'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1' Movie Review

If you haven't watched the prequels of this highly-anticipated movie of the year, you might end up finding yourself sleeping in your couch, bored to death because all you wanted to see was the heavy fight scenes among blood-sucking vampires and horrendous werewolves. This movie wasn't like that.

But, if you watched the past three movies and if you are a fan of the saga, you shouldn't miss what the main characters of the film have brought and experienced - for these huge transitions constitute to the beauty and overall understanding of what the saga tends to impart us.

In the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, the characters moved to a different stage in their lives - adulthood. That is, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) walked down the aisle and tied the knot. Jacob, whose love was unrequited by Bella, became devastated and left, but returned after the ceremony to congratulate the newly-weds.

The juice of their honeymoon formed abruptly inside Bella's, and Edward, having learned that she is pregnant, planned to return to Forks where Carlisle confirms that she's pregnant and that the fetus is developing at an accelerated rate because it is a vampire, and will kill Bella. It drew all the nutrition from Bella which made her really sick and wasted. I'll give credits to the CGI because it was really good how they made Bella look like she's really suffering with her pregnancy.

Upon learning of her pregnancy, Sam Uley (Chaske Spencer) from the werewolf pack planned to attack the Cullens' house and kill Bella. Jacob, vowed to protect Bella and stayed beside her. It was a strong decision since most of the wolves decided to kill Bella before she gives birth, threatened of the baby that will be born as a vampire. There was a fight against werewolves themselves. Bella gives birth, but shown dead, and Edward, on his desperate attempt to save his loved one, injected his own venom to turn Bella into a vampire. At the end of the film, Bella wakes up with eyes red which signifies that she was already turned into one.

I'll give praises to the effects most especially, on Bella's pregnancy. It was made as she was really pregnant and exaggerated from the pain of giving birth because of the vampire baby. No major fight scenes really, and I can say the film was mostly composed of melodramatic lines and dialogues. Most of the scenes, especially during Edward and Bella's honeymoon, were slow-paced and soapy, which I guess had big impact on teen watchers, but didn't guarantee excellence in presentation. The first half of the movie wasn't much exciting and intense, and simply pandered to its existing fan-base. If I haven't watched any of the earlier films, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't appreciate what the wedding and the honeymoon parts showed.

There were no standout performances, and it seemed like the characters weren't giving much of strong recognitions especially for those movie-watchers who wanted to see more from their character transitions. It's like they didn't mature at all based on the previous film (Eclipse). I miss the terrible lines from the first movie and I wanted to hear them bring those kinds in this one, but it failed me. It should have saved the less stellar scenes and could have arisen some points of interest in the film, but it did not.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 has a lot of soap-operatic scenes, serious lines that were unintentionally made funny, and romance and love as what we expected, but it lacks some aspects such as intensity and impact that would make me jump off my seat and give high praises to this much-anticipated film series. Admittedly, there were 30 minutes or more of boredom, but thanks to the last 10 minutes of the film - at least they gave justice to my time and money spent to watch this well-made, but not really outstanding film.

Reyn's Room film rating: B-

Watch the trailer below:

'Sang Libo't 'Sang Tinig ng Pasko: The Araneta Center Christmas Special

It was truly a night full of magnificence and magic as Maestro Ryan Cayabyab led one thousand and one voices for the 'Sang Libo't 'Sang Tinig ng Pasko: The Araneta Center Christmas Special held at the Big Dome. I was there and I just can't help but get amazed with the outstanding performances of our local and world-renowned performers!

It all started when Mr. C was interviewed and joked about conducting a musical event with a thousand voices. Apparently, Mrs. Judy Araneta-Roxas, Vice Chairman of the Araneta Group of Companies, and mother of former Senator and now Transportation and Communications secretary Mar Roxas, was able to watch the interview and, the day after, Mrs. Roxas called ABS-CBN telling Mr. C that she wanted to fulfill the maestro's dream. So there, the night full of musical harmony and enchanting wonders was made to happen. The performances just gave me goosebumps!

Accompanied by the sixty-piece orchestra of the best musicians of the country, together with the Manila Symphony Orchestra and the thousand and one voices from various award-winning and globally-recognized choir groups of the Philippine Choral Directors Association (PCDA) from all over the country, Big Dome transformed into a magnificent view of heavenly voices singing the famous Pinoy Christmas carols we grew singing with. "Sa Aming Bahay", "Noche Buena", "Sa Paskong Darating", "Pasko Na Naman", and a lot more - these songs and carols were interpreted by the stellar performances of these amazing chorale groups. It made me think that Christmas will always be happy and memorable singing these songs which we used to sing as jingles to ask for aguinaldo from our neighborhood.

KC Concepcion, Nyoy Volante, JM Rodriguez, Angeline Quinto, Marcelito Pomoy, Ariel Rivera, Jed Madela, Rachelle Gerodias, Piolo Pascual, and Disney legend Ms. Lea Salonga performed, singing the Christmas songs we truly love, and the brilliant compositions of our maestro. Ms. Universe 2010 3rd-runner up Venus Raj and Ms. Universe 2011 2nd runner-up Shamcey Supsup hosted the event. It was directed by Johnny Manahan.

It is presented by the Araneta Center, ABS-CBN, Meralco, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, Taco Bell, Binibining Pilipinas Charities Inc., Gateway Mall, Ali Mall, Farmers Plaza and Farmers Market.

Watch its airing at ABS-CBN's Sunday's Best tonight! See for yourself and be proud of Pinoy's singing talents!

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

The internationally acclaimed romantic-fantasy film series makes a comeback via its fourth and final installment of its Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn Part 1 hits the big screen November 18th.

Directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Kinsey) and based on the worldwide bestseller novel by Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn Part 1 tells a series of betrayals, misfortunes, and consequences brought on by the marriage of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), their honeymoon, and the boisterous birth of a child, which lead to shocking developments among characters especially Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner).

The film received 25% rotten rating in Rotten Tomatoes, 45 out of 100 metascore in Metacritic. It was rated PG-13 and distributed by Summit Entertainment.

I've been reading netizens' reviews about the film, and, in contrary, most of them liked it. How about you? Have you already watched it? Did you like it or not?

Arroyo placed under hospital arrest

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was arrested late Friday after local court found out probable causes of the election sabotage charges against the ailing former president.

Now under the custody of the Southern Police District, police arrested the Pampanga representative at the St. Luke's Medical Center in Taguig City where she is currently confined.

Judge Jesus Mupas of Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) ordered the arrest warrants at around 6:30 pm, after the cases for 2007 electoral fraud were filed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Warrants were also served to Andal Sr. and former Comelec officer Lintang Bidol.

"In the meantime, for as long as she stays in the hospital, babantayan lang po siya doon at hindi naman po natin siya pipilitin na dalhin sa isang detention facility," DOJ secretary Leila de Lima said after the issuance of the warrant. De Lima said Arroyo could stay for the meantime at the hospital under police custody, but added that it would be the Supreme Court that would purely decide on whether Arroyo should be placed under hospital arrest.

Arroyo's camp asked the Pasay RTC to suspend its electoral sabotage case proceedings filed against her, saying the Sandiganbayan should have jurisdiction over the case.


The motion for reconsideration filed by her lawyers stated that Sandiganbayan, should have jurisdiction over the case because Arroyo was a public official when the alleged crimes were committed.

Electoral sabotage is a non-bailable offense.

Pacquiao loses pound-for-pound title to Mayweather, Jr.

Manny Pacquiao may have won against Juan Manuel Marquez in the recently concluded Pacquiao-Marquez III bout, but this didn't guarantee his staying power as the pound-for-pound king. ESPN and Sports Illustrated classified undefeated Floyd Mayweather, Jr. as the top pound-for-pound fighter, placing Manny Pacquiao behind.

source

"Pacquiao looked confused at times and lacked snap on his punches in a less-than-stellar outing. It just wasn't the kind of performance we have come to expect from Pacquiao, especially in light of the fact that Marquez had been wiped out by Mayweather in 2009 in his only other welterweight fight. Although a fourth fight with Marquez is certainly warranted at some point, it absolutely should not be next, which is what Top Rank's Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, is talking about pursuing.", ESPN's Dan Rafael stated as what the former pound-for-pound king "missed".

Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated wrote, "The inconclusive outcome undercut [Manny's] standing in SI.com's pound-for-pound ratings.

Bob Arum says a fourth Marquez fight should (and could) be next, but most fans would rather see a showdown between the fighters who rank 1-2 [Floyd Mayweather, Jr. - Manny Pacquiao) on virtually every pound-for-pound list."

Ring Magazine, on the other hand, retains the title to WBO welterweight champ, stating that Pacquiao accomplished more than Mayweather in the recent years. "The Filipino is 9-0 against big-name opponents since the beginning of 2008; Mayweather is 3-0 in that time."

Pacquiao survives Ring's no. 1 fighter by a hair, but if Pacquiao stumbles again or Mayweather gives an outstanding performance, then the boxing media outfit might crown a new king.

BIR to tax contributions on SSS, GSIS, Pag-IBIG, and PhilHealth

Observed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) as grants of income tax exemption to SSS, GSIS, PHIC, and Pag-IBIG were being abused, Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares ordered through Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) 53-2011 that the voluntary contributions will be subject to tax.

The bureau said that contributions to Social Security System (SSS), Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), and Home Development Mutual Fund (“Pagtutulungan sa kinabukasan Ikaw, Bangko, Industriya at Gobyerno" or Pag-IBIG Fund) are considered as "investments" and thus are taxable, particularly stating that benefits, such as pensions and loans, that are to be acquired from these institutions will be enhanced.

Back in July, BIR issued RMC 27-2011 revoking four BIR rulings that exempted from income tax voluntary contributions to GSIS, SSS, PHIC and Pag-IBIG, and grants of tax exemptions from these contributions were being abused, for some, by paying additional contributions, will be exempted to paying tax because of the additional investment. Voluntary contributions in excess of compulsary contributions are now considered taxable gross income subject to income tax and withholding tax on compensation.

In short, the exemption from withholding tax on compensation shall apply only to mandatory/compulsory GSIS, SSS, PHIC and Pag-IBIG contributions.

The Facebook spam attack

Just recently I stumbled upon my Facebook home page with malicious and sexually-explicit photos displayed in the News Feed. It was flooded with images of graphic sex and violence. Yes, Facebook was hacked again!

"Users were tricked into pasting and executing malicious JavaScript in their browser URL bar causing them to unknowingly share this offensive content," the social networking giant said.

However, Facebook said that it has already identified the culprit and the exploited vulnerability, but urges its users to stay vigilant, and rest assured that no data or accounts were compromised due to these attacks.

Facebook is a big system where application from external sources are integrated so you can use them through the social networking site. Through this, clicking links, buttons, or images may lead to various activities - you may either be redirected to a certain page or application, but the catch is, what is behind this action, is not known and exploited to the user. Many users are intimidated with what they see and just click random links and buttons, thus increase the chances of these kinds of spam attacks.

Facebook said the attack was a "self-XSS" exploitation, where users are often tricked by contest prizes, sweepstakes, giveaways, and in order to qualify for these, you need to paste a "magic code" into your browser.

Back in May, Facebook rolled out a self-XSS security feature to prevent users from participating with these kinds of attack. It was supposed to add another security level to confirm if the user is certain of the links he is about to click or the codes he is about to copy. In addition, Facebook was working with major web browser companies as an step up effort to protect users from malicious links, through deploying Websense feature which checks and classifies if a certain action is abusive and may harm the user.

The company said it has quarantined malicious accounts and pages, and offered simple tips to safeguard users from future attacks.

• Never copy and paste unknown code into the address bar
• Always use an up-to-date browser
• Use the report links on Facebook to flag suspicious behaviour or content on friends' accounts

“Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us, and we are always working to improve our systems to isolate and remove material that violates our terms. Recently, we experienced a coordinated spam attack that exploited a browser vulnerability. Our efforts have drastically limited the damage caused by this attack, and we are now in the process of investigating to identify those responsible.

During this spam attack users were tricked into pasting and executing malicious javascript in their browser URL bar causing them to unknowingly share this offensive content. Our engineers have been working diligently on this self-XSS vulnerability in the browser. We’ve built enforcement mechanisms to quickly shut down the malicious Pages and accounts that attempt to exploit it. We have also been putting those affected through educational checkpoints so they know how to protect themselves. We’ve put in place backend measures to reduce the rate of these attacks and will continue to iterate on our defenses to find new ways to protect people.”

Of love, being in love, and getting hurt

Being in love is an altered state. Suddenly your life is focused on another person and you can't bear being separated from him or her. You are in a bubble of fantasy, feeling overcome and giddy. Love for another person, in contrast, is closer to appreciation and affection.

Love is fairly reasonable, while being in love is more like a prolonged seizure, not literally sick or crazy, but one of those ordinary, positive ecstasies that take you out of ordinary life and introduce you to something new.

Being in love is one of the greatest joys of life. When you're in love, you could almost always do things positively - from the time you wake up in the morning until you sleep to bed - you have that smile on your face, remembering the happy things you and your loved one experienced that made your day. Being in love gives a person an extra strength to face whatever obstacles hinder the relationship. It develops the personality and makes a person realize that living in this world is full of sense and meaning.

But the ability to feel the greatest love makes it possible to feel the greatest pain. A person may tend to do things not so right, which cause arguments, quarreling, and hurt. But some say pain makes love all the sweeter. While a good guy/gal won't make you cry, losing them still hurts. So don't let your fear of loss stop you from loving someone. You cannot love someone without getting hurt, but the important part is how you deal with the hurt within your relationship. Be vulnerable with your heart. In order to love someone you have to open up to them, let them delve deep into your world. When you truly love someone, you give them your heart like that you are bound to get hurt. If you find healthy ways to express and deal with the hurt with your partner, the happiness you share with will be worth it.

I believe every person is destined to be tied to someone for him/her to love. We are tiny pieces of the million molecules in the universe, but no matter how tiny we are, there are other tiny individuals looking for love. Just look around, maybe he/she is just around.

So love, and don't be afraid to get hurt. Just love! :)

Back to blogging

19 months of slumber. That's what my blog did and that's a very long time.

It's good to be back after all. Blogging has become an extension of my everyday rants and raves, my points-of-view, my opinions, beliefs, and even things (stories, essays, poems) I imagine, which were actually quite related to what I felt the moment I wrote them. I remember I started my blog in Friendster™ and sadly I wasn't able to backup my posts there before the site made a huge revamp on its platform. But thanks to Blogger, I found my room full of everything and anything. I also opt to say that this blog is also some sort of my online diary.

With blogging, I also get to know lots of bloggers. Some became friends in real life. This entry was about my closest blogger friends who made an impact in my life. I was able to say thank you to them because what they wrote made the day and inspired me a lot.

Blogging also gives me the feeling of being appreciated. People comment on your posts and agree on your opinions. Some liked what I did. It's really good to have these merit. Makes me realize I'm not a bad writer at all.

It's good to be back to blogging after a long time. I feel like having lots of thoughts in my mind and I want to post them all. Can't wait for each day to pass and share the world what I feel and want to tell everyone that this is my room - and you're always welcome. :)

Some Ways to be Happy

We laugh. We cry. We feel. We complain. We may consider experiencing all sorts of feelings we could ever imagine, simple because, we're HUMAN. Breaths, feels, reacts.

And of all the feelings we've known, probably, being HAPPY is the best. We're happy because we're loved. We're happy because we succeeded at a certain goal. We're happy because someone's back after a long time of separation. We're happy because we live each day seeing and being with our loved ones. Happiness is immeasurable. And it can be attained anywhere, everywhere, only if you believe you could be one.

But oftentimes, we take for granted happiness because of several hindrances that come our way. Failure on a career, break-ups, lost of loved ones, or even the weather - these things cause depression, agitation, distress, grief.

We can always think of choosing to be happy, but what will really help us to be lies within ourselves. In short, if we do not take care of ourselves, there are only little chances that we will be happy. And although the world has brought so many things that may take away happiness from ourselves, still, nothing beats being happy.



Some Ways to be Happy

(1) Be thankful of what you have. Instead of thinking what you want to have in the future, think of the things that you already have and be thankful about it. For surely, there are thousands of other people not having what you have now, and wanting to have one.

(2) Sleep, eat, and walk. Isn't it nice waking up one morning and starting the day feeling all-rejuvenated? Eat enough, proper meal and do not exceed. Walk is synonymous to exercise. It maintains our healthy body and blood flow.

(3) Make up your mind to be happy. We can always find happiness even in small things. A thought of a funny joke, things you've done in the past that everyone laughed so hard, some people whom you think are funny in a sensible manner - these are only some of starters to set up your mood.

(4) Never choose to be alone. Of course, we find happiness from our family, our friends, and loved ones. Bringing up topics to them would start a good conversation which will brighten up and lead to laughing from time to time. Being accompanied by people you trust and love to different places will surely bring up happy things - like seeing a movie, going to a carnival, attending to parties, etc.

(5) Share what you have. But of course, at a reasonable stake. Always be a helping hand especially to those in need. But being like a 'savior' does not guarantee you having lots of financial capabilities. Be like a best friend to anyone who needs comfort and self-esteem empowerment, and you will get to realize there are more people who need your attention, rather than focusing too much (which a lot of times causes stress) on some of your goals in life.

(6) Don't be afraid to try, especially if you know you can do it. Believe me, it will always be worth it if we try and realize there will be nothing that is about to lose. On special cases, try building up and enhancing your skills. If you think you're a good singer, then maybe it's time to pursue a career. Auditioning at small singing contests would be really happy. If you think you're a good writer, then start doing pieces of works. There is always a "who knows?" phrase that may bring you up to your dreams. But never be afraid of failures. For they are just temporary. And you just can't please everybody, so do not let criticisms consume and worry you.

(7) Whenever you are down, think of the things that made you happy. Of course we can't be happy at all times, so whenever you feel like alone of sad, just think of the things that happened in the past - you achieving a high grade, you becoming popular in school, your parents commending you for great work, your friends believing and highly respecting you - these things will surely be a stress reliever.

(8) Avoid people, places, or memories that make you unhappy. If you often think about it, you will experience fake happiness - a state in which you feel like you're happy but you're actually not - because those people, places, and memories still bother you. Learn to let go of the ill and bad feelings. They are vexations to the spirits and poisons the soul. If we learn to take it away, then that would be the time for experiencing genuine happiness.

(9) Do not stress yourself with too much work. We get tired, and we get into deadlines and appointments. But what we've earned in our education helps us fix the things that bring us into rushing. Manage time and learn to prioritize. Do one thing at a time. Being mentally and physically rested fuels happiness to ourselves.

(10) Value God, and be thankful that you're still alive. Be grateful for our Creator, for He is the reason why we are still living today. Pause each day to pray and be thankful for the things that are happening to us. Reflect on the values we instill on ourselves, for these will give us an experience of a heightened well-being.