a happy movie to end a happy day

After being at church the whole day playing percussions and meeting up with the Pinoys at the Filipino Christmas party, all I wanted was to crash into bed when I got home at around 7 PM last night. But last night also presented a rare opportunity for me and my roomies to do some in-house movie watching. (Roomie L actually still needed some convincing, but anyway...) so together, over potato chips and Boy Bawang, we watched Hairspray in my boom-box-connected laptop.

Loved loved Hairspray! Especially loved the music, the dancing, and the colors! Of course, can't help but compare it with the actual musical, which I watched here in Tokyo some months back. The movie was a few songs and scenes short, but it was still great.

Friday night

Just watched The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift. It was awesome! Makes me wanna go back to my Need for Speed. Loved the cars, the chases, and the place. Shibuya looked great! Shibuya really is a fascinating place, especially at night with all the lights.

Also watched Marimar episode 15 through YouTube. What an unbelievably stupid episode! Is Marimar that dumb that she can't open car doors from the inside? And how does a vehicle whose engine is not even running get to emit smoke?

ghibli goodness set in my hometown

That's the anime 耳をすませば (Mimi wo sumaseba/Whisper of the Heart). I loved it! It's a sweet love story. Great artwork too, with very detailed renderings of buildings and streets. The setting was also quite interesting for me, because it was set in Tama City, and that's where I live now. The town part of the city shown in the film was in Seiseki-Sakuragaoka, and that's my town! Although there were of course a lot of differences already, because the movie is more than ten years old, it was cool to be able to identify some of the places and say that they actually looked very familiar. I can even relate to the difficulty one character was having with biking up the hills around here. And I could totally identify with the ever-present Keio train in the movie, which actually hasn't changed much.

On to the next ghibli!