Farewell, Bond!

I finally saw the latest James Bond film and the last of the Daniel Craig movies for the franchise. I normally don’t post movie reviews here, but there’s nothing much art-related stuff I could talk about at the moment and I have a three-hour lecture tonight which is making me nervous, so I thought I would do some writing to calm me down, just some random thoughts about the franchise and the latest film.

A few years ago, I decided to watch all of the Bond films in chronological order. I’ve seen it go from semi-serious, to campy, to more grounded, back to campy, and then back to the grounded semi-seriousness of the Craig films. I gotta say, Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond. Purists will always give the title to Sean Connery, but I can’t help but see him from millennial’s perspective, the casual misogyny and perhaps even downright rapiness is hard for me to get over with. Others enjoy Pierce Brosnan’s turn as Bond, but I never really enjoyed the franchise during that era. I found Brosnan a bit too cheesy and the writing of the movies too silly. Also, before he became 007, he didn’t realize that his wife’s ex-husband was disguised as their elderly nanny. You gotta be sharper than that, James!

The latest film was good. It didn’t really feel that long as things kept on moving. In fact, it kept moving so fast that the main villain’s motives barely registered. He was out for revenge? But once he got his revenge, why did he want to kill so many people? What’s going on? It’s sad to say, but the main villain is actually the weakest part of the movie for me. He just wasn’t that interesting. And for Spectre to be built up as this massive organization overshadowing so many evil plots across the movies… for it to be undone by a boring villain that seem to come out of nowhere, is really unsatisfying. Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva was a great villain in the Craig films and wasn’t really matched by Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld. Then it was followed by Mr. Robot. I now appreciate Christoph Waltz’s performance (and ‘Spectre’s’ writing) much more.

Lea Seydoux was great as Madeleine Swann, but I actually found her quite forgetable in the film prior, so I was surprised to see her back in this film. If anything, what stole the movie was Ana De Armas’ performance and action sequence in Cuba. The first time I saw her was in a regretable Eli Roth film and I didn’t really get her appeal even after I saw her a couple more times in ‘Knives Out’ and ‘Blade Runner 2049.’ In ‘No Time to Die,’ I finally got it. Consider me a fan. I thought having a black female 007 was a smart little wink as well. It would be interesting to see more adventures of Lashana Lynch as a secret agent, but I think it was all just a cinematic coño to the obnoxious man-o-sphere who insists that 007 should never be black nor female.

It was not the best film among Craig’s Bond turn but it was a good enough ending. It had great sequences, the score was great as usual, and it left me wondering and excited at who the next 007 will be. It was a very utilitarian movie and it served its purpose, much like Craig’s Bond has been described as a “blunt instrument.” I think the best Craig film would either be ‘Casino Royale’ or ‘Skyfall.’ So for the uninitiated, go watch the first Craig film instead. But for those who enjoy the series, this movie should be fun.

For the longest time, I never really cared for the James Bond franchise and thought it was a relic of a power fantasy meant to be enjoyed by dads and uncles. Maybe that’s still true since I didn’t really truly enjoy it until I was in my mid twenties. These days, I see it more as my “Fast and the Furious”… my Marvel Cinematic Universe film, my super hero film on steroids. As much as I enjoy spy thrillers, like 2019’s ‘The Spy’ starring Sacha Baron Cohen (surprisingly!), it’s always good to see a fantastical secret agent do his mission with so much finesse and with a catchy blaring orchestral melody.

Oh and as for best theme. I love the original ‘Dr. No’ theme and it’s many reincarnations. I also think “Goldfinger” is great. But truly, the best and sexiest song ever written is “Nobody Does it Better.”

Helping Randos

I’ve become a creature of Reddit. It’s awul but it’s nice. After being banned from Twitter, I devoted most of my SNS time on Instagram. But now I’m finding myself more on Reddit, sticking my nose on other people’s business and giving advice when asked. I find that Reddit is more concerned with developing communities and being helpful to whatever people’s interests are, as opposed to Twitter which is like a rage machine. Anyway, thank goodness for Reddit.

Could be Tomorrow

I’m off to Vietnam this week. I don’t know much about the country and its beautiful people, so I’ll talk about The Handmaid’s Tale instead. What a wonderful, wonderful adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s work (a Canadian treasure)! Good job, Hulu! What’s really interesting about the book and the show itself is that if there’s ever a more apt book to adapt for the times, it’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Being a work of “speculative fiction,” much like books like The Road or Blindness, it doesn’t need much fantasy in order for something to become our reality. In the case of The Handmaid’s Tale, religion and military dictatorship just needs to marry together, something which humanity has experimented with several times before.

And it’s not like we’re that far off from Ms. Atwood’s fiction. The world is becoming more and more militaristic. Many countries’ police officers are starting to look more like military forces. There’s a loud growing movement of conservatism with their adherence to religious dogma and a distrust of science and news media. And more and more, dictatorial rule seems to be coming back into fashion with many people blindly supporting strong men. Even my father pines for the days of Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law and praises the likes of Duterte. The show did a great job of incorporating current trends and technology and making it part of the narrative. It almost screams at the viewers, “this could be you! You’d better do something about it” It’s not enough that we trust our collective goodness as a society. Our hubris, our confidence that several others will do good despite of our inaction, will lead to our eventual downfall. I’d like to believe more Americans are sensible, and yet Donald Trump and his ilk run the country. I was impressed at how friendly, welcoming, and seemingly sensible everyone was the last time I visited the Philippines, but they’re the same people who would deny their neighbors are being killed for their vices, even if it happens almost every day. My workplace is surrounded by people who yearn for the days of dictatorial rule in Korea.

It is scary. It really wouldn’t take much.

 

The Curious Case of Reluctant Canadians

Becoming a Canadian citizen can be perceived differently depending on the observer. To some, it is the reward for years in the naturalization process. However, despite the innocuous and rather malleable nature of being Canadian, others see it as a betrayal to one’s identity and culture.

I’m an immigrant. My family moved to Canada from the Philippines when I was a young boy. I became a Canadian citizen and I grew up thinking I would live my whole life in Canada. After all, my parents worked hard to bring us there. We worked hard at becoming citizens. It’s only natural that you enjoy what you have worked hard at becoming, Canadians. Now I’m in South Korea. I’ve been here for a long while now, but I never really thought about becoming Korean. There’s more to explore there and I will come back to it, but let’s start first with the whole “becoming Canadian” experience.

There’s a good argument that an immigrant to a country is more of a citizen than the one who was naturally born there. The natural-born citizen did not make a willful choice to be where he/she is. It is mere luck of the draw. An immigrant however chooses to be in that country, and in the process of becoming a citizen, they have to pass tests and work to become a contributing part of the community. In many instances, they would end up knowing more about the country’s history than the average natural-born citizen. In return, Canada gives immigrants full benefits of being a part of Canadian society. In fact, being in Winnipeg, I got to enjoy rights and privileges that even some Native people do not (There are books that could be written about this topic). This is the extent of Canada’s generous embrace to immigrants in exchange for becoming a part of the country.

The driving force to our move to Canada was my late mother. I don’t know how enthused my father was at moving to Canada, but my mother immersed herself more with the Canadian experience than my father did. In any case, the move was probably the best for the family. We had a better future moving to a more prosperous country.

Now, the pride of being a Canadian doesn’t stem from the shame of one’s heritage. But in many cases, it is seen as being so. “So you think you’re a Canadian now. You’re no longer a Filipino. Don’t forget, you’re still a Filipino.” etc. It almost seems like resentment from the people who are “left behind.” “Don’t think you are too good. You are still one of us.” It’s like an odd amalgamation of crab mentality and jingoism.

This isn’t unique to Filipino-Canadians, of course. Eddy Harris, on his book Native Stranger recounts how going back to Africa, “Motherland,” he encounters an almost resentful attitude from the Africans he has “left behind” long after his ancestors were taken as slaves to North America. Hearing “welcome home” can be very heartwarming at the beginning of his trip, but after a while, hearing “how come you haven’t helped us?” several times, rings of a sense of entitlement and resentment from people he has nothing in common with except for their race. In the end, he comes out of the trip not being grateful for slavery and for bringing his ancestors to America, but being grateful for being alive as an African-American person. America has provided for him a great life, but to some Africans, there’s a debt owed, there’s a responsibility to give back to the “Motherland.” But in reality, what has brought him to his current position is not so much Zaire and his ethnic heritage, but the virtue of being an American.

The United States and Canada being multi-cultural societies, people try to adopt an attitude of recognizing all citizens as part of the country regardless of their ethnicities. The keyword is “try.” Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps during World War II because they were suspected of not being truly American despite many of them being born in the country. Given the choice prior to being sent to internment camps, I suspect they would have fought for the country that has adopted them as oppose to fighting for the country they have long since left. This is a rather extreme case, but I believe once a person has been naturalized, they have already taken sides. It does not mean forgetting one’s ethnicity and culture, but it means belonging to the country and becoming a true citizen. It’s participating in the great Canadian experience. It’s like converting from Judaism to Christianity. You’re still the same color and your past hasn’t changed, but you now celebrate Christmas.

My father in many cases, instead of taking pride in becoming a Canadian citizen, still insists on being a Filipino, or at the very least, calling himself that. I’ve met some Canadians with the same attitude as him too. It’s almost as if they resist the good that the country tries to give them. These days, my father spends a lot of his time in the Philippines. One could assume he’s trying to reverse all of the Canadian-ness he has tried to resist through all of those years. When we were growing up, he tended to nag us whenever we become “too Canadian” in his eyes, whatever that means. I remember him chiding me one time as a teenager for having a “white girlfriend.”

Now I understand that there is value in one’s cultural heritage, and we shouldn’t shed it the way we do outdated clothes, but a new country is not a uniform either. It is not something one should resist, especially if it’s something as welcoming a society as Canada. To become a Canadian, to say that you are a Canadian as opposed to any other nationality, is an exchange for all the good that becoming a Canadian gives a person. It is the least a Canadian citizen can do. I feel that in the long run, my father is making a mistake. The Philippines is a good country, but it is the country of his childhood, of his past. It is the country that he has left behind. To insist on being a Filipino almost feels like a betrayal to the country that has been so good to him all of these years.

Being in South Korea, I realize the extent of Canada’s generosity to its citizens. Becoming naturalized as a South Korean citizen is much the same as being a Canadian. A person must speak the language, be of good conduct, and have the ability to maintain a living. Of course, Canada’s healthcare system keeps a lot of people from revoking their citizenship, but the one thing that I believe keeps expats from becoming South Koreans is the people’s treatment of foreigners. Though being a South Korean citizen does not require Korean heritage, it is plain fact that foreigners in the country get treated as foreigners regardless of citizenship. It doesn’t matter how long one lived in the country or how well they speak the language. If you look foreign, you will often be treated as a foreigner. This is what makes Canada and countries like it quite special. People, regardless of ethnicities, are welcome to call themselves Canadian.

This is why I don’t understand my father’s attitude. Perhaps it is shortsightedness or xenophobia on his part, or perhaps it’s my ignorance or naivety. But I believe the country has been more than generous to him and provided him with great opportunities he may not have had should he have stayed in the Philippines. All of his children have great lives thanks to be being in Canada. He need not adopt the attitude of those who are “left behind.” He is not Eddy Harris’ African people in the “Motherland.” He wasn’t left behind. He became a Canadian.

Anniversaries of All Kinds for Everyone

Today’s my wedding anniversary. It’s also my parents’ wedding anniversary. I used to joke that I chose to get married the same day because it would be one less day to remember. But really, it’s in honor of my mother who passed away a couple of years before I got married. It’s a way of sharing one of the most special days of my life to the people I love and miss the most. Happy anniversary, Ma. We miss you.

And to my lovely wife, happy anniversary to you too.

My best friend messaged me this morning, wishing me happy anniversary and hoping that the day would be an excellent one. Unfortunately, just like 2014, it’s gotten a very inauspicious start. First off, I woke up with a strange sharp pain in my gut. Who knows what it is? Ulcer? Maybe… but I chose to ignore it for now. Just like my diagnosis of an enlarged thyroid earlier this year, it could be as serious as impending death or just something I could completely ignore. With my luck, it could be something worse… me being paranoid about it for years.

Then I turn on the computer and learn that my favorite author just died. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s works could be wildly misogynistic, in a sort of every-man-cheated-on-their-wives-back-then sort of way… but they’re also magical and romantic. He saw humanity and created worlds that would take us through the great heights of love to the lowest of human misery. They were both exotic and familiar at the same time. I was selfishly saddened by the news that his deteriorating health and failing memories a couple of years ago could make Memories of My Melancholy Whores his last book. But now I’m simply stunned at knowing that a great soul is no longer with us, not one who entertained us with his words, but one who painted windows into our humanity. It’s sad. And I’ll probably have to pick up his books again.

We are seriously running out of living people to look up to.

(My entries are turning into Simpsons episodes. They start about one thing and completely end about another.)