deebeedee

Just saw Daredevil on DVD. Man, that was one baaad costume. Marvel’s on a roll. What’s next? Well, there’s The Punisher and The Fantastic Four. Other upcoming comic flicks are DC’s Watchmen and Dark Horse’s Hellboy.

Superhero comics have been adapted to film for decades. But what about other types of comics, specifically underground comix? The first of its kind, as far as I’m concerned, is Dan Clowes’s Ghost World which came out in 2000. Its director, Terry Zwigoff, released a 1994 documentary, Crumb, about underground comic artist Robert Crumb’s strange life and dysfunctional family (once, I saw his brother Maxon panhandling on Market St. in San Francisco). This time, one of Crumb’s comic books, American Splendor, gets adapted to the screen and will be shown in theaters on August 15.

Now what I want to know is will Gerry Alanguilan’s Wasted the Movie ever be finished?

Update: upon further reading, I discover that Crumb did not exclusively illustrate American Splendor. The book written by Harvey Pekar has been illustrated by other artists such as Frank Stack, Joe Sacco and Colin Warneford. Also, The Wily Filipino blogged about this movie way back in January.

Those wacky Mac fans at PhilMUG have managed to turn the Philippine coup attempt into a cause for satiating their desire to see the launch of the new Apple G5.

Saw Spy Kids 3D - Game Over with the kids and their cousins last Friday. The 3-D effect was a huge disappointment and quite a distraction. It muddied up the movie’s colors and induced eyestrain. The red and green cardboard glasses were cumbersome, especially over my real glasses. My 3-year old didn’t like them either - he’d take them off as soon as I would put them on him.

Eyestrain aside, other aspects of the movie were a delightful surprise. I had lowered my expectations, however, quite considerably before watching it. I mean, when filmmakers use 3-D in a sequel, doesn’t it usually mean they’ve run out of ideas? Jaws 3-D and Friday the 13th 3-D are good examples. So I set myself up not to expect too much from this third movie in the series. The second one, The Island of Lost Souls, was already showing signs of losing that “Spy Kids” magic. The first movie was great, reminding me of a techno Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I always thought the Spy Kids, Juni and Carmen, could easily pass as Gene Wilder’s kids.

I’ve learned from watching the “special section” of the Spy Kids 2 DVD that Robert Rodriguez developed a cheap way of creating special effects for his movies. This was quite evident in Spy Kids 2. The sword fight scene with the skeletal pirates was probably meant to be an homage to Jason and the Argonauts but it didn’t look any better than Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion technique, even as an updated, computer-generated version. So I wasn’t expecting too much for the CG in the third film. It also helps, I suppose, that most of Spy Kids 3-D takes place in a computer game. Any expectations of realism are thrown out the window (too bad I can’t say the same for Matrix Reloaded, where the Matrix was supposed to simulate reality). But even then, the Spy Kids 3D’s CG effects were quite decent. A smattering of cameos also helped the movie along. In one instance, a surprise appearance by one particular actor was used in a clever way.

Director Robert Rodriguez, who collaborated with Quentin Tarantino in such movies as Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn, has consistently created movies in this series that are committed to promoting family values in a fun and imaginative way. Spy Kids 3D continues in this path by not only showing that family unity is important, but by also espousing virtues such as forgiveness, humility and sacrifice. One particular scene has (spoiler alert!) Juni giving up a “health pill” to this girl he likes even though he is the one who needs it the most. He gave it to her not wanting anything bad to happen to her. Now that’s how I’d like my sons to treat their future wives.

Fremont is my adopted city. I moved to this East Bay city soon after I got married a few years ago. Previous to this I lived, studied and worked in San Francisco. There was a period where I also lived in San Pablo but I practically spent all my waking hours in the City by the Bay.

Before moving to Fremont, I viewed this city 50 miles from Frisco rather disparagingly. It was always that far-away suburban town where nothing happened. It has none of the cultural significance and excitement of San Francisco. Its night life is virtually non-existent. The better malls and theaters are found in neighboring towns. So as you can imagine my move to Fremont was accompanied with some trepidation. But I did it for the wife anyway. She grew up here and wanted to stay close to her family.

It took me awhile to get acclimated to Fremont. My first couple of years living here I still held a job in downtown San Francisco, commuting there everyday by BART. The transition to becoming a full-fledged Fremont man came when I found work locally at the HQ of a wireless retailer. I believe the Lord had gradually taken me away from the city that had been host to the decadent, hedonistic lifestyle of my bachelor days. No longer was I to be exposed to the temptations of a place that took focus away from the things that mattered in life.

That is why the move to Fremont turned out to be a blessing. The City of Fremont is a family-oriented community, and as such, it fits me and my family quite nicely. It actually has a lot going for it. Really. Aside from being in the Silicon Valley where tech jobs can be found, it was named the “best city in America to raise children” and it ranks as one of the top 10 safest cities to live in the U.S. Having started as an agricultural town, Fremont is an odd mixture of residential areas, farm land and high tech business parks. It has become a favorite test bed for technologies such as cable internet service, digital cable and digital phone lines. It has also grown to be one of the most diverse communities in the Bay Area, being home to a large number of Asian immigrants mostly from India and China (many Filipinos live in adjacent Union City).

Here are other interesting facts about Fremont:

• Cyberdyne Systems, the building blown up in T2, is located in Fremont
• Charlie Chaplin shot many of his films, including The Tramp, in the Niles district of Fremont
• Kristi Yamaguchi hails from Fremont
• MC Hammer’s infamous $12 million mansion is located in Fremont (can’t touch this)
• home to the largest Afghan community in the US (dubbed Little Kabul)
• Leland Stanford, former governor of California and resident of Fremont, considered Fremont as a possible site for Stanford University (oh how that would’ve changed Fremont!)
• Dumbarton Bridge, which connects Fremont to the Peninsula, is the first built of the Bay’s seven bridges, pre-dating both the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge
• Puck from MTV’s Real World is from Fremont (not a good thing)

I got an e-mail from Apple announcing the grand opening of their new Burlingame store on Saturday, July 26. This is technically the Bay Area’s fifth Apple Store. The San Francisco store was announced earlier but won’t open until sometime in 2004. The fourth store, Apple Store Walnut Creek, opened earlier this month.