Monthly Archives: June 2010
Boring Office Days
Getting Over a Hangover
Daily Fashion: Seeing Yellow
I predict that we’ll be seeing this color more prominently in the future. Good news for me as I totally love this happy sunshine color. 🙂
Right: White knit dress, Dorothy Perkins; yellow coat, Maldita; necklace and bangle, Accessorize; white mary janes, Charles and Keith
My Little Angel
Movie Review: Sex and the City 2

Critics have panned this movie because of its flimsy storyline, or lack thereof, but one must remember, an SATC movie is essentially a visual feast for the fashionista – and it does not pretend to be more than that. I don’t recall seeing any posters bragging about its creativity and its script. In every poster or photo release from the set, it shows us the girls in the hottest clothes of the season.
Fun and fashion – this is the inseparable main draw of this film. Its like a tapestry of witty lines and remarkable scenes: Liza Minelli performing Beyonce’s Single Ladies at a gay wedding, the gay wedding itself, the hotel in Abu Dhabi, the lunch in the middle of the desert, even Miley Cyrus showing up to a movie premiere in the same dress as Samantha… in fact, all scenes are memorable for its sheer beauty, at least from a girl/woman’s point of view.
It manages subtle and not so subtle subplots on the hypocrisy surrounding Abu Dhabi’s being an open city yet not open to the Western culture, gay marriages, menopause, chauvinistic bosses, and even motherhood and old couple conundrums. It might not have delved deeper into any subplot, barely scratching the surface, but it raised a lot of points, further solidifying a woman’s identification with the four lead characters.
The movie is a bit long at two and forty minutes but you can just feast your eyes on the fashion. Or, go in fashion to the cinemas – I saw a lot of movie goers dressed to the nines, some even wearing sequined dresses to the last full show at Greenbelt last week. It will make the experience all the merrier. AND bring your girlfriends! 🙂
Fashion I love:
I have a thing for newsprint – I own a dress myself, all though of course, I cannot afford Dior. And I am loving the multicolored turban. Hmm… you think the metro will not find it weird if I show up in the streets wearing one?
* All photos from Google images
Museum Hopping
First stop was the National Museum – our main purpose: to see Juan Luna’s Spoliarium as Ipe has never seen it in person (I, on the other hand, had seen it many times before as I’ve been visiting the museum since high school). Now, for those who don’t know, Luna’s masterpiece won a gold medal in the Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes in Spain; it was actually a payment to the Ayuntamiento of Manila who provided him with a scholarship in exchange for a work of art. But as an added treat, the Assassination of Bustamante by Felix HIdalgo was also there (this one, I can barely recall, since it doesn’t have that much of a ring in my memory). This painting has a bit of a colorful history as it depicts a rather forbidden topic. But the genius behind the painting cannot be denied and it deserves its rightful place in the museum:

Movie Review: Robinhood

Director Ridley Scott’s take on this legend takes more from the more recent stories surrounding Robin Hood from the 14th to 15th centuries – here he is depicted as the son of a former nobleman, instead of the commoner depicted in the stories from way back in the 11th century. However, he does succeed in portraying Robin Hood as a sympathetic character, and the film focuses on his personal life rather than his legend as an outlawed bandit.
Given that the two leads are both Oscar winners (Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett), one is almost guaranteed of a solid performance; even the supporting cast does very well and one would love to hate Godfrey (Mark Strong), the traitorous Englishman conniving with the French, and Prince John, later King (Oscar Isaac), who borders on stupidity to craziness.
But perhaps the strongest point of the movie is its cinematography – each village, each scene has that genuine feel and transports you to medieval Europe; indeed, each dollar of its $200M budget is well spent on lavish sets (that is, after you deduct the expected ginormous salaries of its main stars and its director).
However, at almost two and a half hours, this movie has moments when you just want to yawn and curl to sleep; in fact, I almost wanted to slip out of the cinema within the first thirty minutes because while there were action sequence playing out in front of me, it took a good deal of time to establish how Robin Hood was fighting in the crusades and how he ended up going home. The build-up of the story took a much longer focus than the actual story. And that is its fatal flaw.
Still, I would recommend this movie if only for the scenery and the maniacal Godfrey and King John – and little John, whom I also found hilarious. But I won’t expect another Robin Hood in the next twenty years.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
