Thursday, March 22, 2007

COOKIE JAR MONEY, ANIME LOOKING GIRLS AND THE DEPARTED

I had to go to manila last week. My siblings have run out of cookie jar money and I have to refurbish the supply. Plus, I really want to see my youngest brother and get updated on what he’s been up to. It is so much easier then when we were just kids having petty fights about whose turn it is to have command over the selection of tv shows. As we grow older, the relationship has taken a new turn. Now I’m not just the competition for tv show selection, I’m also the nosy sister who keeps on insisting that at 21, he’s still too young to keep a serious romantic relationship. How times have changed.

Anyway, it was with the intent to bring them their allowance and to sarcastically discuss the grave sin committed in dating anime looking girls that I came across the best picture in the latest oscar awards. The departed starred Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and a whole bunch of other big names in Hollywood. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the movie gave him his first oscar award for best director after a long line of master-pieces. I have often wondered why this is Martin’s first oscar award, when every movie he ever made was considered a masterpiece. This however is a different story, and should I remember, would write something about. Back to my tripping over the movie... It was so late when I arrived in manila that I was almost snoring even before I reached the REM stage. My kid brother wanted to talk however, and wouldn’t let me sleep. He wanted to have a casual talk, as he was bound to want whenever he sees me really having a hard time keeping my eyes open. Not that he wants to keep updated on what I have been doing, no brother would want that, its just that he feels happy seeing I’m annoyed. Well, we compromised in the end, so instead of having our casual talk, we decided to watch a movie instead. Not in the cinemas. It was too late and I was too tired to pick my ass and go to the mall. We instead took out our 12 in 1 dvd and started discussing whether to watch saw 3 or the departed. He wanted saw 3 because he knows I would squirm in the gross details of decapitation and death, I wanted the departed because the movie is what the movie is. I won this time.

it was almost your usual film about dirty cops and mafia. Almost, because it had a twist. The twist however was not so much of a twist. In the class of boyscout knots, it would only go up to level three, the ones you can untie in about 10 minutes or so. There was this cop who was raised by a mafia man. He was groomed to be a cop by his surrogate dad so that he can serve the mafia dad’s evil purpose later on. And then, there was this cop who came from a family of criminals. This cop-from-a-criminal-family however wanted to be a real cop, wings, halo, and all. They both performed their duties. The cop-with-mafia-dad pretended to be a good cop so that he could have access to everything his mafia dad would want to have access on. In the outside, he was your ideal cop. The cop-from-a-criminal-family however, can only be good at what he does by being an under cover agent. In the outside, he was your ideal gangster. The gangster was the real cop, the real cop was the gangster. Ironic. And confusing. In the end, they both end up dead. The ideal cop from the outside died without honor. The ideal gangster from the outside died as a criminal but was buried with a 21-gun salute.

it was not a heavy film, and as my friends have pointed out, it doesn’t have the twist to left you drooling and needing a brain surgery afterwards. However, it is so real that you could almost smell the gun powder. How many of us have wanted something and yet are forced to completely do the opposite of what we want to later on have a shot of having what we want. Peter piper picked a pack of pickled pepper, a pack of pickled pepper peter piper picked… how many of us have to skip a day or two of our class just to be able to work so that we could earn the tuition fee we so badly need to finish school. Or how many of us have to work abroad and leave our family behind so that our family could stay together and have a wonderful life. How many have washed their clothes, wanting to wash the dishes instead. See, life is full of ironic choices and pseudo choices. We want something, we do the opposite. I want to sleep, so I drink coffee and sit in front of the PC.

I loved the departed, because my religion taught me that the souls in their transparent almost creepy state can still be saved. Oh, wait, that is a different departed. See how confuse you get when you want to sleep and drink coffee instead….

I love the departed because it told a simple story, a true story. It is us who determine how we live our life. We are not bound by the circumstances, we are freed by them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oy bakla, i like the narratives talaga. same-same, form and style.

kamo ur into fiction, but reading this, i think you'd do a lot greater with creative nonfic.

ganda ng command mo sa language, and the voice too. the persona behind the words and all those shits, taong-tao, hindi pretentious.

no wonder you had straight UNOs in college.

Shubert Ciencia said...

hoy, hindi na bata ang kapatid. naghahanap na din ng tsuk-tsak yun. turuan mo na lang gumamit ng condom!

:-)

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