We (finally) got to watch On The Job last Tuesday. I'm going to go ahead and say that it won't seem much more than a gritty action-film noir hybrid unless one is even remotely aware of how things go in the Philippines. I think it's one of those films that target a very niche audience - in this case the Filipino middle class - but it does the job of being a disturbing commentary about the darker side of Philippine politics.
On The Job is not scary because it shows that lives are cheap in the eyes of the powerful; it is scary because of how plausible these things can be in our country. If there's one thing that was off about the film, it was that Gerald Anderson stand out like a sore thumb in a prison setting. As a friend of mine said, he was too pretty for his role, much unlike Joey Marquez's down-on-his-luck cop, Joel Torre's veteran hitman or even Piolo Pascual's shiny political son-in-law turned NBI agent character - not that it was too much to derail the film for me.
I also finished reading Y: The Last Man. It's a dystopian (which is totally different from post-apocalyptic) series where all mammals carrying the Y chromosome (ergo males) have been wiped out except for Yorick (and his pet capuchin Ampersand) leaving the world at the hands of women - whose varying beliefs of the plague's origins spur their actions and provide much of Yorick's (and his friends') adventures.
Lastly, we got to the 34th Manila International book Fair yesterday despite the heavy rains. I got one out of the four books I came for, which is a vast improvement from last years zero out of three. As a quick note to self, go on a weekday for next year's event.
Later!
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