Carljoe Javier's Blog, page 4

Retro Reviews: Con Air

Been a while since I picked up the Retro Reviews. Too much other writing had to get done, and lots of pressure. But what better way to get back into it than with Simon West’s Con Air, one of the most wonderfully stupid, unabashedly cheesy films of all time.

The major selling point of the film is the outstanding cast. Keep in mind that at the time Nicolas Cage was still riding high as both a dramatic actor and action star. The Nic Cage of today, more caricature than character actor, had yet to...

Infiltrating the Establishment

In a recent comic book (I think it’s the latest Avengers vs. X-Men, but not sure, just remember it’s one of the many running Avengers titles) Thor and Cap a little heart to heart. Without having to go too much into all the Marvel event backstory, let’s just say that Cap is now head of the global defense force. And the whole enterprise weights heavily on him. Thor tells Cap that Cap was always better when he was following his rebellious streak. But now that he is the establishment, how can he...

Trying to Finish Books

Sometime in January, after having read Jay-Z’d Decoded I decided to start growing my hair and beard. In the book Jay-Z mentions that he lets his hair grow out when he’s making an album, and thus has a visual reminder of how long he has been working on a project. I thought to one-up his method by letting the beard and ‘stache go too. Which was not a very good idea.

By February I was distraught, going through bouts of both manic and depressive states, my beard had become a literal soup catcher,...

Starting #SuperBetter

The past semester, as I've written before, has been taxing in so many ways. And my body giving out, with the culmination of it being my sister rushing me to the ER, have forced me to slow things down, take a step back, and think things over. In making such an assessment, it's pretty clear that I haven't been handling things very well, and among the wrong things I did was to go off my original diet and just go back to boozing and smoking and generally not taking care of myself as a...

Hey universe, I’m not giving up, I’m just making a tactical retreat.

I am sick now. The body has given out and I’m down with nasty green things up in my throat and lungs, the throat scratchy and dry, and the nose alternating between runny and clogged. Everything seems sore and my back only feels right when I’m lying on it in bed. I believe this is my body telling me, enough, it’s time to rest.

This semester has been, without a doubt, one of the most challenging times. And I can only hope that with its end, those hard times too pass. And this sickness, which ser...

Hey universe, I'm not giving up, I'm just making a tactical retreat.

I am sick now. The body has given out and I'm down with nasty green things up in my throat and lungs, the throat scratchy and dry, and the nose alternating between runny and clogged. Everything seems sore and my back only feels right when I'm lying on it in bed. I believe this is my body telling me, enough, it's time to rest.

This semester has been, without a doubt, one of the most challenging times. And I can only hope that with its end, those hard times too pass. And this sickness, which...

The Uncertainty Principle

I don't know how many times it has happened, but in the months leading to and since I turned thirty, I have found myself stuck and not knowing what to do. Just minutes ago, before sitting down and flipping my computer open, I stood in the hallway of the Faculty Center, halfway from the entrance of the building to my faculty room, the lights darkened and other people far off at the galleries, and I stopped in the half-light and thought, "What the fuck am I doing?" This time, like the many...

Class and Food

When I was in high school I was friends with a kid called Balbon. He went to Ateneo, was a big thing in basketball when he was younger and played for the national basketball team, and though he wouldn't admit it he was acutely aware of the pressures of the nouveau riche, as he would always have to tell people how much money they had, where his family had most recently gone on vacation, and other things establishing that they were a family of means. Among these establishing factors was apart f...

A Secondary Education of Love

I was sitting with my friend Cris, and she had asked me to tell her about my most recent dating travails. She tried to provide me with some comfort by telling me that she was older than me and she was still going through similar things. I said, "So I guess some people get it right, and others, well, we take more time?"

She had been married before, and considering how successful she is in her field, as well as how accomplished she is as a writer, she seemed to be in a pretty good position to...

Isn’t it All Fanfic?

I don’t know if this counts, but I like to think that it does. My earliest acts of fan-fiction were as a kid playing with my action figures. Like a lot of kids, I got toys from different franchises and pantheons and smashed them together. One of my favorite toys was B.A. Baracus from The A-Team, who, in my first act of creative crossover, I would have drive the KITT car from Knight Rider. And though the action figures we had ranged from Ninja Turtles to Ghostbusters to G.I. Joes to Transforme...