tagalog, movies and other matters

being a movie fanatic, i'm always up to the challenge of watching movies (especially those with good reviews, kahit poor box-office turnouts). so with The Big Fish (Ewan McGregor) showing at HBO, i gamely sat in front of the tv to watch it. the movie was very good (tim burton, u da best!), but one scene in particular really made me bolt up straight in my seat.

familiar words suddenly floated in my head as mcgregor's character floated down on a parachute from an airplane. the movie cuts to a korean(?) show for soldiers (it was a war setting), but the ventriloquist on stage was speaking tagalog! and not just one line, a whole lotta lines! i was so mesmerized for a moment (grabe, ang babaw), i forgot to call my relatives to watch the movie with me (see the actual words here).

i brought this up with a family friend, who mentioned that Return of the Jedi (!!) had some ewoks talking in tagalog, too! so began a rabid search in the internet for the actual lines, but all i got were "puno daw to!" at "maganda!".

while the star wars search had a subpar gratification, i was extremely delighted to read that the movie Life Aquatic (Bill Murray) features pinoy pirates! apparently, indonesians were originally intended for the roles, but when the main cast and crew went to rome, they found too few indonesians. guess who got the parts? :) it amazes me how well-scattered pinoys are.

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btw, m counting Big Fish as one of my fave movies na. i still have yet to see Finding Neverland (Johnny Depp) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Jim Carrey), both were very good daw. also A Series of Unfortunate Events. hmm... come to think of it, they all have something in common ata. imaginative screenplays?

but darn. i STILL haven't seen Ocean's Twelve!

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speaking of Ocean's Twelve, the opening for this film had a funny interesting intro -- 12 is the new 11! ordinarily, this really should bear no significance for discussion, if it hadn't been for me noticing some fashion magazines a few weeks ago. there's always that need to catch the viewer's attention. got my attention it did when it said, purple is the new black! not to be outdone, i saw another magazine saying, dark green is the new brown! (huh?)

the perplexing thing with what i discussed above, mathematically and logically, they shouldn't make sense. 12 = 11. purple = black. dark green = brown. what IS strange, though, is i can understand them!

i still can't decide if this is a recession or development of the english language. cool, for example, has undergone variations. swell. hot. tight. there is also that subtle pressure to keep track which are the It words (what is It and who the heck started it??), otherwise, you won't be trendy by society standards.

conclusion? english vocabulary and phrases get sillier. and i along with it.