i watched quantum of solace with the entire office on thursday. watching the kick-ass opening titles by mk12 with a bunch of graphic designers was fun. everyone would go “WAH!” (our company’s main intercultural expression of amazement) all at the same moments throughout the sequence. for some reason, i almost fell asleep during the movie. not the greatest reaction to get for a bond flick, although my eyes could not have been wider during daniel craig’s sole shirtless scene.

then i saw it again with marlon on saturday. the second viewing gave me a full understanding of the plot — again, not the greatest reaction considering bond flicks are not supposed to be rocket science. my dislike for olga whats-her-name intensified (so robotic! what’s up with the standing with legs apart, fists closed all the fricking time? and that huddling in the corner drama! tumakbo ka na kaya?), as did my awareness of the utter lack of fancy secret agent gizmos.

on sunday, marlon and i decided to re-watch casino royale at home. whereupon i confirmed my impression that this is by far the better, sexier, funnier, more compelling, more memorable and more classic bond flick of the two.

even the aforementioned shirtless scene in quantum solace, as gratuitous as it was, just induced a wee tickle in comparison to the earth-shaking girlgasm i got re-watching daniel craig’s rising-from-the- sea, skimpy-shorts glory in casino royale.

we had also planned to watch the invasion, but were too bangag to sit in front of the tv for a couple more hours. i just realized this also features daniel craig. soooo… if we watch this tonight it will be a full four days of hawtness.

the craig-a-thon shall continue!

marlon and i have just seen the orphanage.

i think it may just be the best ghost story i’ve ever watched in my life.

i’m still reeling.

i wanted to watch it simply because it was billed as having been produced by guillermo del toro, not to mention the really cool movie poster. marlon, who hates scary movies and only ever watches them because of me, had to be prodded with a reference to pan’s labyrinth to even consider it.

i don’t really expect much when i go to see a scary movie. maybe just three to four scares, which can range from the cheap and predictable (“turn around, it’s behind you!” or peek-under-the-bed type thrills) to the deeply disturbing (shutter‘s backbreaking shock, for example, or sadako’s big moment in ringu).

so i really did not expect layers upon delicate, poignant layers lying under every well-thought, well-played scare. i did not expect to walk out of the cinema and think about love and loss, growing up and coming home, childhood and innocence, responsibility and blame, guilt and forgiveness, seeing and believing, and what truly has the power to disturb and terrify us to our very cores.

what is the greater horror for a mother: a creaky house full of the spirits of dead children, or the inexplicable loss of her own child? are ghosts really scary only because we meet them in our world and not, in a manner of speaking, in theirs?

none of hollywood’s pointless scares or ghosts jumping out of closets here.

from a writing standpoint, the movie was extremely neat. not a single scene or reference wasted. if you played connect-the-dots with the script, you could most definitely connect one event in the first half of the film with another that would unfold in the second half. brilliant.

marlon and i raved about the movie all the way from the cinema to the mrt. on the train, he fell into a long-ish, thoughtful silence. then he gave me a sudden, tight hug.

if you want to know why, go and see the orphanage. go. just go!

i hope it comes out in manila. if not, get the dvd.