CATTSKI EP
by greyweed


One of the pivotal moments of this era in Pinoy rock is when Korn became less and less of an influence for the younger musicians. This is not saying that Korn is a terrible group to look up to, but it just so happened that most of the bands that followed their footsteps have either ended up sounding exactly like them or have disbanded.

It is in the middle of this that the band Cattski began making music in their native Cebu. Gifted with a brilliant sense of melody and grooves, the band was formed with Cattski Espina on vocals, Anne Muntuerto on rhythm guitars and back-up vocals, Jam Quijano on lead guitars, Brian Sacro on bass and Junnell Codilla on drums. Exactly why they named their band after the vocalist is yet to be revealed. What we, however, should focus on is their music.

The band lists down Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Plumb and No Doubt as immediate influences. Thankfully, they refuse to be enticed and adopt the flashy guitar solos and bass slapping luridness other modern musicians seem to contribute to today's scene. Instead, the essential Cattski sound is well grounded; a fusion of rock and pop, with the necessary taste of folk to boot. And the variation is refreshing and a welcome introduction to Cebu’s current music movement. A proof of this would be Cattski’s gig with Admit One Productions at Freedom Bar, QC last August where the attendees kept on screaming for more even after the encore.

The self-titled disc is a tangy cocktail of sounds, opening with “Questions,” a terrific song that has a nice basic tune that gives a slightly melancholic quality, making it a pretty good opening to the EP. Pure confusion seem to wail over the folk-tinged vocals, while the guitars give off a sense of inscrutability, undoubtedly making the song fit in with the soundtrack to perhaps the television teen mystery flick Roswell or even the cult-worshipped X-Files.

The second track, "Secrets," then follows with its opening riffs admittedly sounding dangerously close to Incubus’ "Drive". Despite this, it's still a solid offering that puts focus on Espina's skills as a lyricist which is splendidly translated with her own vocals and set atop by a good intrumentation. "Sleeping With The Enemy" is arguably one of the best songs in the EP, carrying sensible pop panache with a catchy tune. It opens with a phone being dialed and an impressive drum-bass interplay sets in. You’ll find yourself nodding to the song or scrambling for the inlay for the lyrics to sing along. But then the last few chords fades as the disturbing ending shoves in with just the phone's busy tone and the mono-induced vocals.

The familiar “High and Low” then caves you in a with a sensation of rapture with the light guitar playing, soothing vocal work in a backdrop of a seemingly pained rhythm section. “Stereotype,” on the other hand carries a catchy beat and a impressive groove and is decidedly the heaviest in the EP, with its soaring bass and solid guitar work. “Drunk” features Anne’s excellent keyboard accompaniment, adding a nice and light feel to it which, true to its title, will make you feel light-headed. It’s a dark, feel-good ditty that sounds melodiously happy but reveals a certain pang of annoyance lying somewhere between the cracks upon close inspection. “High and Low (raw)” is a little sedated compared to the original version, and if not for the lyrics, it would have felt like an entirely different song. Also notable is “Secrets (live)” just right before the EP comes to a close.

The band’s music may not be as tight as most of today's studio produced, radio-ready tracks but that certain “looseness” works well for them. In fact it seems to be an integral part of Cattski’s core vibe, giving their sound a hollow but textured channel for the basic human emotion to funnel through. And they even let themselves experiment and deviate from their roots, allowing a lot of leg room for a healthy dose of eclecticism.

While the vocalist Cattski’s voice slays in a somewhat despondent nature, Anne’s more unperturbed back-up work manages to catch up and even offers to balance out the dejection. Jam, on the other hand, flexes out a variety of angst-ridden yet reposed riffs that screamed of talent, while he manages to stay in the background, grinding Anne’s own rhythmic epicenter. If Cattski is the emo-bomb, Brian is the elegy-master; looking detached, unconcerned and stoic, with his eyes closed as his head nods and waves along with the flow of his exemplary bass playing. Junnell lays in the beats like a pile driver would affect a canvas arena. Yet he is almost always silent, as his drumsticks would ostensibly take over his arms; the result is a set of heavy beats that churn the bass fluidly but fits squarely in the shoebox.

Even as early as now, Cattski’s talent as a lyricist blinks along words that are simple but refreshing in this day and age of heavy metaphors (pretensious, even) and overt lack of both substance and style. The apparent trend in the EP revolves around laying in a basic metaphor and having a field day around it as it expresses and tell tales while still keeping a toe in reality. A collection of prose weaved by a true wordsmith no less. And the music simply plows in that path inducing a chi of tranquility even as they skulk with perplexity in a milieu of mixed sentiments.

As far as new bands go, this one definitely has what it takes to succeed in terms of conquering the creative side of their musicianship. Even the ones prominently striking the local music scene are noticing them; “Like most Cebu-based bands that I've seen, magaling silang tumugtog, magpatunog ng mga instrumento, magtimpla, at maglaro ng dynamics onstage.” so says a vocalist of one of the leading indie acts in Manila. And not to mention, CEO of Washington-based indie label Know-It-All Records (who have recently taken both the Pin-up Girls and Chain Gang under its wing) has recently expressed interest to do a remix of "Questions."

And since Cattski is a true-blue Cebuano band, there is this inescapable comparison to other Cebu-based groups. Truth is, comparisons are utterly trivial since none of these bands sound anything like Cattski. To sum it all up, Cattski is a Cebuano band playing with an exploitative sound that simmers with an introspective calling to the foreign vibe while still is decidedly local.

And that gives them a definitive quality that may very well help redefine this Korn-forsaken era.

During my training with the company I now work for, we had an activity called a Team Building that had a dangerous resemblance to the reality show Amazing Race. It is “dangerous” by my standards because on the day it was held, the sky was generous enough to provide with us puddles that speckled the entire Ortigas area. And did I mention “Ortigas?” That means the Pasig-Mandaluyong area and that also means that puddles were huge and were lodged on the sidewalks. Good grief!
And thankfully, after running around from place to place -from the Discovery Center to Seattle’s Best (Megamall) to Caltex to Whistle Stop (Shang-ri la) and to other places God knows where I can’t remember- our team won. And so we were given our prize: one SM movies pass each.
Holy crap. I almost had an asthma attack, spent for a cab and literally got drenched and all we get is a movie pass?
Oh well, I just let that pass. It was fun anyway, I tried to fool myself.

Two weeks ago, specifically Thursday last week, I went to Megamall to buy two book, Ermita by F. Sionil Jose and A B N K K B S N P L A ko by Bob Ong, as rewards to myself for sticking up to my work and for raising my standards for what level of pain is still bearable. Because not only have I grown in my endurance to pain, I’ve also become a little bit of a masochist. So there.





Underworld
Kate Beckinsale
Scott Speedman


As I was about to go home, I remembered that I still had that damn movie pass in my bag and it has been a while since I last saw a film. The last films I saw were The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Finding Nemo, and it felt like it were such a long time ago. So when I got to the cinema area, I didn’t want to watch Sharon and Aga in another one of their “feel good” movies, so I looked to the left and saw Underworld, and to the right I saw American Wedding. So it was Kate Beckinsale vs Jason Biggs.
Kate, of course.

Underworld delves into the dark mythos revolving around the centuries-old battle between Vampires and Werwolves. The film is set in the present and supposedly in America; but the buildings and the cobblestone streets, and the apparent absence of trash-filled alleys made the atmosphere decidedly French than American.
In this reality, the werewolves (called Lykan) are the morlocks scrounging around underground. On the other hand, the vampires are of nobility, lounging in a manor drinking blood from wine glasses like champagne; finding slaughter un-dignifying. Not Selene (Kate Beckinsale). Having hunted and killed Liken for the years to avenge the death of her family’s massacre in their hands, she prowls the city armed with nothing but a pair of magnums and her instincts.
While stalking one night, she notices a group of Lykan following a human, Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman). She follows for a closer look only to find out that she has to save the human from the werewolves. But before she succeeds in doing so, he is bitten by Lucian, a werewolf believed to be long dead. She brings Michael to her mansion while she tries to find out what the Lykan wanted with a human. Kraven, the vampire coven’s officer in charge, disapproves of this.
As we would later find out, according to history books, Kraven killed the werewolf ruler Lucian during the Great War; a war waged during the time when Lykans served as daytime servants for the Coven. Marriages across species were severely prohibited because of a prophecy, and Lucian crossed the line by marrying the coven ruler’s daughter Sophia. Viktor, the ruler, had his own daughter executed and Lucian tortured.
And that’s what started the war.
The prophecy (that twins of the Corvinus blood line would be born - half-Lykan, half-Vampire but more powerful than both – would end the war and once again unite the two species) is discovered by Selene, but finds herself smitten by Michael.
As it turns out, Lucian is alive and is seeking for the prophecy to come true by binding a working alliance with Viktor. WHAT A SCAM!
This film features all the blood, gore and violence of Saving Private Ryan, Tomb Raider and The General’s Daughter combined, but with all the sincerest morbid details to last you a lifetime. And I simply loved it.
Unfortunately, it seriously references the Matrix for the costumes; yep all that tight leather, and the black trench coats and dark glasses that licks you all over with both gothic and punk rock fashion statements. And not to mention all the gun-slinging you’ll ever need.
But with all the juicy details the story has to offer –from the historical reference to the very sudden injection of the love angle-, it feels like an overextended mini-series episode. One more bad comment, the werewolves looked more like bad impressions of the Tikbalang in Avalon Comics’ STONE.
But still, this is pure eye-candy! Imagine all the gory scenes, the heart-stopping action, a healthy dose of twists and turns in the story, and Kate Beckinsale! Oh JOY!







The Rundown
The Rock
Sean William Scott
Rosario Dawson
Christopher Walken


I have always been a bad decision-maker, and this bothered me to no end. Just this Wednesday, I went to Megamall to watch another film, which I find is one of my brain’s way of relaxing and allowing all the creative juices to flow out (not necessarily to be used). So once again I find myself standing in the middle of two movie theaters. In front of me was Freaky Friday (something I had been planning to watch since I saw the trailer when I watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and behind me was The Rundown (I’ve read of great reviews about it).
Jamie Lee Curtis vs The Rock. Here we go again…
And just like that I bought a ticket for The Rundown.

The Rundown features Beck (The Rock, and I wouldn’t bother finding out his real name, sorry) as an aspiring restaurateur, something I find so bloody unlikely, who friggin’ hate guns. But he is tied to a not very nice disposition as he explained, “I grew up in a rough neighborhood, and one thing led to another, then I just found myself in the wrong room with the wrong type of people.” And one of those wrong people is Walker, the Don-of-the-Mafia type of big man who gives Beck assignments usually given to a paid hitman, only Beck wouldn’t kill. As a last job before Walker gives Beck his freedom, he has to fly to the Amazon and look for Travis (Sean William Scott), Walker’s son, and bring him back.
Beck endures a biplane ride with a noisy Irish pilot to get to Brazil. He walks up to a fortress, home to Hatcher (Christopher Walken), pays $10,000 to search the forests to find Travis and bring him home.
He walks into a bar where he meets Rosario Dawson who has a very ingenious life; bartender by day, rebel by night. He picks up Travis in that bar, not willingly, mind you. But Hatcher has a change in plan because apparently Travis stumbles upon the map to get the Gato (the Devil’s Cat, a legendary gold statue).
A chase follows though the forest.
This film cracked me up, between Beck’s “options A&B routine” and Travis’ “lighting & thunder” stunts, there seems to be no end to the laugh, but not enough to get me hyperventilating.

DROOOL!

This is an image of GreyDwight, my pet from NeoPets.
Now, why did I get one?

I have just recently wrapped up my second day on the floor after four weeks of training.

And I'm SO FRIGGIN' TOXIC!!!

I saw The EYE, a supposedly scary film that instead only made me wanna puke! It was supposed to be scarier than Ring, but I ended up staring up at the screen with no response whatsoever. Until that traffic jam scene, where almost everyone were reduced to charcoal.
And that scene which spooked the hell out of most of the people I know (the elevator scene), left me with a raised eyebrow.

Now that can't be right. Perhaps the stress brought about these past few days' turn of events simply left my emotions all mixed up.
Yeah, that's gotta be it.

Pia, Paula, Bea, Aliah and Darren during happier times
(after which they were no longer allowed to watch Meteor Garder-- NYAHAHAHAHA!)

A while ago I went to Mandaluyong to pay Elad a visit. Don Bosco was planning a concert around November and was gathering information on the bands. Elad was approached by one of the organizers for help and so he turned to me because, thanks to the mailing lists that I have joined, I have the bands' contacts.
On the way home I got stranded in Starmall, thanks to the steady rainfall. In my annoyance and extreme boredom, I watched The League of Extraodinary Gentlemen. A few days ago I saw Finding Nemo, so I have two Nemo movies.



Finding Nemo

I had been waiting to see this cute fish tale ever since I saw its trailer. Pixar and Walt Disney, once again, delivered a colorful and enjoyable film that aimed for the whole family, in the tradition of Toy Story and A Bug's Life. The bida here is a clownfish camed Marlon, who at the beginning of the film loses, to a barracuda, his wife and most of their eggs; all except one which he named Nemo.
Fast Forward.
It is time for Nemo to go to school but Marlon finds that he worries too much for his son. Nemo, on the other hand, grows up with a deformity: a smaller right fin. He is, nevertheless, inquisitive and brave like most young boys in the Disney universe. Marlon is understandably overprotective, driving Nemo to touch the bottom of a boat (which the children called "butt") and things go haywire from there as he is captured by a dentist on his scuba diving holiday.
Marlon finds that he deprives Nemo of the independence that children should learn at an early age. Nemo, on the other hand, comes to understand his father's actions were all for his concern and learns to value parental love and self-confidence.
My favorite character here is Dory, a Blue Tang voiced by the funny Ellen Degeneres. She is sarcastic, honest and almost too giddy for her own good.


RATING: I give it a 4 out of 5.





The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

This is a splendid movie! It was originally a graphic novel by Alan Moore, (an equally extraordinary figure in comics). The concept is quite simple, a team of mostly European characters from stories and urban legends.

The Heroes
There's a character named Quartermainn, an aging legendary adventurer played by Sean Connery.

The Invisible Man here is not exactly the one in the books (he died according to the stories), he is an expert thief who stole the original formula from the mad scientist who created it.

Mina Harker, a scientist, who together with her husband, have tried to kill the monster Count Dracula. But in the end, she herself got bitten, but being a vampire in this film, she doesn't decay under the sun.

Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, the famed scientist who used himself as a lab rat is a part of the story as well. But here, he doesn't have the same predicament as the incredible Hulk when it comes to keeping the monster inside. There are bursts of pychotic conversations with the beast, but Mr. Hyda is not savage.

Capt. Nemo. Because I didn't read the book, I had no idea that he was Indian. Imagine my surprise when I saw his long beard and turban! Made me say 5-6 under my breath. Capt. Nemo fights with great agility and utmost expertise in the sword. Oh and he is the only person in the year 1899 who has a convertible. Spiffy!

Tom Sawyeris the only American member of the league. All grown up (and even tries to seduce Mina every now and then) and working for the American Secret Service, Sawyer is sent to Europe to acquire information on the "impending" world war, instead he finds himself joining the League. I find it very disturbing that Shane West plays the role. Someone who became Many Moore's leading man joins in the action? Well, I learned to give actors credit and to STOP judging. Who knows, maybe Mandy Moore could play a Russian spy in an action-packed film someday, malay mo...



The Baddies
The Phantom. He wears a mask just as the Phantom of the Opera but I seriously doubt that they are the same. He is not really scarred, by there is are twists to his character.

The stoic Dorian Greyis only one of the character I am less familiar with, though I have read of his immortality. His magic is based on an old picture of himself; every year the picture ages instead of him. But he killed in the end by Mina, who also happens to be an old flame.

RATING: I give it a perfect 5!!!

I just found a link to, Keka, a new film Directed by Quark Henares (after Maui Taylor's Gamitan, the guy's directing a Katya Santos starer?).

A kickass site for X-Men: Evolution fans.

Here's the link for The Animatrix site.

Just this morning I updated and changed the look of this blog.

I FINALLY saw THE ANIMATRIX and it's cool, in most senses of the term. Most of it involves blood and gore, specially the first two short films. The Wachowksi brother have drawn together a splendid series of short films that dwell around the Matrix mythos. And the Japanese animation was a clever touch not only because the brothers pay homage to their influence, but because the Japanes animation themes have always had that Matrix-y atmosphere and feel - way before the Matrix.



The Second Renaissance

This tells the timeless tale that happened prior to the Matrix films. From the time when artificial intelligence became a rampant and widely acceptable aspect of human life, up to the machine's ravaging vengeance upon the very species that created them.

A disturbing scene kept haunting me: when the first AI robot murdered a man by grabbing him by the cheekbones and literally ripping apart his face.


The Second Renaissance II

This is the conclusion to the origin of the Matrix. Starting off where the first one left off, The Second Renaissance II shows the triumph of the machines and how humanity's sheer anger and the evil that dwells inside his soul became the instruments to his own demise.
It is here where we learn that the dark and brooding atmosphere the film is mostly enveloped in is, in fact, man's own fault. In hopes of finally destroying the machines by cuttinf off their energy source; they launched an airstrike that permanently covered the sky with gas and completely cut off the earth's sunlight. But the machines were smarter. They had been studying man's bocied and used them like a battery.

If the first one had a disturbing scene, this one has a whol egamut of it all throughout the film. Obviously, war scenes have never been quite appealing to the eyes and this short testifies to that by engulfing it with images of blood, gore and death. But I'm still calling it eye candy, not only because they are all too realistic but because, in the deepest sense, the short brings forth a sort of enlightenment about the greed, wrath and evil in the human soul that may come out in a Bruce Banner fashion.



Program

Classic anime is the basic thought behind this. Set in the ancient Japan, this story is a good one, as it even explains all the flying and jumping in the old Japanese films that defied both gravity and physics. I find that this one is almost a remake of Neo and Morpheus' fight scene from the first film. Only it features a female character with the biggest hair I had seen - more than Storm's and Tina Turner's - and a dark Japanese-styled warrior, reminiscent of the old Imperial soldiers, called Duo.

As it turns out, it's all a simulation.



Kid's Story

This is a little more amusing. This features a high school kid named Popper, who realizes that the Matrix exists and is eventually pulled out of it by Neo. The amusing part is that Popper is a minor character (emphasis on "minor") from Matrix: Reloaded, he's that kid who severly idolizes neo and even follows him around during the scenes in Zion.
This tells his story.
Th graphics are highly detailed, making me wonder how long it took for this to finish. The movements are all too realistic that I am asuming that the scenes were traced, frame by frame, from actual footages.

The kid dies, only to ressurect in the real world - outside the Matrix.



Beyond

A cute story. Set in present-day Japan (assumingly Tokyo), it revolves around a haunted house, which apparenly was a bug in the Matrix. Weird things happen there: things float, blink in and out of existence among others. For the first half we follow around a teenaged girl, with red and blue-colored hair and a star under her left eye, in search on her cat, Yuuki. She soon meets a group of kids and they tell her that her cat may be in the "old haunted house."
She soon descovers the wonders of the haunted house, but a truck suddenly arrives, carrying a whole platoon of programs disguised as some sort of disposal unit. They have come to cerrect that bug.



Matriculated

Matriculated heavily reminds me of that old MTV Animated series, Aeon Flux, from the long-limbed, extremely thin characters, down to the very detailed imagery. The tale is an experiment: what if the humans have succeeded in pulling a machine into their own folds? Would this make for a great alliance, or it it simpy impossible? A group of people who are located in the surface trap a machine and using a simulation they influence it to be a part of them. the machine falls in love with one of them. Unfortunately, other machines arrive (including two sentinels) cutting their experiment short. A massacre is imminent.
They are located on the surfec, this fact simply contradicts the concept of Zion being the last human sanctuary located underground. But then, perhaps I have the timelines all mixed up; maybe this story took place a couple of years after the machines' complete take-over.



Detective Story

The only short with an actual major character from the Matrix films. This one plays around the 50's detective movies, complete with the dark detective office to the trench coat-hat detective, but obviously is in a couple more in the future. The detective here is bestowed the assignment of searching for the hacker simply called Trinity. As it turns out, the detective is used as a bait by the Agents to trap Trinity, while Trinity herself is thinking of recruiting the detective.
As it turns out, Trinity finds the detective unfit for recruiting and he is left alone with a gun pointed at the Agents, lighting a cigarette and mumbling to himself, "A case to end all cases."




World Record

It is safe to say that World Record is the least appealing of the shorts. It is done in the style that became popular in the early 90s, with the creeping shadows and exaggerated muscles.
The story begins with a narrator saying that some exceptionally intuitive and sensetive people recognize the existence of the Matrix without enlightment. This clearly explaines the situation Neo and the other characters from the other short films have gone through: the same biting sense of not being alone and the chilling belief that reality is not what it really is.
An olympic-winning athlete is the character, running the race. As this is shown, it is revealed that the machines have sensed something with this chap as they carefully watch him.

World Record explains the story behind people who experience stroke as those who momentarily are disconnected to the Matrix.



Final Flight of the Osiris

This, by far, is the most complicatedly animated and better looking of the bunch. Done in the tradition of the Final Fantasy film, in a highly detailed CGI animation, this is the one you'd probably see in the advertisements. A raven-haired woman falling while doing a couple of impressive gymnastic positions, and then landing on her feet.
Final Flight of the Osiris, is the most relevant and faithful to the Matrix movies, as it is mentioned as the missing ship at the beginning of Reloaded. It tells what has indeed happened to it.