Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 102

50 Shades of Harang

Admittedly, I saw the movie because I expected it to be awful. In fact I wanted it to be terrible, because it’s fun to write reviews of bad movies, especially if they have legions of clueless, sensitive defenders. Now I wish it were awful, not just because it’s deathly boring, but because its core audience […]

Adventures in near-sightedness

Mat may be nearsighted. He also pretends to be afraid of heights. Sometimes we catch him prowling the tops of the shelves. We’re myopic, so when printed signs are not near enough for us to read, our brain notes the shape of the letters and makes a guess. Today we saw a Valentine event poster […]

The Jon Snow-Arya-Tyrion love triangle and the original plan for GRRM’s Westeros epic

Click on images to enlarge Spoilers aplenty! But the plots changed so they no longer happen…or do they? We want to know if George R.R. Martin has a huge empty warehouse whose walls are dotted with Post-Its detailing the relationships in his expanding fictional universe. Arya Stark and Jon Snow fall in love and are […]

A world without gender would have no wars, but no art, either

As pretentious students we attempted to pronounce Leguin “le-GAHN” like Gauguin, only to find that it’s “le-GWIN” (Our classmate tried the Marquis de “shar-DAY” like the singer). In Ursula K. Le Guin’s science-fiction classic The Left Hand of Darkness, there are no women or men, only people. The natives of the planet Winter possess both […]

Holy crap, we enjoyed Jupiter Ascending

Mila Kunis’s Jupiter in a gown designed by Michael Cinco The reviews are so terrible, the box-office so bad (The Spongebob movie kicked its ass) that we had to see for ourselves if the Wachowskis’s Jupiter Ascending deserved such general excoriation, and we found ourselves enjoying the movie. True, we saw it in 4DX and […]

To Kill A Classic: Does Harper Lee really want her 60-year-old “sequel” published?

TKAM covers Harper Lee’s entire reputation is based on one novel, the American classic To Kill A Mockingbird. She never put out another novel…and then her publisher announces that a “sequel” to Mockingbird will be released this summer. For decades she refused to have that novel published, and her wish was honored and enforced by […]

One down, three more Writing Workshops to go.

We just finished our Short Story Writing Workshop at Ayala Museum last night. The workshop took place over three night sessions and consisted of lectures, with participants reading what they’d written so far. The goal was to finish a short story by the end of the workshop, and nearly everyone completed their drafts. (The rest […]

Gotham: Killing time until Batman finishes school

We have seen philanthropists Thomas and Martha Wayne gunned down in an alley so many times that at this point, we are Bruce Wayne. Wayne, the orphan billionaire who, fueled by his bottomless rage, puts on a mask and tights and fights criminals. Not ordinary thugs and maniacs, but kooks with their own traumas and […]

Drogon tries to read by osmosis

Art Fair Philippines 2015: Making, shopping, schmoozing

NSFW drawings by Jose Legaspi Geraldine Javier wants to know what you think art is. Alwin Reamillo does stuff with the innards of old pianos. They’re like burial plots for the colorful undead. Clearly Poklong Anading wants you to ask what the hell that is. We forgot to ask gallerist Albert Avellana what this is. […]