I was born on February 6, 1975, into a quiet family in San Juan, Metro Manila (Philippines). I barely remember anything in that time before we moved at the turn of the 80s. From what I recall, I grew up in a fairly middle class neighborhood, but my mother would tell you that we were always poor. Thanks to mom and dad though, it never felt that way.
My mother grew up in much harder conditions, having only a pair of shoes to walk several kilometers to get to school in the province. Though she was a local beauty, she was smart and tough, working hard all the way to high school. Once she got the chance to move to the city to study at the University of the Philippines , she never looked back. It was still pretty tough for her even after she finished, helping support her 6 sisters. But she did find her way to work as a secretary for several government offices.
My father grew up in the same kind of environment (same province, Bicol region) with his three brothers. He told of childhood memories dating back to the
Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War 2. He too was tough, but with a razor sharp intelligence. He was a slacker in high school and in his early college days. But then he discovered the military, joined the Philippine Military Academy, and applied to both West Point and Annapolis. His preference was the army, but he got his entrance exams results first for the Navy, which he aced. Just as he was preparing to leave for Annapolis, he received his results from West Point. He aced them too.
You can see how my Western values were shaped. Dad's influence was heavy in that regard. I grew up speaking way more English than Tagalog, watching a lot of Sesame Street and the Electric Company. My dad would frequently go to the US for business trips, and he would always ask me to list down what toys I wanted him to get from all the catalogs he would bring back. America in my eyes was the land of milk and honey, and it is still very much that way to a great many Filipinos. They were the last foreign power to have reigned here, and regardless of what many Pinoys naysay about the US, they'd jump right on over given the chance.
Though it was dad who formed my value system, it was mom who heavily influenced my love of movies. I didn't get to see them in theaters at first, but video rental shops, which were ubiquitous in the 80s, were a evening staple. Most of what I would see is what she wanted to see, and they were an eclectic selection to say the least. Everything from Jackie Chan to Steven Spielberg I first encountered through mom's taste.
My moviegoing experiences were first brought to me by our house help. Whenever the folks were at work, Myrna (my dearest 'yaya') used to take me along with another neighbor's help to the movies if time allowed, most of them to Filipino films. And yes they were wonderful. We would usually go and see the action films of Lito Lapid (most memorably his 'Leon Guerrero' movies), and the comedies of Dolphy. The first Hollywood film I saw on the big screen was 'Herbie Goes Bananas,' and through a child's eyes, seeing this lovable beetle scurrying through his adventures, it was magical.
The first movie that really struck me was 'Return of the Jedi.' It resonated so loudly that the whole evening surrounding the movie is etched in my memory. The theater building itself now seems to glow in majesty when I think of it. The staircase leading up to the show with its burgundy carpeting, its vast darkness. And the awesome sight of seeing tiny x-wing fighters zipping through space, looking hopelessly overmatched by monstrous sized imperial battlecruisers. Yet, the underdog triumphs and all is well. The force is with us always. This is probably why 'Jedi' is my favorite of the trilogy. Even though I recognize that 'Star Wars' is a cinematic watershed and what a story-telling masterpiece 'The Empire Strikes Back' is, 'Jedi' is tied to my heart.
The only other film that struck me harder in childhood was 'E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.' I didn't even see it in the theater, but on Betamax with my mom and her sisters. By the end, everybody was crying. Me? I was inconsolable. Even after the credits, I kept on crying out to ma, "Why? Why? Why did E.T. have to go away!?" Needless to say it stayed with me a long time. I've saw the 20th Anniversary Edition of 'E.T.' in the theater. I still cried at it. I must add that people who say it is overrated are just nuts.
At the turn of the century, I got into the I.T. sector, duped into believing that this was the wave of the future and that we'd all be making big bucks from it (it's what you know, not what you're in that defines your success). I am now a SAP Technical Consultant, helping implement solutions for clients (companies) that need it. I only came to the realization around 2003, that I really am happier analyzing film than at anything else. It consumes me. I put up one of the first Filipino websites dedicated to reviewing films in http://www.flipcritic.com (now down and owned by a domain squatter), but my work caught up with me, and was I unable to maintain my writing.
I wrote in my spare time as a film critic for the Manila Times under the guidance of my editor Dennis Ladaw (whom I am very grateful for), contributing several reviews over a short period of time. Seeing those reviews published was a high point in my personal life, as a kind of vindication that I know very well what I'm talking about. I found that they couldn't publish as many as I could give, due to financial constraints. I pretty much wrote those for free, since I didn't need the additional income, which was meager. Film journalism/criticism is not something you can live on comfortably in South East Asia. One of my good friends, a former film critic for a competing newspaper, said that his day job was providing descriptions for porn sites. Yes, apparently they outsource that kind of work as well.
Not to criticize the I.T. profession, which puts food on the table for my dearest wife and daughter, but in my line of work, most of the solutions I implement become redundant after a while. It's merely the tools that change. I find films to be endlessly creative, the very good ones anyway. And creativity (among other things) is really what makes a film stand out doesn't it? As Anton Ego says, we are in entitled to provide "the defense of the new." If only I could provide it more often.
Hopefully with this venue, I will.
P.S. Where does the word 'flipcritic' come from? Well 'flip' is sometimes American slang for Filipino. And I felt writing in a pseudonym was cool at first. I needed a unique word. It is indeed.
Our correspondent's's reviews and blog are at MichaelMirasol.com.
He Tweets at flipcritic.
Hi Michael
Thanks for your post
I happen to agree that Wall-E is one of the best films of the last decade.
Why do you feel this way?
Rob
I thought Wall-E was a brilliant film, a bit heavy (left) handed at the end though.
wasn't A.O. Scott's favorite film of the decade WALL-E as well?
Ebert: Yes indeed. Scott is in good company.
@Reynald: my open question to every conservative who complains that movies like Wall-E and Avatar lean too far to the left: what would the right-wing rebuttal movie look like, and could a mass audience root for it?
Ebert: What would the conservative position be on Pnadora? A troop surge?
Ebert: What would the conservative position be on Pandora? A troop surge?
I don't even know what 'conservative' means anymore. It used to mean lower taxes and increased individuals' and states' rights. All this imposed religious doctrine and military interventionism are the antithesis of that, no?
As for accusations about WALL-E being leftist, well that's just sad. YOu must be talking about the film's environmental theme, which, if you ask me, was rather skillfully worked in without being too pandering. In the real world, sustainability should be the basis for all decisions. We all have a responsibility to future generations, and if you disagree with that, well, you are a fundamentally evil or ignorant person. The issue of sustainability should not be reduced to political polarization, though you can disagree on the solution.
Let's break WALL-E down.
Obviously, there are finite resources on Earth, and we are draining them at increasingly accelerating rates. That's not a political statement, that is a fact... a fact which the corporate (right-wing) world is entirely aware off, thus the existence of land/oil/water speculation.
Science fiction poses future possibilities based on existing scientific knowledge. WALL-E, as a work of science fiction, proposes a time when the human race has destroyed the Earth's ability to sustain human life. There is more than adequate reason to believe this is a potential future. The 'fiction' part of 'science fiction' assures us that the story is not the only possible future.
In this story, human survivors took to outer space on spacecraft funded by a for-profit private company (Buy n Low - essentially Walmart). The idea was that humans would eventually return to a reconstituted and sustainable Earth. In reality, private corporations have already begun financing private spacecraft (see virgingalactic.com).
For those who believe private enterprise is more efficient than public enterprise, the idea that a major corporation would finance an interstellar space mission to salvage humankind should seem perfectly logical. If the government can't handle healthcare, then surely they can't be trusted to save the human race. Right?
The spacecraft were automated to handle all aspects of passenger life so that passengers could carry on lives of entertainment, consumption and distraction (not unlike modern cruise ships, except the human workers replaced by robots). A fully automated society is not terribly unrealistic, and has been the basis for many works of science fiction. WALL-E innovatively and smartly suggests that an automated society would grow physically and mentally weak.
There is even a scientific basis for this: your pet dog. Dogs are natural and fierce predators, but centuries of domestication have turned dogs into docile creatures that would have difficulty surviving in the natural world. It is reasonable to imagine that after 7+ generations, humans in a completely automated environment would lose touch with their essential survival skills. For the most part, we already have. (would you survive the winter without a grocery store and indoor heating?)
The ending of WALL-E is actually quite ambiguous. The last shot shows a raging storm coming toward the humans, how obviously have no idea what they are in for. There's a real possibility left open that the humans won't make it.
@John
Being an independent who leans a little more to the right, I have to say I find your comment a ignorant (no offense intended).
I don't find Wall-E to be a left wing movie whatsoever. Nor do I think so about Avatar (though personally, I didn't care for Avatar as a film). I don't find the environment to be a political issue, we all know we need to protect it. Pretending like conservatives just want to butcher the earth is an ignorant mindset. Everyone truly does want to help the planet, but people have different positions on how to go about doing it.
I too get annoyed when conservatives complain about Wall-E being a left-wing film, because I never saw it as such, and I think (the few) who have made those accusations are making their political party look a little fearful. But this doesn't reflect on their general mindset any more than someone like Bill Maher reflects the liberal mindset.
There are a few "conservative" ideals that I think audiences would get behind, but again, I would see them more as moralistic issues as apposed to political ones. Such as the environment, which is so often mislabeled as something political.
Here's my top 10 best films of the decade, if I may;
1. Punch-Drunk Love
2. Babel
3. Wall-E
4. Almost Famous
5. The Pianist
6. The Metador
7. Maria Full of Grace
8. Finding Neverland
9. Lost in Translation
10. King Kong
And so yes, I agree! Wall E is awesome!
Come on John, there must be thousands of action movies where the sole point of the film is to represent the US kicking everybody else's ass. :)
Oh well, I suppose it would have been nice for some to see the residents of Pandora emotionally belting out "God Bless the USA" instead of their weird gibberish spiritual chant.
Wall-E? Are you kidding? That's another washed out Disney morality tale. What about the films that challenge the status quo and help break taboos and move society forth into free thinking? The Piano Teacher...The Fountain...Crispin Glover's What Is It? all spring to mind immediately. Sorry, but Wall-E is for kids... lets work on intellectualizing cinema and intellectualize the masses.
I'm a conservative. I'm for lowering taxes. But you know what I think is the single biggest waste of taxpayer dollars: bombs.
Bombs are a one-time use, and most of them never even get used at all. They don't benefit anyone, but they can certainly hurt a lot of people.
I don't think anyone has ever published the actual figures on just how much tax-payer money the US government spends on bombs, but I'm willing to bet its more than we spend on Medicare, especially when you factor in all the externalities of manufacturing and housing nuclear warheads.
For the last 7 years, we've been dropping million dollar warheads on mountains in Afghanistan. We don't even have a target; we just figure if we level enough mountains we might eventually kill someone who might be a 'bad guy'. Call me crazy, but I don't think that's a winning strategy.
In microeconomics, we talk about 'marginal utility', it's the point at which costs supersede benefits. The cost of just one of those mountain crusher bombs we dropped in Afghanistan could have covered the whole cost to fix the levies surrounding New Orleans, and mitigated the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Maybe we did get a few terrorists with that bomb, but Hurricane Katrina killed 1300 people, tore lives apart, and did untold damage. It was a bigger disaster than 9/11, and we had nobody to blame but ourselves.
Being a fiscal conservative means thinking about the best use of our resources. Bombs are not a good return on our investment.
Oh well, I guess if we bought, we might as well use it.
Sorry, I didn't read anything about wall-e in what you wrote.
Ebert: He discusses it in the video.
Re: "The ending of WALL-E is actually quite ambiguous. The last shot shows a raging storm coming toward the humans, how obviously have no idea what they are in for. There's a real possibility left open that the humans won't make it."
Huh? The end of WALL-E has no storm - it ends on an UNambiguously optimistic note.
* Eve repairs WALL-E - they kiss/snuggle (skies are blue and partly cloudy).
* The Captain plants the plant in the ground next to the Axiom.
* The camera pulls back over the landscape away from the Axiom, through the city, and over mounds of garbage which are now covered with more green plants; camera pulls back into space.
* End credit animations show the characters making babies, planting crops, fish repopulating the sea, robots re-purposed building new cities, etc.
* Humanity and robots live happily ever after.
i notice that you have been adding films that you have given 3 1/2 stars
to in their original review, to the great films archive.
i hope you give wall-e it's due consideration.
i believe along with many others i am sure that it is a important film.
and more than just child's play.
but for my part the 25th hour, and eternal sunshine are very emotionally
moving works of art.
i have great trust in your taste roger.
but i think you overlook some very good things sometimes.
@G-man
I found Children of Men to be a bit conservative. It screamed Pro-life to me by showing us what our world would be like without being able to conceive children. This movie portrayed what many conservatives would stand for.
By the way, this is a different John.
I completely agree with Michael Mirasol's commentary for Wall-e, notably for the use of the evolution of the art styles of humanity in the film's end credits. There should be an entirely different list devoted to opening and end credit sequences.
The movie is one of the most emotionally satisfying films that I'd seen in a long time- the bleak images of an abandoned Earth; the silent yet easily interpreted first act of Wall-e's life and encounter with EVE; the bittersweet "Define Dance" interlude between the two robots--the list goes on and on. To me the movie almost gets everything perfectly right-- Andrew Stanton's direction, Ben Burtt's wonderful, inventive sound design, Michael Giacchino's spellbinding music. Excellent choice.
Never understood the deal with Wall-E. Never got through the entire movie, actually...the first 10-15 minutes or so are a drag, and when that happens, it has an effect on the rest of the film, for me at least. To me, Ratatouille was superior to Wall-E in almost every way. One of the decade's best films in my "best" list.
Hi Rob,
I'll write more about why I feel the way I do about WALL-E. But for the meantime, A.O. Scott's review is the closest to my feelings. When I first read it, I thought he was reading my mind.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/movies/27wall.html
Hi John, with all due respect, I loved CHILDREN OF MEN, and it would be in my top 10 of the decade as well. I can see how one can construe it as pro-life, but having had a child recently myself (and I am pro-choice), I can't imagine it being a political diatribe against abortion.
When I saw the film, I wanted everyone I knew to see it. Sometimes when people ask "What is the meaning of life?" I wish I could tell them, "Have kids, and you'll know."
Don't ask me why. You know when you do.
The score was actually composed by Thomas Newman, but it's still a remarkable standout. And I feel Michael Giacchino is the best film composer working today.
I have seen Wall-E about twenty times now because I know it's such an awesome movie that I want to share it with people I love. After my twentieth viewing, I have to say some of the dialogue in the last act makes me cringe somewhat... i really don't know why but it simply does... it felt very preachy.
I think that the environment issue should never be a political statement, more like a common sense statement. I loved films like "The Cove" and "Darwin's Nightmare", both documentaries about the environment which warrants their "preachiness" because they have the facts.
The last act of Wall-E felt like the whole Casablanca thing to promote the support of the troops for the WW2 or something. Clearly I am looking at this from the outside.
I probably wrote a lot of gibberish here but it's really quite hard to pin down something complex like this.
My mistake, you're right. I was thinking of Ratatouille for some reason when trying to remember the composer.
Why "WALL-E"?
I did love the movie although I thought mothers everywhere would not be happy with a cockroach (and in Japan the gokiburi fly) as a cute sidekick.
Yet I thought the plot was a bit simplistic compared to other animation such as Miyazaki Hayao's "Spirited Away."
I also noted that A.O. Scott didn't list any films from Asia and the same can be said for Michael Phillips in their best films of the decade. Of course, someone has already noted that is the same with Mr. Ebert's list.
In regards to "WALL-E," I recently spoke with people at Honda about a real robot. The robot's name is ASIMO and the people at Honda swear it has nothing to do with Isaac Asimov and the Three Rules of Robotics. In Japanese, it seems to relate to legs since in Japanese the name becomes ashimo and the word for legs is ashi. In any case, the people at Honda noted that Americans and perhaps what constitutes the West feel more threatened by robots than the Japanese and perhaps many other cultures of Asia.
So perhaps the concept of robots and humans living together in harmony, if that is the basis of WALL-E, is more relevant to a fearful American culture or at least has a different meaning.
BTW, there are more dancing robots, including robotic dancing dogs.
Hi Jana. You can click here to read my more complete review. If you still don't feel the same way, no biggie, it's perfectly alright.
http://www.michaelmirasol.com/flipcritic/2010/01/walle-the-best-film-of-the-las.html
Thanks for sharing this.
Spielberg is a God among men. Pure genious.
I just watched WALL-E again.
I find in terms of plot, this animation is simplistic, particularly compared with the themes and imagery of Asian animation. And I liked the film.
The evil machine has to be defeated, by a man, and in this case a morbidly obese man and the world needs a heck of a lot of cleaning up by morbidly obese people.
I tend to think that there would not be one cute cockroach, but many, many cockroaches and I don't think anyone who has had to deal with sanitation and cockroaches appreciated that choice in the movie. I can hear a million cleaning parental units screaming every time I see that part of the movie.
I'm curious as to just what the people were eating in space if they have no vegetation in space using hydroponics.
The question of how to make a robot expressive has already been tackled and how to make them cute can easily be seen in the iDog and iCat, both with the sleek white design often associated with Apple computers. So I don't think the animators were doing anything too new. Even with the animation involving horses ("Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron"), it was already discovered, it's all about eyebrows. Horses do not have eyebrows, but in the movie they do. WALL-E has something that approximates eyebrows.
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Today, I went to the beach with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said "You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear." She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is totally off topic but I had to tell someone! Bless you!