Movies I Watch: Over and over.

I’ve always found it hard whenever someone asked me what my favorite movie is so I’ve broken it down to four categories. The first one that I will write about today are the movies that I could (and do) watch over and over without tiring of them. If I can’t decide on a movie to watch, one of these will most definitely come on.

Fair warning: I would mention “my boyfriend and I” a few times in this post because we almost always watch these movies together.

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What’s Your Number (2011) [IMDB]

A woman looks back at the past nineteen men she’s had relationships with in her life and wonders if one of them might be her one true love.

I’ve always liked Anna Faris in her acting roles. I don’t know her personally, and her podcast might not be the best way to judge her character, but I feel like she would be a good friend, down-to-earth and very funny. This movie also stars a bunch of people who would later hit it really big (Chris Evans, Faris’ husband Chris Pratt, Martin Freeman, Anthony Mackie, etc.), and it’s just amusing to me to see them in these silly roles.

I don’t feel like this is spoiling anything because they’re the lead, but while I thought Evans and Faris have great chemistry on-screen, it felt like they were just very good friends, which they might be in real life. There was no sexual tension or sexual chemistry or whatever the hell but that was fine with me. This is a fun movie and I want to be Anna Faris’ best friend.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) [IMDB]

A group of intergalactic criminals are forced to work together to stop a fanatical warrior from taking control of the universe.

My boyfriend and I are suckers for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (as well as Marvel Netflix and Marvel Television), and we would watch MCU movies many times over but this one takes the cake. We have known Chris Pratt from Park and Recreation (a great tv show) and we loved how he transformed from this fat, lovable idiot to a rugged, also lovable, less-of-an-idiot in Guardians.

The Intern (2015) [IMDB]

70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and run by Jules Ostin.

I don’t know what it is about this movie that instantly picks me up. Maybe it’s because a duo of opposite genders that get to know each other, grow to respect each other, and learn from each other, without any weird romantic intent by either of them.

La La Land (2016) [IMDB]

A jazz pianist falls for an aspiring actress in Los Angeles.

This movie breaks my heart, one of my greatest fears in movie form. A Lovely Night and City of Stars is going on my wedding playlist, Ryan Gosling is great, Emma Stone is great, their relationship is sweet and it destroyed me.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) [IMDB]

When an unconfident young woman is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his companions in his legged, walking castle.

My boyfriend and I love this movie. We often say, “Don’t you want some bacon and eggs?”, whenever we are preparing breakfast or out grocery shopping. Or “Oh! My shawl!,” whenever something gets blown away by a gust of wind. Yes we watch the English dub because it’s easier.

This might not be Hayao Miyazaki’s or Studio Ghibli’s best, but it is very close to my heart. Howl finds some meaning in his life, Sophie gains self-confidence, Markl can now eat properly, and Calcifer is forever in our hearts.

Skincare Routine: Early 2017

I never really had acne when I was a teenager gone through puberty. My face was really oily but it stayed smooth. I only really used facial wash back then.

But everything changed when the fire nation attacked.

I can’t remember now when I exactly started breaking out but I think it was around when I was 19 or 20. The acne was mainly concentrated on my cheek area at first. I tried so many drugstore products and even went to a dermatologist who gave me antibiotics and products which dried my face out. I wasn’t aware of the online skincare community then, so without the help of /r/AsianBeauty and /r/beautytalkph, I bought products that were not kind to the skin and I shot my moisture barrier to shit. My acne worsened and I lost hope, living with painful breakouts and a constantly red face.

However, by late last year, I subscribed to /r/beautytalkph and got to talk with other people who I shared skin types and skin concerns with. Most importantly, they were from the same country, which meant recommendations were mostly easily accessible or even locally produced. Between November last year and today, my routine has been mostly unchanged save for the addition of sheet masks, and it had been the best few months for my skin.

The Magnus Archives: Season 1 Review

This review may contain spoilers. From the Rusty Quill website:

“Make your statement, face your fear.”

The Magnus Archives is a weekly horror fiction anthology podcast examining what lurks in the archives of The Magnus Institute, an organisation dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join the new Head Archivist, Jonathan Sims, as he attempts to bring a seemingly neglected collection of supernatural statements up to date, converting them to audio and supplementing them with follow-up work from his small but dedicated team.

Individually, they are unsettling. Together they begin to form a picture that is truly horrifying because as he looks into the depths of the archives, something starts to look back…

I’ve really been into audio drama podcasts the last few months. I first got introduced to it a few years ago with Welcome to Nightvale. I wasn’t able to keep up with it once I lost my iPod Touch, so I didn’t bother to catch up when I got a new phone. Wanting to listen to something similar, I found out about We’re Alive, Tanis, and The Black Tapes. The last two were relatively new so I easily was able to binge both in a couple of weeks. I loved the format as well as the stories. We’re Alive was a lot longer though, I grew tired of the story as a whole so I abandoned it. Tanis and The Black Tapes are well made but I don’t like them as much as The Magnus Archives.

I think I discovered this podcast last month, in the audio drama subreddit. Season 2 was just starting and the reviews were really good. I was hooked (heh) right from the first episode.

Marvel’s Iron Fist: Season 1 Review.

This review may contain spoilers. From the Netflix synopsis:

Danny Rand resurfaces 15 years after being presumed dead. Now, with the power of the Iron Fist, he seeks to reclaim his past and fulfill his destiny.

The early reviews for this show were a mess. Critics seemed eager to tear down this show and racism controversies were going around SJW circlejerks online. I will not get into that for I am not a reader of the comics and I do not get why some people are insisting Danny Rand be Asian.

While I do pay attention to reviews, they do not dictate my decisions to watch a certain show or not. I have been a fan of the Marvel Netflix shows, so I was for sure watching the last intro installment of the Defenders. So let’s just get into it.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency: Season 1 Review

This review may contain spoilers. From the Netflix synopsis:

Eccentric amateur sleuth Dirk and his grudging assistant Todd make their way haphazardly through a peculiarly tangled, dangerous supernatural mystery.

It’s all connected.

This show has been showing up on my Netflix homepage for a while now and my eye has been drawn to it every time because of the bright yellow jacket and Elijah Wood. I haven’t read the source material, and I haven’t consumed any other adaptation. I also decided against reading anything online about the show and just went in with the synopsis and the (high) rating it had. I was thinking maybe this show will be a good enough time while I wait for Iron Fist to come out.

Oh boy, I was in for a surprise.

Being an adult: Career.

I had a hard time starting my career when I got out of college. I have an arts degree and while I did my best not to flunk anything and generally enjoyed college, I wasn’t sure if being an artist was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I’ve always been involved in the arts. Always was one of the creative ones in grade school and high school, always involved in the school paper, always enjoyed arts class. I wasn’t spectacularly talented, just better than most and actually put some effort into it. I really liked  writing though. I mean, I still do. But like most aspects of my life, my career was just something I stumbled into, not something I planned for.

I was not able to land a job right after graduating college. I applied to various graphic artist jobs but my portfolio was pitiful. I was lucky that my parents didn’t pressure me into taking a job I didn’t care about. They didn’t expect me to pay them back for anything nor did they expect me to give them a monthly allowance now that they were done paying for my education. I didn’t want to take the call center route, I just knew I would burn out so fast in that sort of job. I tried building my portfolio while I was unemployed but I guess my heart just wasn’t in it. I even tried selling some handmade accessories for a while. That was fun for a bit, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Being an adult: A series.

When I was younger, I thought I’d have my life together by now.

I’d be earning so much money, living in a condo in the city, and planning to be married by 26, so I can have my first child by 27. I had all these goals but I had no actual plan. I was just winging it. 

Present day. I have a job I love, but it’s not something that pays a lot. The career path I chose doesn’t generally paved with the big bucks. I don’t own a condo, and I don’t really want to anymore. I am in a long-term relationship and we do intend to get married, but not in the next couple of years. And I am in no way ready for a child.

Being an adult is so much different than I imagined. I thought I’d be this person so sure of myself and my choices, but yet here I am, fumbling about, making things up as I go along. This makes me appreciate a lot of other adults, they do a good job of keeping it together most of the time. I like to think that we are all just winging it. 

This series will be a log of me winging it in different aspects of my life as I go through adulthood. Because no matter how much we want to be the Leslie Knopes of the world with our meticulously curated and color-coded binders, deep down inside we are all April Ludgates counting on our gut feeling to lead us into hopefully good decisions.