Happy Valentine's Day!

UPDATE (2/26/2010): I will be putting the entries up for votation on Facebok on February 28th, 2010, 8PM. After a week, I will be announcing the winner. As my apology for the delay, I will allow the winner to pick an IMAX or 3D movie for his/her prize.

Anyone can still submit entries until February 28th. :)

---------------

Since it's already Valentine's Day, Lead Character figures he'd feature the two valid entries from his "Win Our Hearts" contest.

These are magical words that truly celebrate this day.

From tryitonce!:

I’m Yours

Know that the song you gave me will be the standard by which future notes, melodies, and rhythms will be judged…

Know that my eventual emaciation is borne of the fact that food has lost its taste because I cannot dine with you…

Know that drink will continue to be of no value unless we are toasting each other…

Know that my past intimacies with others have, in hindsight, become pathetic and spiteful comparisons to the smidgen of physical affection you granted me…

Know that all conversations I will now deem trivial in the light of the simplest greetings from you…

And know that while you shun and turn away from me, I will take each act as acknowledgement of my existence, that you know I’m here.

I miss you.

Until that day when we are free from what bars us from being together – the distance, OUR convictions, the eyes of those who are hasty to pass-on judgment – I will wait…

Until such time that I will have met another who is as deserving of me as YOU…

I’m yours.

From Uh-Huh Girl, MD:

I remember how it happened. We were in the car, at the parking lot when you turned off the engine. You took my hand and said "Will you give me the chance to love you?" I went blank for a few seconds and then was able to croak out a "Yes". It's freaky actually when you've had a dream wherein the exact line was spoken and then years later, it happened. From that incident I had an inkling that you might, just MIGHT be "the one".

Then one stormy afternoon, you fell asleep. I looked at you and you had that look of a man with no worries, a man well loved by his family, friends and employees. It was priceless, and made me wonder if I could see that look again in the same lifetime. In that moment, I knew that I had to keep you. Now three years have passed, I know that you're not the type who says a lot. You have not promised me the moon, nor have you pledged me your undying love. But every time you tell me "I love you" just out of the blue, it always feels like I'm hearing it for the first time. My heart beats faster, my pupils dilate and for a moment I'm breathless. Your kisses are plain magical. Whenever you plant one on my forehead when I'm sulking or in "search and destroy" mode, I just forget and let things slide. Whenever I'm with you, everything seems to be at the right place and time.

I'm not just in love with you, I'm enamored and enthralled... to the point that I want you to change my name, and I would gladly pack my bags and leave my beloved Cebu just to be with you. After all, you are my home.

If you think you can express love or infatuation just as well as they have, feel free to join the contest. Just post in the comments section below whatever you wish to say to that special person in your life.

Happy Valentine's Day!

"Win Our Hearts!" Contest

After the dismal ending to Love and Other Drugs (in Lead Character's humble opinion), Lead Character cannot help but wonder if perhaps there's someone out there who is capable of delivering a big romantic speech that can win anyone over in a heartbeat.

Jerry Maguire in his living room speech, not knowing he's
already had his wife at hello.

Sure, it might be hard to top this:

"Our little project, our company, had a very big night. A very, very big night. But it wasn't complete. It wasn't nearly close to being in the same vicinity as complete because I couldn't share it with you. I couldn't hear your voice or laugh about it with you . . . I miss . . . I miss my wife. We live in a cynical world, a cynical world, and we work in a business of tough competitors. I love you. You . . . complete me."

But it's not impossible to be just as romantic. After all, it wasn't only Jerry Maguire's speech that made Lead Character's heart go aflutter.

In Rumor Has It, Jennifer Aniston's character tells Mark Ruffalo's:

"I'm not here to tell you I can't live without you, because I can. It's just that I don't want to."

"Skins" characters Emily and Naomi.

Even on TV, writers have managed to make us fall in love with lines like:

"I know you're lonely. I think you need someone to want you. Well, I want you. So be brave and want me back!"

That was Emily to Naomi on the Brit series "Skins."

In "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Spike tells Buffy:

“When I say, 'I love you,' it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman.”

That being said, Lead Character would like to invite his readers to post in the comments section below the most romantic lines they would like to tell someone. To make it even more powerful, write something you're dying to tell a real person in your life that you either like, love, or lost and want back. Make it romantic, but not cheesy. Make it work, make it real!

But it doesn't even have to be romantic. If you're someone who has no romantic feelings for anyone, just come up with something meaningful that you'd want to tell someone special in your life. It could be something you'd want to tell either of your parents, or your best friend, or your brother, or the professor back in college who inspired you. Make them feel loved in your very own words.

Deadline of entries will be next Wednesday, February 9th Thursday, February 17th. The winning entry will be determined via Facebook likes from February 9th February 17th through February 21st.

The winning prize: two movie passes at any SM Cinema* in the country (not valid for 3D or Imax, though). And you can pick any movie on any day this month.

So what are you waiting for? Let it out!

* Of course, when I say any SM Cinema, I mean any movie tickets that can be purchased through www.smcinema.com.

It Had Me at Drugs, but Lost Me at Love

Love and Other Drugs by Edward Zwick (About Last Night..., Legends of the Fall) opens to the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes," which instantly takes us back to the '90s--Lead Character's favorite decade! (Alanis Morissette! Fiona Apple! Magnolia! Boogie Nights! Highschool acne!) Lead Character finds himself tapping his feet on the floor. If you want to take your viewers back to the '90s, you don't really need to show cassette tapes or Motorola cellphones or denim jumpers for women or Viagra; just play the frickin' music!

Starting out with a lot of promise, the movie progresses pretty deftly with solid character buildup and terrific performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and the ever reliable Anne Hathaway. Gyllenhaal's character, Jamie, is a pharmaceutical sales rep who meets Maggie (Hathaway) at her doctor's clinic. Maggie has stage 1 Parkinson's disease, which doesn't really show yet so Jamie and Maggie have all the sex they want. Unfortunately, MTRCB intervened again and mutilated all the steamy lovemaking. This isn't completely bad, though, because everytime Jake Gyllenhaal calls Anne Hathaway "Maggie," his real-life sister comes to mind.

Just like any other romantic dramedies, the drama eventually surfaces. Maggie's Parkinson's disease is real, and Jamie and Maggie are then forced to acknowledge it, which paves the way to the story's resolution. In his head, Lead Character starts to wish, "Please, don't be cliché, please, please, please...." And to his dismay, they go that exact, horrific route.

Why do they always have to do this--have one character run after the other to make a big romantic speech about why they should be together? And they expect us to swoon? Why do they feel the need to do this when they know they cannot top Jerry Maguire? Why?!

This leads Lead Character into coming up with the top romantic comedies he's seen whose endings stood out:

Say Anything..., Roman Holiday, My Best Friend's Wedding, The Break-Up, and of course, even if marketed as a horror film, Lead Character considers Lars Von Trier's The Antichrist a romantic comedy with an ending that redefined romance.

Lead Character Frenches Up His Shirt

Season 2, Episode 10

One of Lead Character's college friends, Eng, has been having his own designs printed on a shirt, just for his sake and his alone. What impresses Lead Character is how the designs, simple as they may be, are nice to look at and at the same time a very good way of expressing oneself. No, a Facebook status update is not enough. If you want to express yourself, print it on your shirt.

Eng used Japanese characters, something that not everyone in Cebu can understand. Lead Character thinks it's sly, hence he asked Eng to send him a design, one that says something offensive like "I'm a fudgepacker."

But Eng never did deliver, so Lead Character decided to make his own design instead.

The whole process hadn't been easy. Lead Character wanted a ringer T-shirt, not just any plain shirt, for his design not to look too bland. After all, his design is simply a French term in a red Ampersand font. The shop that prints out your designs for you, Transfer It! (located on the first floor of Robinson's), only had plain shirts available, so Lead Character had to search the entire city. The bigger challenge was not just to look for ringer T-shirts, but ringer T-shirts that didn't have prints on them. After hours of looking, Lead Character finally found ringer T-shirts with no prints at Giordano in Ayala.

The idea behind Lead Character's design is to go for something as sly as using Japanese characters, and with his life-long fascination with the French language, he went all out with it--something desperate, something sad.

And viola...

It's "fuck me" in French.

Note: Thanks, Chris and Chris, for teaching Lead Character useful French terms. Soixante-neuf, anyone?

You're Welcome, Uh-huh Girl, MD!

Uh-huh Girl expresses her gratitude for having won the Five Questions contest, for which the prizes were a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila and a Starbucks 2011 Planner.

A new contest will be announced soon, so stay tuned, everyone!

Ugly Fuckable and Pretty Unfuckable

Season 2 Episode 09

Joy Bee decides to treat Lead Character and friends to dinner as a post-birthday gathering. Present, as always, are JabberedOnion, NonFacebooker, Madonna, and TamponRiot. On their way to the restaurant, Lead Character shares his current fascination with Kitchen Nightmares, one of the many shows headlined by Chef Gordon Ramsay. Lead Character can't quite explain it, but whenever he watches Chef Ramsay get all intense and hammy, he gets a series of tiny orgasms. TamponRiot points out that Chef Ramsay, despite not having the prettiest face, is fuckable. Chef Gordon Ramsay is an Ugly Fuckable.

Photo taken from elitechoice.org

The entire ride, as well as the ensuing dinner, is then transformed into a The View-esque discussion of the top celebrity Ugly Fuckables in recent history. Names that come up, not just coming from the mouth of Lead Character, include: Willem Dafoe (not sure if it's because of Body of Evidence, or him getting showered with hundreds of bullets in Platoon), Jack Black (fuckable, yes, but is he even really ugly?), Reese Witherspoon, Tori Spelling, Usher Raymond, Rupert Grint, Mo Twister, Jay-R, and, um, well, yeah, Manny Pacquiao, among others.

But the real challenge is coming up with those who have pretty faces, but are completely unfuckable--Pretty Unfuckables. Lead Character and friends are able to come up with a few, but the discussion here is filled with long minutes of staring at blank space trying to think of celebrities who are pretty but whom they have no desire of fucking.

There's Judy Ann Santos, who's pretty by Lead Character's standards, but inspires nothing sexual at all. Lea Salonga and Tina Fey come up, mostly because you cannot fuck goddesses. Someone suggests Kris Aquino, but it is met with protests because while she is unfuckable, she is not pretty to begin with. Jason Priestley is also suggested, but only circa "Beverly Hills 90210"; as he aged, he became more and more fuckable. Joy Bee suggests Lucy Torres and everyone agrees--all except JabberedOnion, much to everyone's bewilderment. TamponRiot brings up Ben Affleck, whose Pretty Unfuckability is supposed to be a consensus in America. Lead Character disagrees. Just like Kris Aquino, Ben Affleck is not pretty at all.

The night ends with everyone exhausted from all the eating and thinking at the same time. But they decide to do it again soon. Maybe for next dinner, they'll talk about Fuckable Politicians (Lead Character already thinks Bill Clinton and, um, well, yeah, Manny Pacquiao).


Note: You've probably been rolling your eyeballs the whole time you were reading this. In Lead Character's defense, he and his friends were talking about celebrities. Also, he and his friends are above the personalities under discussion because they are, in their own innate and inalienable right, pretty and fuckable. Wad-dup!

Black Swan (2010)

What makes Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan remarkable is that it is a mix of the best elements from his four previous movies: the complexity in Pi, the gore and horror in Requiem for a Dream, the perplexity in The Fountain, and the emotional rawness in The Wrestler. And with all those elements combined, Aronofsky has come up with what can perhaps be considered his best movie to date.

In Black Swan, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) wins the coveted role of the Swan Queen in a production of Swan Lake by a prestigious ballet company in New York. Required of the Swan Queen role are both the exquisiteness of the White Swan and the dark sensuality of the Black Swan. However, Nina is much too exquisite, that while she is perfect as the White Swan, she has trouble transforming into the Black Swan. In comes Lily (Mila Kunis), who seems threatening enough to take away the role because of her imperfect but effortless technique.

Odd things start happening to Nina. Aside from the unexplained patch of scratched skin on her left shoulder blade, she sees on a few occasions someone who looks exactly like her on the subway, something threadlike grows on her finger, a night of drinking and drug use ends in a sleepover that may or may not have happened, and these things intensify further to shocking extents--much like how David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. went, but certainly not as confusing. By the end of the movie, everything wraps up clearly to a beautiful climax; you do not have to scratch your head and hate yourself for being stupid.

Throughout the movie, Lead Character noticed that Aronofsky employed a handful of foreshadowing and possible symbolisms in the movie--most notably the reflection shots and Nina taking off her earrings. The shots showing the characters' reflection in the mirror get fully explained towards the end, but Lead Character still cannot fully wrap his head around the earrings. Several times throughout the movie, there's apparent emphasis on Nina taking off her earrings. Is it some sort of symbolism for women transforming into something else? When a girl takes off her earrings, is she suddenly a different person on some level?

Lead Character has a friend who, after an hour's commute to visit another friend, realized that an earlobe was missing an earring. Afraid that her earrings might have been ripped from her ears along the way, she frantically reached up and felt her ears. Only then did she realize that she put on both earrings in one ear. Could this piece of true-to-life anecdote possibly be relevant to Black Swan? Do earrings really represent something to a woman?

If you have the answers, please feel free to share.

---

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Written by: Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John McLaughlin
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel

---

Other movies by Darren Aronofsy:

Five Questions Winner

And we have a winner!

Congratulations, Uh-Huh Girl, MD! That was really quick!

Please post your number below (I won't publish it), so I can contact you regarding claiming your prize.

Here are the answers to the questions, in case Kara San wants to refute the winner. :)

1. What does the Hehe complex evolve to if left untreated?

The Haha Complex.

2. Which TV phenomenon did the director of Lead Character's 5th favorite Glee episode create? (Clue: This TV show had a 7-season run. Its 8th season was in comic book series form.)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

3. In the episode "Return of Merchandise," what sari-sari store item did the VENDOR refuse to replace after Lead Character complained that it was bad?

Egg.

4. How big was the stool sample did Lead Character hand over to the Medical Technologist in the episode "Medical Exam: A Horror Story"?

Almond-sized.

5. List the books that Lead Character hasn't finished reading yet as of the writing of the episode "Impulse in the Time of Flatulence."

"Rant" by Chuck Palahniuk
"The Pretenders" and "My Brother, My Executioner" by F. Sionil Jose
"God Is not Great" by Christopher Hitchens
"The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie

Again, congratulations to the winner.

Stay tuned, everyone, for more contests in the future! :D

Five Questions

Since the winner of our previous contest, the LIKE the Lead Character Chronicles Facebook fan page contest, forfeited his prize, I am now including the bottle of Jose Cuervo to this content's winning prize: a Starbucks 2011 Planner!

How to win?

Simply answer these five questions correctly (thanks to JabberedOnion for this idea). If you've been reading this blog, then this should be easy breezy. The first person to get all the answers right wins!

1. What does the Hehe complex evolve to if left untreated?

2. Which TV phenomenon did the director of Lead Character's 5th favorite Glee episode create? (Clue: This TV show had a 7-season run. Its 8th season was in comic book series form.)

3. In the episode "Return of Merchandise," what sari-sari store item did the VENDOR refuse to replace after Lead Character complained that it was bad?

4. How big was the stool sample did Lead Character hand over to the Medical Technologist in the episode "Medical Exam: A Horror Story"?

5. List the books that Lead Character hasn't finished reading yet as of the writing of the episode "Impulse in the Time of Flatulence."

Note: The bottle of Jose Cuerva tequila can only be awarded to those who are in Cebu. The Starbucks planner, however, can be shipped out to anyone in the Philippines. So if you win and you're not from Cebu, you can get the Starbucks planner but the Jose Cuervo would have to be given to someone here.

If no one answers all five questions correctly on or before December 29th, 11:59pm, both prizes will be additional prizes for the next contest.

Good luck to all of you!

----

Update as of 12/24/2010:

Thanks, Kara San for your attempt. But you got one item wrong. I will not post your comment as others might simply copy.

Don't worry, you can still review your answers and see which item you may have gotten wrong.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

----

Update as of 12/25/2010:

Kara San: I admire your efforts. However, you changed an already correct answer, which is still correct, by the way, after you changed it. The one item I'm referring to is something that you might have misunderstood.

Please, review your answers again, because I want you to win as well. Because for sure, you're going to donate the bottle of tequila to us when we meet up. ;)

Best Christmas Episode

Every year, American TV shows typically air a Christmas (or for political correctness, Holiday) episode right before going on their holiday hiatus. More often than not, they make their episodes encompass the holiday spirit, one that is full of love and joy despite situations in their fictional world that make the audience doubt if their characters would have any of it at all.

This year, Community (one of the best TV shows of today that you're not watching) showcased their characters in stop motion animation in an episode called "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas." Community has always been bold in coming up with out-of-the-ordinary episodes (you'll know what I mean if you've seen their paintball episode, and the one with the zombies, and their homage to Goodfellas that explore the power struggle surrounding the supply and demand of chicken fingers in the school cafeteria), and their Holiday episode just proved that they can pretty much kick the butts of every other TV show out there.

Lead Character watched "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" three times, enjoyed it each time, and felt that he was ready to deem it the best Christmas episode of any year, especially that it purported that the meaning of Christmas is the first season of Lost, a metaphor for something with great buildup but with no payoff (classic!).

But then The Good Wife happened.

In an episode called "Nine Hours," The Good Wife showed that a Christmas episode does not have to be set during the holiday season.

The story kicks off with Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) receiving a phone call from a Court of Appeals clerk about the habeas petition she sent out just the night before for their client Carter Wright (Chad Coleman--Lead Character remembers him from The Wire), a convicted arsonist and murderer on death row . The clerk wants to know if she's filing an addendum before that night's execution. Alicia freezes, composes herself, and then asks the clerk to repeat what he just said, to make sure that she heard the word "addendum" right. After confirming, Alicia tells the clerk she'll call him right back. She then calls Senior Partner Will Gardner (Josh Charles) about the call from the clerk. Will himself is surprised about the call, and he immediately phones another Senior Partner, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), who also freezes at the idea that the clerk is asking for an addendum. Since Lead Character does not have any idea what an addendum is, he is immediately sucked into the story.

Lead Character learns that the addendum was something they missed to add in the appeal that could very well save their client from meeting his fate at midnight, and the clerk telling them that it exists even without telling them what it is is already breaking the rules. And so the search for that one tiny detail begins, and they have exactly nine hours to turn in the "last Hail Mary appeal."

You must be wondering now how in the hell could Lead Character possibly deem this as the best Christmas episode if it doesn't even seem like a Christmas episode. The answer is in two words: Jesus Christ.

Whether the writers were aware of it or not, Lead Character could not help but notice the parallelism. The story is about a man who is about to get executed. Didn't Jesus Christ die in the same inhuman way? Well, probably not as inhuman, since lethal injection is perhaps an act of kindness compared to scourging and crucifixion, but just the idea that you are being deemed not worthy to be alive, regardless of what you may have done, is cruelty beyond Lead Character's comprehension.

Carter Wright passing through the prison hallway and getting a few seconds'
glimpse of his daughter accompanied by his lawyer, Diane Lockhart.

What Lead Character comprehends, though, is that Christmas is not so much about the birth of Jesus as it is celebrating his legacy. He is perhaps the grandest symbol of hope and kindness and sharing and love for humankind out of all the characters in popular fiction. Say what you must, but despite Lead Character's beliefs, he still thinks Jesus is an inspiring character. Jesus had him at "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Lead Character is not really a fan of preachy materials, but even if "Nine Hours" somewhat preached against capital punishment, it was able to pull it off with enough subtlety that it barely pressed on his gullet. The result: a touching episode that reminds us that Christmas, just like any other time of the year, is for all of us to be kind to one and all and not kill.