Trends of the week

There’s a new high-flying Kobe in L.A.

MANILA, Philippines - Kobe Paras has finally chosen a college — it’s not Ateneo, or La Salle, or even UP; it’s the University of California, Los Angeles. The hype surrounding Kobe has apparently trickled into the US, where sports sites such as Bleacher Report this week buzzed over the young phenom’s athleticism that won him a slam-dunk championship in the recent FIBA 3-on-3 tournament. So instead of playing in the historic shadow cast by his legendary father, he’ll be following in the footsteps of Lew Alcindor, Kevin Love, and Russell Westbrook. Just kidding — he’ll probably be a back-up shooting guard, at best. But in the history of developing Pinoy talent at the elite level, this is as good as it’s ever been.

Political smear tactics getting more politically incorrect

If “Oplan Stop Nognog” is indeed a real thing, then it should win the award for Best Smear Campaign Named By Mean Six-Year-Olds. I really hope it is. It could be Mar Roxas’ greatest and most lasting legacy.

People say that this Binay exposé is a good thing because it will ensure that he never wins the presidency. This is an assumption that gets more dubious with each passing year — it may not get him elected in 2016, but there’s no way of knowing 10 or 15 years from now if the people’s outrage will have already coalesced into a normalized discomfort, which is what always happens eventually. Our anger towards corruption is like a wound that festers until we can no longer notice the pain. It just becomes part of us.

20 years ago this week,Quentin Tarantin struck down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger

Pulp Fiction — that rule-breaking, genre-blurring, pastiche-perfecting, head-blowing, gimp-scene-stealing movie that boosted Quentin Tarantino’s career and changed cinema forever — just turned 20 this week. This is amazing, considering that Pulp Fiction somehow feels older than 20 years — the idea that a movie that is simultaneously anachronistic and timeless can be mind-blowing feels so ages ago. This is more attributable to the fact that pop culture has accelerated at a faster rate since the advent of the Internet and that the movie’s many sensibilities — violent humor, kitsch, self-aware homage, deliberate anti-realism — have been adopted by Hollywood many times since. Also, skinny Tarantino looks so improbable, it must’ve happened in another lifetime. — Alex Almario                                     

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