Cuisine | Cara Mia Gelateria

Ever since my sister Ella introduced me to Amici last year, it's become a frequent eating place of mine, particularly their Tomas Morato branch, where I'd always order my favorite Vongole pasta dish. Just recently, Amici renovated their dessert area and rebranded it into the Cara Mia Gelateria. Their line of tried and tested desserts like gelato and cakes are still available, but they're joined by all-new additions.

Cara Mia's Mango Sans Rival

I tried out their new gelato cakes, which are basically a combination of ice cream and cake. They all looked good, with yummy-sounding names like Merry Berries, Banana Blast, Choco Sans Rival. I ended up with the Mango Sans Rival, while my friend Ivy got herself a Choco Sans Rival. The presentation was excellent, but the taste surpassed everything--it was a melt-in-your-mouth awesomeness that left me wanting more.

The cake was superb when taken with coffee, and speaking of coffee, Cara Mia now also serves a coffee-based dessert called an Affogato; it's a scoop of gelato with a shot of espresso. I didn't get to try this one, as I already had coffee with my Mango Sans Rival.

The Cara Mia Gelateria area inside Amici

The Cara Mia Gelateria looks completely different from the main Amici dining area, with brighter colors, even new tables and chairs. The lights were too bright for me though, as it seemed like we were on a stage with spotlights, but you can always dine in the main Amici area, which we did. With all these new desserts, it looks like I'm going to have to visit Amici much more often and try out all those gelato cakes, heh.

Film | District 9

Just when I thought most movies this year were nothing but sequels and umpteenth adaptations of books and TV shows, along comes something fresh like District 9 that blows everything away. Part science-fiction, part documentary and social commentary, this film depicts extra-terrestrials in a whole new light--not as conquering invaders, but as oppressed victims.

When their huge mothership becomes stranded over Johannesburg, South Africa, the shrimp-like aliens become squatters on Earth, where they live in a ghetto-like camp called District 9. This fenced-in area becomes the aliens' home for two decades, and further deteriorates into a slum district.

Things come to a head when the government tries to relocate the aliens to another camp farther away from the city, placing a private military contractor called Multinational United (MNU) in charge of the operation. A field operative named Wikus van de Merwe is designated as the operations manager, and during the relocation something happens that changes his MNU status, becoming a race against time to help the aliens leave Earth instead.

Produced by acclaimed director Peter Jackson, and directed by Neill Blomkamp, District 9 pulls no punches when it comes to grittiness; it's like you can actually feel the filth and squalor of the slums, and the violence seems to be nonstop, with everyone shooting something and bodies dropping everywhere.

The filming style during the first half reminded me of Cloverfield, but with a less shakier handheld cam. No big Hollywood actors are present in this movie, which makes it seem more "real", and the mock documentary format really works well for the story.

Even more important, District 9 succeeds in presenting relevant social issues without becoming too preachy; on the surface it appears as a science fiction film, but the movie's underlying subtext includes apartheid, racism, discrimination and exploitation--powerful stuff indeed. Simply put, this film is pure awesomeness; highly recommended, and a contender for my best movie of 2009.

Music | Mandy Moore - Extraordinary

When Mandy Moore first burst onto the music scene, she was packaged as another Britney Spears clone, which was crying shame, since she had a much better vocal range than Britney, who I always thought has an ugly, atonal voice not suitable for singing--Britney's voice always reminds me of Fran Drescher's The Nanny trying to sing, LOL

Thankfully Mandy broke free of that mold, and while she didn't become as popular as Britney, she went on to develop a style of her own. I think she remains one of the few, "real" singers of today who can actually sing melodically, and not the annoying ones who sing American Idol-style, who scream out and sustain notes until you see their tonsils and neck veins bulging out.



Extraordinary is from Mandy's 2007 album Wild Hope, a song that went under the radar and became virtually unnoticed among the mostly hip-hop crap dominating the airwaves. A pity really, since it's a nice, quiet song with an equally nice, simple video. But I suppose nice and quiet just doesn't cut it anymore when it comes to the pop charts, which is why I stopped listening to the radio a long time ago, heh.

Film | Up

Up is the latest in a long line of Pixar gems from the acclaimed CGI animation production company. It took a rather long time--almost three months--for it to be finally shown here, no thanks to its crappy local film distributor, but the wait was worth it.

The main character in Up is 78 year-old Carl Fredricksen, whose back story is told through a series of flashbacks during the first few minutes of the movie. Those flashbacks included the most touching scenes of heartbreak and loss ever portrayed in an animated film, and even more amazing, most of it had no dialogue.

Circumstances then force Carl into a journey of discovery, as he rigs his old house with around 10,000 helium balloons and flies off to South America, specifically to Paradise Falls in Venezuela, to fulfill a promise he made to his wife Ellie. He's eventually joined by Russell, a Wilderness Explorer scout, an exotic bird whom Russell names "Kevin", and an adorable pooch named Doug, who's equipped with a collar that enables him to talk.

Doug's other canine pals all have similar talking collars, but the "voice" of their erstwhile leader, the Doberman Pinscher called Alpha, takes the cake, and I couldn't help but burst out laughing whenever he talks, LOL.

Like all other Pixar films before it, Up is gorgeously rendered, with brilliant colors and detailed textures throughout, and has all the charm, wit, and humor of its predecessors. However, maybe it's just me, but the movie suffers from some kind of implausibility--while I'm perfectly able to suspend my disbelief and think that it's quite possible for a house to fly by tying enough balloons to it, I find it difficult to accept that a 78 year-old man who can barely walk down a flight of stairs can go trekking across a vast tepui with a flying house tied to his waist.

It becomes even more incredulous when Carl meets his childhood idol, the famed explorer Charles Muntz. If Muntz was already old when Carl was a kid, then he should be at least close to a hundred years old by now, yet he looks even younger than Carl when he appears--go figure.

Despite its flaws, Up is still a grand, high-spirited adventure, and definitely one of the movie highlights of this year. It's not as great as WALL-E (which remains my favorite Pixar movie of all time), but still quite enjoyable for about an hour and a half.

Gizmos | PS3 Slim

Sony's worst kept secret was announced earlier today as the slimmer PlayStation 3 finally made its official debut during their Gamescom press conference in Cologne, Germany. Rumored as far back as several months ago, the PS3 slim is 33% smaller, 36% lighter, and consumes 34% less power than the original PS3.


The new console also comes with an upgradeable 120GB hard drive, which means that you can use any available standard hard drive if you want to replace it, and a redesigned cooling system, making it quieter than the older PS3 models. The sleek glossy black finish is also gone, replaced with a textured finish similar to the PS2.

The old, ugly, screaming "PLAYSTATION 3" logo that used the Spider-Man movie font is toast; it's been replaced with a newer, simpler, and much nicer "PS3" logo instead. While there's still no compatibility with PS2 games (they took that feature out a long time ago), the good news is that the PS3 comes with a much lower price than its hefty older brother, with a standard retail price of US $299.00, which is about 14,508 Pesos.

This is really welcome news, since it makes the PS3 much more accessible now price-wise to gamers like me...somewhat, as I still have no idea how much additional costs will be padded by the greedy, money-grubbing resourceful hardware vendors here when it arrives on these shores. Can't wait...it looks like it's gonna be one really awesome Christmas, heh.

Film | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I never liked the G.I. Joe franchise, particularly the patriotic bullcrap it mostly spewed through its toy line and comics stories. And I had no intention of watching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but our office gave us a free screening of it, so I had no choice.

That said, I found the film surprisingly okay--not good, but just okay. The movie's nothing more than a live-action cartoon, or a 2-hour toy commercial (take your pick), with the actors giving hammy, cartoony performances complete with stupid lines that clearly give away its intended target audience, which are 5-12 year old kids.

Characters have inane, "creative" nicknames like Snake Eyes, Ripcord, Breaker, Heavy Duty, etc., you get the idea...I assume there's someone named "Douchebag" somewhere in that line up. The actor who plays the lead, Duke, does a magnificent job of playing an action figure--he's so wooden and lifeless that they could've replaced him with an animated cardboard cut-out and no one will notice.

And why would a para-military outfit have a ninja as one of its members--wtf? He doesn't say anything, which is probably just as well; unfortunately, the same can't be said of the villain ninja (yes, there's another one), who tries so hard to act cool, but ends up looking like an annoying, gay-looking, white-clad prick.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is directed by Stephen Sommers, the guy who gave us movies with extreme overuse of CGI: The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and Van Helsing. He does the same here, with scenes overloaded with too much CGI that they become unintentionally hilarious.

One thing I noticed here though, Hasbro spared no expense in making this movie, and it showed. They also seem to hate Paris a lot, as they've tried to destroy the city twice now in their films: the first was in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and now here. But I actually enjoyed this movie better than the Transformers sequel, which really isn't saying much.

The final battle scenes appear to have been copied directly from the Star Wars films, particularly The Return of the Jedi--the Joes' attack on Cobra base looked exactly like the X-Wing attack on the Death Star, and the battle between the two ninjas looked similar to the battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Hell, even the design of the circular frame windows in Cobra base is similar to the windows of the Death Star and Imperial Tie Fighters. Homage or rip-off?

I guess G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra can be compared to a roller coaster ride--it's an okay popcorn movie, so just enjoy the ride while you can and hope it's over soon. However, unlike roller coasters, this is one ride that I don't want to repeat.

Farewell, Tita Cory

Woke up yesterday morning to some bit of sad news: former Philippine President Corazon Aquino passed away during the early hours of Saturday, August 1, 2009. She finally lost her battle with colon cancer, something that she had been bravely fighting for the past year.

It's to this gracious woman's credit that everyone fondly refers to her as Tita Cory (the term Tita is mostly used for "Aunt" in Filipino). I remember her rise to power, as I was witness to it during my last year in college--we were extremely busy finishing our thesis when the whole EDSA revolution broke out in 1986; I thought I was never going to graduate, LOL.

I also clearly remember the state of euphoria that followed during that time she assumed office, and when she made that awesome speech in front of the U.S. Congress, we all felt proud to have Cory as our President.

Cory is mostly regarded now as an icon of democracy, and her image in glasses, yellow dress, and flashing that "L for Laban" sign has become iconic as well. While her presidency wasn't perfect, it did succeed in a way that she gave us something we never had--she gave us hope, which was sorely lacking with every President that succeeded her afterward. I don't think we'll ever see someone like her again, as local politics has become saddled with so much greed and corruption that it seems irreparable.

So thank you, Tita Cory, for giving us hope and brightening the political landscape, even if it was for a short time only...you will be missed.