February!

It’s February!

In case you don’t know me, or haven’t really been reading my blog, then I have to tell you, this is my favorite month of the year. I will give you the following non-girly reasons like because it’s unique — it’s the only month that has 28 or 29 days, and that my sister’s birthday is in February, and that in the Philippines, it’s kinda cold because of the weather hangover from December, but also hot because of the start of summer, but really, the biggest reason is that it’s the location of my favorite holiday — Valentine’s Day!

Why do I love Valentine’s Day so much? I know people hate it and say it’s useless, but… Look, if there’s a holiday for scary stuff (Halloween), then there should darn well be a holiday for love stuff. And so, to celebrate L-O-V-E, I will start the month with a blog entry of some of my favorite romantic dialogue from some of my favorite TV Couples (those I haven’t featured in the entry like this one from February last year).

Chuck and Sarah
(from Chuck)

“Chuck, I fell for you a long, long time ago. After you fixed my phone and before you started diffusing bombs with viruses.” – Sarah Walker, Chuck VS The Other Guy (Chuck S3E13)

So, aside from that Zachary Levi (Chuck) is too cute for words, I love this show because of Chuck and Sarah’s love story. They’re just so cute together. Plus, it’s a geek gets girl love story! And, you know, that’s always nice.

This particular piece of dialogue, I love the most, because Sarah’s actually referring to what happened to them in the Pilot Episode of the series (!!!). Chuck first met Sarah when she went into the Buy More (where Chuck works as a computer technician) to get her fake phone fixed, and then they went on a date, and towards the end of the episode, they found themselves in a room with a bomb and 30 seconds to live. Chuck, despite not being a super spy like Sarah, has mad knowledge of computer viruses (virii?) and so uses that to diffuse the bomb (not realistic of course, but hey, it’s a TV show!). He saves their lives.

Of course, after this, there will be 2 entire seasons where the two of them never say to each other how they really feel, and the audience never knows if Sarah even likes Chuck, so her admission here that she’s been in love with him since the pilot episode, well, it’s just epic. *dreamy sigh*

Buffy and Angel
(from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

“What about me? I love you so much. And I tried to make you go away. I killed you and it didn’t help. And I hate it! I hate that it’s so hard and that you can hurt me so much. I know everything that you did, because you did it to me. I wish that I wished you dead. I don’t. I can’t.” - Buffy, Amends (Buffy the Vampire Slayer S3E10)

One the ingenious things in Buffy is how there are statements like these — “I killed you and it didn’t help”, which are kind of funny when taken out of context and if you don’t know the history of the characters, and then they’re used in dramatic scenes.

Amends is the episode where The First Evil appears to Angel and tries to convince him to kill himself because he’d done terrible things in the past when he was a soulless vampire. And Angel nearly does kill himself, going to the top of a hill where the sun would burn him and turn him to dust (because he’s a real vampire). Buffy gets there to stop him, telling him that she loves him despite his sordid history, hence the speech. And then a miracle happens and it snows in Sunnydale, California (the fictitious town where Buffy is set). Because of the blizzard, the sun doesn’t shine, and Angel stays alive. The photo is of him and Buffy walking down mainstreet and for the first time, during morning (well, early morning).

Chuck and Blair
(from Gossip Girl)

Blair: What if we need games? What if without them we’re boring?
Chuck: We can never be boring.
Blair: You say that but, I know you. You’re Chuck Bass.
Chuck: I’m not Chuck Bass, without you.

- Chuck and Blair, Reversals of Fortune (Gossip Girl S3E1)

Awwwww! I really was hesitant to watch Gossip Girl before because I normally don’t like teen dramas where there are no supernatural elements involved (e.g. I really love Buffy and Roswell (and Smallville — at least, the earlier seasons) but hate Party of Five and Dawson’s Creek) but Chuck and Blair’s will-they-won’t-they was just too cute. And I think me liking them says something because I usually like the Opposites Attract pairings, but Chuck and Blair aren’t like that. They’re so similar you’d think they’d be a boring couple, but like Chuck said, “We can never be boring.”

Also, his line here, “I’m not Chuck Bass, without you.” is particularly sweet because a lot of times in the show, he says the line “I’m Chuck Bass.” as the reason for why he’s so great and why everybody should be intimidated by him, etc. But it’s totally true, that he would be nothing without Blair. They’re just so great together.

[EDIT 2/1/2011] And after watching the latest episode, S4E13 Damien Darko, I think it totally holds up. Chuck’s current storyline — the fight for Bass Industries, and his new affair with the “enemy’s daughter” is just boring. (And Blair is a little out-of-character in her storyline with Dan as well. But I can’t help but be biased and like their story still because I love Dan, too. (or actually, Penn Badgley))

Mal and Inara
(from Firefly)

Inara: You two sound like you’re quite a match.
Mal: Maybe you’re right. Maybe we’re soulmates.
Inara: Yes. Great. I wish you hundreds of fat children.
Mal: Can you imagine that? Me with a passel of critters underfoot? Ten years time I could teach ‘em to —
Inara: Can you leave me alone for five minutes, please?

- Mal and Inara, Our Mrs Reynolds (Firefly, Episode 6)

So, Firefly isn’t exactly known for the romances between its characters, and Mal and Inara are actually the pair with the least amount of attention (OK, maybe it’s it’s a toss-up because they at least had the Heart of Gold episode, while there are no Simon-Kaylee centric episodes (Wash and Zoe have War Stories)) and they also never got together (not even in the movie), but how great were their banters, huh?

“It’s what they’re not saying.” A fan said of their relationship and yeah, that’s really what made it great. Without actually saying anything as direct as “I like/love you”, but you see it in the way they interact that they have deeper feelings for each other. The quote I mentioned here is from Our Mrs. Reynolds where Mal “accidentally” marries a girl from a planet they just passed, and Inara just gets so jealous. She couldn’t even stand him talking about possibly having kids with the other girl.

I love it. I love subtle stuff like that. Also, I really like it when characters get jealous because it’s a way of acknowledging their feelings without being direct. They’re way more interesting to watch than the cliche of blatant declarations of love in airports.

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So, that’s 4 couples for now. Maybe I’ll write about movie couples in the future. In the mean time, have a happy February everyone!

10 Quotes from 10 Things I Hate About You

I did say in the last entry 10 Things I Like About This TV Series that I was going to post my favorite quotes from the show. I don’t normally take down notes when watching TV, but sometimes I hear bits and pieces of dialogue and I just think “I have to write that down!” And with a pen and paper already on hand, I was able to write down all my favorite lines for all 20 episodes.

Here they are:

“Whoa! It’s like your mouth knows Kung Fu!” – Mandela to Kat, after Kat tells off a “stalker”. Kudos for The Matrix reference of sorts.

Patrick: Are you looking for me?
Kat: I am if you’re the Ladies’ Room.
- I love this because they’re lines that I could imagine the original Patrick (Heath Ledger) and Kat (Julia Stiles) saying.  And in the “Club Skunk scene”, too.

“Now you know how the Earth feels.” – Kat to Patrick after throwing trash over his head. She wanted to make a point that it’s bad to litter. Funny and I wish I could do it to other people who I see littering, too.

“You better treat her right. Or, I’m going to treat you wrong.” – Joey to the jock who wanted to take Bianca out
- Of all the changes they made from the movie, I’m happy about this one best, that they made Joey a nice guy, though still conceited.

“I’m not angry, I’m just hurt. I’m disappointed and for some reason, I can’t listen to the radio.” – Cameron, about his feelings after Bianca told him she wasn’t interested
- I think I like this quote because I could totally relate to not being able to listen to the radio when you feel heartbroken. I mean, all those songs about love? You suddenly can relate to all of them and all of them make you sick.

“You broke into school to take a test?” – Bianca to Kat

Kat: Feminism. Ever heard of it?
Bianca: Hm. Isn’t that the thing that killed Romance?
- Another exchange that I could see in the movie. Though I’m still not crazy about the girl who plays Kat here, the chemistry between her and Bianca was really good and made their scenes enjoyable to watch.

Bianca: It’s like the 6th grade all over again when my two best friends went to Wild Water Kingdom without me.
Joey: I know it’s not the same, but I’ll go to Wild Water Kingdom with you.
Bianca: Thanks.
Joey: No I mean, for real. It sounds awesome!

“When I look into your eyes, I can see how good-looking I am.” – Joey to Bianca

Cameron: It’d be like he’s a book and you’re Oprah’s seal of approval. You’re that powerful.
Chastity: He’d be like my own little version of that school in South Africa!

“Don’t think I’m not happy for you because I am. I mean, your abs are gonna be on national television!” – Bianca to Joey

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Aha! I notice now that I didn’t write any of Patrick’s lines down. I guess that means he’s the weakest link of all. I mean, in the movie, Heath Ledger was amazing. “More importantly, don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want!” Patrick says to Cameron when he was just about to give up on Bianca. Gosh. I miss him.

10 Things I Like About This TV Series

Found this little gem of a show while looking for a site that streams Buffy. It’s the TV series based on the 1999 movie 10 Things I Hate About You. At first I wasn’t interested in watching it at all because TV shows based on movies are usually bad (I’m looking at you Clueless), but there are times that they’re better than the movie they were based on (I’m talking about Buffy, again). So, when I read that at least one critic called this “the best thing ABC Family’s ever come up with”, I figured it was worth a try. And true enough, I wasn’t disappointed. Well, not very much.

1. Cast - Though I’m not crazy about the people who play Kat Stratford and Patrick Verona, that’s probably just because I mean, hello? Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger. How are you going to top that?! I’m pretty happy about the other leads, Bianca (Meaghan Jette Martin) and Cameron (Nicholas Braun). For those of you who aren’t as into teen movies as I am, the girl who plays Bianca is the “mean girl” Tess from Disney’s Camp Rock.

Let me take this time to segue about Camp Rock for a bit. See, in that movie, although Tess was supposed to be the “mean girl”, I liked her better than Demi Lovato’s character Mitchie. Because Mitchie lies to everyone and embarrasses her mom just to be popular, while Tess just wants her mom’s attention. So really, I couldn’t feel sympathetic to Mitchie when everybody hated her. And I don’t like her friend Caitlin either, I mean one minute she’s supportive of Mitchie, the next she’s attacking her. Talk about two-faced.

As for the guy who plays Cameron, I saw Nicholas Braun first in Sky High, as the “sidekick” who glows. And he’s absolutely funny. I’m not crazy about his having dark hair here, because I think his blond hair in Sky High contributed to the laughs, but anyway, he’s still funny, and although I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt to death, Nicholas’ different take on Cameron’s character here is a good kind of different.

2. Character Changes – They kept the main characters’ names and some characteristics, but they changed a lot of it, and I think it’s for the better. I mean, I’m not saying the movie needed to be improved, but definitely, because it’s now a TV series, then some changes had to be made. The biggest change is that instead of Cameron being the new guy in school, Kat and Bianca are the newbies, so everybody’s just getting to know them, and find out about their crazy dad’s rules. And although Joey Donner is still a conceited model who’s quite dumb, he’s now also a pretty nice guy and not mean like in the movie. And Mandela is still Kat’s friend, but not as much of a Shakespeare nut, which is OK, because it might’ve limited her character if they stuck too much to Shakespeare. I’m not too crazy about the Chastity character, though. I know she’s supposed to be the b*tch, but I’m still not convinced that there are actual people in high school who can have that much influence over the entire student body, no matter how rich and “popular” they are.

3. Funny Dialogue – Since it was the 90′s when I was a kid and I’m not American, I don’t get all the pop culture references they make (e.g. about viral YouTube videos, I mean, who cares, really? I don’t think I’ve ever watched a “viral” YouTube video before.) but they still have lines that make me laugh. I’ll make a post of the funny quotes I noted later.

4. Similarities to the Movie – It’s not a complete repeat of the movie, for one thing, Cameron doesn’t make a deal with Joey to pay Patrick to take out Kat, but I like the bits and pieces of the story that they included, like when Kat and Patrick walk out of school to spend the rest of the day at the beach, it’s like when they skipped detention to play Paintball in the movie. And when Cameron goes to a party to see Bianca, and he finds out she was interested in Joey all along. It’s cute to still have those parallels.

5. High School Events Episode – I don’t know why but I never get tired of them even when they’re present in practically all the shows set in high school. The Talent Show Episode. The Dance Episode. The Cafeteria Food Episode. The Student Council Election Episode. It’s too bad this series only lasted for one season or we could’ve seen the Baby Egg Episode and maybe a Prom Episode, too.

6. How it mocks pop culture, specifically reality shows – It’s just good to know that not everyone takes things so seriously. I mean, the reality show for models is called “The Biggest Poser”. That’s just too funny. And how about Dawn having watched “all a hundred and twenty-seven episodes of Intervention” and saying that it always ends with the person crying and admitting that he/she has a problem.

7. Nobody is too stupid – I mean sure, Bianca may not know who Kim Jung Il is but at least she doesn’t mistake garbage bins for mailboxes like Jessica Wakefield in the Sweet Valley High TV Series. This is one of my pet peeves in TV shows–when they have too stupid characters as plot devices or maybe for cheap laughs (e.g. Joey from FRIENDS). I mean, it’s OK to use stupidity for some jokes, but when it gets overused, it’s just annoying. Lucky none of the characters here are like that.

8. Character Backgrounds – I know, the movie of course didn’t have time to flesh out all the characters and tell their histories and things like that, so it’s kind of cool that because this is a TV show, which is more than an hour and a half long if you put all the episodes together, then there’s more time to show who the characters are, what they like, and where they come from.

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OK, I can’t think of any more. I know that’s just 8, and I could’ve changed the title to “8 Things I Like About This Show” but it wouldn’t be the same. Maybe if I think of two more in the future I’ll just add them here. Anyway, just wanted to post this to share my happy discovery. If you decide to check it out, I hope you like it, too.