Pirates of the Carribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest

Dead Man's Chest
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

It's highly out of my nature to fork out $10 to watch a summer Hollywood blockbuster by Disney, what more risking the fact that I'll be surrounded by hordes of unwilling parents dragged to the movie by 8-year-olds and teenagers that refuse to shut up. But sigh, what's a little sacrifice to watch good ol' Johnny on the big screen. Oh, and to all you critics out there who think he's selling out because he's going mainstream, Depp's reason for doing this Disney flick is that his lil' daughter Lily oand son Jack will be able to watch it and understand it...aww, bless.

It's 4:33pm July 6, meaning, the movie only opens tomorrow. But I'm contemplating whether I should sacrifice sleep and go watch one of the four (yes, FOUR) sneak screenings at midnight tonight. I'm not big on reading or trusting movie reviews, I like my movies regardless of whether hate it or love it, but I was reading a review of the movie in the New York Times, and it's hillarious. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

"These sailors [Davy Jones and his ghoulish undead seamen] are like the cast of SpongeBob SquarePants — or the menu at a seafood restaurant —come to life: Night of the Living Bouillabaisse."

"Mr. Bloom, as is his custom, leaps about, trying to overcome his incurable blandness, and is upstaged by special effects, musical cues, octopus tentacles and pieces of wood."

"What is curious about the recent crop of high-tech blockbusters is how seriously they take themselves, and unlike, say, "Superman Returns," "Dead Man's Chest" cannot be called pretentious. It makes no claims to being about good and evil, the difficulty of saving the world in the modern era, or the inner lives of any of its characters."

Okay, I'm a little biased, basically anyone who hates "Superman Returns" is in my good books. But kidding aside, I would watch Depp in absolutely anything, even "Superman Returns."

"Pirates of the Carribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest" is of course part 2 of a trilogy, all directed by Gore Verbinski. Verbinski is nothing to shout about, he's only done a handful of movies, mediocre ones at that -- the cop-out remake of "The Ring," "The Mexican" (with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts), "Mousehunt" (gross!) and "The Weather Man" (Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine) which I saw a couple of nights back. I checked out the official Web site for "Dead Man's Chest" and if you swing your mouse from right to left constantly on the page with the volume turned up, you get sea sick...I'm already quesy.

Maybe I'll hate it, maybe I'll love it. But thus far, I think the teaser poster is absolutely adorable, it's the same one that's in this posting (not the one where Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are desperately trying to steal more poster space than Johnny). I love that there's a tiny Jack Sparrow voodoo hanging from the crossbones, complete with the suprised all-the-rum's-gone! look on the face -- absolutely precious! The photo of the poster that I have on top is a little small, so you might be able to see so much detail, but check out the large Dead Man's Chest poster here.

Goodbye daytime marathon of bad MTV shows...

Yes, it's true. Starting Monday next week (July 10), I'll have to bid a tearful farewell to my giant green couch, MTV reality shows, the Oprah Winfrey Show and every single home decorating show you can think of -- why? Because I landed an internship with Fleishman-Hillard! Woohoo! Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely ecstatic (okay, maybe that's too strong a word for an internship, it's not a job afterall), so let's go with excited...so I'm absolutely excited about this internship because it's with one of the top 3 public relations agencies in the world, not in the U.S., but in the world. Which is super cool. I've always wanted an internship with FH, and like they say, it never hurts to aim high. I know some people who refuse to take internships after graduation because of pride and rather take an entry-level, bottom-of-the-rung job with boutique PR agencies, which I can see the sense in, but I figured, hey, FH has an excellent internship program and they're freaking global. In Asia alone, they have offices in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Manila, Melbourne, Sdyney, Seoul and Tokyo! I went in for the interview yesterday and questions aside, it was pretty intense because I had to take two-hour writing test. And we're talking about one essay or press release, but there were 4 parts to the test. In two hours, I had to edit a press release in AP style, research 2 topics, complete 2 summaries and write a pitch. And remember, this is for an internship (albeit full-time and paid), not a job.

What amazes me is that I actually turned down two other job offers (one with a film PR agency and another with Peet's Coffee) and two internships (one with a mid-size PR/Advertising agency and another with an ad agency that has clients like EA Games and Conde Nast, who's responsible for publishing magazines such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue and GQ). I mean, that's a lot to give up for an internship, but if feels right and all I can do is keep an open mind and hope for the best.

It feels weird too because when I stop to think about my year thus far, technically, I've only been unemployed for about two months because I've always had some form of income from a job since I started college here. So, it's actually not that bad because I know people who have had to wait up to six months before they even get an interview. I enjoy interviews, I love talking to people and it never feels like a stuffy interview, it's more of a "why-don't-you-drop-by-our-company-and-chat" kinda deals. What's even weirder is that immediately after graduation, I started questioning if PR was what I wanted to do, did I want to do it because I know I'm good at it or did I want to do it because it pays well? It was tough questioning myself, my self-doubt quotient level is extremely low but when it does creep up, it's a full blown doubt fest, which sorta explains my previous post. Suddenly, I was like, "Shit, did I just spend the last 2 1/2 years of my college life preparing academically and chalking experience in the PR industry for nothing? What if PR's not what I want to do?" It's nuts, so I switched over to advertising for a bit and I had to push PR aside because jobs in advertising called on very different skills.

I finally had to face the facts when job & internship offers came rolling in, because I had to choose. I couldn't do everything (although I would have loved to) so I finally decided to give up the supposed "glitz & glamour" of advertising in exchange for PR, where I own my projects and if shit happens, it's my responsibility and if all goes right, it's a pat on my back, not on some creative's back. And then again, this is not like a plan that I have to stick to for the rest of my life, ideally, I want to work with film but that's a luxury that I'll think about when the time is right.

I've always believed that: "If it's meant to be, it'll be." But that doesn't mean I believe in fate and sit on my tush waiting, because, me being me Ms. Walking Contradiction, I'm a firm believer of these ten words: "If it is to be, it is up to me." So who knows, I might go back to graduate school in a couple of years. I do know what I want to pursue though -- a double major in film and foreign languages with a minor in comparative literature. Just for the heck of it, here are some jobs that I've thought about and some jobs that I would hate:

• Jobs I would love -- film critic, film publicist, cafe owner, retail buyer, travel writer


• Jobs I wouldn't mind pursuing -- magazine editor, lawyer, author, fashion consultant, personal shopper


• Jobs that other people think I would be good at but I would hate -- newspaper/tv journalist (I don't believe in the pursuit for truth and objectiveness, no successful writer is objective), tv show host (#1 I don't have screen presence, #2 I'm waaay too opinionated and would probably piss a lot of celebs off)


• Jobs that cause my death on the first day of work (either out of boredom or excessive use of my brain) -- medical doctor, any form of engineer, accountant, kindergarten teacher (I actually listed that as one my ambitions when I was 7, now I would probably be convicted of murder on my first day coz I can't stand kids)

So that's the end of my looooooong ass post. If you've kept reading till you reached the end, yay for you! Remind me that I owe you a coffee. Hugs all round!