French eyes + Chinese tummies

I was joking with my mom that taking half a day off to watch the French film fest was pagbubulakbol (playing hooky). "It's not pagbubulakbol," she corrected me. "It's intellectual development."

I wanted to see the musical film Les Chansons d'Amour, but it was pulled out of the festival. Fortunately, there was enough satisfactory music-making in Qui m'aime me suive (If you love me, follow me), a title I did not find apt for a film about a doctor who wanted to be a rock musician. I liked the casting and the lighting, which made me want to paint the scenes. The POV of one of the supporting characters is pas mal. The predictable ending is just like a certain Hollywood movie. But the realism and the film's message--that you can't please everyone--is sobering.

Ma preferred Ah! Si j'etais riche (If I were a rich man). The wife of the salon product salesman protagonist looks like Gillian Anderson, especially evident as the trailer of The X Files: I Want to Believe was shown before the movie started. Throw in a philandering boss, a pretty prostitute, a lottery ticket, and some old salesmen and you've got--no, not a PCSO-funded tearjerker--a comedy which was sometimes crude, though not entirely brainless (but does not stimulate intellectual development, either). It opens with a bird's eye view of Paris and a lively orchestral score, probably a reference to Fiddler on the Roof, otherwise not quite fitting.

Father's Day at King Bee, a fairly new but very popular Chinese restaurant between Masinag intersection and the Kingsville Marcos Highway gate.

Solidarity with ma's toothache: congee and lobster roll at Mongkok, Shangri-La Mall.