet Pro CP5225dn Printer
Gain control of your printed documents & make an impact when communicating with HP’s most affordable, versatile A3 color printer that covers all our printing needs from general office to oversize documents.
HP LaserJet Pro P1102 Printer (Php 5,990)
A very energy-efficient laser printer that lets owners print professional documents w/ an efficient, affordable laser printer that’s easy to use & helps save energy & resources.
HP LaserJet Pro P1566 Printer (Php 13,200)
Print exceptional, black-and-white documents at up to 23 ppm letter/22 ppm A4 from our desktop. Save money using less energy w/ instant-on technology. Save even more energy with HP auto-on/auto-off technology. Best suited for professionals who need a fast, desktop laser printer that’s easy to use & helps save energy & resources.
HP LaserJet Pro M1132 MFP (Php 7,990)
Smart, multifunctional, compact & easy to install w/c is HP’s most affordable 3-in-1 laser multifunction printer. Designed to perfectly meet the diverse daily office needs of office & small business users. Print, copy & scan with one machine & reduce environmental impact w/ energy-saving features.
HP LaserJet Pro P1102w Printer (Php 6,990)
most energy-efficient wireless laser printer which is HP’s smallest & most affordable wireless laser printer that lets owners quickly connect when on the go while benefiting from a highly energy-efficient product.
HP Officejet 4500 All-in-One (Php 7,690)
This affordable flatbed all-in-one prints professional-quality color at a low cost per page. Productive & reliable, the printer helps us stay on task at work or at home.
HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn Printer (Php 20,900)
Boost efficiency with ethernet networking, automatic 2-sided printing & easy to use features. Save money & energy w/ instant-on technology. Save more energy with auto-on/auto-off technology. Best suited for small offices where a shared, fast laser printer helps reduce environmental impact with automatic 2-sided printing & energy saving features.
While most found the mobile scanner interesting, I had my eyes for the HP OfficeJet 4500 All-in-One. They also raffled off one printer, I wished I won but anyhow, maybe this is a sign for me to go out and just purchase one. Let’s see 🙂
HP really has done a great job of offering a variety of new printers that will suit any lifestyle and need, but most importantly their focus on efficiency and energy savings is what I think they did particularly well on — their auto-on/auto-off technology should also be commended. I think HP printers have always been some of the top printers out there, especially when it comes to home use too. The price range for these printers aren’t all that bad either, and with a variety to choose from, they have really thought of everyone with this new product lineup.
Like most events recently, there was a photo booth outside the venue. I got a souvenir photo from there. Rest of the photos are in my Flickr album.
