Cine

Contest: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I don’t hide the fact that I love the Harry Potter series. My brother… well, he’s not so open about it.

Still, we’ve been talking about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for a while. Last November, we bemoaned the fact that we’d have to wait until July for the release of the penultimate movie in the series. We kept ourselves entertained with flashy trailers. As the July 15th, we’re making plans for opening night. We’ll definitely catch a midnight showing, but still need to decide if we’ll upgrade to IMAX or IMAX 3D.

If you can’t wait until the 15th, you might be in luck! I have three pairs of tickets for screenings in the following cities:
New York, Monday July 13, 6:30 pm
Los Angeles, Monday July 13, 6:30 pm
Miami , Monday July 13, 6:30 pm

To enter:

  1. EMAIL ME with the subject line “Harry Potter Contest.” In the body of your email, include your name, phone number and which city you’re entering for: Los Angeles, New York or Miami. [contact page]
  2. Email entries must be received by Monday July 6th at 11:59 pm PST.
  3. Only one entry per person.

See HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE in theatres everywhere on Wednesday, July 15!

© 2009 Warner Bros. Ent.
Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R.

Harry Potter characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

Standard
Música

Café Tacuba | 20:20

In the middle of Wednesday night’s Café Tacuba concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre, Lori turns to me and asks, “What is this, like your fourth or fifth time seeing them?”

“Ugh, no. 12th, I think.”

The show was part of Café Tacuba’s 20:20 tour, or 20 cities to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

The tickets said 8:15 and we arrived at 8:20. The lights were already off and the audience was screaming in excitement. Lori and I rushed to the pit and took our place on the right side.

For the next three hours Rubén, Meme, Quique and Joselo (plus Luis, their drummer) played songs from all of their albums.

Lori and I danced and jumped and sang along (me more than her, given that she doesn’t know their music too well). We got excited when we spotted our cousin, Rene, and his friend Edgar in the seats just behind the pit. Our legs and backs were hurting at the end of the show. Lori had never seen their dances to “Déjate Caer,” “El Baile y el Salón” and “El Puñal” — I’d never seen that one either — and was pretty amused.

By the end of the show, we were tired. From all the dancing and jumping. Still, I was satisfied. I got my Café Tacuba concert fix for the summer.

Highlight: The climax of the show definitely came when Alejandro Flores, “el quinto tacubo,” stepped out to join the band on violin for “Ojalá Que Llueva Café.” Before that he played a son jarocho song (name escapes me) and after “Ojalá” he stuck around and played equinto and violin on a few songs from Re. The addition of Flores really emphasized how good Café Tacuba is at crossing genres.

I also loved the fact that they played so many songs they rarely play live. I’m pretty sure I’d never heard “El Espacio” live. I’ve complained that they can be a little predictable in their live shows, but not this time around. They went from playing a good chunk of Cafe Tacuba to skipping to some songs from Sino.

Finally, I liked that Rubén was quite talkative. I would talk more if I was him, that guy jumps around the stage a lot. I also thought it was cool that he handed the mic to a guy after “El Puñal” at the “end” of the show. The guy proceeded to ask his girlfriend to marry him. I think he should have said “y yo te di mi amor en un concierto de Café Tacuba” before popping the question. That would’ve been cool.

Lowlight: None, really. I mean, I would have liked to have a seat once in a while.

As usual, I wrote down the setlist and took lots of photos.

Continue reading →

Standard
Randomness

I must be dreaming, can’t be real…

Sigh...

On my way to work I was listening to The Sound of Young America podcast. There was a comic (name forgotten) talking about celebrity/celebutantes being a creation of the US government. Stolen election in Iran? Send in a celebrity to do something gawk-worthy and distract the national consciousness. I laughed at the concept, and then thought, I don’t even follow celebrity gossip.

Hah. A few hours later, the news started to pour in via Facebook and Twitter. Michael Jackson was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center. Can’t you hear the helicopters?

Yeah, there was no mistaking the noise. I clicked refresh a lot of times and talked to my co-worker who had just returned from lunch. He said he saw the ambulance rushing up Westwood Blvd followed by black Escalades. The SUVs were driving wildly, “with no regard for human life,” and almost hit someone. He said, “wow, someone important must be in there.”

I left work a little after the LA Times confirmed TMZ’s statement that he had died. I wasn’t getting any work done anyway. I walked down by the hospital on my way to the bus stop. It seemed that there were as many people with cameras and microphones as those just wanting to talk about their affinity for MJ and his music. I took a few photos and then went home, listening to Bad, Off the Wall and Thriller.

The rest of the day has been reading reactions, listening to his music, watching videos and reflecting.

I remember:

How much I loved Captain EO at Disneyland. It’s much better than what they currently have there.

Being jealous that my brother and cousin both had Beat It t-shirts.

Making my mom play the We Are the World record again and again. I also loved just looking at the cover.

Doing the “Thriller” dance with the UCLA band during our Halloween halftime show at the Rose Bowl in 1998.

The videos. For a brief period we had cable at home. I remember the “Man in the Mirror” video the most.

Most of all though, I think of the fact that my consciousness of pop music began with Michael Jackson (and the Beatles).

RIP, Michael.

Standard