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Lauro Gonzales, a self-styled prophet who now calls himself Kristong Hari (Jesus King) performs a prayer with his followers ‘for the end times’ in the Quiapo district of Manila in the Philippines. Photograph: Dondi Tawatao/Getty Images

Has the passage of the bill been connected to the results of the Miss Universe beauty pageant? The first runner-up finish of Bb. Pilipinas-Universe Janine Tugonon was the main topic of conversation in the taxi queue. Everyone in line agreed that Miss Philippines should have won, not only because she was the most beautiful finalist but also because she had nailed the Q&A. She was, they added, superior in all respects to the candidate who won the title—a sentiment echoed by various politicians, ever eager to be mentioned in the media in any context.

If Miss Philippines never made it beyond “Thank you, girls”, this would not be an issue. If she had placed fourth or fifth, everyone would be pleased. But she had gotten within a hair of winning the Miss Universe crown, and that really stings. Mas masakit yung ‘muntik na’ kaysa sa ‘wala namang pag-asa’. “At least Miss Mexico wasn’t even in the finals,” somebody sniped, thus connecting the Miss Universe results to the outcome of the Pacquiao-Marquez match. This is Pinoy logic, which operates according to its own rules. “Maybe Miss Universe will get knocked up and be unable to fulfill her obligations, and the first runner-up will have to take over!” someone added.

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

From the official MMFF website. Please proofread your material before posting.

We’re going to review every single movie at the Metro Manila Film Festival.

We will try to do justice to the work of the filmmakers, especially if justice is called for. However, we reserve the right to walk out of the screening should the situation prove threatening to our sanity and, consequently, to the lives of our fellow moviegoers.

We have been in the mood for swords and armor. After watching the two seasons of HBO’s Rome, which we still miss (Wasn’t there supposed to be a movie? Could Vorenus still be alive? We never saw his corpse), we put on the Director’s Cut of Kingdom of Heaven.

Kingdom of Heaven, if you will recall, is Ridley Scott’s 2005 epic starring Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, and Eva Green. It was one of those occasions that unite audience and critics: They hated it. Many found it incoherent (Scott has never been great at exposition). Some found it too pro-Muslim—Saladin was civilized and merciful, the Crusaders, especially Reynald de Chatillon (a cartoonish Brendan Gleeson), Guy de Lusignan (a glowering Marton Csokas) and the patriarch of Jerusalem, were fanatical brutes. Much of the ire was directed at Orlando Bloom, who was deemed too pretty and callow to play Balian, the defender of Jerusalem.

We saw the mess but loved it anyway. We still quote from it. (“I am Jerusalem,” wheezes the leper-king Baldwin IV, played by Edward Norton in a mask.) Granted, show us some catapults and siege towers and we’re happy. But we sensed that there was more to Kingdom of Heaven than spectacular battles and a flimsy love story. This was confirmed by the Director’s Cut, which is almost an hour longer than the theatrical version.

This version makes so much more sense. When Balian is introduced, we learn that he’s not only a blacksmith but an engineer who has created siege weapons for his employers. In the movie version it would seem that he went overnight from being a fashion catalogue model to defending the citadel from 200,000 Saracens. Bloom is actually very good in this one; we forgot he was Legolas. And the story of Sibylla and her son, cut out of the theatrical version, has a terrifying poignancy. (Balian, Sibylla, Baldwin and the other characters are loosely based on historical figures. The real Balian was married to the widow of the former King of Jerusalem, and he supported her daughter’s claim to the throne against Sybilla. However, Balian did lead the defence of Jerusalem.)

Kingdom of Heaven is worth seeing again, but in this more substantial version.

Tom Waits opens with “Silent Night”, which sounds bizarre even if his voice hadn’t achieved its full circus bear growl when this was recorded. This is for all of you who are exhausted from dancing Gangnam style.

There’s only one way to get through this season without shoving a karaoke microphone up a happy reveler’s nostril. Drink. Read The 86 Rules of Boozing at Modern Drunkard.

80. Anyone with three or more drinks in his hands has the right of way.

86. You will forget every one of these rules by your fifth drink.

Photo from Travel Daily News Asia.

Last Sunday we had dinner at the newly-opened Raffles Hotel in Makati. We’d never been there, but assumed it would have a coffee shop serving light meals (We’d had a heavy merienda).

First we had to find the entrance to the hotel. There is no access on Makati Avenue, and if you’re driving you have to go around all the Glorietta malls before you spot the driveway behind Landmark Department Store.

The name Raffles brings up expectations of grandeur which are not met: the lobby looks like the ground floor of a mid-size office building. We assume that luxury hotels have colossal staircases for the dramatic entrances and exits we imagine we will make (They are not likely to happen in real life, but we’d like to maintain the option). The stairs in this lobby are commonplace, in a shade of orange reminiscent of the over-applied spray tans of aging starlets. But the mistake was ours: this is not entirely a Raffles hotel, but part-Fairmont business hotel and part-Raffles Suites (including the famous Long Bar, which presumably has peanut shells strewn on the floor).

The coffee shop is small and serves only coffee, tea and pastry. We proceeded to the fine-dining restaurant Spectrum, which has the atmosphere of one of the better corporate office cafeteria. Its design is not minimalist or maximalist, but whatever -ist strives to be so safe and inoffensive as to arouse no comment whatsoever. On the tables there are tiny square glasses that hold mint and basil plants, and an egg-shaped orange lamp. Had the lamp been green it would’ve looked like the egg in the first Alien movie and given us something to remark upon. The table has a pattern of concentric bamboo squares, presumably for that “Asian feel”.

Bombur (not his real name) found our table remote (which the rest of us preferred, being antisocial) and attempted to occupy a table in the cozier part of the room. Whereupon a waiter asked him, “Are you supposed to be here?” The waiter probably didn’t mean to be obnoxious; it must’ve been a translation failure. He said that the table was reserved; Bombur pointed out that there was no “Reserved” sign, and the waiter replied that they had no signs. What.

Bifur and Bofur tried the buffet, Php1,500 per person, and Bombur ordered adobo from the menu. Bifur and Bofur said the food in the buffet was cold and rather unappetizing; the siomai was particularly inedible, though the humba was quite good. The adobo was too salty. When a manager came round to ask about the food, Bombur gave his real opinion. The manager apologized and did not charge him for the adobo.

The desserts were sweet but had little else to recommend them, the macarons were so hard they could’ve been over-sized Go pieces. We know Spectrum has just begun operations, so we’ll blame opening jitters and hope they get over them quickly.

The ladies’ washroom outside Spectrum was very nice, but too small. In fact our general impression of the Fairmont is that they’re saving space: the ceilings are high, but the rooms are long and narrow. (We have not seen the Raffles Suites). Why would we go to a luxury hotel in order to feel constricted? We can do that at home.