I figured I could inject some mass participation/online discussion in my blog by sharing with all of you my predictions for possible nominations in the MTV Video Music Awards (which will be held in Miami on Aug. 29). The nominations wouldn't be announced till next month and since my predictions are subject to debate, feel free to share your thoughts or choices by clicking on the "Post a Comment" (or the one that looks like this: (0) Comments)link at the bottom. It's open to everybody! You may either agree or disagree with me, since I will include videos of artists I generally (or specifically) don't like. I'm just judging from the creative strength of the videos. Drum roll, please!

VIDEO OF THE YEAR

* "Hey Ya!", Outkast
* "Yeah!", Usher feat. Ludacris & Lil' Jon
* "My Band", D12
* "Ch-Check It Out", Beastie Boys
* "Don't Tell Me", Avril Lavigne

Other possible contenders: "All Falls Down"- Kanye West feat. Syleena Johnson, "Breaking the Habit"- Linkin Park, "Roses"- also from Outkast, "Everybody's Fool" or "My Immortal"- Evanescence, "Toxic"- Britney Spears, "99 Problems"- Jay-Z, "Pass the Dutch"- Missy Elliott, "Dance With My Father"- Luther Vandross

BEST MALE VIDEO

* "Musicology", Prince
* "All Falls Down", Kanye West feat. Syleena Johnson
* "99 Problems", Jay-Z
* "Yeah!", Usher feat. Ludacris & Lil' Jon
* "Burn", also from Usher

Other possible contenders: "Bigger Than My Body" or "Clarity"- John Mayer, "Senorita"- Justin Timberlake, "I Don't Wanna Know"- Mario Winans feat. P. Diddy and Enya, "Dance With My Father"- Luther Vandross, "Gravedigger"- Dave Matthews

BEST FEMALE VIDEO

* "Fell In Love With A Boy", Joss Stone
* "Milkshake", Kelis
* "Don't Tell Me", Avril Lavigne
* "Naughty Girl", Beyonce
* "Toxic", Britney Spears

Other possible contenders: "Pass That Dutch"- Missy Elliott, "The Voice Within"- Christina Aguilera, "You Don't Know My Name" or "If I Ain't Got You"- Alicia Keys, "Take My Breath Away"- Jessica Simpson, "Baby Boy"- also from Beyonce feat. Sean Paul, "Powerless" or "Try"- Nelly Furtado, "Everything"- Alanis Morrisette, "Sunrise"- Norah Jones, "White Flag"- Dido, "Super Duper Love"- also from Joss Stone, "Slow"-Kylie Minogue

BEST GROUP VIDEO

* "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?", Jet
* "This Love", Maroon 5
* "My Band", D12
* "Ch-Check It Out", Beastie Boys
* "Roses", Outkast

Other possible contenders: "The Reason"- Hoobastank, "Cold Hard Bitch"- also from Jet, "Breaking the Habit"- Linkin Park, "The Hardest Button to Button"- The White Stripes, "Megalomaniac" or "Talk Shows on Mute"- Incubus, "It's My Life"- No Doubt, "Everybody's Fool" or "My Immortal"- Evanescence, "Take Me Out"- Franz Ferdinand, "Feeling This" or "I Miss You"- Blink-182, "Hey Mama" or "Let's Get It Started"- Black Eyed Peas, "Walkie Talkie Man"- Steriogram

BEST ROCK VIDEO

* "Breaking The Habit", Linkin Park
* "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?", Jet
* "My Immortal", Evanescence
* "Megalomaniac", Incubus
* "The Hardest Button to Button", The White Stripes

Othe possible contenders: "Cold Hard Bitch"- also from Jet, "Where Are We Runnin'?"- Lenny Kravitz, "Take Me Out"- Franz Ferdinand, "Talk Shows on Mute"- also from Incubus, "Everybody's Fool"- also from Evanescence, "Feeling This"- Blink-182, "Walkie Talkie Man"- Steriogram

BEST POP VIDEO

* "Don't Tell Me", Avril Lavigne
* "It's My Life", No Doubt
* "This Love", Maroon 5
* "Sunrise", Norah Jones
* "The Reason", Hoobastank

Other possible contenders: "Fell In Love With A Boy" or "Super Duper Love"- Joss Stone, "Toxic"- Britney Spears, "The Voice Within"- Christina Aguilera, "White Flag"- Dido

BEST RAP VIDEO

* "99 Problems", Jay-Z
* "Ch-Check It Out", Beastie Boys
* "Overnight Celebrity", Twista
* "My Band", D12
* "All Falls Down", Kanye West feat. Syleena Johnson

Other possible contenders: "Shake Your Tailfeather"- Nelly/Murphy Lee/P. Diddy

BEST HIP-HOP VIDEO

* “Pass That Dutch”, Missy Elliott
* “She Wants To Move”, N.E.R.D.
* "Hey Ya!", Outkast
* "Yeah!", Usher feat. Ludacris & Lil' Jon
* "Hey Mama", Black Eyed Peas

Other possible contenders: "Let's Get It Started"- also from Black Eyed Peas, "The Way You Move"- also from Outkast, "Milkshake"- Kelis

BEST R&B VIDEO

* "Naughty Girl", Beyonce
* "I Don't Wanna Know", Mario Winans feat. P. Diddy & Enya
* "Musicology", Prince
* "Burn", Usher
* "You Don't Know My Name", Alicia Keys

Other possible contenders: "If I Ain't Got You"- also from Alicia Keys, "Baby Boy" & "Me, Myself, & I"- also from Beyonce (former feat. Sean Paul), "Dance With My Father"- Luther Vandross, "Happy People"- R. Kelly, "Sorry 2004"- Ruben Studdard

BEST NEW ARTIST IN A VIDEO

* "This Love", Maroon 5
* "Fell In Love With A Boy", Joss Stone
* "Take Me Out", Franz Ferdinand
* "All Falls Down", Kanye West feat. Syleena Johnson
* "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?", Jet

Other possible contenders: "The Reason"- Hoobastank, "Milkshake"- Kelis, "Invisible"- Clay Aiken, "Sorry 2004"- Ruben Studdard, "I Don't Wanna Know"- Mario Winans feat. P. Diddy & Enya, "Super Duper Love"- also from Joss Stone, "Walkie Talkie Man"- Steriogram

BEST BREAKTHROUGH VIDEO

* "Hey Ya!", Outkast
* "Breaking The Habit", Linkin Park
* "The Hardest Button to Button", The White Stripes
* "Talk Shows on Mute", Incubus
* "Pass The Dutch", Missy Elliott

Other possible contenders: "Super Duper Love"- Joss Stone, "99 Problems"- Jay-Z, "Ch-Check It Out"- Beastie Boys, "Take Me Out"- Franz Ferdinand, "All Falls Down"- Kanye West feat. Syleena Johnson, "Walkie Talkie Man"- Steriogram

BEST DANCE VIDEO

* "Hey Mama", Black Eyed Peas
* "Toxic", Britney Spears
* "Hey Ya!", Outkast
* "Yeah!", Usher feat. Ludacris & Lil' Jon
* "Let's Get It Started", also from Black Eyed Peas

Other possible contenders: "Me Against The Music"- Britney Spears feat. Madonna, "The Way You Move"- also from Outkast, "Musicology"- Prince

BEST VIDEO FROM A FILM

* "The School of Rock", The School of Rock feat. Jack Black (from School of Rock)
* "Lovesong", 311 (from 50 First Dates)
* "Behind Blue Eyes", Limp Bizkit (from Gothika)
* "Accidentally in Love", Counting Crows (from Shrek 2)
* "The Heart of Every Girl", Elton John (from Mona Lisa Smile)

Other possible contenders: "The Triplets of Belleville"- M (from The Triplets of Belleville), "I Don't Want To Think About You"- Simple Plan (from Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed)

COMING SOON: Predictions for technical categories like direction, cinematography, editing, etc. as well as fantasy categories like funniest video, saddest video, and most surreal video. What are you waiting for? Send your comments and predictions now, so that the world will know!

Let me start with a joke on the late US President Ronald Reagan, who was finally laid to rest last Friday. Poor Ronald Reagan, after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease, he died never knowing he did.

Let me devote much of this post to a film which I have become so fascinated about lately, that film is "Donnie Darko" (2001).

To begin with, I first became interested in this film after I read this article in Entertainment Weekly about its omission along with several other films in the magazine's then-recent "50 Greatest Cult Films" issue (that was a year ago, BTW). While I was in my home province of Albay channel-surfing, the Japanese cable channel WOWOW broadcasted it (without Japanese dubbing, thank God). Unfortunately, I was only able to watch from the halfway point of the film, but nevertheless, I became fascinated with this growing cult classic. Once I returned to America this year (where I still am right now), I was able to rent a DVD and I had to view it not just once but twice to understand the film's logic & figure out some clues to important plot points towards the end of the film. It was one mind-bending cinematic experience! I was also hooked by its retro soundtrack, which featured Gary Jules' haunting rendition of the Tears for Fears classic "Mad World" that played towards the end of the film.

"Donnie Darko" is strangely set in October 1988, and tells the story of Donnie Darko (played by Jake Gyllenhaal, most recently seen in "The Day After Tomorrow"), a borderline-schizophrenic teenager who rebels against hypocrisy and authority very often. One night, a jet engine out of nowhere crashes into the Darko residence and destroys much of his room. Luckily, he was sleepwalking that night after hearing the voice of 6-foot-tall rabbit named Frank. It turns out that Frank is from the future, and has warned Donnie that the world will end in exactly 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. This sets a chain of events as Donnie has to figure out why he survived and he also has to deal with the people around him. Frank, meanwhile, forces Donnie to create havoc with mixed results. In one scene, Donnie torches the house of a charismatic self-help guru (played by Patrick Swayze) while his family is watching her younger sister perform in a talent show. The next day, Swayze's character gets arrested coz it turns out, his house was hiding a room full of child porn! The supporting cast is also terrific, aside from Swayze, they include Jena Malone (most recently seen in "Saved!") as Donnie's tragic girlfriend, Drew Barrymore (who also produced) and Noah Wyle as his teachers, Katharine Ross as his concerned shrink. Jake's sister Maggie (recently seen in "Mona Lisa Smile") also has a role as, well, his sister! This films cleverly mixes a story of teen angst with elements of sci-fi, fantasy, suspense-thriller, social satire and gallows humor. In another scene, Donnie asks Drew Barrymore's character, a noncomformist English teacher, why she scribbled the word "Cellar Door" (another clue!) in the chalkboard on her last day. She replies: "A famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words, 'Cellar Door' was the most beautiful". It flopped partly due to the fact that it was released after the events of 9/11. Nevertheless, it found its following through video and midnight screenings, and recently, Richard Kelly (the writer/director of the film) announced he was releasing a "Director's Cut" edition of the film in select theaters this summer. Another growing testament of its cult success is its strong following in UK and parts of Europe (in fact, Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World" reached #1 in the UK charts during X'mas). For a review of the film from TV Guide, click here. Also check out this link to a fan website featuring "The Philosophy of Time Travel", a book-within-the-film (it's not long as you think, it's like a pamphlet) which is very important and essential to the plot (and for the viewer to understand everything in the film, be sure one has indeed watched it before accessing the site!). Even though it is a work of fiction presented as real in the film, I was intrigued by the concepts presented in it (I see a bright future for Richard Kelly!). To know the lyrics of "Mad World"-even if you don't know the music yet the lyrics speak for itself-click here.

"What if you could go back in time, and take all those hours of pain and darkness and replace them with something better?"
- - Gretchen (Jena Malone) to Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), "Donnie Darko" (2001)

Good news to all the visitors of my blog! It is now OK to send all of your comments for each of my posts, and that includes the previous ones. Hope all of you will share with me not just your comments but also useful suggestions on how to make the blog more better. I am in the midst of working out how you will be able to post your similar observations of current events & pop culture in the future, as well as uploading some images.

In the meantime, 2 unrelated events which in the US occurred between yesterday (June 4) & today (June 5) somehow took me by surprise: The first occurred on Friday when a disgruntled muffle shop owner from the town of Granby, Colorado went on a rampage in a heavily-armored bulldozer (something straight out of a "Mad Max" movie) smashing buildings and firing shots as police tried to stop the chaos. Even after the authorities fired many rounds of ammunition and blasted lots of explosives in the slow-moving behemoth, the bulldozer kept on plowing. It had crashed into the town hall & library, a store, a newspaper office, a cement plant , a utility company, an excavating business, the house of a former mayor, and a bank (where the suspect's business was once located). Apparently, the suspect, identified as Marvin Heemeyer, had a bitter zoning dispute with town officials and was frequently fined for city code violations at his business. The buildings that were destroyed were somehow connected to his troubles, including the cement plant which was ironically the first to be demolished. In 2000, the Granby Zoning Commission allowed a neighbor to build a cement plant next door to his business, he had appealed the ruling but the town prevailed. As a result, his welding business went bankrupt. Despite the destruction, there were no reported injuries, as a raging Heemeyer was intentionally targeting the soon-to-be-badly damaged buildings. But just as there was no stopping it, the vehicle got wedged in a hardware store that Heemeyer had crashed through. Several hours later, police entered the bulldozer at about 2 a.m. Saturday and found Heemeyer dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Marvin Heemeyer's destructive actions kinda reminds me of last year's infamous NAIA siege wherein a disgruntled former ATO chief named Panfilo Villareal and his aide took control of the air control tower bearing his name (he supervised its construction during the Ramos administration) and spent the entire night airing his complaints and grievances regarding the government before he was gunned down by police forces, his last breath heard on the air. What made it morbidly ironic is that one of the first flights to arrive at the airport after the siege ended was piloted by Villareal's son.

The second occurred today at around 1 pm in the afternoon. It was announced that former US President Ronald Reagan, who had survived an assassination attempt, the Cold War, the Iran-Contra scandal, and cancer has died at the age of 93 after a courageous 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. The popular, infectiously optimistic president reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative image and devoted most of his energy to the destruction of communism abroad. Five years after leaving office, the nation's 40th president told the world in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. He said he had begun "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life." He held the record for the oldest to be elected president (69) as well as the president who lived the longest (93). Reagan became the first ex-president to die in almost a decade since Richard Nixon died in 1994. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton are the only surviving ex-presidents. On March 30, 1981 - his 70th day as president - Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after addressing labor leaders when a young drifter, John Hinckley, fired six shots at him. A bullet lodged an inch from Reagan's heart, but he recovered. While in the hospital, he joked to his wife about the incident, saying: "Honey, I forgot to duck". He was also the first president to escape the dreaded curse which have befallen presidents who were elected in years which ended in "0" (i.e. JFK was elected in 1960, and was assassinated 3 years later). For over two terms (1981-1989), Reagan fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion in his single-minded competition with the other superpower. His 1987 declaration to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Berlin Wall — "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" — was the ultimate challenge of the Cold War. In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he authorized secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money was used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua. Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the highest popularity rating of any retiring president in the history of modern-day public opinion polls. His populist brand of conservative politics still inspires the Republican Party. As I was channel-surfing for more on the coverage of Reagan's death, I tuned in to MSNBC wherein Bill Clinton (whose memoir is coming out soon) was asked on his reaction on the death of the former world leader. He briefly mentioned Reagan's somewhat-friendly relationship with the Marcoses, as well as the jar of jellybeans Reagan gave to him when he was first elected. Reagan had lived an almost unbelievable life, a melodrama, a rags-to-riches tale, a multi-part saga written by someone with boundless imagination and an infinite sense of the possible. Born in tiny Tampico, Ill., educated at Eureka College in nearby Dixon, Reagan was a radio sportscaster, a Hollywood B-movie star, host of a TV variety show, a soap salesman, a motivational speaker, governor of California and -- starting at age 53 -- arguably the most important American political figure since Franklin D. Roosevelt. So it was no wonder that he believed all things were possible, from the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he predicted even when the clash of superpowers seemed near its most menacing point, to the complete disarmament of all nuclear arsenals, which Reagan proposed in a stunning arms-control summit near the end of his administration. What seemed to some as naivete struck others as good old gumption. Like all forceful leaders, Reagan deeply angered some -- but his gift for communication and his bedrock optimism attracted far more supporters than critics. In 1984, he was reelected with the largest number of popular and electoral votes in U.S. history. Though the nation has added about 50 million people since then, no candidate has surpassed his record. His electoral vote landslide that year was among the most lopsided in history. Beyond that, experts argue over his record. Among the ranks of Republican conservatives who live and breathe Reagan's catechism of low taxes, small government, unregulated liberty and a strong military, he is rated one of the most important presidents in U.S. history. They credit him with winning the Cold War. "Nothing ends here, our hopes and our journeys continue", he said as he comforted a nation which was stunned by the 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion. RIP, Ronald Reagan: "The Great Communicator".

Note: Some passages taken from various news accounts in Yahoo! News