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Rant and Rave: ‘Before Midnight’

From exploring possibilities to entertaining repossession in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Richard Linklater is bent on de-familiarizing love next. The 2013 sequel Before Midnight destroys the idealistic romance built by its predecessors. And yet simultaneously, the film does piece a romance — one that is made strange by uncomfortable realism but made familiar by…

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Rant and Rave: Alpaca Evolution

An alpaca is a domesticated animal that is indigenous to the South American Nations of Bolivia and Peru. Resembling a llama and by extension Kuzco from The Emperor’s New Groove, this hooved mammal is part of the family Camelidae and is a cousin of the llama and the camel. These quirky creatures are mainly bred…

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Rant and Rave: Yeezus

Kanye West is a god… or so he declares. That being said, West will not allow anyone to outdo him and that includes his own newborn. Three days after the birth of his daughter, North West, he releases Yeezus.  This is his sixth solo album following 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. West takes many…

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Rant and Rave: ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’

From the director of Blue Valentine comes a drama that is sure to move and amaze people who are old enough to understand it, The Place Beyond the Pines. Set in Schenectady, New York, this crime drama features great direction in Derek Cianfrance, touching screenplay, unique cinematography and a star-studded cast in Ryan Gosling, Bradley…

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Rant and Rave: ‘Despicable Me 2’

After he inadvertently made a family in his attempt at an ‘out of this world’ robbery, Gru (Steve Carrell) has left villainy behind to care for his three lovely daughters and make a living as a seller of funny-tasting jelly instead. Meanwhile, everyone thinks it’s about time the new father meets a lady friend. One…

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Rant and Rave: 4 Sisters and a Wedding

                  Once in a while, an unlikely gem of a Filipino movie comes along, and this is arguably one of them. Its trailer is not at all enticing, appealing and inviting to viewers. It seemed very mundane and typical of a Filipino movie, with the same melodramatic plot…

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Rant and Rave: ‘Smash’

TV Series  Rare is the show whose pilot episode was deeply applauded and appreciated by critics the world over, calling it “smart and slick”, “pretty damn perfect” and “excellent”. However, it isn’t rare to see a show lose its quality and appeal within a year or two; in Smash’s case, people started to dislike the…

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Head to Head: Rain, friend or foe?

It starts off slowly: the soft growl of thunder, the beat of a raindrop or two, and without warning, everything is suddenly striped by falling rain – the long strokes painting the landscape with the sort of still rawness only capable by nature. The warm blues and greens and browns of nature melt away and…

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25 Cents’ Worth: Fragile

The night breeze softly sends its unnerving caress. Nagging whispers aggravate the storm of my hazy consciousness. As I look down at the pavement, the scorned shadows etched on the ground were staring back, silently nodding heads in approval. Tonight, the ghosts of those who have gone clam up to this soul losing direction. Recalling…

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Fearless Forecast: The death of emotions

The famous British playwright William Shakespeare once said that the eyes are the window to the soul; one may think that he simply used the quote as a figure of speech, but scientists from Sweden’s Orebro University have backed up the claim, proving that Shakespeare’s statement was not just one born from an imaginative mind.…