truly enchanted...if only for a moment [and a screaming diva for an intro]

re-posted from March 2, 2008:

sunday afternoon...

nothing to do...

i have a firm resolve that local television programs on a sunday are not worth the time they waste.
especially when it has come to my attention [because my beloved mother can't stop talking about it over the 2:00pm lunch we had] that the all-scream-through-the-song diva regine velasquez just made an utter fool of herself when she made this business of moving to another station quite public but in the end, the deal didn't push through.

and was it not only last week when she went out to say goodbye via a scream-song singing final performance at her GMA-7 show? And just this afternoon, TO SAVE FACE after that big hullabaloo she made of the embarrassment she put herself through, a group of singers were singing away her songs, in tribute, as if her staying was the best thing that ever happened to filipino television. And of course, Regine's tears were on cue. Regine hija, you have just defined 'biting your surgically enhanced nose to spite your face' [why don't you also throw away your sagging bosoms?].

I for one wouldn't be able to live with myself after that faux pas...but fear not Regine, for just like Snow White and the seven dwarfs, you have a dwarf waiting for you [ogie alcasid] and note, not prince charming, just a dwarf [ i believe, still married to someone else ]...it would make for a bad dirty movie if you had 6 more...Ha!!! Now, what i did spend time on was this dvd i had of Disney's Enchanted. Actually, it was among a pile of 20 something that i would watch... sometime... soon... when i can... if the gods allow...

Enchanted had the best of the disney fairy tale formulas stuffed into a delightful cinematic treat. The distinct voice of julie andrews doing the narration, the animation done in a distinct disney style, the songs that make it such a disney movie, the formulaic yet imaginative storytelling, the grand scale live action musical numbers, and stellar performances by the ensemble [and let us not forget the digital chipmunk].

In short, i loved it...i couldn't find anything to say against it. And then, it hit me further...by the time Giselle attends the costume ball and realizes that the true love she envisioned to 'happily ever after' in Prince Edward's arms couldnt be more unreal in the real world of new york than the love she now discovers for Robert as she dances with him.

Throughout this John McLoughlin sings the song 'So Close' and by the time the lyrics come to "We're so close to reaching that famous happy ending
Almost believing this one's not pretend.
Now you're beside me and look how far we've come.
So far
We are
So Close"

And i catch myself in tears...and it was quite overwhelming, that moment. But as the movie did it's obligatory 'happily ever afters', as any disney film would, the enchantment leaves.

Oh to be foolish for but a short time and to believe in fairy tales, i attest, isn't healthy...it sets you up and then takes it back.

Perhaps, i say this now since that part of me that believes in all those cliché storybook endings has long gone...and the irony is, i'm actually tasked to craft the illusion of telling two of such tales for the stage. How does one tell a tale of a world one does not believe in anymore?

With a straightjacket,perhaps?