NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Dandan i pandaretas! Na'fanpalangpang!

INTERVIEW FROM FILM SCHOOL REJECTS: At the start of Doug Liman’s  Edge of Tomorrow   our hero, Lt. Col. Bill Cage ( Tom Cruise ), is a coward. He’s more than ready to runaway from a fight he knows he’s not equipped for. That’s not the kind of hero we expect from a blockbuster, but it’s the type of subversive choice we should expect from screenwriter  Christopher McQuarrie , who had a hand in bring Hiroshi Sakurazak’s graphic novel,  All You Need Is Kill , to the big screen. A protagonist unwilling to help save the world isn’t the only fresh idea in  Edge of Tomorrow . Even when Cage becomes a fierce soldier, he’s still no match for the bad-ass helicopter-blade-wielding Rita Vrastaski   ( Emily Blunt ). She is the hero of this movie. Vrastaski drives the story. Cruise, once again playing a role a lot of movie stars would pass on, consistently pushed for his co-star to be this film’s true hero. Cruise and McQuarrie’s creative partnership is built on risky choices. Valkyr

The movie Battleship is critically reviled and if I were a critic of film I would definitely join the party in hating it. It is a children's game that was blown up Jerry Bruckheimer style into a massive, special-effects laden, clunky, chunky and funky action flick. It lacks any delicate touches or even nuances, unless of course you count slow motion shots of epic faced characters with over-saturated color as a nuance. The story itself should be familiar. Aliens attack the world and they are fought off. One unique aspect of the film is that it takes place in Hawai'i, usually known as a setting for fantasy-paradise jaunts of the Western, American-centered world. Or Hawai'i as a locale is often invisibly inserted into films provided the scenery for ancient jungles, humid alien worlds or lost islands. Many of these films attempt to hide the contemporary nature of Hawai'i and instead film, edit and crop the place into becoming something majestically camera ready for wast

Speaking Chamorro to young kids is alot of fun. You end up having to create alot of interesting words in order to describe things both in terms of technology and popular culture. Since I always speak Chamorro to my kids I have to find ways to talk about things in Chamorro, that most Chamorros never imagined they'd ever have to talk about. Superheroes, talking animals, cartoons, robots, and mythical creatures are just some of the things we have to talk about on a daily basis. I enjoy this creative aspect of the language. It is something that Chamorros have sadly lost over time. I've started writing about some of these interesting things on my Facebook page. I've titled them "Adventures in Chamorro" and I wanted to share some of them below: ******************** Adventures in Chamorro #1: Akli'e' is a big fan of Superman, but how do you say "Superman" gi fino' Chamoru? There are several possibilities but I eventually settled on "

“Guinaiya gi Fino’ Chamoru #3” Michael Lujan Bevacqua 2/13/13 The Marianas Variety It is almost Valentine’s Day or as some say in Chamorro “Ha’anin Guinaiya.” It has become a tradition for me that around this time I write a column dealing with ways to express love using the Chamorro language.   In 2011 and in 2012 my Valentine’s Day columns featured an array of song lyrics, romantic turns of phrase and pick up lines all translated into the Chamorro language. I’ve decided not to mess with this organic tradition but embrace it. Today I present “Guinaiya gi Fino’ Chamoru #3” or “Love in Chamorro.” As usual this column is meant to be both fun and informative. Many of the sentences are translated from song lyrics, pick up lines and quotes that are famous in English. When translated into Chamorro they take on extra meaning because of the way Chamorro may not have the same particular metaphors or innuendos of English. When you read them they can be taken

After watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen last week, and just a little over a year until my 30th birthday, I eventually ended up finding a creative way of taking stock of the long road that I've traveled to this point, and how the mythology of Transformers has followed me there. As I walked out of the film I said to my sleeping daughter Sumåhi, "Gof suette yu', kao un tungo' sa' hafa? Sa' gi este lina'la'-hu, "privileged" yu' na hu egga' na mapuno' Si Optimus Prime dos biahi, ya hu egga' na mana'la'la' ta'lo dos biahi." For those who don't speak Chamorro my message was "I'm so lucky and do you know why? Because in my life, I've been privileged enough to watch Optimus Prime die twice and come back to life twice." And for those of you who don't speak the language of Transformers, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots, the good half of the Transformers world, with the