Categories
Menagerie

Valuing value meals: Tricks to the trade

Remember that moment of pure and utter disregard for your daily budget just to go to a nearby fast food chain to satisfy that insatiable craving for greasy and heart attack inducing delicacies? Then as you enter the restaurant, you quickly turn your head to the so-called “value meal” that greets you at an affordable…

Categories
Menagerie Menagerie Feature

More fun in the Philippines

We Filipinos are known for our unstoppable optimism, easygoing casualness and sense of humor.  We are characterized by our ability to smile in times of depression, laugh even in the face of problems, and get back up despite any disaster thrown our way. The recent crisis brought on by the monsoons served as an excellent…

Categories
Menagerie

For lunch money

It’s almost like a game of patintero to these kids: dodging cars and jeepneys steamrollering their way through Taft. In contrast to their more well-heeled counterparts at an elite university nearby (many of whom are seemingly programmed to squeal at the sound of every car horn) these kids revel in them. Taft Avenue, for all…

Categories
Headlines Menagerie

A few midnight haunts

Self-proclaimed night owls are up and about, more alive at night than they were during the coffee-born day.  After a long day at work or in school, they prowl the streets of the Metro and urban areas looking for a place to unwind, and temporarily forget the stress daylight chores bring. This month, The Menagerie…

Categories
Menagerie

Rant and Rave: The King and I

Rating: 3.5 What happens when a Broadway musical and an all-star Filipino cast are thrown in together? An absolutely sensational performance, I have to say. Despite stiff competition from the other Broadway show The Phantom of the Opera, The King & I has definitely held its own in a stage as large as the Newport…

Categories
Menagerie

Rant and Rave: ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’

Rating: 4.0 Whoever said that the writer was dead? Stephen Chbosky proves that statement wrong in the film that he not only wrote, but also directed and executively produced The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel which he himself penned down. Perks is the story of a troubled young man named Charlie and his…

Categories
Menagerie

Rant and Rave: ‘Nine’

Rating: 3.5 The tagline of this particular show says, “Be Italian”, and while some of the dialogue is indeed in Italian (and sometimes even French), one does not need to have an understanding of these foreign languages to appreciate Nine, produced by Atlantis Productions. The play is headlined by a powerhouse cast who prove to…

Categories
Menagerie

Rant and Rave: ‘Phantom of the Opera’

Rating: 4.0 After being dazzled by plays and musicals like Cinderella, Cats, and Mamma Mia at the famed Cultural Center of the Philippines, another Broadway hit has made its way to Manila: the Phantom of the Opera. The long awaited show did not disappoint, as evidenced by the crowded room and sold out tickets; the crowd included both Filipinos…

Categories
Menagerie

The Burger Project

Very few places that cater to varying taste for burgers exist in the country. Most of the time, people have to find specific burger joints or restaurants to fulfill their patty-ful cravings. Some look for size, going for triple quarter pounders and sorts. Others look for quality, targeting grilled beefy goodness cooked to perfection. And…

Categories
Menagerie

Independent films: Art for all

Perception The recent death of Dolphy, the King of Comedy, has left movie critics and filmmakers gunning after the restoration of Philippine cinema’s former glory.     All this comes on the back of renewed soul-searching in the film industry. Searching for memories of a long gone (or perhaps non-existent) golden age, we hark desperately back…