Make Me Blush

Cesar Montano's "Hitman" - Inferiorly Channeling Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Headshot"

2012-03-01T23:58:00.013+08:00

During a short, albeit relaxing getaway from work sometime November last year, I chanced upon Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s “Headshot” in Bangkok’s Lido Cinema. It ran alongside the Cannes’ winning apocalyptic drama, “Taking Shelter” and Julia Leigh’s surreal “Sleeping Beauty”. In the movie, Tul (Jayanama Nopachai), a hitman sustains a near fatal head wound that leaves him in a coma for 3 months. Fast forward to three months hence, Cesar Montano’s “Hitman” opens in local cinemas with dejavu’ish plot that had me thinking, “I know I’ve seen this before”. Unfortunately, that’s where comparison ends.

Ben Murillo (Cesar Montano) is sidetracked for years after miraculously surviving a gun shot in the head. Left for dead, Ben was comatose for 7 years, but he is gradually recovering. His memory has been spotty since then. One day, he meets Gina (Sam Pinto), a popular model who, unknown to Ben, is the daughter of Amando (Ricky Davao), a casuistic character who runs an illegal ring of activities that range from white slavery and drugs to gambling. At the very heart of this business is Tomas (Phillip Salvador), the head assassin. Tomas is tasked to eradicate any impediment, including Ben, a promising assassin under Tomas’ care. When Ben tells his superiors of his intention to retire and leave the group, the big boss decides to obliterate Ben.

Meanwhile, there is much internal strife within Amando’s “kingdom”. Tomas is demanding P10 million from Amando for an earlier deal they’ve supposedly agreed upon. But Amando is defiant. Moreover, the web of deceit reaches Alvin (Mark Herras), Amando’s much abused adopted son. When Amando’s other son Mike (Joko Diaz) gets killed in the crossfire, another set of henchmen have been tasked to take Gina who’s estranged from her father. But Gina fortuitously harbors an indecent stash of dirty money hidden somewhere so she conveniently becomes a target.

When Ben hooks up with flirty Gina, he gets thrown back into the same quagmire he once escaped from; the same people who had him assassinated. And this time, he has to protect her to his death. He once lost his pregnant wife to the same people. Never again!

Cesar Montano was always a competent actor. After his Seiko days, his career choices were note worthy. But "Hitman" is a baffling cinematic comeback. Despite his character being a former assassin - who should have a dark, brooding persona (after all, his pregnant wife died and slices of his memory have been staved off his consciousness) - but Montano's Ben is curiously chirpy and upbeat, posturing as though he runs with the hip and yuppy crowd! In fact, he even mutters cringe-worthy english phrases: "See you, guys!" This is how a hitman talks? There's more where that comes from, but we've noticed Montano's awkward penchant for intermittent Anglican lines (think: Piolo Pascual, Jericho Rosales, Diether Ocampo).

Posturing for effect works when you're relatively juvenile, but when you're pushing 50, such tack becomes gag-worthy! I suddenly remembered his "Bandila" interview with Boy Abunda where he would painfully dive into the Queen's tongue, forthwith stalling when he loses grip with the language. In the same interview, he lovingly refers to his mother as "his" - "his prayer", "his dream", "his intention". Bandila, as far as I know, is a news magazine show spoken in the vernacular. Ba't kasi ipinipilit ang 'di kaya, di ba? Speaking Tagalog is never a fault, and running around town to promote an action picture in fractured English can only do your promotion harm! I remember Montano's "Singing Bee" days where even pronunciation of the song's English titles are an afflictive; sheer agony! Desperation to speak the Queen's language should never be caught on camera! Do your practice behind the cam, lest you want your audience nauseating over your despondency!

Sam Pinto looks immaculately beautiful all throughout. Her early scenes look relaxed. She is, after all, portraying the role of a model - so how hard can that be? This is promising since in her past movies, she has always delivered mind-bogglingly flat characterizations. It's clear she needs to do something about her thespic acumen - or the lack of it. As the movie unravels to its hundred-and-one twists, we realize that Pinto is in dire need of help. In a scene where gun men break into her place, as Ben fights the hooded henchmen, Gina (Pinto) comes out of the bathroom looking awkward, not to mention oblivious to the gun shots heard all over the place. She tentatively calls: "Ben? Nasaan ka?" Yet all we witness is a blunt affect, an emotion-wanting facial expression if you will. She didn't look perturbed of the bullets flying around - or her appliances breaking and crashing down the floor. Yeah, forget those bullets! She needed Ben to dry her wet hot bod! Her stark cluelessness was a spectacle in itself. She personified blank emotionality where there should be fear, concern, and even histrionic demeanor!

AFTER THE ELABORATE EXPLANATION

This is repeated in a scene where Mark Herras, playing the avenging brother, delivers a 7-minute spiel about "taking charge" in front of sister Gina who's crying invisible tears. After the line, Herras declares: "Akin na ang kaharian n'yo!" Everyone understood what he was saying. I did! It was retribution and ambition coming into place. Then Pinto replies: "Ano ang ibig mong sabihin?" I almost fell off my chair! After a seven-minute explanation, she obviously didn't get a morsel of epiphany from Herras' confession? And it showed in Pinto's face! She was baffled to bits! Poor, poor girl!

Phillip Salvador does better as the head hitman Tomas who trained Ben. It was inevitable that the "teacher" and "student" would eventually dive into a scuffle. This was cinematic conjecture. After all, Salvador's mano-a-mano with Montano would convey gravitas - in an action showdown between the two formidable action-drama actors, each one as competent and iconic as the other! Unfortunately, the artistic choices for the staging of the climactic shootout comes off with an uneven and misguided strategem. Suddenly, Montano decides to infuse ill-advised humor, one-sided and flat as his leading lady's expression:

During the shootout, Ben would say: "Pinapakain pa ako ng alikabok ng matandang yun."

"Nakakatakbo pa ang matandang 'to eh may rayuma!"

"Ang daldal ng lolo ah."

"Akala ko tuhod lang ang mahina, pati pala mata!"

Yet all these lines were mere passing of gas where Tomas was concerned. In fact, he never acknowledged any of them. And there's something about badly delivered humor without a reciprocating audience, right? It drives the salient point that it's falling on deaf ears because it just isn't funny! How do you reconcile someone with a massacred family and a bullet in his skull delivering jovial lines as though he's in a sitcom?

This discrepancy of character is similarly evident in Phillip Salvador and Ricky Davao's characters where they play brothers. Phillip inconveniently calls Ricky "kuya"! Is anyone blind? Ricky maybe heavily built, but you can't deny Phillip's seniority where facial features are concerned. By at least a decade! His facial integument sags and his wrinkles abound!

Mark Herras looked alarmingly gaunt. It looked like a sea breeze could throw him down easily. He's cachectic and tuberculous. If he's gunning for the action genre, he would need to bulk up a bit - instead of looking like there's an on-going famine in the Philippines. In fact, I didn't realize it was Mark until the latter half of the film when he was finally given lines! When his character came out of his shell, he was emphatic, bearing pellucid motives. He understood where his character Alvin was coming from. That was good enough for me... as long as he doesn't use his brawn when there's none.

"Hitman" underlines a few of the reason why the action genre died a natural death. Like its predecessors, Director Montano's film is recklessly written, even incoherent in narrative structure. The story is derivative; the skill in film making unimpressive. Montano's action hero is an amalgam of characters that contradict with his past and present. In fact, you don't understand how he became as he has become. There's a palpable disproportion to the way he's depicted, making it easy not to empathize with him. Heck, I never even found myself sympathizing with Ben from start to finish. All I kept thinking was how he was able to enveigle Sam Pinto to do bath tub scenes and half a dozen of lip service with him! Inspiring eh?

As for mirroring Ratanaruang's vision, it's better if we forget this connection all together. Someone's bound to deplorably suffer in comparison.

Tul, a hitman, sustains a bullet wound in the head in Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Headshot".

Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Headshot

Sam Pinto and Cesar Montano's constrained pairing. She speaks English, he speaks quack.

Cesar Montano postures like a yuppy action hero: "See you, guys!"

Kasalo - Of Distracting Front Teeth and Degenerative Brain Disorders

2012-02-25T11:05:00.009+08:00

The first hint on the quality of brain activity that the film maker possesses occurs in the first few scenes of the movie.

It opens with Anton (Anton Molina) in a state of ennui. He's restless and his crotch is flaunted in front of the camera so he fondles his joystick for a second, but even the appendage was enveloped by hormonal lassitude. He stands and takes his seaman's uniform hanging nearby, taking them off the hanger then he puts them on. His limbs almost disfigures as it becomes clear that the uniform in question is 3 sizes too small! I had to suppress my giggle. Not quite 15 minutes into the story and we're already given hints what to expect! Is it really that hard to find a uniform that actually fits your actor? I figure that doesn't need training for a triple heart by-pass nor mastery of the periodic table. It doesn't even need a painful amount of resourcefulness.

Anton, you see, is eternally waiting for that opportunity to get a job as a sea man; something that, he believes, would give him the financial capability of Bill Gates. "Maghintay ka; Pag natanggap ako, mabubuhay kang princesa," he tells his partner Selma (Bambi Martinez) whose patience is briskly diminishing. In fact, Selma berates Anton unceasingly. She even begrudges his sexual compulsions.

One day, Bea (Sidra Lorenzo), Selma's younger sister, unexpectedly shows up, having made a fast escape from her stepfather's sexual advances. There, she left her mother and siblings. Unfortunately for Bea, Selma was displeased. Not another mouth to feed, Selma thought! Though she acquiesces, Selma wears her wicked sister persona and treats the poor provincial lass like a house help.

Bea's lone sense of inspiration is "tri-sikad" driver Ricky (Rocco Mateo) who showers her with modest gifts and oodles of admiration. Moreover, her "kuya" Anton is extra nice and even promises that he would spend for her education once he gets hired. This guy is seriously "counting the chick", faster than he lays errr... "eggs"? One night, after another argument with Selma, a drunken Anton finds a sleeping Bea, with her lower extremities furtively announcing that, "Hey, guys, it's open season." So he accepts the invitation with unspeakable bravado. Virgin Selma isn't anymore. She's unconsolable, and runs away with a bewildered Ricky, now her boyfriend. He takes her to a decrepit motel, imaginatively named "Check Inn", and does his way with the girl who, this time, shouts like she's been decapitated; a reaction too baffling considering she didn't even whimper when her Kuya Anton plugged his tool. Kuya Anton, this is a very telling clue!

What's worse, Ricky rebuffs Bea - after humping the living daylights out of her! "Ayoko na sa yo! Akala ko iba ka. Di ka na pala virgin! Ang luwang mo!" Ouch! Is he probably talking about an oversized jeans? What's a girl to do? Will Anton mend her ways? Not that it would matter if you knew what eventually happened!

You've heard this story before, and if you haven't, did you join an intergalactic journey sometime in your life? Director Jigz F. Recto is fastly depleting the last remaining working neurons from his cranium, and it shows oh-so vividly in his latest film. Someone obviously needs to see a neurologist fast! Sometimes, symptoms of exceedingly low cerebral function is pathognomonic of Degenerative Diseases!

Let's take for example the side story of a drug peddler (Jeremy Ian), a supposedly powerful and petrifying "drug lord" of sorts who can only afford an effete and balding elderly on the verge of cataract - as his right hand man (Ike Sadiasa). When he gets horny, this drug lord forces himself on Ricky (Bea's boyfriend), the gay pusher's occasional boytoy (the former in fact gives him cash to pay for his "trisikad"). Suddenly, we find Anton doing the collection - and pocketing a percentage of the stash for his P50,000 seaman's application fee.

Anton Molina can hardly deliver a line - any line for that matter! He cannot finish a simple declarative sentence. He pauses midway into his spiel trying to remember his lines. He displays an inspiringly robotic monotone reminiscent of Jeff Luna, only worse! Suddenly, Jeff has competition! After all, Anton is tall and slim, fair and moderately hairy, and he possesses a face that reminds me of that former teen star, Kristopher Peralta! And like Jeff, he exhibits in a shower scene and a long shot (after coitus with Selma) that there is gold in inches! LOL

But this is the ladies' golden hour too! We see them in countless mammary exposures and frontal showers. Unfortunately, some of their scenes are too careless and unflattering that we actually see Bambi Martinez' gargantuan "mole" in the vicinity of her perineum. Not "kulugo" I hope. Moreover, stretch marks (unless that wasn't a stretch mark but a scary infestation of pin worms invading the dermis of the skin!) adorn her waist. Good Heavens!

ALL SHE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS IS...

But what bothered me most were her unduly protruding front teeth that are eternally displayed - because she cannot seem to adequately close her mouth! She laughs, they're wide open! She stares into space, they're minimally open (but open nevertheless)! She cries, they're still open; I was close to being hypnotized by her opening buccal anatomy! She could make a great hypnotist!

What have our "nubile" sex nymphets become? There was a time they were at least gorgeous little vamps, though vacuous and emotionally spare. Erotic Cinema is meant to exhibit "allure"! We needed "bighani", not "mangha". We should be "namamalikmata", not "nahihindik" or "nababagabag". It's really a basic criteria that only idiots disregard.

If they only had Rosanna Roces' thespic gifts, we would have disregarded their physical dis-endowments, but they are as gifted as - say a 4 year old!

Sidra Lorenzo

To be honest, we feel like the proverbial broken record already. The points from one movie to the next are all the same: an exceedingly familiar plot, borderline amateur actors who can't discern one emotion from the next.

Check these scenes for an inspiring coterie of incoherence:

Bea arrives from the province hauling a huge duffel bag of personal effects. Then Selma asks: "May damit ka"? Then she hands her a worn out duster which Bea obligingly dons. Isn't Selma visually impaired? What does she think is inside Bea's huge bag - kitchen utensils? A bowling ball?

Then there's the bathing scenes (they use a dipper, i.e. "tabo"), the bathroom doors are kept wide open. Maybe they're air drying themselves? But this becomes a convenient excuse for Anton to accidentally see Bea's jewels, isn't it?

When Selma finishes her own bath, she walks around the room - and talks to her sister bare-breasted. Seriously? Have we gone French?

When Selma checks her face in front of a mirror, she quips: "Boobs, ok na, check! Face, bongga! Nose, konti na lang!" The audience snickered. There was commotion in the gallery. Selma has such wild imaginations and bounding self esteem. Such confidence!

When Bea informs Selma that she wants to go home, she said, "Ate, uuwi na lang ako sa amin." But shouldn't this be "atin"? After all, Selma and Bea are sisters!

When Ricky accuses his girlfriend Bea of being loose, literally and figuratively, he conveniently forgot that he's in the trade of offering his "appendageal sprout" to his gay benefactor. And Bea - who was raped - was "loose"? Talk about double standard!

Finally, as the film concludes, we see Selma cry while she's holding her sister's duster. Did she cry this much when Anton died? I am not too sure, I was so distracted with her two front teeth.

Bambi Martinez and Sidra Lorenzo

Jeremy Ian

Sidra and Jeremy clowning around

Id'nal (Mapusok) - Fragments of Gibberish Confusion

2012-02-22T04:32:00.014+08:00

It’s a roll call: Kenneth Jimenez, Glenn Katigbak, Kenjie Samonte, Bernard Osorio, Jacko Melendrez, Reggie Chua, Mark Samonte, et.al. These were just some of the names that populate the alternate universe of GA Villafuerte’s “Id’nal (Mapusok)”. Such thoughtful provision of complete names of characters would have you thinking that this was a scholarly dissertation about troubled relationships; a thoughtful traipse on infidelity - of epic proportion; with carefully limned characters in insightfully threshed out vignettes. But such attention to detail was sadly limited to these names – nothing more! They conveniently slept through most of the film making process, occasionally waking up for the belabored and passionless sex scenes.

“God-awful” – Now there’s a compound term that appropriately befits this cinematic vomitus!

Eirik Cruz and Anton Nolasco as lovers Kenneth Jimenez and Glenn Katigbak

Blink and you'll miss their resplendent cameos! Yet each of them have individual posters for "Id'nal". Any one who didn't get a poster was a joke? :)

CAPSULE

Kenneth (Eirik Cruz) is a college professor while Glenn (Anton Nolasco) is a med rep (a drug salesman). The two seemingly contrasting personalities nurture a relationship as they live together in absolute disharmony. While Glenn craves for Kenneth’s attention, Kenneth is dismissive and (though mild mannered and mostly conciliatory) never offers Glenn the time of the day – or night! This frustrates Glenn no end so he indulges his sexual impulses by mollycoddling with his masseur Jacko (TJ Morello) and a bevy of anonymous guys (even that guy who stopped him from jumping off a bridge, you better believe it). Kenneth, on the other hand, diligently tends to the needs of Kenjie (Orlando Sol) who’s eternally needy and indigent – kinda like what a sugar daddy does with his ward. Curiously, we don’t find any hint of romantic affection between Kenneth and Kenjie so why the clandestine rendezvous, or the you-and-me-against-mama scenario? This baffles.

Glenn gets exceedingly disheartened. Why isn’t he able to tinker Kenneth’s bells anymore? Is Kenneth getting tintinnabulated by others? Horrors! We ought to call the fireman and cool Glenn down, pronto! One day, Glenn catches Kenneth and Kenjie in tight embrace. The latter is in dire need of Kenneth’s boundless emotional appropriation: “Nag away na naman kami ni Nanay eh,” Kenjie laments, then they hug and caress each other’s trapezius muscles, not to mention that pulsating, if hypertrophied latissimus dorsi. Those darn tight, toned muscles that twitch involuntarily calm their emotional core, you know.

Upon seeing Kenneth and Kenjie snuggle, Glenn conflagrates like the spurned matron. “Ang kakapal talaga! Dito pa!” Glenn confronts the embracing couple and further adds, “Porke ba mas malaki ang titi nya kesa sa akin?” Ouch! I seriously felt sorry for Glenn. My eyes were beginning to well up! Oh heavens, help me! I didn’t know this was a 5-hanky flick! But if you've been observing Anton Nolasco’s sojourn into Pink Cinema, there’s tangible pictographic evidence (in a hundred and one shower scenes) that his appendageal attributes aren’t as modest as he makes us believe. Kenjie’s must then be a venomous cobra? Weeh!

Eirik Cruz and Anton Nolasco

Director GA Villafuerte is as confused – and pedestrian - as ever. His last film “Bahid” might as well be a masterpiece compared to this one. The story is a glorified series of narrative fragments; the strains don’t articulate in manner or form. The biggest question would be: Why do Kenneth and Glenn even bother staying together? They don’t have anything in common; they can’t converse like ordinary human beings; they don’t share even a meal together. Their coupling hails from a drugged out imagination. This might as well have a Shakespearean title: “Much Ado About Nothing”!

Eirik Cruz stars in his first cinematic salvo (His "Bunso" is yet to be screened commercially.) He surely satisfies the “artistahin” criteria unlike most Pink Film studs. He speaks well, be it English or the vernacular, but he mitigates his deliveries with careful, albeit studied elocution, giving a perception of naturalness. He succeeds in some; other times, he comes off like someone cajoling a mentally deficient individual. When he is finally given lines bearing emotional disquiet, this is where he struggles - painfully. His arms act up, flailing awkwardly to his sides and elsewhere, and his face contorts disturbingly. Noobs ought to be guided by insightful director, something that’s not in this production. Yes, Elvis has left the building! With experience and better projects, good looking Cruz just might turn out to be a reliable character actor.

Anton Nolasco, on the other hand, is scaling artistic hurdles of greater magnitude. The character of a wayward Glenn could have showcased his artistry. Unfortunately, like his director, Nolasco mistakes acting in the form of incessant frowns and interminable disgust. He’s eternally angry, even after coitus! You’d wish someone could give him a sedative so he relaxes a bit. What’s worse, when he finally confronts his lover, his effete tendencies flourish like the pink marmalades on a summery Sunday morning!

Mygz Molino (playing Kenneth’s brother Kyro) who’s prominently displayed and billed in the theatrical poster appears for 10 seconds or thereabout. Doing what? Texting and tinkering with his laptop. Then he fades into oblivion. Maybe he gets better exposure in an upcoming film called “Mestizo: A Beautiful Boy” where every guy looks grim and ashen faced; the Pinoy brothers of Edward Cullens. Maybe “Mestizo” is the Pink version of those blood suckers? Why then are they so pale? Iron deficiency anemia? Unless it isn’t blood they’re intent on sucking. J

Eirik Cruz

BEFUDDLING

There are several side stories that muddle the already befuddling narrative: there's Glenn's fractious "rape" by a gang of street urchins (ano yun?); Kenneth’s co-teacher Bernard (Miguel Alcantara) has daydreams (or was that a memory?) of him and Kenneth going at it. Meanwhile, one of his students make a surprising visit in school. Together, they paint the toilet err... “red”? Confused already? Don't worry! It's not you! It gets ridiculous because they could have discarded Bernard's character altogether, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. In fact, while we’re on the subject, they could have discarded THIS movie altogether too!

What’s more painful for the expectant crowd was the sanitized scenes. The production circulated the fact that this was rated X by the MTRCB. They were so proud of that! Meanwhile, the impressionable public expected genitalia galore! Did this segment of the pink public even understand what an X-rating meant? It bluntly meant that there could not be a commercial showing unless they get rid of penises! And to the half a dozen anonymous messages I received complaining about “Id’nal” – even before I reviewed it here – PLEASE direct your complaints to the production outfit! It is clear I am not in any way connected with them – heaven forbid!

Here's a funny thing about "Id'nal". In its desperate bid for promotion, they have made a hundred and one posters, utilizing every forgettable actor doing cameo in the film. Heck they even have a poster of Lloyd Khal Santos who played a doctor for 4 seconds; of Karl Tiuseco who portrayed as one of Kenneth's friends. It's too bad I wasn't in the flick or I'd have gotten my very own blushing theatrical poster! Darn!

While the story furtively seeks its conclusion, the film resorts to a “5 years later” tack. It shows Kenneth (who teaches “English proficiency” and “phonetics” – with mysterious mathematical equation and formulas written on his board – go figure!) looking the same and wearing exactly the same thick-rimmed glasses. Dorian Gray anyone? How well preserved he is, I was amazed. The camera pans to his class – and even the students in attendance were the very same faces who studied there 5 years ago! Will these students ever graduate? Or were they permanent fixtures from here to eternity? Hmmm. Maybe this was de javu? Maybe there’s English 101 in Medicine? Or Law? Or Rocket Science?

Anton Nolasco

Orlando Sol

Unofficially Yours - Quandaries of Falling in Love

2012-02-18T03:21:00.014+08:00

After an anonymous sexual rendezvous at the beach, a couple fortuitously meets again as work colleagues in a newspaper company. Cess (Angel Locsin) is a zealous writer for her paper’s lifestyle section. Macky (John Lloyd Cruz) is a dentist who’s pursuing a different career trajectory – he wants to become a writer. As fate would have it, Macky becomes Cess’ writing protégé! Unfortunately, the dismissive Cess makes it clear their concupiscent rendezvous was nothing but an uncomplicated lay in the hay, strictly with no strings attached. Macky is disconsolate because he wants more from her. In fact, he couldn’t get Cess off his mind since the day she surreptitiously left without a word.

Though work constantly throws them in each others’ company, it becomes clear that their attraction wasn’t a fleeting circumstance. And they continuously end up sharing their beds, in a frivolously and savagely passionate affair. “Malabo ba yung tayo?” Cess would ask Macky, just to underline the noncommittal state of their relationship. What’s a guy do if all a girl wants is his sexual stamina? Would he deny her sexual advances? And why is she being emotionally elusive?

Director Cathy Garcia-Molina goes for the romantic jugular to weave the tale of Macky and Cess caught in the quagmire of their romantic past. It becomes a dilemma when physical coupling spills on their agreed emotional boundaries. And the only other way from there is to commit, something that Cess isn't willing to do. We later learn the reason behind her apprehensions; turned out it was a valid excuse to get twice shy about a commitment.

MAGIC

John Lloyd Cruz and Angel Locsin candidly depict what could have been prosaic characters running on hackneyed plot, but their kinship has evolved into a cinematic partnership that translates into something akin to magic - on screen. It's such a sedulous connection; this credibility never wavers despite the peppering of a multitude of contrivances designed to concoct a brew not dissimilar to "My Cactus Heart". Wasn't the latter also about a commitment-shy heroine?

Cruz and Locsin scorch the screen as they parry the blows of an impending emotional avalanche; one that they'd have to directly face - sooner or later. Locsin has transformed into a very confident actress. Her wanton disregard of vanity is contributory to this, thus she's able to plummet into unflattering expressions that would seem silly on other less insightful actresses. These made her more captivating. But then, that's easy when you're an exceptional beauty, isn't it? :)

MEANT

The rest of the charming cast provides more than adequate distractions complementary to the protagonists' story. Tetchie Agbayani, playing Angel's eternally hopeful mother, is particularly winsome. Her scene with Angel at the kitchen was memorable. Cess asked her mom: "Ba't parang di ka nagsasawang masaktan?" She replied: "Hindi lang ako napapagod magmahal. Pwede naman akong magpahinga sandali. Kung hindi, paano ko makikilala kung meron mang nakalaang magmamahal ng tunay?" These lines could have easily turned mawkish; instead, they were breezy, but nonetheless decisive and sincere. Her sentiment warrants attention - and introspection.

QUIBBLES

The film also has obvious careless (and imagined) details that needed remedial measures: Journalists fumbling around the frenzied press room in 3-inch heels? Seriously? Ouch! Then there's the oversight about Macky's Dental Education - where? University of Santo Tomas! While it was indeed established in 1904, it has since been abolished. The last dental graduates have probably set sail with Limahong to rediscover the Spice Island. Where then did Macky finish his dental education? Then there's the on-the-job "writing" tutorial. Such active coaching really occurs in a hectic work place like the Manila Bulletin? Kinda like medical interns and clerks "training" in hospitals? Highly unlikely. No wonder no one reads them :) Oops!

Once a newspaper takes you in, you've already developed a style; the same style responsible for getting you "in". No one's there to laboriously teach you technique! The mechanics of an interview isn't learned in the press room, that's for sure! But these are quibbles easy to disregard, simply because the story becomes real; it comes alive right before our eyes.

OBSERVATIONS

Now that I've mentioned Cruz's thespic gifts, let me zero in on a few minor distractions. John Lloyd Cruz should start doing something about his unsightly bulges soon! He has "man boobs" (as well as a distended and flabby abdomen) and he isn't even 30 yet! It's unbecoming to be a romantic lead and have Sharon Cuneta's lipid excrescences. Has he given birth? What's his excuse for his pudginess? Romantic leads should fulfill a certain physical criteria because it's part of his trade to look physically fit! Furthermore, seeing him walk around sockless is cringe-worthy! Sooner or later, this unhygienic habit becomes an olfactory nightmare.

BEDAZZLED

Finally, Garcia-Molina has mastered the art of romantic bedazzlement. She relishes her narrative condiment with giggle-worthy lines (On not falling in love: "Huwag kang mag alala, di kita pipilitin!"); quirky characters (Macky's roommates, Macky's exceedingly healthy family, Cess' nosy workmates) and songs that make your heart flutter (Janno Gibbs' "Binibini", VST & Company's "Ikaw Ang Aking Mahal", Eric Santos & Angeline Quinto's "If You Asked Me To"). Sometime before the story folds, a musical duet ensues - complete with doo-wopping back-up singers. Now, that's unabashed romanticizing! Heck, even the third wheel, Vincent Villegas (played by the radiant Patrick Garcia) is swoon worthy!

I tried not to swoon. But I couldn't help myself smile!

Lem Lorca's "Bola" - Lessons in Basketball

2012-02-16T22:43:00.017+08:00

In the poverty stricken seaside fringes of the city, Lester (Kenneth Paul Salva) and his friend Brat (Jacob Miller) weave their ambition of playing professional basketball. But such are mere pipedreams. Lester cannot afford to enroll in college, while Brat turns tricks by accommodating liaisons with lascivious homosexuals. Meanwhile, they content themselves with their barangay basketball league which is in need of a manager who will provide their jerseys.

When Lester gets the idea from girlfriend Angel (Sofia Valdez) with whom he’s nurtured a strong 6 year relationship, Lester and Brat turn to couturier Pandy (Arnell Ignacio) who’s only too willing to manage the league. What’s more, the besotted philantrophist even offers to pay for Lester’s college education. Pandy even enveigles the help of the university’s coach Rito (Dustin Jose) to get the boys playing for the varsity team. With these earlier encumbrances remedied, their dreams start taking shape.

But Lester is slowly unsettled by Pandy’s suffocating presence: he makes a hundred calls; extends numerous invitations; he’s everywhere, even during team practices. Even the coach, who was once Pandy’s protégé and lover, starts to resent Pandy’s distracting ubiquity. He starts prohibiting outsiders, Pandy especially, from watching his team practice.

But a collegiate life isn’t as easy for our beleaguered protagonist – Lester is failing his subjects. His mother (Suzette Ranillo) suggests the option offered by his cousin to migrate to Canada – to become a nanny! “Ayokong maging yayo,” Lester adamantly refuses. It would seem understandable for a young, 6-footer to emasculate himself by even considering the option, di ba? His way to redemption is staying in the varsity – but what about his failing grades? Coach Rito offers a winking solution: “Ako’ng bahala. Kakausapin ko ang professors mo.” How convenient, right? But this generous offer doesn’t come without a price – like a coach and his player sharing a shower together. With his luck briskly running out, Lester acquiesces.

When Pandy learns of the coach’s ministrations, he is grief stricken. Sheldon (Simon Ibarra), Pandy’s confidant, offers a solution: “Gusto mong makaganti?” So Sheldon offers Brat the chance to pay for the latter’s debt. Would Brat betray Lester? Will Lester extricate himself from his piling misfortune? Will Pandy get his retribution?

Another pink trash?

The first hint of this production's motive comes from its theatrical poster which has a dramatically placed basketball floating on mid-air as it casts a heart-shaped shadow on the ground below. Had this been commercially bent on attracting the hormone-crazy pink crowd, it would have been more convenient to use the fetching images of its well sculpted stars - have them stand half naked with enticing gazes directed at the camera, instead of using a sexless inanimate object.

Much like Miko Jacinto's "Salo", I was mildly surprised to find this to be a compelling watch. Sure, there are a few conscious artistic contrivance meant to satisfy a subset of its intended audience (in separate scenes, the camera pans over Lester and Brat's half naked body while their hand gently reach down their crotches and enticingly insert a finger under their briefs - while asleep!). But most of the sexually-charged scenes were never gratuitous. In fact, these cinematic teasing felt sexier than the brainless fodder that the Pink Industry has been churning out!

Arnell Ignacio delivers a nuanced performance, richly contextual and adequately tempered although his concluding scenes needed restraint. His obsession with Lester becomes a believable entity. Some attractions, after all, need resolution. Kenneth Paul Salva, a former Viva Hotmen, occasionally feels tentative and unsure, but watchable. Though not particularly drop-dead gorgeous, he oozes with sex appeal and his shirtless scenes scorches the screen like a well-done baby back ribs!:) Yum! Am I really writing this? LOL

My point here is, titillating an audience doesn't rest solely on indiscreet flashing of genitalia. The art of seduction goes way beyond full frontals. This isn't even saying that "Bola" is the quintessential erotica - it isn't! This is a film that doesn't desperately exploit its actors - like most of the 30 Pink Films that was shown in 2011.

"Bola's" most unexpected achiever is the amerasian Jacob Miller, playing the willful Brat. Miller, despite his beguiling looks, acts naturally on screen. He is comfortable with his declarative lines as it it when the thespic degree of difficulty is raised. After a scene where Sheldon, the scorned gay man, confronts him in front of Brat's basketball team mates then expropriates the gifts given to him by his benefactor: shoes, cell phone, wrist watch - the scene cuts to a heart broken and absolutely embarrassed Brat drinking his heart away. He bawls like a child and there was never a hint of hesitation how he depicted his character. This guy can act! Seriously!

There are, of course, reckless narrative strains and hints of social commentary: the egregious misappropriation of SK funds; government officials who can't be bothered, etc. But these were harmlessly grazed upon. Even sociological statements like "Gay men should fall in love with fellow gay men, not straights" spring out of nowhere. The vengeful plot is also imprudent. They will first have you thinking that an assassination plot is in the offing. Then it turns out to be a mere video scandal in front of a basketball audience! Video scandals almost never "kills" anyone, does it? Katrina Halili is alive. Hayden Kho is selling Parisian perfumes. Toffee Calma and Mark Herras still have their lives. So much for nefarious schemes.

There is a lesson to be learned from "Bola". An artist cannot be adept in all aspects of film making. Heard about the adage, "jack of all trades, master of none"? It is a valid statement even in the cinematic process. Director Lem Lorca benefits from Jerry Gracio's writing. Script constitutes half of the artistic success of a film. Technical proficiency completes that. This really makes multi-hyphenated artists somehow failing somewhere, although there are a few exceptions. This should not stop directors from tweaking with a script on hand. After all, his is the vision behind the movie. He can collaborate, but someone should step up to concentrate on the basics of a narrative, its contents and more importantly, the designed structure.

After watching "Bola", I went out of the cinema feeling light. It was far from being a masterpiece, but it didn't dumb me down. In fact, I went out of the cinema not feeling badgered or embarrassed. There is hope - even for the Pink Film industry! I hope Crisaldo Pablo and his cohorts take note.

Dustin Jose is Coach Rito: troublesome English delivery. Time and again, I've been saying don't compromise and expose your actor's limitations by having them deliver in the Queen's language. Tagalugin po! It doesn't make a character less authoritative by speaking the vernacular! Otherwise, I slide deeper and deeper into my seat while he painfully wrestles with his lines!

Jacob Miller: Surprisingly good!

Lester and mother (Kenneth Paul Salva and Suzette Ranillo)

Simon Ibarra as the scorned and vengeful gay man Sheldon.

The coach jumps shower stalls for an intimate errrr... stroke? P.S. Pink Cinema's "it" boy, Jeff Luna has a blink-and-he's gone cameo.

Miller and Salva: Both models hail from Davao! What's with Mindanao waters?

Kenneth Paul Salva: Decent cinematic starrer!

Kenneth Paul Salva

Sofia Valdez in "Talong". Her other films include "Ang Kapitbahay", "Anakan Mo Ako" and "Kangkong". Don't you just miss the exquisite taste of Seiko Films' title-making machinery? How about "Sitaw ni Sofia"? Or "Bola at Mani"?

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to google and find any other photos of Sofia. She's more beautiful now in "Bola" than when she was a nubile nymphet in Robbie Tan's masterpieces. Yes, there's a couple of mammary peekaboos here. :)

My Cactus Heart - Ephemeral Popcorn Romance

2012-02-12T16:30:00.005+08:00

Sandy Macalintal (Maja Salvador) has long brushed off romance ever since her father has chosen to live a life away from their family. Sure, he would occasionally show up - a couple of times a year with his current girlfriend awkwardly tagging along. Sandy had to live with a mother (Rosanna Roces) who eternally pines for that day when her husband (Ricky Davao) would find his way back to the fold - where he belongs. Sandy is cautious. Though she entertains suitors, she would eventually nip these budding romances in the bud once they get too close for comfort. Might as well cut her impending and perceived loses before they harm her fragile heart, right?

Meanwhile, Carlo (Matteo Guidicelli) is gradually falling for his boss' daughter Sandy. He occasionally waits tables for a catering business - and moonlights as a singer for a band. He dreams for a lot of things: to visit the grave of her fallen mother (Pinky Amador) in Singapore and to earn a decent living; one that would approximate his worth in the eyes of Sandy who's upbeat and charming. In fact, she takes his breath away. Unfortunately for Carlo, Sandy's twice shy about romantic intimacy. She comes from left of center - and is even wary of her irrefutable attraction to the strapping lad. What's worse: Sandy is entertaining another suitor, Benedict (Xian Lim) who's a formidable competition. What becomes of Sandy and Carlo?

Director Enrico Santos comes up with a winsome formula reeking with frothy narrative embellishments. In fact, if you've seen the trailer alone, it would make you want to rush to the nearest cinema to watch it. The film has an adorable heroine who steals your heart even when she furtively denies affection: "No as in no" indeed! Moreover, it has a romantic consort brimming with asian-italian charm. Heck, even the third wheel's as delectable as a sophisticated version of tikoy and hopia and pansit. Xian Lim is a dashing milk curdler: he is tall, sexy, and looks at girls with earnest heed. The romantic broth couldn't be perfect, right?

But there's this quibble: remember the note for the anonymous soul mate that's meant to find its way back to you? If love was indeed such a fallacy, why rest your romantic faith on a carelessly placed note inside a guitar? Or inside a bottle? The idea feels incongruous to Sandy's apathetic ideas about relationship. If having ones heart broken turns you into a tumbleweed of disaster, then it's evident you don't deserve to be happy. No one deserves to get hurt, more especially if it's a deliberate or expedient strategem.

Maja Salvador is splendid like she's always been, her tongue in cheek rendition always uttered in exquisite comic cadence. Most everyone in the cast tries to duplicate her verve, but her leading men suffer in comparison. Beside Salvador, they appear lightweight... like eye candies - and cotton candy, lovely to gaze at, but they dissipate in the mouth within seconds, easily washing off in our gustatory senses forever.

"My Cactus Heart" is ephemeral pleasure. Everything feels part of an ingredient that, in the scheme of things, don't quite linger for long. Like chips, cotton candy or popcorn, you masticate on them - then you eventually forget the heady pleasures of partaking.

Darna and the art of checking out someone else's hygiene.

Sandy meets the overeager Benedict.

Maja Salvador: perfect

Matteo Guidicelli as Carlo

Xian Lim as Benedict. he is once again "introduced" in this film though he has appeared in Gil Portes' "Two Funerals". This gross overlook spells either ignorance (for not knowing) or arrogance (for not considering Xian's first film part of his resume).

Hiram na Ama - Lipsticks, White Briefs and Natural Insemination

2012-02-09T05:53:00.003+08:00

Baguio City - Ross and Peachy (Brando Madrigal and Angel del Rio respectively) are a young couple who learn a day before their wedding that Ross has azoospermia, a medical condition where a male doesn’t have a measurable level of sperm in his semen. This is associated with sterility – the inability to bear children through natural means. Distraught, the couple turns to a physician (Dr. Lito de la Merced) who advises on artificial insemination; an anonymous sperm donor is required for the procedure.

One day, Ross meets Rico and Bimbo (Ian Mencias and Luigi Romero), two chirpy, but cash-strapped college freshmen. Not an hour later, the three guys become fast friends. Ross unravels his dilemma and, in the process, recruits two willing sperm donors. He hands them a thousand bucks each (a donor will supposedly fetch P20,000 for his “uncomplicated and professional” services) – without even getting their full name, mind you – then he runs back home to inform his wife. Unfortunately, there’s another hitch: Ross realizes that he couldn’t afford the expensive procedure. So he hatches a plan: the whole baby-making scheme turns au naturel! He pays the guys 50% of the agreed rate, then the two guys get it on with the enthusiastic young wife! To render participatory role, Ross even joins the sexual syntagma. “Para naman maramdaman kong meron akong partisipasyon,” he enthuses. Convenient, yes? Will Ross and Peachy succeed with their plan?

Brando Madrigal and Angel del Rio as young couple Ross and Peachy

Like most of his movies, director Lucas Mercado grapples in the dark while he laboriously expounds on his incipient idea. He navigates his narrative with blind skills and tentative exposition. What’s more tragic is how spare he paints his cinematic canvas with vacuous motives and one-dimensional characters as clueless as he is. To accommodate the requirement of the Pink genre, Rico and Bimbo intermittently turn gay whenever they’re in the privacy of their room, which they share! In fact, if you’re that part of the population who considers genital sighting a mark of quality film making, then you’re in for an “excellent movie”. Ian Mencias, now rechristened Jeremy Ian, somehow mimics a slumbering snake, if you won’t blink for 10 seconds! LOL

The actors – heavily made up in every frame - sleepwalk through most of their scenes. When Brando Madrigal implores the heavens for a miracle (he constantly prays at the Grotto), he might as well recite the alphabet; at least we could relate to that than his gibberish! It doesn’t help that sound is mostly drowned out by either noise or unregulated music. Yes, there’s a degree of sacrifice where auditory sensation is concerned too.

Romero as Bimbo and Mencias as Rico

Film editing is none but a brainless calisthenics. Some scenes are recklessly misplaced. Consider this: You see Rico and Bimbo inside their room, half naked on their bed. The next frame cuts to another scene where the guys arrive from class, while they “report” to their landlord (Dr. Wally Perez) who dispenses “maternal” words of wisdom. Cut to: both guys, once again on their separate beds; Bimbo is preoccupied tintinnabulating his “bells”, oblivious to his friend just an arm stretch away! Once Bimbo finishes, Rico follows suit! How swell! No pun intended!

The camera work is horrendous. When Madrigal delivers a line (with Burnham Park’s lake behind him), the camera struggles to linger on his face which remains unfocused throughout his spiel. We instead get to see fragments of people boating behind Madrigal’s mug! Isn’t camera proficiency basic in a visual medium like cinema? Or has professional cinema made mediocrity acceptable? Of course we know the answer. It’s pure rhetoric. We just needed to stress the futility of it all.

Then there’s the thick accent of Ian: “May prublima ka ba?”, “Ayaw ku ng alak, di nakaka sulb ng prublima!”, “Di dapat kilala ang dunur”, “Tutuu, kilangan namin ng pira!” While his character hails from the south, there’s stark carelessness in the execution of scenes, like they were in desperate rush before the world is decimated by an oncoming moon in the vein of Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia”!

Even the doctor (Dr. de la Merced), who’s heavily made up – donning a thick paste of blood red lipstick - is prone to such distracting accent: “sperm washing” becomes “sperm WASSING”! If you thought you misheard it, he shall repeat it again for your peace of mind – “SPERM WASSING”! Oh Jeeves! The insightful doctor was going to perform the procedure (artificial insemination), but when asked how much it would cost the couple, his reply: “Hindi ko alam!” I almost broke my lovely nails as I gripped my arm rest in utter disgust. If you’re not the authority, what were you doing there in the first place?

What’s this movie doing in a commercial cinema anyway? This remains an inscrutable mystery.

Ian Mencias is now Jeremy Ian. The film was in the can as early as 2 years ago.

Luigi Romero

Tahanan - Sappy and Shallow in Crapland

2012-02-08T02:40:00.011+08:00

As part of her class assignment, Samantha Benitez (Lauren Young), a 22 year old student, must undertake a two-month immersion at an orphanage. In the program, she has to live and help out in the activities of the orphanage called Bahay Kanlungan. Though initially cautious of her acquaintances, Sam gradually warms up to the motley characters that populate this subcommunity of disavowed children. Sam is also introduced to the dedicated Mama Precy (Angelina Kanapi), one of the foster mothers. Precy stays with the children 4x a week. But unknown to the children, Sam’s earlier animosity roots from a domestic issue: her mother abandoned the family for another man. She hasn’t heard from her mother since.

The orphanage is home to 12 children, but she is drawn to three of the kids: there’s Kyla (Sabrina Man) who treats her like a big sister; Rey (Miguell Tanfelix) whose father is preoccupied attending to his bed-ridden mother; and sprightly Efren (Khen Aldovino) who has trouble staying in school. Sam would eventually get emotionally attached to the children. One day, she receives word from her dad (Mark Gil) that her mother has returned, but the latter lies comatose at the hospital. Why should Sam care? She abandoned her, didn’t she?

Among the three entries from this year’s Big Shot Filmfest, Krizzie Syfu’s “Tahanan” was the most messy. It is blotchy in presentation, not to mention exceedingly zealous where emotionality is concerned. Everything is loud and unfettered. Not only were the characters reflective of overdrawn depictions, they were also excessively overeager in temperament. In short, “OA na OA!” Angelina Kanapi, for example, keeps forgetting that this isn’t a comic material where she could just ham it up and resort to her scene stealing afflictions – as she does in every single film she’s in. Listen to her prayer, you’d think she's a stand-up comic standing before an Apollo Theater crowd. She would speak in high sing-song pitches, then suddenly latch into clipped giggles, as though an orgasm is briskly underway while she was serving lunch. It’s unnerving. If she’s out of the frame, their other foster mother Myrna takes the “stage” with her high strung demeanor. And you wonder why the children are so effed up?

Lauren Young delivers a perfunctory performance from an otherwise mediocre script. She barely buoys a briskly sagging narrative. Fact is, Young is a gifted performer and she never resorts to brimming sentimentality, but there's so much one can do with a trite script and an even dour characterization.

When cloyingly adorable Kyla confronts Sam, the once-clingy and delightful teenager suddenly morphs into a cantankerous bitch from hell, spewing acid like a possessed soul. And everyone just stares at her. No one even dared to stop her from her constipated bravado, not even the authoritative figure in the room – Mama Precy. They were just frozen stiff. Why is it so hard to understand Sam’s dilemma? Her mother is on death’s bed, for pete’s sake! Even a 6 year old would be able to discern the right thing to do! Then there’s the ever annoying Efren – Khen Aldovino – who is prone to acting out like an overcharged version of a clown! Most times he’s in front of the screen, he behaves like an amused epileptic, I just wanted to throw darts at the screen.

When the action turns to Sam’s scenes at the hospital, the movie shifts to a different film altogether. The sense of disconnect is so palpable, I suddenly missed watching MMK. You then realize the unfocused attention of a film maker who: 1) is clueless on thespic executions, thus she is ill equipped to direct her actors, 2) cannot tell a legible story without resorting to unnecessary, albeit protracted detours, 3) drawn to melodrama – and not even succeeding to a coax a single tear from her audience after all the incessant caterwauling!

SUPPLEMENTARY ANNOYANCES

While I was watching, 5 rows ahead of me were two ladies freely discussing the film, oblivious to the rest of the paying crowd. For the duration of this painful experience, you could hear them annotating scene per scene what went on during the filming. One would say, “Naka ilang take kami dyan.” And so on. So it’s safe to refer to these dingbats as part of the production team.

This begs the question: Isn’t cinema etiquette taught in their university (DLSU)? Did they think they were immune to good manners by chatting up overtime like they were in their own story conference? Such uncouth behavior from the makers of the film itself makes you wonder why they can’t even render due respect that their film required. I began to comprehend why. Because they knew they were in crapland! And only still waters run deep!

So they kept making noise!

What's with film graduates from New York Film Academy? This is the second disappointing work we've seen from an alumnus of that institution.

Khen Aldovino needs restraint... or medication... or electroconvulsive therapy! He was distracting and annoying!

Lauren Young: insightful

Miguell Tanfelix reminds me of Derick Monasterio

Suntok sa Buwan - Fight of the Broken

2012-02-06T17:45:00.004+08:00

Al (Joem Bascon) is a prized pugilist. He is young, strong, focused and willful. He supports a younger sibling and a capricious father Dante (Noni Buencamino) who keeps getting into trouble. In fact, Al has to save Dante from impending harm – by paying off his debts from a blustering loan shark (Roldan Aquino) who has began to terrorize Dante.

Lauro (Daniel Fernando) is an over-the-hill boxer at the twilight of his career. He has overstayed where others his age should have decamped and retired. Sporting a pot belly, a brittle resolve, and the stamina that’s seen better days, Lauro is desperate for a win. It’s his last grasp at glory – and employment, what with his piling debts and a rent that’s three months due. The two boxers gear up for the fight of their lives.

A few days before the match, Lauro encounters personal tragedy, while Al hurts his fist after once again redeeming his father from impending doom. How will this stir what could have been an uneven match? Who will come out victorious?

The narrative catch in directors Bianca Catbagan and Jose Antonio de Rivera’s “Suntok sa Buwan” gradually unravels as we follow the opponent’s days leading to the match. The buildup is deliberate and strings us to the necessary empathy. After all, we can’t be an unconcerned audience. We are tasked to somehow take a side which becomes an arduous dilemma after witnessing each of the fighter’s domestic conflicts.

“Suntok sa Buwan’s” structure is initially imprudent. You inadvertently notice Buencamino’s flawed character from the start and realize that he would tip the uneven balance between the fighters. He provides a nugget of inevitable tragedy. In fact, when Al hands him a wad of cash for the monthly amortization of his tricycle, Dante instead said: “Itatabi ko sa ibang bayarin!” (I’ll save it up for other expenses.) Al should have emphatically reminded him that it was intended for the tricycle. In some scenes, you notice the lines somehow adlibbed by the veteran performers, falling into incongruence with some situation in the story.

Some film making choices feel hackneyed obviously designed to provoke emotion. When coins from a piggy bank (well, a tin box) fall down the floor, the scene lingers longer than necessary to create a mood of despondency for Lauro who’s on his last few centavos. The very same tack is noticed when Lauro learns that his dog has died. Yes, we get it. He is riding the unlucky streak, and this could be a foreshadowing for his boxing match. These scenes could have been cogent had they not irreverently “milked” these moments, instead of briskly plunging into vestiges of melodrama. “Gusto mo ibili kita ng bagong tuta,” offers Maricel (Jacinta Remulla) who plays Lauro’s young wife. You can’t even pay rent of three months, honey.

There are sparks of inspiration too. When Al learns of his father’s vices, he shouts: “Paano ako aangat kung palagi kayong pabigat.” And I wanted to stand up for a well deserved ovation. But just when I was ready to brush the film off, it shifts gears and perks up as the boxing match begins. In the harrowing stage of the desperate, we get glimpses of emotions that remind us of ourselves; of specific moments in our lives when we feel we have to give it all we got. That we might lose, but we fight and persevere anyway. And with deft charisma and emotional investment, Joem Bascon and Daniel Fernando maneuver a thespic match that gives this film the punch that eventually won us over.

Joem Bascon as hardworking Al

Joem Bascon

Daniel Fernando, playing aging boxer Lauro, essays an almost broken spirit.

Jacinta Remulla plays Maricel, miscast as Lauro's wife.

Balang Araw - Hopeful Cinematic Effort

2012-02-04T23:58:00.014+08:00

After another threat of getting fired from work, Paul (Carlo Cruz, photo below), a call center agent, impulsively buys a ticket for New Zealand and quits his job much to the consternation of his boss. Jubilant from his departure, Paul hails a cab with a chatty driver (Jao Mapa). But before he gets home, he asks to pass by a convenience store for a pack of cigarette. Meanwhile, Jeric and Benjo, a couple of street thugs (Shielbert Manuel and Alex Vincent Medina) concoct a fast heist. As Paul steps into the store, he inadvertently plunges into the pillage. Inside the store, he joins a pregnant woman (Aleera Montalla) and the two store clerks.

While the robbers muster their haul, a cop leisurely saunters inside the store. Will the victims be able to get the latter’s attention?

Archie Dimaculangan and his co-directors Franne Cheska Ramos and Jono de Rivera come up with a solid work that baits you from the start as the film gradually introduces their characters in narrative vignettes, one strain more interesting than the other. The cinematography (Ice Idanan) is quite decent. But it somehow bogs down while maneuvering for an appropriate conclusion. The earlier story telling vigor eventually loses steam and unfortunately slides into an anti-climactic epilogue – or the lack of it. In fact, you somehow feel that it’s an uncompleted work; that it deserves a better ending. What was the taxi driver’s weight into the story if he were to be made aware of a robbery and he instead drives away without doing a thing about it? Is this a depiction of the moral vacuity that pervades this society? I doubt if this is such case. Not when the running time isn’t quite 60 minutes yet. Budget, probably?

Among its performers, it’s Carlo Cruz (playing call center agent Paul) who registers strongly. In fact, you root for him way before he gets inside the convenience store. Tarhata Rico, the nursing student who sidelines as a store clerk, could do well in the business too. Aleera Montalla plays the pregnant woman, but she could have fared better with a less meretricious character. If you recall, she played the creepy Amor in Richard Somes’ “Yanggaw”. It’s unfortunate that the film wasn’t able to enveigle more sinister antagonists - bumbling but willful enough to be believable - that the film sorely needed. In fact, the concluding scenes felt more lost than intended.

A taxi driver and a couple of thugs with nothing better to do.

A feisty call center agent (Cruz) and a store clerk (Rico).

“Balang Araw” (Bullet Day) is one of the three winning scripts that won half a million grant from the first Big Shot Festival, sponsored by SM Group of Cinemas. Besting 50 other hopefuls from colleges and universities all over the country, the film clearly makes the grade. Alongside mediocre independent commercial releases, it’s a testament that there’s hope for local cinema if we produce film students like these. But is it groundbreaking? Far from it. Surely there should be better ouvres to come out from this student film festival. But this one rightfully earns its stripes.

A pregnant woman (Aleera Montalla) and a couple of store clerks (Juan Miguel Severo and Tarhata Rico).

Tarhata Rico

Alex Vincent Medina

Aleera Montalla

Miko Jacinto's Salo - Accommodating Affections

2012-02-02T03:44:00.005+08:00

Rene (Paolo Rivero) is 30. Every day, he routinely leaves his steaming cup of coffee on his way to work. He runs a business that his family has left for him. Though relatively well off, Rene keeps to himself. He leads a solitary, albeit lonely life. He also employs a driver Levi (Kristofer King) who waits for him all day. Back home, his grandmother Mila (Anita Linda) lies on her sick bed in a coma. Rene gets regular visits from his “tita” (Perla Bautista) who does odd things for them: she (supposedly) takes care of her bedridden friend and occasionally sets the bashful Rene for blind dates. But he never quite connects with anyone. He in fact harbors a secret that had dire consequences one time he unraveled it. He is gay. And he harbors affection on Levi who unfortunately is in a committed relationship.

When another of Rene's blind dates doesn’t materialize at a beachside resort in Pangasinan, this opens an opportunity for Rene to spend time with Levi who, conveniently, prefers a naked frolic while he enjoys the ocean waves. Will Rene’s wistful glances come to a fruition? Will tattooed Levi entertain his closeted employer? Guess.

Miko Jacinto’s “Salo” (Share) is a surprising work. Unlike most pink films, Jacinto engages and dives into his narrative - frame after frame - with hardly a spoken word. In fact, most of the spoken lines are left hanging, i.e. there’s hardly an exchange of words. This eventually creates semblance of mood and nuances. “Salo” also benefits from Romy Suzara’s beautifully composed scenes, giving the impression that this isn’t your hurried, shoddy, one-take production.

But there is a problem where narrative details are concerned. Perla Bautista’s character, for example, bewilders. She’s the coquettish “tita” who “barks” loudly, spewing lines like: “Bumangon ka na. Masaya ang mundo. Naalala mo pa ba, dati sabay tayong nanlalalaki?” You aren’t sure this was meant to be spoken by an elderly matron. In another scene (where she gazes at the driver washing the car), she said: “Type ko siya. Matrona ba, magaling ding maghugas.” When told that Levi’s spoken for, she replied: “Kahit gawin mo pa akong kerida, ok lang!” And as if to seal the real identity – or sexual preference – of the character: “Nakadami ka na ba?” Though I understand that her character was meant to stir vitality to an otherwise dour story, her character is a tad too uncouth to be believable. You only have to see how matronly she dresses to feel this incongruence to her peculiar manner of speaking.

Spoilers!

Then there’s Anita Linda, Lola Mila, who’s confined to her sick bed. She doesn't move, doesn't open her eyes, doesn't speak. She was never given a line - not even for a short flashback. And the essence of Anita Linda lies in her expositions which were curiously clipped making this cameo nothing short of befuddling.

When her grandson Rene confessed that he’s actually gay, the news so distraught her, she went into coma. Yes, it's a homosexual-induced comatose it's one for the medical books! This spotlights the gravity of “coming out” – it can drive people to coma! J Moreover, the whole time she lay on her bed, we don’t see her with an IV line or a nasogastric tube. Since she never wakes up; how then does she feed? What’s funnier was when Mila eventually expired, this was when we find evidence of life: a pulsating jugular neck veins and the flickering of lashes. Wee.

Paolo Rivero and Kristoffer King have been around in the business so it doesn’t surprise that they lend their scenes a degree of realism and natural grace. Director Jacinto seems also aware of the thespic limitations of Jeff Luna (who plays King’s live-in partner Manny) so his spoken scenes have been played down; his dramatic lines are cleverly shot with half of his body partially covered by frames or shadows.

Because of its genre, de rigueur scenes of nudity find Rivero and King in states of undress, each has 4 bathing scenes, while King shares a shower with Jeff Luna. Showers and bathing scenes constitute a salient feature of a Pinoy Pink, didn’t you know? But consider King’s amusing scenes at the beach: he runs towards the shore then gradually takes his clothes off as he plunges into the waters. Between huge boulders, he pulls down his briefs then sits on a rough bed of pointy, sandy, scratchy corals. Can you imagine what particles get lodged in his anatomical crevices? Ouch.

Despite carefully planned scenes and artistic experimentations, there’s something gravely disturbing about an elder lady – a “tita” – who advocates polygamy. I was having second thoughts if Perla Bautista wasn’t meant to play a transvestite. Let me cogitate on that.

Jeff Luna, the sexy king of monotones.

Nick de Ocampo's Cine Sine - A Look Into the Origins of Cinema

2012-01-31T21:41:00.012+08:00

The past gives us clues on how we arrive at the present, and stirs us to a path into the future. This is why history is always a crucial feature we always have to consider. Documentary film maker Nick De Ocampo’s “Cine Sine” looks back at the early beginnings of the moving picture, i.e. “cinema” in the country.

This popular art form survived invasions and colonization. While the very first images were seen in Europe, i.e. that of a train pulling into a train station - the first audience had to scamper for safety, fearful of getting run over by this cinematic train; the local audience had a more austere introduction. Cinema in fact grew during the time of war. On the first day of January 1897, at #12 Interior, the first screening of a moving picture materialized in a private residence in Escolta, the oldest street in the walled city of Intramuros. It was the house of Senor Francisco Pertierra. It showed 4 film clips: a man with a hat, a boxing match, a Japanese dance and a plaza outside a Parisian opera house. These were the very first flickering images seen in the country. A few days later, another film screening occurred at the second floor of a jewelry shop of the Ullmann Brothers, just a few skips from the first venue. From then, the residents commenced their love affair with the film medium which flourished during Spain’s three centuries of colonial rule.

The first film shown in public was presented by a gentleman from Aragon (Spain) a year later, showing and shuffling documentaries on European natural calamities and other “contemporary events” from films in Paris. It ran for 3 weeks and cost 50 cents for chairs and 30 cents for benches at the back. It even had 4 regular screening schedules that ran from 6 PM to 10 PM.

Escolta

More than anything, film reflects the pervasive cultural mores in a struggling populace. It also provides insight on our influences. In 1919, Jose Nepomuceno produced the first Filipino film – “Dalagang Bukid” based on a musical zarzuela (a genre that alternates spoken and sung scenes). Nepomuceno would eventually acquire the title: “The Father of Philippine Movies”.

Nick De Ocampo recreates Escolta through 3D animations and visual effects (by Roy Dadivas). Sprucing them with anecdotes from a distant past, taking us into illustrious houses of old made of stones (“bahay na bato”) and leading us into the evolution of the cinema. Personalities were further interviewed: Bienvenido Lumbera, Bambi Harper, flamenco dancer Guillermo Gomez, and even Raul Pertierra – nephew of the one who introduced the medium to the country. We are then exposed into important works that made a dent in painting the Pinoy psyche through the years, by featuring snippets of characters from these films: There’s Kulas (a very charming – and young – Christopher de Leon) who strives to become a “Pilipino” in the eyes of ascendant upper-tier characters (Eddie Garcia, Gloria Diaz) in Eddie Romero’s “Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon”; there’s the socially and sexually repressed Rosenda (the spectacular Lolita Rodriguez) in Lino Brocka’s “Bukas, Madilim, Bukas” (for the omnibus Brocka flick, “Tatlo, Dalawa, Isa”); there’s the mentally challenged Koala (Lolita Rodriguez, once again) in another Brocka masterpiece, “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang” as she communes with a leper (Mario O’Hara) and the lone symbol of hope, Junior (Christopher de Leon).

The film also lays the briskly evolving trends, like the employing of American-sounding names like Dorothy Jones which later became Nida Blanca to swing with public preference for Hispanic-sounding names (weren’t we referred as the Asian Latinos then?). Rose Stagner became Rosa del Rosario, the first movie queen, and local cinema’s very first Darna in 1951!

Then, as it is now, it was almost customary to employ half-breeds and fair-skinned talents, thus many of the stars bear Caucasian blood.

Sometime in the 60’s a phenomenon arose when a timid and dark skinned girl came to the fore – Nora Aunor, who would become local cinema’s one and only Superstar! While scenes from Ishmael Bernal’s “Himala” beamed at Aunor, the camera pans to a devout Elsa , kneeling on a hill, eyes shut, and praying to the heavens. And I was cloaked with stark realization of how unbelievably beautiful she was. I have never considered Ms. Aunor particularly beautiful, but gazing at her – long dark hair billowing in mid-air, face free from Belo-style modifications, eyes gazing in crystal compunction – I had goosebumps as she eventually turned to a devout crowd, shouting, “Walang himala!” There has never been an actress as cinematically potent as La Aunor, and I am starting to understand her mystique from this re-introduction.

The pervasive theme of repression, a Eurocentric architectural influence, the origin of several terms from such Hispanic era – takilya, balkonahe, orkestra, telon, kurtina, entablado, silya, kwarto de proyeksiyon, and so on - each item present in and around these moving images. How have we conveniently forgotten our roots? And I can only be grateful to have been reminded.

Though the animation is more than adequate in recreating the Escolta of the 1800s, a few scenes feel like watching the graphics of an online game. But most of the film’s quibble, though minor, comes from De Ocampo’s decision to present the facts himself. For one, he has verbal crutches which prove a tad distracting to the audience, i.e. his long “E’s” and short “I’s”. “Influenced”, for example, becomes “in-floo-wenced” with accent on the second syllable, where it should be first. “Individual” becomes “in-di-vee-dwal”. “Religion” becomes “re-lee-gion”. “Armada” becomes “ar-may-da”. “Seeks” becomes “six”. “Still” becomes “steel”. For documentaries to be more effective, a presenter is preferred to be devoid of these presenting crutches so its audience can concentrate more on the voluminous details. This of course doesn’t say we think less of this work. In fact, we do believe that “Cine Sine” deserves to be seen by the movie-loving Pinoys. And aren’t we all?

Jose Nepomuceno, the Father of Philippine Movies. Produced the first Filipino movie, "Dalagang Bukid".

Kulas: Fitting into a society with identity crisis in "Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon".

Rosenda finally fights back against her repressed existence in Brocka's "Tatlo, Dalawa, Isa". Every actor should watch this scene where the amazing Lolita Rodriguez hardly raised her voice, yet she spewed enough venom for her controlling mother (Mary Walter).

Nora Aunor - such beauty and grace as Elsa, the visionary and stigmatic in Bernal's "Himala".

Rosa del Rosario had to change her name from Rose Stagner, a fil-am beauty who would become the first "Darna".

Acknowledgment for the various photos: manilahub.i.ph, philippine-history.org, video48.blogspot.com, manilablog.com, pelikulaatbp.blogspot.com, mars ravelo website

Kim Ki Duk's Breath - The Retaliatory Feminist Tale

2012-01-26T13:28:00.003+08:00

Yeon (Park Ji-ah) is transfixed to her television news where Jang jin, an inmate on deathrow, is rushed to a hospital after yet another suicide attempt. It’s Jang jin’s second try while awaiting for his punitive comeuppance within a month.

Yeon, a neglected wife, is frustrated. She recently discovers that her husband (Jung-woo Ha) is having an affair. Her morbid introspection has brought her to a decision: she will enveigle a relationship with the news-worthy convict. She understands the repressive atmosphere of a prison. She lives in one. In the process, she also gets back at his unrepentant husband’s infidelity.

Prisoner 5796 Jang jin (Taiwanese actor Chang Chen) has curtailed his capacity to speak by self mutilating the voice box (larynx) of his throat every time he attempts to end his life. He shares a cell with peculiar beings: an artist who makes the prison walls his canvas; a massage therapist; and a younger guy who’s infatuated with Jang jin. One day, he receives Yeon, an unexpected visitor from left field who pretends to be his former girlfriend. Though he’s never met her before, he’s intrigued by her impetuous behavior. During her visits, Yeon depicts the changing of the seasons by painstakingly decorating the visitor’s room with thematic wall papers (she even recreates fall season at Seorak Mountain); sprucing azalea flowers all over, and even dressing up for the part. At the end of each visit, Yeon leaves him a photo which eventually gets stolen, torn to pieces inside Jang jin’s cell.

When Yeon’s husband gets wind of her activities (something that she doesn’t hide from him), he begrudgingly ends his extramarital ties. Will this stop Yeon from seeing Jang jin?

Director Kim Ki Duk weaves another enchanting tale that hooks you from the opening scene to its last frame. Like most of his flicks, the director muddles major details of the story and offers them in enticing bits much later as the story unravels. This keeps his viewer waiting with bated breath. Kim Ki Duk is one of my favorite auteurs. In fact, his works are on proud display in my DVD room. I have 12 of his 17 directorial efforts and was only too thrilled to get this copy four years after its international release.

Spoilers!

“Breath” isn’t as tight a narrative as his earlier efforts, but you can’t deny the artistic vision of the master director. There are a few holes in the story: why did Yeon’s husband deny her sexual advances if he indeed wanted to make a go of their relationship? How is Yeon able to beautifully wall paper the Hansung prison room every time she visits Jang jin? When Yeon and Jang Jin were finally able to consummate their inscrutable relationship, what explains Yeon’s demeanor of holding her lover’s breath? The scene, which eventually made the film’s title, baffles.

Chang Chen smolders. His every scene beckons and captivates. It takes a while to figure out the non speaking convict, and its easy to gravitate toward his character. We later realize that Jang jin was convicted for killing his wife and her children.

Kim Ki Duk curiously cameos as the “voyeur” who watches over the unseemly lovers in the confines of his security office. God complex, Mr. Kim? In the past, he has been accused of misogyny, but “Breath” is curiously feminist. Ji-ah perceptively depicts the unbeloved wife and provides the emotional crux of an otherwise disaffected narrative. In Yeon’s desperation, she wills to redress her marital inequity. But when we find her singing her heart out to entertain Jang jin, we feel her internal conflict. Some emotions are too potent to hide.

Park Ji-ah

Chang Chen

Chang Chen is a popular Taiwanese actor who has appeared in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Happy Together", "Three Times, and "Red Cliff". "Breath" is his first Korean movie.

Jung-woo Ha

Jung-woo Ha is the unfaithful husband.

Director Kim Ki Duk studied fine arts in Paris. He has directed 17 feature films including my favorite, "The Isle" and "Samaritan Girl". Am looking forward to finding his documentary "Arirang", "Dream", "Amen", and the intriguing "Real Fiction".

Release - In the Realm of an English Pink

2012-01-23T16:57:00.010+08:00

There’s never quite like the Pinoy Pink Film in terms of temperament, ambition (read: the lack of it), artistic limitation or in-your-face mediocrity. Then I saw Darren Flaxtone and Christian Martin’s “Release”. The comparison may be a little unfair for this British flick, but the narrative progression and artistic choices that the directors take echo this local emergence.

Father Jack Gillie (Daniel Brocklebank) gets incarcerated for euthanizing his younger brother afflicted with terminal stage leukemia. But this detail is kept from his prison mates, thus everyone thinks of him as the pedophile. His conflicted demeanor draws him to a new prison guard, the idealistic Martin Crane (Garry Summers) who in his quest to do good for mankind turns to the penal system. (Go figure!) The two eventually fall in love. Unfortunately, pedophiles are as reviled among inmates. Jack gets spat at and taunted for his “sins”. It doesn't help that he’s bunked in with a young inmate Rook (Wayne Virgo) who has an issue with influential Max (Bernie Hodges) – and Max is out to get Rook in more ways than one.

The narrative is riddled with a coterie of issues to chew on, none of which is legibly handled: religion, mercy killing, morality in a prison community, homosexuality. You hardly feel any authentic insight into any of these issues. In fact, much of these items conflict with each other. The irony here goes: Jack – the Catholic priest – has totally embraced his homosexuality. We witness no sense of guilt, an issue solely highlighted and deftly handled in insightful movies like Antonia Bird’s “Priest” (where Linus Roach is torn between the religion he preaches and serves and his secret life as a homosexual). In retrospect, we have a priest who believes in mercy killing; a priest who bears no scruples having a male lover. Sure, these things happen, but when someone of his stature doesn’t even feel a degree of conflict in his lifestyle and the teachings he’s supposed to live by, why bother being one?

The story is further weighed down by plot holes the size of Mars. How can Jack and Martin continuously share a concupiscent night in a prison cell without Martin’s fellow guards wondering where he went? Jack is in a bunk with young Rook, what does he tell his younger cellmate – I’m gonna pop out for a fag? Didn't Rook ever wonder? A scene involving the female warden and Max has the latter blackmailing the warden with a mere power of suggestion which is almost laughable. Was she hypnotized? Why does Max hate a pedophile so much when he is surrounded by cold-blooded killers - like himself? Besides, couldn't Jack inform them what brought him inside? That would have ended all the speculations and acts of dissension. It is, after all, a sin to tell a lie. More so, if you’re a priest.

Martin and Jack

The film boasts of a judicious number of full frontals from everyone. In fact, gratuitous nudity becomes this film. In a scene where Max and his horde attack nubile-bodied Rook at the shower hall, there’s an awkward hybrid of violence and nudity as the young prisoner gets bludgeoned by "socked batteries" and the physical assault of Max and his gang. Genitals fly around, swiftly flailing on mid air and against gravity in a winceful spate of violence. Yes, there are several shower scenes – and they’re not bashful where flashing of crowned jewels are concerned - so who says those lingering shower scenes are exclusively Pinoy Pink fodder?

What brought me to watch this film is the reference to Simon Pearce and Christian Martin’s “Shank”. “Release” comes from the same people. Unfortunately, the story is pretty much a muddled artistic fare. The dream sequences, for example, confuse more than move the plot. Wayne Virgo, who was brilliant in “Shank” seemed lost and groping in the dark. His character, which carries the baffling plot twist as the film draws to a close, felt like an artifice for an undeserved deus ex machina. How easily can you turn a coat from heralding a friendly face to the opposite end of the spectrum? You hear a whisper from someone who almost mauled you to death, and you snap into enlightenment? Seriously?

Rational, credible character motivation has been disregarded. In fact, the film neglects the believable progression of Martin and Jack’s relationship which, for the most part, is a maneuvered relationship. It also dispenses lines that, though interesting, feels empty in the context of the story: “There are far worse things than damnation.” Like watching one of our pink films, that’s for sure. There’s more. Jack gets some verbal tussle with Max. “The path of the righteous is beset on all sides by the tyranny of evil men.” Reply: “To thine own self be true. As night follows days, I know who I am.” Inspired already?

Martin does his night rounds

Wayne Virgo plays Rook, Jack's bunk mate.

Dream sequence of Jack roaming the Bristol woodlands

Jack cleans his dirty hands.

Rook gets hurt.

Daniel Brocklebank

Garry Summers as idealistic prison guard Martin.

Wayne Virgo plays Rook.

Underworld Awakening - Reduced to Diverting Observations

2012-01-21T19:28:00.007+08:00

It’s a grim world ensnared by paranoia.

Humans have discovered that vampires and lycans have succeeded in surviving what was once thought as a total annihilation a few years back. Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a vampire warrior thawed from a block of ice after 12 years of hibernation, discovers that she has been released from a laboratory by another missing specimen – Subject 2, who turns out to be a child they call “Eve” (India Eisley). The pre-teen girl has Selene's boyfriend's Michael’s eyes, and appears vulnerable. Their staggering exit soon becomes a cataclysmic chase when those beastly lycans discover the child – a sentient being that could be more powerful than any of them. Her presence threatens them, thus the need to get rid of this hybrid of vampire and werewolf (like her father).

With the help of David (Theo James), the son of a herd of vampire clan, they find an unwelcoming shelter. They are of course rebuffed. Their presence in the community draws danger to a group which has prioritized self preservation over charity. But just when Selene and Eve start settling down, a horde of lycans (werewolves) attack and start annihilating the vampires. Moreover, the humans aren’t far behind. And they're out to draw blood, not fraternity.

Mars Marlind and Bjorn Stein’s “Underworld: Awakening” blatantly ushers us into the resurrection of a franchise that doesn’t deserve it. Selene for the most part appears indecisive, and her nemesis seems preeminent, albeit with sovereign power too potent for her to overcome. In fact, half the time you’re watching the gunfights and adrenaline action, you’re cloaked with utter disbelief how Selene could overpower her enemies (do you seriously think she’d lose?)

This netherworld is brushed like dark quarters of desperation and madness, and survival is taken to the fore. But why would an audience give their sympathy to blood-thirsty creatures? Or to horrendous furry beasts that gnaw on human flesh? Its film makers have somehow forgotten that humans are supposed to favor humans over creatures who make food out of their fragile existence. After all, in a dog-eat-dog world, we too have to propagate our species. Part of this preservation is haunting those who haunt us.

What does Beckinsale think of her returning character? In an interview with Adam Chitwood (collider.com), she said, “I always said there wasn’t going to be a fourth one. So you can’t trust what I say at all. I don’t know. Part of me thinks that’s so peculiar to me.” She further added, “But I am very fond of the character, and other people are pretty fond of her, too. So who knows? There’s part of me that thinks maybe it’s good to blaze a trail, to be the menopausal action heroine. Give me Underworld 12 and my little beard hairs.”

A menopausal action heroine? Who knows what kind of vampires have mutated in that era. Af far as I know, 2012’s Selene looks more like the Cullens of “Twilight” than a formidable vampire warrior who merely looks good in a tight leather suit.

SPOILERS!

All these make watching “Underworld: Awakening” anything but cinematic immersion. I instead divert myself to daft observations: 12 years into the future and Selene’s sexy leather “costume” survives the passing of time; Detective Sebastian (Michael Ealy), the police detective tracking down Selene, is a gorgeous black guy with the bluest of eyes; India Eisley who plays Subject #2 is a Rachel Weisz deadringer; and I could probably stare at Theo James since there’s no cinematic engagement to be had anyway. In a Ripley's moment, when Selene does a mean cardiac pump on a newly expired David – she cuts through his chest with bare nails, then manually grasps and pumps his heart with life-saving prowess – I was going to shimmy to Beyonce’s “Love on Top”!

I don’t lie.

Beautiful Kate Beckinsale

Kate Beckinsale appears next in Len Wiseman's "Total Recall" with Colin Farrell.

Kate Beckinsale

Theo James was seen in Antonio Banderas' "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" and in the hit British film "The Inbetweeners".

Theo James

Theo James

India Eisley played Ashley in the TV series, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager"

India Eisley

Michael Ealy

Blue-eyed Michael Ealy appears next in the battle-of-the-sexes flick, Tim Story's "Think Like a Man"

Perfect Sense - Apocalyptic Musings

2012-01-19T01:55:00.005+08:00

Like the proverbial thief in the night, it comes in fortuitous stages. The illness is ominous. First, a person is overcome with an overwhelming grief. Truck drivers who were never emotional cry like little girls who have their hearts broken. Then they lose their sense of smell.

They call it S.O.S. Severe Olfactory Syndrome. Scientists are baffled because they couldn't find the usual etiologies; there’s no pattern or apparent source, nor mode of transmission. Within 24 hours, 120 cases are reported in England. Hundreds more spread across Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East. Against this backdrop, we follow Michael (Ewan McGregor) and Susan (Eva Green) whose paths cross in a world of uncertainty.

Michael works as a chef in a busy fine dining restaurant. Epidemiologist Susan, who’s nursing a broken heart, lives at an apartment next block. One morning, while Michael gets his ciggie fix, he finds Susan by her window. In such prodigious rendezvous, two strangers meet and fall in love.

As they deliberately learn about each other, the spread of the “disease” turns pandemic. Both of them eventually become part of the growing statistics.

What becomes of a chef who can’t smell? But the resilience of humanity allows people to adapt. As people settle down with their sensory loss, food in restaurants become spicier, saltier, sweeter to account for the loss of smell. People after all can still “taste”. Then comes the next stage : those afflicted are overcome with insatiable hunger. At that particular moment, they are cloaked by an immense desire to eat. So they grab anything they could. Cotton, lipstick, paper, raw fish. India, Japan and the rest of the world turn into famished beasts, devouring any item they could grab. After satisfying their desire, they lose their sense of taste. Still, people adapt. Once accustomed to it, they started going back to restaurants for the memories of gastronomy; the food presentation, etc. Where is this syndrome leading to?

In what could be one of the most petrifying cinematic imagining, director David Mackenzie paints a unique landscape and a bleak scenario to usher us into a dying humanity; the end of the world as we know it. In its contemporary setting, humanity is abruptly beset, not by wars, extreme weather or zombies, but by a series of emotional upheavals before a sensation disappears forever.

When each symptomatic prodome starts, we were constantly anticipating for a light at the end of the tunnel. After all, big men don’t just burst into inconsolable tears; mothers don’t suddenly eat lipsticks out of perverse hunger. Which sensation would follow? From what emotional outburst is it coming from? "Perfect Sense" is an unseemly horror flick. I was on tenterhooks from start to finish.

Ewan McGregor returns to quirky film making. In the past, he’s always favored interesting stories thus gaining a cult following from movies like “Trainspotting”, “Velvet Goldmine”, “Young Adam”, “The Ghost Writer”, “The Man Who Stare at Goats”, “Little Voice”, etc. Recently, I saw Mike Mills’ “Beginners” where Ewan plays a son who learns that his septuagenarian father is battling cancer – and in his advancing age, keeps a male lover. After a series of Hollywood debacles, McGregor has retraced his cinematic pathway. This is even evident in his preponderance to take his "kitt off". Yes, in "Perfect Sense", he once again shares Obi-wan Kenobi's enviable "light saber", albeit for a few precious seconds (see screen cap below).

Eva Green, who played Vesper Lynd of “Casino Royale” opposite blond Bond – Daniel Craig, isn't so bashful either. When she shares her bed with McGregor, she displays her proud mammaries. Equal opportunity for every pervs. J

The film is peculiar. The veneer is contemporary, yet there’s a conspicuous darkness that foreshadows a cataclysmic holocaust. It throws a hint of optimism withinin the stark desperation of the situation, yet an undercurrent of restlessness keeps reminding you to brace yourself for an eventuality. What’s more jarring is its suggestion of how we gradually lose everything… in unexpected stages.

I was pushed into introspection. Would I cope if I were inflicted with “crippling grief, a spell of extreme derangement, violent rage”? Then gradually lose all my sensations! That night, I sat on my bed with a disconcerting feeling. As a realist, will I be capable of emotions if I were to lose my senses? Oddly, McGregor thought of the brilliant script as a metaphor for “falling in love”. “You know how we say that you lose your senses when you fall in love?" he said. True enough; a concluding scene displays a possible scenario as people started losing the next sensation.

But we’re not telling what it is.

Susan and Michael share a morning in Mackenzie's "Perfect Sense".

Ewan McGregor

Ewan McGregor. One of my favorite McGregor films is a low-brow English comedy called "Brassed Off" where McGregor played a tuba.

Ewan McGregor

Eva Green has a fraternal twin - a girl who doesn't look like her. She appears next in Tim Burton's gothic tale of vampires, "Dark Shadows" along side Johnny Depp, Jonny Lee Miller and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Eva Green

Eva Green. Her first film was the sexually ambivalent "The Dreamers" by film master Bernardo Bertolucci.

Eva Green

A Mother's Story - Accountable Tragedies

2012-01-14T20:46:00.008+08:00

The Filipino migrant worker has embraced the concept of 3D jobs, an American neologism that refers to “Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning”. These jobs bring higher wages due to a shortage of willing qualified workers. Such employments engage in high risk, low status works. What’s baffling, some of these people aren’t even paid all that well.

Medy Santos (Pokwang) is desperately coming up for air. Her dubiously invalid husband Gerry (Noni Buencamino) refuses to work, and has turned to gambling; even their utility budget gets usurped. When Medy gives birth to her second child, she only had herself to turn to. Moreover, her mother (Daria Ramirez) constantly nags her to find a job abroad. The road to riches is nowhere found on local shores. When an actress offers Medy the chance to work with her for her 10-day U.S. tour, she reluctantly grabs the opportunity and leaves the care of her children to her mother and best friend (Ana Capri).

One serendipitous day, she meets Helen (Beth Tamayo), her erstwhile childhood best friend who has left a daughter in Manila, but has since remarried to an elderly American. She tries convincing Medy to stay and find her fortune there, at the risk of earning an illegal status. The day before her flight back to Manila, Medy gets a distressed call from Gerry. Queenie (Xyriel Manabat), her youngest, was rushed to the hospital and she had to send money – fast! It wasn’t even considered that she was coming home the next day.

En route to the airport, Medy is circumspect – and swiftly detours away. She decides to stay. After all, coming home seems like a dead-end option for dearth. And her children need to feed, go to school, see doctors. With Helen’s help, Medy takes odd jobs helping out at a children’s class. But as days pass, it becomes clear that illegal immigrants enjoy paltry rights, thus couldn’t earn more than they should. Helen offers her a better paying job (try $800) – that of a live-in house keeper in a household of a constantly squabbling lawyer couple. What’s worse, they take her passport and throw her in an otherwise nonhabitable room. She isn’t allowed to leave the premises except the occasional foray outside to put out the garbage.

For the next couple of years, Medy lives her miserable days oppressed and mistreated. Her only link to the world outside is Helen who runs errands for her, sending money to Medy’s family and dropping her Balikbayan boxes. But Medy gradually unearths a ruse: Helen receives a considerable percentage of the money she earns. With hands mashed by manual labor and a crumbling soul, Medy – with the help of her employer’s daughter – finds the courage to escape. Will Medy succeed?

Medy’s story is a cautionary tale of courage and perseverance, and it’s obvious that this will resonate loudly among Filipinos whose fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters work overseas. But this tale of heartbreaking quandary is showing interminable urgency. We’ve lived with this for three decades and we’ve grown accustomed to such humdrum tragedy. The plot gets more tiresome when Medy – after seven years – finds her way home. Suddenly, the mouths she’s been feeding turn against her. She’s suddenly the neglectful mother to her idiotic son King (Rayver Cruz). Her sickly daughter (Manabat) doesn’t know her. Her mother just stares with woeful I-told-you-so’s when she complains of her children’s apparent alienation (“Pitong taon kang nawala.”). Gerry, her husband, wouldn’t even meet her at the airport.

Though there is a degree of diversion in Medy’s story, you couldn’t help shake the excessive complot to weave a story as deplorable, almost disconsolate – nothing short of calamitous – as Medy’s. Many of the characters are caricatures and cardboard depictions – like Medy’s American employers, husband Gerry, Medy’s son King, et.al. – you are somehow taken to the world of Walt Disney where anti-heroes look like villains, growl like devils and move with sinister deportment. Such is the failure of this narrative, where black is black and white is white. Life, if you’ve noticed, has gray hues in between, and blotches of colors and shades. This is why Beth Tamayo’s performance lends a degree of inscrutability for this cinematic vehicle. Tamayo tempers her underwritten part with due restraint; it’s hard to peg her as friend or foe. Like most people, Tamayo shows reflections of humanity – actions guided by motives, yet there’s also the inherent goodness grappling with moral dilemmas (she has gambling problems; her marriage is falling apart; she needs to send money for her daughter back home). Tamayo luminously shines in 2012’s first local release!

Pokwang tries hard as Medy, and it’s easy to empathize with someone who has experienced the hardships of being a migrant worker. She has probably endured more than Medy (didn’t she lose a daughter while working in Japan?) Unfortunately, Pokwang peppers her performance with sprinkles of humor which don’t quite make the grade. (“Aatend ng kombulsyon sa Amerika.”) It was an artistic choice to lighten what’s a decidedly sappy narrative, but such moments feel displaced. The more glaring realization is that we’re watching Pokwang play herself. That isn’t so bad, but not all that good either.

It’s hard not to challenge some illogical choices in director John-D Lazatin's narrative. King, the character played by Rayver Cruz, Medy’s eldest child, is particularly perturbing. If he was indeed intelligent as the story has him, wasn’t it ever an issue that his father was merely posturing as an invalid? Was Gerry sitting in a wheelchair? Yes, he limped, but that never stopped people from finding work. Heck, people with greater physical disabilities – polio victims, amputees – even become lawyers and doctors. Wasn’t it crystal that if there were one negligent parent; it would readily single out the patriarch who refused to seek work? And wasn’t it the grandmother’s métier to educate her grandchildren why their mother chose to stay away? Or was she merely happy to receive her monthly stipend? She was the moving force behind her daughter’s migration. These were obvious lapses in the story. You may drop a tear or two, but at the back of your mind, you knew you’re riding the perfunctory mechanics of melodrama. And it helps that Dodgie Simon penned such a heart breaking melody in Carol Banawa’s “Sakaling Malimutan Ka”.

Life sometimes reeks of tragedy, and we’re accountable for half of it.

Helen and Medy

Employers from hell

Mother and daughter share light moments

Son King blames mother Medy

Worst of the Worst - 2011's Horror Roll

2012-01-09T14:16:00.005+08:00

We've waited a whole year to collate the titles and performances that made us suffer, wince, and shiver out of frustration. These were the films that made us doubt the Filipino as a Filmmaker, and truly underlined why many Filipinos prefer brainless Hollywood fares over local commercial and independent titles. "Untamed Virgins" vs. "Transformer"? Which one would you pay P180 for? It's a no-brainer really!

CONSUMER RIGHTS

If you don't agree with us, too bad. It's my own money I wasted to watch these flicks. Last time I checked, I had the inherent right to say what I wanted about the products I bought. Like that rotten tomato from the market. Otherwise, spend your money and go watch a movie. Join me in my suffering! Then make your own list!

Without further ado, here are 2011's Worst Films:

1. Panday 2 – Mac Alejandre’s action adventure-fantasy is filled with characters that don’t make sense; try a fire-breathing dragon that’s too inept to kill sword-wielding devil warriors a fourth of their size; a mythical hero with a protruding abdominal girth hidden behind a 5-inch thick belt, one who can’t protect his love ones; a Joker-wannabe nemesis who keeps getting resurrected after having been blown to smithereens from their last encounter; a schizophrenic witch who does nothing but laugh whether she’s pleased or otherwise.. Yes, it’s déjà vu. The plot – if you can call it that – is exactly similar to the last one.

2. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow – Maricel Soriano shows the ABC’s of bad acting! Lovi Poe and Carla Abellana repeat themselves because they were so pleased with their soap opera performance in Jun Lana’s “My Neighbor’s Wife”. So they’re giving us more of the same. But this is different. Calamity and catastrophe are used as backdrop for their caterwauling. Impressed?

3. Big Boy - Shireen Seno’s masturbatory journey back into post-war Manila is littered with dreamlike sequences of random events and scatterbrain indulgence. A poor family gets their teenage child a nose job. And this is the 1950’s! The narrative alternately jumps from black-and-white to color scheme. A story easily told in 15 minutes is stretched to an almost-epic two-and-a-half hours! The best part? Some people label it “brilliant”. Go figure.

4. Sexventure. Nigerian expat Fellyx Honeyfield once again plays with his camera and comes up with easily the year’s worst movie. A 65 kilometer ride from Makati to Calamba takes a bunch of horned up girls two days to complete. After getting abducted – where they were beaten black and blue and even raped, they opted to head down to a rundown resort for a swim instead of reporting the incident at the nearest police station. And before you thought that’s how the narrative ultimately unravels, this was actually an AIDS-related vendetta involving a woman who doesn’t have HIV! Get it? The funniest bit in this sad excuse of cinema happens at the tail end of the screening. Little did I realize that “Sexventure” wasn’t actually a compound word for “sex adventure”, but an acronym that meant this: S – Severe, EX – Extremely, V – Vicious, E – Exposing, N – Nudity, R – Reproach… and so on! Does that vaguely mean anything to you? Someone needs to bump his head on the wall.

5. Pak! Pak! My Dr. Kwak! – An angel is sent down to Earth for a mission involving a quack healer. Fart jokes, not to mention characters on the throes of a diarrheaic episode, pepper this Tony Reyes cinematic atrocity. The idiots at the Cinema Evaluations Board gave it a B-rating. Were you surprised? Well, not really. Not when they also gave “Tween Academy”, “Panday 2”, “Enteng ng Ina Mo” similar rating. You know what one of those moron judges called Bea Binene? The new Maricel Soriano! Alcohol intoxication perhaps? Nausog tuloy si Maricel. :)

6. Students Project. Another Laguna-bound homophobic quartet (teen age boys this time) head to the province to interview a transvestite. Appreciate the narrative coherence already? The lines in the flick were careless, even thoughtless. Define "gay", students were asked by an interviewee. One poor guy replied: "Gay is a social being who is creative and responsible". He might as well describe National Artist wanna-be Carlo Caparas, right? Or Sharon Cuneta, for that matter. While the guys were picking up a hooker, Richard paid her a compliment: "Ang ganda mo. Para kang isang magandang dilag!" Huh? Maybe Rich thought the girl was a transsexual? At one of the class scenes - filmed under the canopy of a camachile, their professor introduced, "This is Psychology. Do you know what the world needs now?" Love, sweet, love, maybe? Then suddenly, these homophobes started canoodling with each other’s joysticks at a camp out. And wait, this Deo Fajardo-movie ended up with a good guy-bad guy chase scene. Still follow the narrative structure?

7. Masikip sa Tatlo. Edz Espiritu’s film examines infidelity in a homosexual relationship. Eh? Does this mean there’s a degree of discernment here? Fat chance of that happening. But see Jersey Milano cry from one room to the next in the most painfully protracted crying scenes in the history of the human race.

8. Untamed Virgins. John Ad. Castillo and Malaysian expat Z Lokman incorporate two unrelated stories: one follows indigenous tribesmen as they go about their daily jungle routine; the other follows a fictitious tribal king in search of a potion that could revitalize his sexual stamina. Roldan Aquino parades around with his male boobs and a gargantuan potbelly, bemoaning his incapacity to “get it up”. One scene has him scouring the jungle to look for his "mahiwagang dahon" (magic leaves supposedly possessing Viagra potency). When he saw a porcupine, he was so petrified he jumped on a tree and stayed there overnight until his son found him the next day! He said, "Nakakita ako ng napakaraming malalaki't mababangis na hayop!" A single diminutive porcupine?

9. Tiyo Pablo. Another Edz Espiritu hair-pulling masterpiece. This provided a cinematic template to the low-budget, pink-flavored domestic drama that doesn't need change of scenery. Characters just navigate the walls of a house, gallantly disrobing between lines. This scenario is seen in succeeding homoerotic titles like Rad Francisco’s “Playmates”, Vince Tan’s “Laro”, Paul Singh Cudail’s “Sulot”, Darry de la Cruz’s “Bingwit”, Lucas Mercado’s “Trabajador: Men @ Work”, etc. Aren't homosexuals the most brilliant minds where art is concerned? Why are the most detestable films of the year the pink-fueled releases? Mediocrity has become almost pathognomonic to the genre. One reason for this unrelenting proliferation is the audience’s tolerance to poor creativity; as long as there are flashes of genitalia, it’s a five star movie. I actually overheard two men conversing about “Kape Barako”. “Uy napanood mo yun? Ang ganda ganda nun, maraming titi!” I rest my case. Isn’t that plain stupidity? Someone bring him a brain… fast!

10. Crisaldo Pablo Films. Six of them: “Subok”, “Hinala”, “M2M Eyeball The Movie”, “Manong Konstru”, “Wanted Male Boarders” and “Dose, Trese, Katorse”. While a big network like GMA Films can only muster 6 commercial releases, Crisaldo Pablo easily comes out with the same output; many of them in simultaneous weekly commercial releases. Fuzzy camera, low budget, tuberculous guys willing to flash their magic wands, and stories conjured from a libidinous, confused, albeit hallucinating writer characterize these stories. We have separate reviews of each gag-inducing work. Pablo’s excuse for their mediocrity? These are not “films” but “video movies”! LOL. Didn’t he finish Film Studies in UP Diliman?

2011’s Most Annoying Performances: The Horror Roll

We’ve retitled the heading. Why? Because if we were to really qualify a heading with “worst”, then we’d need a long, long list. Instead, we’ve collated the performers who stuck out like sore thumbs in their respective films. They made our viewing experience unbearable. We wanted to throw rancid eggs and rotten tomatoes while they were on screen.

Inclusion-exclusion criteria: All films screened in commercial theaters. We’ve excluded most of the Pink Films of Crisaldo Pablo and some of his cohorts. Otherwise, this list would be a roll call to most of the year’s gay-friendly outputs. Besides, you can hardly take these flicks seriously where artistic merit and professional standards are concerned. But, we had to make an exception to two of the most hair-pulling performances from that genre. As heaven is my witness, these names deserve to be here.

1. Aljur Abrenica as Alfredo, the college jock, in Chris Martinez’s updating of Joey Gosiengfiao’s “Temptation Island”. For all of Abrenica's physical splendor, he is hopelessly hammy. Abrenica's deliveries were perfunctory and at times painful... like playing a pre-recorded indolent declamatory line, robotic and wooden. He has taken Machete to heart. Method acting, perhaps?

2. Melai Cantiveros as hard working bread winner Pureza in Soxy Topacio’s wrinkle-inspiring penitence flick called “The Adventures of Pureza: Queen of the Riles”. Stripped of the charm and affability we've expected from Cantiveros, all that’s left is a shrill, noisy, charmless comedic delusion that irritates and tests patience.

3. Toffee Calma as gay director Melos who sets out to manipulate the lives of his household help in Vince Tan’s “Laro”. Watching him perform on screen felt like he hasn't learned much from his considerable experience in the business – a long list of mostly B-movie eroticas. He is awkward. He articulates as though there’s a gum stuck in his incisors and a furball down his larynx. He fills his persona with wasted facial contortions and lavishly unnecessary animated spiels; it was like a bad drag show in a two-bit comedy bar.

4. Marc Abaya as Rodel, the head henchman who’s running after the children of the massacre victims in Jerrold Tarog’s “Aswang”. Abaya took his character with livid thespic strokes, you might as well expect him to eventually transmogrify into Beelzebub himself. His depiction is exactly similar to his role in Joaquin Valdez’s “Dagim” (about cannibals in the mountains). He could have hopped from that set to this, there wouldn’t be discernable contrariety. This has always been Abaya’s unfortunate inclination. When he portrays, he goes all out, with no heed for restraint.

5. Noriel Jarito as Efren, the middle aged OFW who, after getting downsized from work, comes home unannounced only to find his wife canoodling with their neighbor in Jarito’s “Rindido”. Jarito, the film’s protagonist and lead star, wears a single facial expression throughout the film; he displays a uniform blunt affect that slightly changes when he closes his eyes during coitus. Doing double duty as actor and director was an ill advised decision and sheds all the focus that his narrative required.

6. Richard Gutierrez played 4 characters in GMA’s “My Valentine Girls”: as novelist Arvin Perez who struggles from an artist’s block; as taxi driver Oslec in Dom Zapanta’s “Soulmates”; as apocalypse survivor Aidan in Chris Martinez’s “Gunaw”; as lawyer Zack in Andoy Ranay’s “BBF”. Here’s the rub: Whether he's a lawyer or a taxi driver, a novelist or an action hero, Gutierrez offered no delineation in terms of characterization. They were strangely similar. How an actor could impart an absence of distinction in all four characters is stuff of legends.

7. Roldan Aquino as Bating, a tribal head in search of the “mahiwagang dahon” that could bring his sexual vitality back in John Ad. Castillo and Z Lokman’s “Untamed Virgins” – a film populated by bulging abdomens, static emotions and inert facial expressions. And this was marketed as old-school erotica, without any hint of eroticism, mind you!

8. Jersey Milano as Sandy, the call center agent whose lover (Anton Nolasco) cheated on him in Edz Espiritu’s “Masikip sa Tatlo” – curiously one of this blog’s most searched titles. Milano’s film is stippled with incessant, caustic caterwauling and vociferous scenes that inspires hara kiri from its audience. You’d find him crying in the bedroom, then he’d move to the living room to cry again, and further his emotional calisthenics in the bathroom. The film, bafflingly labeled as an experimental film by its discombobulated makers, is one of the year’s most painful films we had to endure.

9. Candy Pangilinan takes a twin dishonorable mention for her choleric demeanor as Monique in Deramas’ “Who’s That Girl” and as the irascible camera person in Tan’s “HIV: Si Heidi, Ivy at si V” elegantly displaying her dense and boisterous, staccato version of how acting should be. If you've seen her in "For The First Time", "Petrang Kabayo", "Who's That Girl", and all her other television work, it's the same thespic attack: she has, in fact, mastered the art of constipated delivery. She's always irritable, throws her lines like she's going to drop dead if she couldn't finish a sentence in 2 seconds. In one scene, out of desperate haste, she referred to Gil as "a hot young shot director" - Ano daw? What’s a “young shot director”? Of course, she meant "a young hotshot director".

10. Maricel Soriano as Mariel, the spiteful television network head in Jun Lana’s “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”. Lana has managed to singularly destroy Maricel Soriano’s spotless reputation as an insightful, dependable actress. For the first time in her illustrious career, I was surprised to find Ms. Soriano heavy handed and misdirected. This was a Soriano that’s graceless, shrill and mediocre. Her one-note performance is baffling. What has time done to one of the most versatile actresses this business has ever produced? What's more mysterious? She won Best Actress at the recent MMFF! Doesn't it make you wonder who these idiotic panel of judges are?

11. Carla Varga as Cedes, the widow - with three sons – who falls for an apocryphal young husband who has eyes for her sons in Edz Espiritu’s “Tiyo Pablo”. Varga repeated herself as Melba, the abandoned wife in Jigz Recto’s “Dulas”. In both flicks, the aging upstart parades around fully made up and accessorized, wearing her skin tights and ready to party… even in the bedroom where her young husband was already half naked.

12. Toni Gonzaga as music teacher Maribel who opted to work in Japan in Jose Javier Reyes’ “Wedding Tayo, Wedding Hindi”. We love Toni to bits, but hated her ill-advised turn in the movie. Her decision to meet Eugene Domingo’s flagrant comedic (but welcome) excesses head on exposed her weaknesses. Her performance straddled between demonic possession and constipation. Yes, we know that living in Japan could have toughened her up, but did she really have to be that loud and eccentric? Toni mistook change of personality for insanity.

13. Jaime Pebanco as Haddic, the coffee farmer whose son, a slow-learner in school, was recruited to join the Abu Sayyaf in Joel Lamangan’s “Patikul”. Pebanco’s first ever award – a best supporting actor from Cinemalaya – was as mysterious as the crop rotations of South America. His turn was one of the sore points of an otherwise serviceable, if a tad too schmaltzy pro-education film campaign. Yes, “30 years” in the business (really?) sometimes doesn't teach cinematic restraint.

14. GMA Tweeners (Barbie Forteza, Joshua Dionesio, Elmo Magalona, Bea Ninene, Jake Vargas, et.al) for their collective effort in “Tweet Academy: Class of 2011”. Here’s a bunch of charmless, clueless young performers who awkwardly hopped into cinema like fish out of water. Weird growing-up flick for an extra terrestrial audience. Enough said.

SPECIAL MENTION

There’s more – like Sue Prado’s hysterics as Lolita, a drug mule in Joseph Israel Laban’s “Cuchera” and the cast of Sari Lluch Dalena’s “Ka Oryang” – with the exception of Alessandra de Rossi, who was brilliant as usual. Special mention goes to Marife Necesito and Angeli Bayani for their gag-inducing, soap opera’ish depiction of abused political prisoners. Didn’t I mention before that this abomination won “Best Picture” as well at 2011’s Cinema One Festival? They should have shared the “Best Picture” trophy with Shireen Seno’s “Big Boy” to completely realize the big joke! The good news: These flicks didn’t make it for commercial screening!

Marife Necesito and Sue Prado

Blush! - 2011's Best Performances: The Honor List

2012-01-05T14:15:00.015+08:00

Imagine that! Eighty (80) commercial films and about 3 dozens of independent and full-length festival features and we couldn't even complete a list of 10 in most categories.

In terms of performance, it's been slim pickings for 2011. There have been few out-of-the-box portrayals. This is mirrored even in international festivals where there were relatively less acclaims for local performers compared to the previous couple of years.

Inclusion criteria: All commercial releases, festival entries and indies we saw from 2011. We were actually surprised when we completed the list. KC Concepcion, Kathryn Bernardo and Alden Richards are unseemly names for their categories, but we've reviewed their performances and we sincerely believe theirs were among the most laudable in a year where we couldn't even complete a list.

Bernardo, for example, was less successful in Sineneng's "Way Back Home". She was eclipsed by her co-star Julia Montes who was a revelation. However, the brevity and compactness of the material in Tarog's "Parola (Shake, Rattle & Roll 13) highlighted the young actress' gift. Alden Richards, on the other hand, was always a bland personality to us until we saw him in Laranas' "The Road", as though the movie was written with him in mind. His raw and unfettered delivery surprised us and made for some spine-tingling depiction of a young man with a tortured past. If he were less believable, the film would have limped. KC Concepcion bravely chose a tragedy for her sole cinematic vehicle for the year, and she comes up with a performance that truly deserves mention.

We have 8 names for best lead actors, 10 for best lead actresses, 6 names for best supporting actors and 6 names for best supporting actresses. Each one has succeeded in churning out nuanced performances, not to mention consistency. They brought the stories to life with pulsating realism . Here are the year's Best Performances.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role:

1. Martin Escudero as Remington, the homophobe cursed by a cantankerous wizard (Roderick Paulate) to turn “gay” on his 21^st birthday in Jade Castro’s “Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington”. His character shifts and emotional upheavals are competently delivered in the subtlest movements. He perfected the nuance of a flaming fag who’s hard-pressed in controlling his emerging effete tendencies. What a joy to watch!

2. Dingdong Dantes as Ivan, a persevering husband and father abandoned by an adulterous wife in Joyce Bernal’s “Segunda Mano”. Dantes ably transformed into a passionate soul, hard-wired to do the things he felt needed to be done. When he's agitated and distraught, he tempers his outburst, effectively brandishing an undercurrent of malignant danger.

3. Aga Muhlach as Emman, the aging dance instructor in Olivia Lamasan’s “In the Name of Love”. This is Aga Muhlach at his best, uncluttered, without the distractions and vanity inherent in romantic lead roles. He grew an abdominal girth that rendered more character and allowed us to focus on the actor's emotive capacity.

4. Joel Torre as Rafael Dacanay, the cabeza of San Isidro invaded by a battalion of American soldiers in 1990 for John Sayles’ “Amigo”. But when was Torre ever bad?

5. Mark Gil as Rogelio, the struggling stuntman who was deceived by a transvestite in Lawrence Fajardo’s “Amok”. Gil displays the vulnerability of a desperate soul without dismissing the inherent humor borne out of his situation.

6. Edgar Allan Guzman as Intoy, the college guy who crosses path with an aggressive, sexually forward classmate in Erick Salud’s “Ligo na U, Lapit na Me”. Guzman exhibits a winking portrayal that displays both his dramatic and comedic skill, all in one coherent, insightful package.

7. Bembol Roco as Miguel, the husband of a woman whose wife gave birth to a fish in Adolfo Alix Jr.'s “Isda” (Fable of the Fish). Roco moves around as though a joke's being played on his family, and we feel his helplessness.

8. Alden Richards as the introverted teen boy Luis in Yam Laranas’ “The Road”. Richards deliberately took advantage of the script’s slow but steady build up, mining an emotional grit that inspires discernment. He displayed bristlingly restrained emotions, belying a calm and “angelic” exterior. Despite sparseness of movement and lines, his reticence petrified us.

BEST ACTOR IN A LEAD ROLE: Martin Escudero for "Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington"

Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role:

1. Anita Linda as Cion aka Esmeralda Cortez, the 85 year old former actress who is serving her sentence after a drug deal goes sour in Adolfo Alix, Jr.’s “Presa”. Linda's astonishing range is on full display. You'll loath her, laugh at her delusions, then sympathize for what becomes of her dreams. The scene where she shoots a movie inside prison - grappling with skills that aren't there anymore - is truly a Mastercard moment.

2. Lovi Poe as Lilibeth, the town beauty tasked to oversee fund raising ("ambagan") for the "tapusan", Infanta Quezon’s annual town ball in Dan Villegas’ “Mayohan” (Maytime). Poe shows such beauty and clarity in a role that could have easily turned into a bore.

3. Angel Locsin as Cedes, the fiancé of a rising politician who hides a sad romantic past with a dance instructor in Olivia Lamasan’s “In The Name of Love”. Angel Locsin owned up Cedes like second skin. Angel's inherent sexuality is key to making Cedes' character work; her sensitivity is painfully palpable.

4. Lovi Poe as Serafina, the catty beauty pageant contestant in Chris Martinez’s remake of Joey Gosiengfiao’s “Temptation Island”. When she flips her hair and waves a stick against her enemies, she embodies this snooty girl with wild abandon. She's this seductress; the vamp from hell, and obviously, Panday's sophisticated daughter. What a joy to watch!

5. Eugene Domingo as herself and as Mila – the conflicted mother of seven children - in Marlon Rivera’s “Ang Babae sa Septic Tank”. Domingo executes her mastery of the comedic language in flagrant strokes that defy adequate description. When she finally objected to scenes dipping her in a septic tank, a protracted round of laughter erupted all throughout the cinema. She has this enviable skill to infuse humor in drab lines like, “Tae yan. Madumi ang tae.”

6. Cherry Pie Picache as Lina, the woman from the dumpsite who gave birth to a fish in Alix’s “Isda” (Fable of the Fish). Carrying her "fish child" around with a desperate sense of affection has got to be one of the hardest things to parlay.

7. KC Concepcion as Raffy, the lymphoma patient who refuses another round of chemotherapy until she meets Eugene (Sam Milby) in Cathy Garcia-Molina’s “Forever and a Day”. A bold turn for a mainstream (i.e. "commercial") artist, her grief is displayed with moderated emotionality bereft of excesses common in sappy dramas dealing with mortality.

8. Diana Zubiri as Sarah, a nurse at a maternity hospital who, on Christmas Day, unravels a few unsavory truths about her lover (Yul Servo) in Eduardo Roy Jr.’s “Bahay Bata” (Baby Factory). This is one of the best displays of character progression in a film.

9. Boots Anson Roa as Eos, the septuagenarian widow who is impetuously carrying on an affair with Rodrigo (Rome Mallari), a much younger man in Arevalo-Ramos-Roxas’ “Ganap na Babae” (Garden of Eve). Roa takes on a role immersed in a situation that's pretty hilarious, but she does so with austere demeanor.

10. Kathryn Bernardo as Lucy who's friendship with her best friend is tested when warring witches use them as pawns in a long running rivalry in Jerrold Tarog's "Parola" episode from "Shake Rattle and Roll 13". Bernardo shifts from genial and breezy to menacing, we had chills running down our spine.

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEAD ROLE: Eugene Domingo for "Ang Babae sa Septic Tank"

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:

1. Yul Vasquez as Padre Hidalgo, the Spanish priest who preferred to stay in a small town invaded by American soldiers in maverick film master John Sayles' "Amigo". Vasquez's unpredictable nature is deliciously showcased - and begged the question: Can the town folk trust him or not?

2. John Regala as Eduardo, the father who sacrificed his “sexuality” to redeem a son cursed by a wizard. Regala displays an endearing and mollified depiction, a far cry from the emotive excesses pathognomonic in his early career performances.

3. Jun Jun Quintana as Popoy, the street hawker who’d sell anything for a buck in Adolf Alix Jr.’s “Haruo. Quintana fills the screen with natural charm and cinematic candor.

4. Dennis Trillo as Derek, the gym instructor who’s being kept by a wealthy matron in Jun Lana’s “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”. Trillo succeeds in making an unpleasant character sympathetic, and that’s no mean feat.

5. Marvin Agustin as the student leader turned revolutionary Oliver in Joel Lamangan’s “Sigwa” (Rage of Perils and Hope). He delivers one of the most emotionally distressing depiction of a torture victim. While his tears trickle down his cheeks and he pleads for his life, you are punched in the gut by the scene’s realism.

6. Garry Lim as Edwin, Mohawk-wearing street urchin who runs amok when an acquaintance he’s playing a game of pool with points a gun at him in Lawrence Fajardo’s “Amok. Lim delivered a blood-curdling performance.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: John Regala for "Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington"

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:

1. Jodi Sta. Maria as Aylynn, the girl friend Wesley (Sam Milby) left behind without a word when the latter moved to America in EJ Salcedo’s “Third World Happy”. In a scene where Aylynn reunites with her runaway boyfriend, Sta.Maria conveys silent anxiety and understated volatile agitation in delicious emotive splendor.

2. Rufa Mae Quinto as Nimfa, the much abused “alalay” of a pageant contestant. She's deftly displayed a sardonic take even on pedestrian lines; her impeccable wit at delivery is pure delight.

3. Carmina Villaroel as the discontented, adulterous and abusive homemaker Carmela in Yam Laranas’ “The Road”. She browbeats with sinister abandon. You hardly hear her voice rise, but the menace is all there.

4. Rosanna Roces as Edna, an aging bar girl who is the protagonist's confidant in Adolfo Alix, Jr.’s “Haruo”. Her presence brought realism to every scene she's in.

5. Eugene Domingo as Aida Capinpin, the manic mistress in Jose Javier Reyes’ “My House Husband”. Domingo’s humor is infused with masterful timing, raising the entertainment quotient of an otherwise derivative flick.

6. Gina Alajar as Azon, the fearful mother who, like Rosanna Roces' character in "Haruo", is afraid to lose the child she’s nurtured as her own in Joel Lamangan's "Sigwa". A truly heart-breaking, albeit desperate bid to hold on to a love one.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Carmina Villaroel for "The Road"

Up next: Brace yourselves for 2011's Horror List - The most annoying, hair-pulling cinematic turns of the year!

Blush! - 2011's Best Pictures

2012-01-03T18:30:00.017+08:00

I like the immersive atmosphere of a cool dark cinema, with flickering images set before me. The ruminative nature of film allows me to bear witness to the lives of others and experience little bits and pieces of the world – all in the comfort of my seat. It acquiesces to emotions not probably served by a sheltered life. The experience is a high in itself. But it isn’t all that pleasant; not when cinemas allow child’s play in the form of Fellyx Honeyfield and a caboodle of clueless directors serving cinematic slop. But 2011 had some rewards – and we’ve collated last year’s Ten Best Pictures that made us embrace repeatedly the wonderment and magic of the celluloid.

At the bottom of the list are titles that deserve honorable mentions. We want them in the line-up but we have to draw the line somehow.

Inclusion criteria: All Filipino Films we saw in 2011 – commercial, festival and specially-screened ouvres from the brilliant minds that made my year a little brighter and a lot richer. And I’m honored to share them here with you.

Aureaus Solito's Busong (Palawan Fate)

Punay (Alessandra De Rossi) is on a road trip - she’s being carried around on a hammock - in search of a cure for the baffling ulcerative lesions spreading all over her body. Along the way, she encounters people with dilemmas of their own to hurdle. Surreal story telling admixes with haunting images, and takes us to a perplexing, mystical dream land that we never thought existed in Palawan. The lyrical beauty of some scenes defies description. This is sublime cinematic experience that takes your breath away.

Marlon Rivera's Ang Babae sa Septic Tank

Sarcastic, hilarious, experimental, witty and a joy to watch – and there’s that vaguely familiar talent named Eugene Domingo who shall forever live in infamy as the woman who immersed in a pool of excreta – for the sake of art!

Yam Laranas' The Road - Abuse has sown evil. Director Laranas masterfully and cleverly spins a yarn of utter suspense bristling with pulsating narrative progression and psychological disquiet. It’s the year’s most unexpected triumph too.

Adolfo Alix, Jr.'s Haruo

A morbid turn of events brings a Japanese national to the squalor of Manila. He has escaped a criminal syndicate with bountiful cash, a helpless Filipina bar girl and tragic consequences. Now solitary, he has uprooted himself to the railside slums of the metropolis, wistfully fending for himself. Then he meets a mysterious girl. With a bristling narrative and the calculated manipulations of its color palette, smartly doing away with those shaky handhelds, it plays out like a blank canvas that gradually unravels right before your eyes, peeling veneers of its story in delectable stages of unrelenting tale, way until the full story is laid out like a masterpiece.

Richard Somes, Jerrold Tarog & Chris Martinez's Shake Rattle & Roll 13

Narrative triptych that challenges our intrinsic fears. Ashen faced earth creatures assault a sleepy countryside to reclaim what’s theirs; Two girls become pawns when warring witches endure a long standing conflict; A phobic factory owner is haunted by the tragic events that transpired during a typhoon. Cerebral take on the things that frighten us; a novel screamfest. More than anything, it is celebratory that three of local cinema's most innovative megmen are bunched together in one vehicle. Are we ushering into an era of the artists and veering away from the star system?

Alvin Yapan and Alemberg Ang's Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa

A student stalks his poetry teacher and enrolls in a dance class to spend more time with her. But a new dance partner insinuates into the equation with unexpected consequence. Exquisitely composed through a series of poems and movements, visual and textual romanticism curdle into one delectable narrative.

Jade Castro's Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington

The film stands on feral ground where its entertainment value is concerned. The film is hilarious yet thought provoking. It’s hard not to get besotted with our hero/anti-hero Remington who was cursed to become a homosexual when he turned 21. Marvelously played by the incandescent Martin Escudero.

Lawrence Fajardo's Amok

Crisscrossing tales of strangers come to a head when stray bullets fly across a busy intersection in Baclaran. Briskly paced and compellingly told, “Amok” – despite a dubious, ill-conceived conclusion - is one of the year’s most compelling watch.

Mes de Guzman's Sa Kanto ng Ulap at Lupa

Four children are left to their own devices in bleak Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya where they forage for food, salvage a video player, burglarize for rugby bottles and share wistful and seemingly uneventful days. Until tragedy ensues. Straight forward storytelling and sincere performances from novice actors make a persuasive and engaging tale of pathos and regret.

***

Rica Arevalo, Ellen Ramos & Sarah Roxas' Ganap na Babae (Garden of Eve)

Three divergent tales of women are told in contrasting techniques and temperaments – a farm girl who ploughs the unproductive land in a time of drought; a 68 year old widow endears herself to a strapping young man; a prostitute reluctantly agrees to tell her harrowing story to a persistent documentary film maker. These stories are elegantly pieced in utter subtlety through music, the patter of a gentle rain, a show on television, a breaking news on the radio. Served on a cinematic platter with a truly breath-taking conclusion, I had goosebumps leaving the cinema. As the film draws to an end, the nameless woman was asked of her name. And it wasn't Catherine Pena.

Honorable Mention:

1. Lawrence Fajardo's X-Deal - Masterly crafted erotica that brings back sophistication in a year characterized by mostly brainless sex-oriented films. We want our sex-oriented flicks with a dash of brain and a lot of class! Pretty please!

2. Eric Salud's Ligo na U, Lapit na Me (Star-Crossed Love) - It is a brave, albeit humor-filled exposition on present day sexual mores. It’s tantalizing and presents feminism by way of sexual liberation. The concepts here spread out of our comfort zones, like sympathizing with a woman who gets into a sexual relationship by dissing emotional commitment altogether. And we like the fact that it comes from a literary material, this one from Eros Atalia.

3. Adolfo Alix, Jr.'s Isda (Fable of the Fish) - It has a preposterous premise. After finding a miraculous statue at a garbage dumpsite, a woman gets pregnant – and gives birth to a fish! But this tale has a rewarding script and insightful performances that would have you thinking: Yeah, what if?

We were asked for the following category so we're sharing them here as well:

Best Director – Auraeus Solito for “Busong”

Best First Feature: EJ Salcedo's Third World Happy

Best Cinematography – Albert Banzon for “Haruo” and Luis Quirino for “Busong” (Palawan Fate)

Best Ensemble - John Sayle's Amigo

Up Next: The Year's Best Performances - and Worst? :)

2011: The Year That Was – A Rundown of All Commercial Filipino Film Releases of 2011

2012-01-01T14:36:00.012+08:00

It’s been a difficult year for us, but we feel oddly triumphant to have made it. Our advocacy on watching all commercial Filipino releases has been a tall order; one that challenged our stamina to sit through some of the most banal cinematic works - week after week. We sometimes doubt the essence of “Tangkilikin ang Pelikulang Pilipino” because patronage has to be deserved. More often than not, they don’t. The good news is, there have been a good number of releases that truly energized our resolve. The bad news: many of them don’t even have commercial exhibits.

But we're placing a premium on the films that made it to regular screenings – 2011's commercial releases!

NOT MEANT FOR PINOYS

These movies constitute the “real” Filipino Mainstream Cinema, offered on celluloids and silver screens to the 95 million movie-loving Filipinos all over the archipelago. What good is a triumphant Cannes-winning flick that never gets screened in his country; or that Locarno-winning Pinoy movie inaccessible to his countrymen? Sure, they’ve been screened and even won accolades in festivals in Siem Reap, Delhi, Maldives, Goa, Cairo, Vesoul, Durban, Chanchun, Ahmedabad, Eilat, Tehran, Thrissur, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram, Kyoto, Abu Dhabi, Antananarivo, Somalia, Mar del Plata and Dushanbi, but do they really deserve our adulation when they’re not even meant for Pinoy consumption?

Despite this unsavory fact, we still read about such triumphs at the Inquirer. They’re not even meant for the Pinoys, how can we gallantly embrace them?

HAZARDS OF DOCUMENTATION

Corollary to our advocacy is the more daunting task of writing about them. To be honest, this isn’t a very healthy endeavor. I had nightmares writing about “Panday 2”. I was highly febrile after watching Nigerian director Fellyx Honeyfield’s “Sexventure”. I braved the stench of a dank cinema in downtown Manila just to catch Rad Francisco’s “Bikini Boys”, thank heavens Kyle my BFF was with me. We're inflicted with Last Quarter Syndrome every year. The last 3 months of the year becomes a challenge; our spirit turns defiant. It gets harder to scribble our thoughts. This is the reason why our last quarter blog entries have been incomplete. But make no mistake; we have seen every single commercial movie released in 2011. And we’re here to take stock of the harvest.

CINEMA HARVEST

The big number – 80! We’ve included Christian Bautista’s Indonesian film, “A Special Symphony” in this list for completion. In the same list is John Sayles’ “Amigo” which had Filipino production cast and crew comprising about 80% of its manpower, thus its inclusion. It’s interesting to note that this film output has relatively increased from 2010’s 73 Filipino films released commercially.

PINK FILMS

Pink Films – those homoerotic, neuron-depleted, male-oriented, genitalia-waving soft porn ouvres – dominated 2011’s line-up with a staggering 25 titles; that’s more than a fourth of the whole output. The female erotica has taken the backseat – headed by Lawrence Fajardo’s “X-Deal”, the only masterly crafted flick in a genre comprising some of the worst films ever made (Fellyx Honeyfield’s “Sexventure”, John Ad. Castillo and Z Lokman’s “Untamed Virgins”, Noli Salvador’s “Haliparot: Mana sa Ina”).

Crisaldo Pablo, the exponent of low budget (with equally low cerebral activity) male exploitation flicks, managed an enviable output of 6 theatrical releases (“Subok”, “Hinala”, “Manong Konstru”, “M2M 3: Sex Eyeball The Movie”, “Dose, Trese, Katorse”, “Wanted: Male Boarders”). What’s alarming is that this Moron Cinema (plotless gay films) is a burgeoning industry and Pablo’s cohorts are too glad to follow his lead, many of them clueless with the visual medium: there’s Noli Salvador, Paul Singh Cudail, Lucas Mercado, Rad Francisco, G.A. Villafuerte, Edz Espiritu and Jigz Recto. And by the way, what’s with the letter “Z” and mediocrity, Z Lokman? There’s even Monti Parungao and his sperm-concocted lattes (“Kape Barako”). Even Vince Tan – aka Neal Tan - has joined the fray with 3 releases: “Private Nights”, “Anton Tubero”, “Laro”. Let’s not forget “HIV: Si Heidi, Si Ivy at si V” where he was re-billed “Neal Buboy Tan”. At least his male leads are real lookers (James Pinca in “Private Nights”, Lance Lopez in “Anton Tubero”) instead of the “dugyutin-type” and tuberculous-body frames of the guys in Crisaldo Pablo’s masterpieces. However, Pink Films produced a gem in Archie del Mundo’s “Taksikab” – the sole flicker of light in an abyss of artless, mindless penis-loving subculture.

THE LEADER

Star Cinema (the uncontested leader of high-profile mainstream commercial titles in the country) released 20. A few of these titles were as mere distributing arm: Robin Padilla’s “Tum: My Pledge of Love”, Cinema One and EJ Salcedo’s “Third World Happy”, Paul Soriano’s “Thelma”, Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s “Ikaw Ang Pag Ibig”, among others. GMA Films managed a measly 6 films. This settles the issue on which outfit lorded it over in terms of cinematic supremacy. Who makes real “artistas” instead of television stars? It’s a no-brainer really. Marian Rivera, GMA’s ultimate star, only managed to appear in Chris Martinez’s “Temptation Island” alongside half a dozen other talented actresses. Ah yes, there’s Mac Alejandre’s brain-numbing “Panday 2” which is hardly Marian’s vehicle. In the film, she portrayed the role of a dancing dragon that couldn’t even kill anyone significant in the movie. So much for career progression. Dingdong Dantes, GMA’s uber leading man, succeeded to appear in one movie, Joyce Bernal’s “Segunda Mano”. The irony here is: Dantes’ only starrer for the year is co-produced by GMA's rival, ABS CBN, Kris Aquino and Dantes himself. Something in the equation doesn’t add up, don’t you think? But things are looking up for GMA: Yam Laranas’ “The Road” is a solid artistic and commercial success. If that’s any indication, then 2012 might be a better year for the “Kapuso Network”.

BIGGEST MONEYMAKERS

Vice Ganda could runaway with the year’s biggest moneymaker in Wenn V. Deramas’ “Praybeyt Benjamin”. He should be an easy choice for an awkward “Box Office King” - unless Vic Sotto's "Enteng..." surpasses the 350 million mark. Anne Curtis may just get the crown for the Box Office Queen title over co-star Cristine Reyes for their surprise hit in Ruel Bayani’s “No Other Woman”. To get the rightful champ, they’d have to factor in the cash returns of Curtis’ “Who’s That Girl” and Cristine Reyes’ “Tumbok” both shown in 2011. Curtis should be triumphant, if that’s the case.

However, if you look closer, there’s one name that could outdo Curtis and Reyes – Eugene Domingo! Domingo amazingly starred in eight – yes, EIGHT! – money makers: as desperate Ivy in Chris Martinez’s “Gunaw” in “My Valentine Girls”; the unhinged Belinda Eduque in Wenn V. Deramas’ gag-inducing “Who’s That Girl?”; as Mila and as herself in Marlon Rivera’s rollicking “Ang Babae sa Septic Tank”; as Lauren Young’s free-wheeling mother in “Zombadings Part 1: Patayin Sa Shokot si Remington”; as Precy in Jose Javier Reyes’ annoying “Wedding Tayo, Wedding Hindi”; as the manic mistress Aida in Jose Javier Reyes’ “My House Husband”; as Ina Montecillo’s lovestruck bestfriend Rowena in Tony Y. Reyes’ “Enteng ng Ina Mo” and as the phobic factory owner in Chris Martinez’s “Rain Rain Go Away” in “Shake, Rattle and Roll 13”.

Viva Films seems to have made a successful turnaround (In the 90’s, they were left churning out girlie eroticas), co-producing flicks with Star Cinema: “Praybeyt Benjamin”, “No Other Woman”, “Won’t Last a Day without You” and “Catch Me I’m In Love”. Let’s not forget Sharon Cuneta’s return to Viva, a partnership that made Viva Films the biggest film outfit (bar none) in the 80’s.

Among the 80 films we’ve seen in cinemas, I wasn’t able to come up with articles for some titles: Joel Apuyan’s low-brow Robin Hood slapstick, “Law Law Gang: Umpisa Pa Lang ‘To”, Yapan and Ang’s poetic ode to affection “Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa”, Yuan Santiago’s (literally) dark tale “Babang Luksa”, Somes-Tarog-Martinez’s “Shake, Rattle & Roll 13”, Jose Javier Reyes’ “My House Husband”, Yeng Grande’s “Ritwal” and the execrable Reyes-Montero’s “Batang Ifugao” where the pink film phenomenon fledglingly invaded the Ifugaos. That doesn’t mean I can’t write about them in 2012, does it? LOL. Having said that, 67 synopsis and reviews aren’t a bad number. I am not sure though if I can still keep up with this resolve for 2012. I’ve shelled out an estimated P14,400 for these movies alone (and probably triple that number for the English titles). Not a bad business for the film industry, considering I’m just one of the hundreds of film lovers in the country.

ANONYMOUS TWAT

And to that DINGBAT who doesn't have the spine to even name himself/herself, if you are confused with my reviews, STOP READING, honey. You dislike these pages so much yet you persevere by reading a dozen entries? STOP BEING A MORON! Don't punish yourself. Nose bleed can kill, I'm told! It isn't my fault your intellectual quotient resembles that of a dodo! Grow a BRAIN first, then grow a spine and stop hiding in the comforts of your anonymity! If you require anti-psychotic drugs and anti-neurotic medication, I'd gladly refer you to my Tito who may have free samples for a tortured soul like you.

READERSHIP AND HITS

On a lighter note, “Make Me Blush” has evinced growth in readership, something that I didn’t even envision when I started this blog in late 2008. Why people are interested in my thoughts is still a mystery to me. I curse and I scoff and can be pretty blunt, but between that and my self-indulgent ramblings (this is my personal page, after all) are daily page reads that waver between 1,000 and 1,400. It’s still a paltry number compared to Dana’s 5,000 daily hits (Successful blogger Dana is Jamilla Obispo’s character in Lawrence Fajardo’s “X-Deal”), but it’s enough flattery when I see one person read a single article in a day. Funny thing is, 40% of these page hits come from anonymous, albeit untraceable sources (page subscriptions are anonymously encrypted, my cousin informed me). But keeping Make Me Blush is high maintenance so we’ll see what the future holds for us.

To everyone: A Very Prosperous 2012! Let’s all head to the cinemas. May there be better local films this 2012.

Without further ado, here’s a rundown of 2011’s commercial releases:

Crisaldo Pablo's "masterpieces" for 2011.

Ray Gibraltar's Brod

Dom Zapanta, Chris Martinez and Andoy Ranay's My Valentine Girls (Soulmates, BBFF, Gunaw)

Chito Rono's Bulong

Crisaldo Pablo's Subok

Noriel Jarito's Rindido

Adolf Alix Jr.''s Presa

Noli Salvador's Haliparot (Mana sa Ina)

Topel Lee's Tumbok

Robin Hood Padilla's Tum: My Pledge of Love

Lucas Mercado's Bata Pa Si Rafael

Noli Salvador's Ang Lihim Ni Adonis

Crisaldo Pablo's Hinala

Z Lokman's Seksing Masahista

Mae Czarina Cruz's Catch Me I'm In Love

Rad Francisco's Bikini Boys

Tony Y. Reyes' Pak! Pak! My Dr. Kwak!

Dan Villegas' Mayohan

Chris Martinez's Senior Year

John Ad. Castillo & Z Lokman's Untamed Virgins

Wenn V. Deramas' Who's That Girl?

Edz Espiritu's Masikip sa Tatlo

Chris Martinez's Temptation Island

Marlon Rivera's Ang Babae sa Septic Tank

Cris Pablo's Dose, Trese, Katorse

Cris Pablo's Manong Konstru

Cathy Garcia Molina's Forever and a Day

Joel Apuyan's Law Law Gang: Umpisa Pa Lang To (Lara Films)

Vince Tan's Anton Tubero

Crisaldo Pablo's M2M 3:Sex Eyeball - The Movie

EJ Salcedo's Third World Happy

Olivia Lamasan's In The Name of Love

Lucas Mercado's Rigodon

Carlo Alvarez's Lamog

Jonison Fontanos' Ombre

Jose Javier Reyes' Wedding Tayo, Wedding Hindi

Michael Gleissner's Deep Gold

G.A. Villafuerte's Bahid

Lucas Mercado's Trabajador (Men @ Work)

Jade Castro's Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington

Vince Tan's Private Nights

Mark V. Reyes’ Tween Academy

Jerry Lopez Sineneng's Way Back Home

Soxie Topacio's The Adventures of Pureza: Queen of the Riles

Jigz Recto's Dulas

Fellyx Honeyfield's Mainit

Awi Suryadi’s A Special Symphony

Paul Singh Cudail's Sulot

Monti Puno Parungao's Kape Barako

Ruel Bayani's No Other Woman

Quark Henares' Rakenrol

Darry de la Cruz's Bingwit

Jun Lana's My Neighbor's Wife

Marilou Diaz-Abaya's Ikaw Ang Pag-ibig

Paul Soriano's Thelma

Crisaldo Pablo's Wanted: Male Boarders

Lawrence Manalo's X-Deal

Rad Francisco's Playmates

Vince Tan's Laro

Han Salazar's 4some

Joel Lamangan's Sigwa

Raz de la Torre's Won't Last A Day Without You

Alvin Yapan & Alemberg Ang's Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa

Jerold Tarog's Aswang

Wenn V. Deramas' Praybeyt Benjamin

Fellyx Honeyfield's Sexventure

Erick C. Salud's Ligo Na U, Lapit Na Me

Mac Alejandre's Panday 2

Jose Javier Reyes' My Househusband

Tony Y. Reyes' Enteng ng Ina Mo

Joel Lamangan's Sigwa

Chris Reyes and Carlo Montero's Batang Ifugao

Yuan Santiago's Babang Luksa

Yam Laranas' The Road

Lee Meilly, Imee Marcos, Nelson Caguila's Pintakasi

Yeng Grande's Ritwal

Neal "Buboy" Tan's HIV: Si Heidi, Si Ivy at si V

Sid Pascua's Dyagwar: Havey o Waley

Adolf Alix, Jr.'s Haruo

Shake, Rattle & Roll 13 (Richard Somes' Tamawo, Jerrold Tarog's Parola, Chris Martinez's Rain Rain Go Away)

Bb. Joyce Bernal's Segunda Mano

Jun Lana's Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Tikoy Aguiluz's Manila Kingpin - The Asiong Salonga Story

Yam Laranas' The Road - Spinning Scary Yarns

2011-12-31T17:32:00.010+08:00

It’s the detours that lead to the untrodden path. When Brian and Janine (Derick Monasterio and Lexi Fernandez) invite Ella (Barbie Forteza) for a night time driving lesson, they didn’t foresee a night of unspoken horror that would have them driving through a road inhabited by restless souls seeking reparation. This eventually leads to the reinvestigation of a 12 year old cold case involving the disappearance of sisters Lara (Rhian Ramos) and Joy (Louise de los Reyes). Luis Medina (TJ Trinidad), a bemedalled investigator, handles the case.

A decade earlier, Lara and Joy drove through this desolate road, sweeping through clouds of dust when their car engine suddenly stalled. When they asked help from a sulky passerby (Alden Richards), they were lead to his dwelling where the sisters soon found themselves captive. Placed in separate rooms, Lara could hear Joy’s pleas, but was helpless. “Patawarin mo ako, Joy, at di kita naipagtanggol,” whispered Lara through the walls. Later that night, Lara found a bunch of keys, one unlocking the chain on her leg. She made a run to freedom, but the man discovered her disappearance.

In 1988, a young boy (Renz Valerio) falls victim to the abuse of his disconsolate and discontented mother Carmela (Carmina Villaroel) who keeps him inside a cabinet whenever her lover (Dex Quindoza) comes over. Meanwhile, his father (Marvin Agustin) – a devout preacher – dismisses his wife’s affair, desperately clinging to the belief that a marital bond shouldn’t be put asunder. One day, Martha (Ynna Asistio) - a pretty girl who volunteers to do their laundry – comes into their lives. In the course of their acquaintance, an accident ensues, unraveling into a series of events that would make the young boy an orphan.

Cohesively told as three seemingly unrelated tales with pinhole-focus , each with meticulously appointed atmosphere that succinctly captures an eventful moment in different decades, director Yam Laranas masterfully and cleverly spins a yarn of utter suspense bristling with pulsating narrative progression and psychological disquiet. It’s the year’s most unexpected triumph too. With a tightly written script and an impeccable casting, the film soars and entertains. It is also one of my favorites for 2012.

“The Road” highlights the star turn of Alden Richards and Renz Valerio - playing the teenage and child Luis respectively – who both deliberately took advantage of the script’s slow but steady build up, mining an emotional grit that inspires discernment. Carmina Villaroel browbeats with sinister abandon. You hardly hear her voice rise, but the menace is all there. Her character feels trapped in a loveless marriage and she makes her discontent known. With well threshed out characters and beautifully woven “chapters”, GMA Films has a winner; something that I never expected within the year. After all, when has the production outfit last delivered a great movie? Eleven years ago? Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s “Jose Rizal” was 1998. Joel Lamangan’s “Deathrow” was 2000. Have they done anything of considerable artistic merit aside from the aforementioned? Derick Monasterio was just 6 years old when GMA had one. It sure has been a long artistic drought… until now.

The mother and the laundrywoman.

Brian drives for their lives.

Alden Richards shines brightly as a traumatized, albeit psychologically unhinged teenager - and proves that there's more to his handsome face. In several scenes, he has expressions that reminded me of (a fairer version of) Coco Martin and of John Lloyd Cruz. No Coco? See the photo above.

Alden Richards

NOTE TO THAT ANONYMOUS TWAT:

When a moron read a typo in the text above: "a young boy (Renz Valerio) falls victim to the abuse of HER disconsolate and discontented mother" - this neutered insect raised hell! With saliva-drenched mouth and a cerebral activity that's about to overload, this IDIOT has turned into an epilepsy-bound wreck! Poor soul. Chill out, hon. Inhale, exhale and go get a brain first before conflagrating into bits and pieces of envy! Who told you to read this blog anyway? Stop punishing yourself. You sure you didn't forget your morning dose of anti-psychotic drugs? Displeased by my genius? Sleep on it. Life will get better.

Pintakasi - Artistic Blend in Film Making Experiment

2011-12-31T08:37:00.009+08:00

Cock fight anyone?

But the title in Lee Meilly, Imee Marcos and Nelson Caguila’s “Pintakasi” straddles two different realms, the aforementioned cockfight and a compound term that puts emphasis on the craving to paint (“Pinta Kasi!”)!

Both entities figure prominently as metaphors in the existence of DJ (John Wayne Sace) who moves to Isla Pulo, an island dump site littered with scraps and metropolitan junk. In the island, he befriends pretty Josie (Erich Gonzales) who only dreams of singing. His is to paint. Tikboy (JM de Guzman), the self-appointed gang leader (“mayor”) isn’t too happy with their friendship. After all, Tikboy knew Josie first and has proprietary claim on the damsel. This romantic rivalry eventually extends among their friends now caught between the race for supremacy. Though DJ is reluctant to reciprocate the dare, he is left with no option when Josie’s little brother becomes pawn. The job: stealing shabu (methamphetamine) in a warehouse. Would DJ be up for the task?

The mixed media film reminds me of a Taiwanese film – Chi Y. Lee’s “Chocolate Rap” which peculiarly combines Chinese drama and street dance. “Pintakasi” ups the ante by mixing poverty porn with 2D animation, music and dance! When DJ and Tikboy dive into a musical brawl, a hip hop duet called “Kanta, Pinta” involving rap and dance, I was in a trance. It was an impetuous artistic move that surprisingly embraced the moment, I was tempted to stand and do a shimmy. LOL

The experiment of introducing 2D animation is a bit distracting, but its nonetheless welcome as it obviously alludes to the vision of DJ as a painter in a strange new world (DJ came from the province) riddled with drug peddlers, snatchers, grandmothers (Boots Anson Roa) who likewise run drugs.

John Wayne Sace skillfully essays JM with a polished performance. He’s the new guy in town who dreams of better things for the neighborhood. He’s a symbol of redemption in a domicile where dreaming is nothing but folly. Erich Gonzales once again displays a subjugated emotionality that renders her performance natural and affecting and a presence that ignites the screen. JM de Guzman, who looks stocky, is menacing as the jealous gangster. Others in the cast do well: Alwyn Uytingco as Bogart (Tikboy’s ambitious second-in-command); William Martinez (playing a cop), Giselle Sanchez, Alcris Galura, et. al. Rumors say it took them two years - or even more - to complete, thus a caboodle of directors were credited. If only it pulled a dash of fortitude for an even more satisfying finish.

John Wayne Sace and co-stars

Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos, producer and co-director, and her star Erich Gonzales.

John Wayne Sace (DJ) and Erich Gonzales (Josie)

John Wayne Sace

JM de Guzman

JM de Guzman plays the vicious Tikboy

Alwyn Uytingco plays Bogart.

Joel Lamangan's Sigwa – Raging Storms and Troubled Souls

2011-12-30T22:32:00.008+08:00

It took Dolly (Dawn Zuleuta) 35 years to return to the Philippines. Back then, she was a wide eyed optimist visiting her parent’s motherland for the first time. She also believed that well meaning people like her could fight a feeble system and change the world. Several years later, she has returned for a more compelling reason; one that took her back to that tumultuous era. In the early seventies, she hurriedly escaped the clutches of Martial Law quite scathed and dazed, leaving a daughter under the care of Azon (Gina Alajar). In the crossfire of warring ideologies, many have perished. Including her child, or so she thought. But a common friend recently tells her that the child is alive.

At the height of an oppressive dictatorship, young idealist Dolly (Megan Young) – a junior correspondent of a US magazine - is welcomed by a group of student activists who ushered her into the ideals of their advocacy. She meets student leader Oliver (Marvin Agustin) and his girlfriend Cita (Pauleen Luna); the persevering Azon (Lovi Poe) and the dependable Rading (Jay Aquitania); then there’s the restrained Eddie (Allen Dizon) with whom Dolly gets into a relationship. With adequate fervor and high-mindedness, the group soon finds themselves joining the underground movement bent on toppling an oppressive government.

But each member is deliberately captured. The ladies are raped; the guys are subjected to hellish tortures until their souls have all been beaten to a pulp, providing names and whereabouts of their other comrades. Meanwhile, Dolly’s been recovered by the authorities who have been informed that she’s an American citizen, giving her the privilege to abandon her group’s cause and fly back to America while everyone else faces a bleak future.

But 35 years have changed people. Dolly has chosen to live a solitary life. Oliver (Tirso Cruz III) has joined the government, acting as the presidential spokes person, while Cita (Oliver’s former girl friend, this time played by Zsa Zsa Padilla) has risen in the ranks of the left-leaning revolutionary group. She has in fact become their supreme leader. Dolly has required the help of Oliver, now in the position of finding people, to locate Azon (Gina Alajar) who was left with Dolly’s child at the height of the insurgency. Dolly’s pursuit has unraveled strife anchored by their past. Is her daughter still alive? Will she ever find her?

Joel Lamangan’s “Sigwa” (Storm) is a harrowing journey that follows the lives of student activists with ponderous tenacity. On the foreground is a mother’s search for her child, but it’s merely a device used to introduce us to the characters. Though compelling and thematically clamorous, the focus wavers from too much detail. This isochronous storytelling tends to provide a less cohesive work, denying the material to soar. That’s always the plight of a material with a multitude of climaxes, thus the story eventually plateaus. This is not saying that Lamangan’s “Sigwa” is an insignificant material. It in fact deserves to be seen and remembered.

Megan Young and Dawn Zulueta competently link the past and the future with honest portrayals as Dolly. Marvin Agustin delivers one of the most emotionally distressing depiction of a torture victim. While his tears trickle down his cheeks and he pleads for his life, you are punched in the gut by the scene’s realism. Tirso Cruz III, who plays the older Oliver, is equally treacherous as the cabinet secretary who’s had a change of heart. Gina Alajar, brilliant as ever, mines her veteran instinct to show the emotional groundwork of a mother who’s afraid to lose a child she’s nurtured as her own. I do have certain misgivings in Zsa Zsa Padilla’s portrayal. Maybe I’m too much weaned on her being the sophisticated lady that she is that it doesn’t seem right to see her carry guns and don sneakers, and tough talking like a revolutionary honcho. But she works hard for her part and it shows. Allen Dizon seems misplaced and looks awkward and ill at ease in many of his scenes, and the age gap between Megan’s Dolly and Dizon’s Eddie (he was planted by the military to spy and infiltrate the leftists) is a lumbering fact.

The torture and rape scenes feel sanitized. The sense of dread is somehow watered down by its careful staging. In my mind, there’s a need to stage a brutal scene – allow it to be ruthless and ferocious - to underline the horrors of an amoral military rule gone mad. Torture victims are scarred for life, and they don’t experience savagery with cotton candy ministrations. Despite its busy narrative, fragmented storytelling and its tendency for maudlinism, “Sigwa” is better realized than the indulgent “Ka Oryang” (which won Best Picture at the recent Cinema One – a truly despicable year for the festival).

A favorite scene is Dolly and Azon’s meeting. In this scene, the camera frames a troubled Azon – with Alajar in tremendous control – while the light from outside is casting shadows against her face. It was a deliberate form of visual poetry concocting a singular emotional moment that highlights Azon’s chagrined soul. Are there limits to what a mother would do to keep a daughter? Boundless.

Panday 2 - Pedestrian Heroes in Oft Repeated Stories

2011-12-28T18:29:00.021+08:00

After defeating an evil nemesis, Flavio (Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr.), the magic sword-bearing blacksmith, settles down with his would-be wife Maria (Iza Calzado), a fairy princess, in a small town where the former is hailed as a hero and demigod. But the prophetic Lolo Isko (Joonee Gamboa) foresees a troubling future for the hero: “Ang nakatakdang kadakilaan ay ipinapantay ng luha’t pighati.” Soon thereafter, they receive news that nearby towns are ravaged by fire and invasions. Could Lizardo (Philip Salvador) be alive?

SPOILERS!

The day before her wedding to Flavio, Maria gets kidnapped along with other women. Lizardo, who’s severely disfigured, is indeed alive, albeit with diminished powers. He requires the allure of an engkantada to regain his full strength and youthful vitality. That same night, Flavio gets his wish. While he gets rejuvenated, Maria transforms into an old woman (Rustica Carpio). Flavio, on the other hand, has organized his men to hoist a rescue. With the help of Bagwis, his pet dragon, Flavio charges recklessly, resulting in the death of most of his armada. His people turn against him. Meanwhile, he learns that Bagwis is female, and has morphed into a lovely warrior princess named Arlana (Marian Rivera), a prodigal daughter from the Ragona clan whose people could shift into dragons. Will the legendary blacksmith be able to defeat the energized Lizardo, and in the process, rescue his would-be wife?

In 2009, Rico Gutierrez and Mac Alejandre’s “Ang Panday” outgrossed all its competitors. Moreover, it won a stupendously generous stash of highly debatable awards including Best Actor (Bong Revilla), Best Supporting Actor (Phillip Salvador), Best Child Performer (Robert “Buboy” Villar), among others. It also bagged the Best Picture, a head-scratching feat for something of its artistic (de)merit. This year, it’s poised for bigger things.

Unfortunately, many seats at its second screening on opening day in Greenbelt 3 were vacant. Is this a barometer of the general public’s disappointment or disgust over the turn of events surrounding the death of Ramgen Revilla which highlighted the excesses of a political clan that people are supposed to emulate? Or are people just tired of this Carlo Caparas vehicle? Are people standing up against polygamy, murderous sibling rivalry, hired assassins, unregulated credit card use and clandestine domestic ministrations? Lovely way to paint the modern Filipino family, isn’t it?

But the numbers have surfaced (as of this writing) with “Enteng ng Ina Mo” grossing P91 million, while “Panday 2” churns up a measly P51 million; a far-cry from the first Panday’s box office finish. More than those unreliable figures, I was witness to the empty seats at the 2^nd screening of “Panday 2” while other titles enjoyed full house capacity on their pre-booked 2^nd to 5^th screenings (“Segunda Mano”). Either way, it is a cause for alarm for the senator and the Panday franchise.

Why are we harping on numbers? Because that's what this film is all about. Let’s face it, “Panday 2” isn’t in the realm of artistic and meritorious discourse, despite its coterie of gag-inducing awards in the past. Sometimes, the Filipino moviegoing public is happy with sugar-coated slop and kaning-baboy; thus the mainstream industry sees it fit to provide slop. Sinanay sa kaning baboy, then why else would people look for something else on their cinematic plate?

Now going back to the movie, writing a synopsis for “Panday 2” has got to be one of the hardest things I’d have to endure this season. It’s like painful abrasive scratches cutting through my sensibilities. Besides, isn't it clear that the film stands like a fan movie for GMA’s stable of talents? We see them don capes and body-hugging costumes where the most challenging endeavor they're tasked to do is look handsome or pretty; stand on the background with royal bearing, then get decimated by the advancing evil warriors. The story is peppered with needless characters that keep the narrative too busy to make a dent in the audience’s consciousness.

If Maria (Calzado) is an engkantada, why was she so helpless during her abduction? Couldn’t she summon her queen mother (Lucy Torres) for help? Did they actually forget that fairies are supposed to exhibit magical power? They should have asked Vic Sotto for tips about the fairyworld. And what was the loathsome witch Baruha’s (Lorna Tolentino) raison d’etre in the story? Did she do anything in the movie that merited her abominable presence? She would intermittently appear in her sinister meanderings, looking at a cauldron, and annotating as events unravel in Flavio’s life. She was expendable. If they took her out of the movie, it wouldn't have mattered. If she was Lizardo’s partner in crime, why were her inspired comments hurled against Lizardo (read and weep): “Ang laki mong pangit mo! Tanga kang Lizardo ka! Lagi kang nauutakan ni Flavio!” Yet Lizardo successfully ravaged the essence of the fairy princess. Should I underline this sense of disconnect?

Then there's Phillip Salvador returning as the opprobrious Lizardo, this time made up like a Joker wanna-be. He used to be one of the most competent actors in the business. He was a Brocka baby, an actor's actor. But in his advancing years, all that's left of his thespic gifts are his disproportionate and unfettered emotional dynamics. Remember "Baler" and KC Concepcion's "For The First Time"?

Benjie Paras (named Zanburo in the first Panday, then renamed Alulod in this chapter - make up your mind, guys) was given enough screen time to parlay his comic gifts but, let's face it, Paras' limited comic repertoire annoys more than amuses. Rhian Ramos returns as Emelita who has joined the "ambeks" - the "fish monsters". In her scene, she transforms into a sharp toothed ghoul, reminiscent of the tiyanaks. When most stars are given flattering parts (as princesses and valiant warriors), all they could bequeath to the embattled Ramos is that of a tiyanak-looking ogre? Such abortable star-making cameo, I should say. Poor girl. Mo Twister surely succeeded in his scorned-lover's vendetta.

Then there’s the Ragona Tribe headed by the illustrious King Daluyong and Queen Ibira (Eddie Garcia and Alice Dixson). This was a peace-loving race which could morph into fire-breathing dragons. Most of the GMA artists were hired to populate this tribe of dragons: Joshua Dionisio, Barbie Forteza, Bea Binene, Jake Vargas, Alden Richards and the lovely Kris Bernal who played Alira (Arlana’s sister). When they were invaded, they shifted to dragons yet were readily overwhelmed by Lizardo’s villains who were a third their size. I had to laugh in spite of myself. Defeat seems impossible when you have 1. Manpower, 2. The size (they’re dragons, for pete’s sake), 3. Flight, 4. Fire-breathing weapons, 5. Claws. Have you ever seen such helpless dragons? Only in the Philippines. They couldn’t even protect their queen and their princesses. What gives? Lizardo’s men only had swords. But this narrative strain may have been fabricated , regardless of how brainless it is, to make Flavio’s vengeance doubly sweeter, debah?

But when it was time for Flavio to face all these henchmen, all he had to do was swing his sword on air one single time, while popping gum balls from the sidelines; the sword was doing all the work, and that was that. Ho hum! Despite the “wisdom” of this sword to fight its own battle, we have a hero who lost his wife, and further lost the family of his Marimar-wanna be dancing dragonlady Arlana. How dependable can you get?

Envisioned as the local version of “The Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter”, its spectacle is lost in its vacuous drivel. Technology should help move a plot. Instead, the story takes the backseat to glorious computer-generated images. There was never a single moment of authentic emotion, thus it's a senseless endeavor to dispense empathy. In fact, Maria’s death felt uneventful. It came to pass without much fanfare when it should be one of its cinematic highlights.

Mac Alejandre’s “Panday 2” is supposed to deliver stuff of legends, yet all we have is a well choreographed passing of air. It has a middling storytelling acumen replete with vignettes of ideas not fully realized. It has a protagonist with legendary might, and an equally bulging tummy. It's a growing conundrum. What have our action heroes become? Heaven help us.

Marian Rivera is Arlana who was Flavio's dragon Bagwis before Maria bit the bullet. Heroes need dainty damsels too.

Lorna Tolentino plays evil witch Baruha who does nothing but laugh the whole movie through. Her nonsensical presence is impudently underlined by the blatant fact that there was nothing vaguely funny to merit her laughters. Schizophrenia, perhaps?

Impressive CGI's, vacuous drivel.