Changement d’adresse (Change of Address, 2006) is a playful film about a rather quiet guy who has affections for her beautiful music student, and also shares his room rent with a playful girl.

Emmanuel Mouret, as writer, director and main character of the story, is clever with his lines. In fact, the audience here in Manila were amused with the double entendres, even if the lines were spoken in French. The strength of the film is in the simplicity of its delivery. Fanny Valette was astounding; she’s a striking mix of Liv Tyler and Roxanne Guinoo. She is really pretty.

All said, Changement is an engaging film -resilient in its moments of silence, and lovable in every dialogue.

The 13th French Film Festival here in Manila, Philippines started on June 11 (Wednesday), and will end on June 22 (Sunday). There are many good films in this lot, so I will be updating posts every day as I watch (hopefully) all of them. See you at the Shangri-La Plaza Cineplex, Mandaluyong City.

This week, the lovable panda bear Po toppled the comedic Zohan by a $20 million margin, bringing in a weekend domestic gross of $60,000,000 (yes, I really love reporting numbers). Indiana Jones, and Sex and the City maintains an impressive cinematic presence at 3rd and 4th places, boxofficemojo reports.

With the words “kung fu” and “panda” in its title, what can go wrong? Po is simply adorable, while Master Shifu’s scuffy behavior makes Po more vulnerable to our empathy. They’re both pandas by the way, but Master Shifu is a red panda, which is a smaller kind, but cute nonetheless.

The movie even goes beyond the laughter, and teaches us a thing or two about life in general. Here’s what I learned:

“There is no charge for awesomeness.”

“There is no secret ingredient.”

I will be a VERY successful stocks trader someday, perhaps becoming a “dragon trader” in the process.

More importantly, I will start doing it NOW. My losses yesterday and the anxieties I have for the future are immaterial. But today is a gift, that’s why it’s called a PRESENT. Quite cliche, I think, but I believe.

Go positive!

I didn’t know Indiana Jones before except that he was a really cool guy, they say. I’m just 20 years old, so I got really curious about the 4th movie. so, I decided to watch it on opening day. I was one of the very first people who watched it here in Manila. The 12-hour differential from New York also makes me one of the first few in the world! Ha, whatever.

I’ll skip the movie review part. For me, it was all about having fun, and it was all worth the money. You can read that at Rotten Tomatoes and see why they gave it a 79%. A movie critic in his review also pointed out the lacking elements in the story .

Well, for young people like me who weren’t yet alive to see the other 3 films onscreen, Mentalfloss, my favorite blogsite, has this quick checklist of Indiana Jones facts, plus a bonus quiz that will surely make any Indy fan giddy and happy. In the same way, I found this exhaustive narrative of the Indy series at clickthecity.

I must say though, Cate Blanchett was really good at her role. Makes me want to change my accent into hers, just for kicks.

The plot on psychic warfare reminds me most vividly of Yuri’s Revenge when I was still in high school. Long live Stalin! and Harrison Ford, too!