Yam Laranas' The Road - Spinning Scary Yarns

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.

Tween Academy Class of 2011 - The Kids from Planet X

What were they thinking?

This sentiment resonates all through out my watching Mark Reyes’ “Tween Academy – Class of 2012”.

The movie chronicles a year in the life of 3 high school “imba” (“invisible”), culminating with the highly anticipated JS Prom. School outcasts Enzo, Georgina and Kara (Elmo Magalona, Bea Binene and Barbie Forteza, respectively) navigate the hallways of Ridgeview Academy in less than flattering light. In such vacuous environment, appearances trump substance, a recurring theme that percolates way beyond the narrative.

Enzo wrestles with his shyness and an academic performance that has him attending remedial classes. But his life perks up when he starts serendipitous encounters with a bombshell (Sam Pinto) who turns out to be his Geometry teacher Maddie! Meanwhile, George is on tenterhooks dealing with her ambiguous relationship with Jepoy (mop-haired Jake Vargas) who in turn openly fawns over Chloe (Lexi Fernandez). To Jepoy’s mind, George is his best friend; something that frustrates George no end. But she doesn’t lose hope. Kara, on the other hand, is enjoying an online friendship with a fellow comic books fan named Colossus (Joshua Dionisio). When the latter urges for a meet up, Kara, “SuperGirl” as nome de plume, panics and asks her cousin Jess (Louise delos Reyes) to pretend that she is SuperGirl. Comic boy Robin on the other hand thrusts campus heart throb Christian (Alden Richards) as the comic geek. All hell break lose when the imposters start liking each other. What becomes of Supergirl and Colossus? Such quandaries are further aggravated by campus bully Maximo (Derick Monasterio) who finds pleasure in our protagonists’ miseries.

In what could be the year’s most disjointed narrative, the movie flagrantly displays the inadequacies and mediocre vision of its director, in a subject matter that he blindly maneuvers. He resorts to incipient ideas that, though laid out within the frame of the story, are mostly outlandish or underexplored. In terms of skills, Reyes can’t even stage an adequate musical number: check out Josh Miguel’s version of Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”. This number, though agreeably a fresh interpretation of this 80’s fodder, is awkwardly mounted on a stage. It’s a curiousity how he fails to take advantage of the medium (which affords them time, allows them recuts and re-shoots) to marshal the under-rehearsed tweeners who can’t even synchronize their movements. Ano to, amateur hour? This dilemma is largely a GMA talent malady. They allow musical numbers in their musical variety shows like Party Pilipinas to take the stage without adequate preparation. Bara bara, just so they can field anything! The sadder thing is, this isn’t even live – which should underline the pedestrian mind set of its makers.

In the story, Kara hides behind her SuperGirl online persona. She wallows and speaks in the most bizaare language. I myself am one who uses LOL, ROTFL, and other cyber slang during chats and even in email correspondence, but these kids take the next level. No, make it “next alternate world”. Consider the following: AFK (away from keyboard), MMB (“message me back” just when I thought it meant “Metro Manila Barkada”); IDK (I don’t know); F2F (face to face, instead of the easier “EB” for “eyeball”); IKR (I know right). The most ridiculous, as it’s actually spoken is “TYP” (Thank you po). Common sense would dictate that the expediency of acronyms in local parlance rests on the shortening of multisyllabic words and phrases. In Mark Reyes’ netherworld, he dispenses these silly acronyms because he thought people find it amusing, further underlining how exceedingly perceptive he really is.

What’s even funnier is, when these acronyms are used by these characters in their chatboxes, they are written along with what they stand for. The abbreviations are there alongside their whole meaning. Everything becomes a tedious, redundant drivel.

When the “imba” friends gather round to convene on what remedial steps could improve their social standing, they brilliantly come up with a list: dye hair pink, get a tattoo, make-over, learn to drive, face your fear. Dye hair pink? No wonder others think they hail from some extraterrestrial planet.

Reyes even flowers his briskly drowning narrative with some of the most insipid jokes ever heard:

Question 1: Ano ang tawag sa maliit na pusit?

Answer: Pssssst!

Question 2: Eh ano ang tawag sa malaking pusit?

Answer: Hoy!

Here, It’s hard to summon sympathy the way we sympathize with the characters in Joe Nussbaum’s “Prom”. Mentioning “Prom” even feels like a disservice to the latter. It’s like comparing “Gone with the Wind” and Mark Reyes’ acronym-driven idiocy, “I.T.A.L.Y.” (“I Trust And Love You”) You end up staring at the screen feeling a vacuum is about to engulf you whole as karmic punishment from the mere patronage of this film.

To pay homage to the youth movers of the late 80’s and 90’s, Reyes enveigles their presence: Yayo Aguila, Nadia Montenegro, Angelu de Leon, Bobby Andrews, Chuckie Dreyfuss appear in forgettable supporting characters that don’t even leave a discernable footprint. Heck, they even have Jojo Alejar dance his cobwebbed terpsichorean groove as though Alejar was a major force of a generation. He wasn't. There is a good reason why such conceit is better consigned to oblivion.

Director Reyes further peppers his cinematic vomitus with cameos: German Moreno, Dingdong Dantes, Marian Rivera, Mark Herras, et.al. Hunky Aly Borromeo (with Azkal’s Chieffy and Ian) and Cosplay’s Alodia Gosiengfiao make transient appearances to heat up the screen; moments that should have lifted the watchability of this clunker. However, they only accentuated the irredeemable story. I’d have wanted to simply cower and hide under a rock if I were to be a part of this upchuck. It is a criminal offence to perpetuate the dimwitted brain activity that has long plagued Mark Reyes. Wasn’t GMA aware that selling garbage is punishable under the revised penal code of the Philippines? To this day, I wonder why the GMA think tanks are too myopic to indulge Reyes with his music video-driven, magazine-show inspired film making. This isn’t a music video, Mr. Reyes, it is a darn movie where people actually pay PhP160 bucks to flagellate themselves.

How are the performances so far? “Repulsive” is an appropriate term. Barbie Forteza is innocuous at best, failing to impart a sense of urgency to her online dilemma. You just didn’t care that she didn’t end up with Christian – or that she eventually lands on the lap of Robin. Bea Binene mistakes enthusiasm for acting, yet she can't even deliver her lines with an iota of believability. And when the likes of gossip-monger Dolly Anne Carvajal hail Binene as a young Maricel Soriano, we don’t just shrug and relegate Carvajal’s delusion to her inebriation, we huff and puff for such injustice! It is an insult to the thespic savvy and brilliance of the embattled Diamond Star! Joshua Dionisio, on the other hand, can only summon a perfunctory performance, that leaves an emotive void. Elmo Magalona saddles his character with hackneyed demeanor. Though he bears the charm of his departed father, he curiously lacks his acumen. Elmo mostly extravagates into cinematic blandness. These GMA “tweeners’” cinematic outing begs comparison to ABS-CBN’s tweeners, real teenagers who ooze with charisma, and more importantly competence as young actors.

That Mark Reyes continually makes movies – like “Tween Academy” - is an invective not just to patrons of Pinoy films, but to a mainstream industry that badly needs some perking up. Tween Academy is the poster flick of awful. And when you sit inside a movie house on a weekend with just 6 souls watching in a theater hall that sits 200 or more (on the film’s opening week, at that), isn’t that the hand of fate playing judge and jury?

Derick Monasterio, a spitting image of his mother, former actress Tina Monasterio.

Alden Richards (as Christian) and Kristofer Martin (as Diego)

Joyce Ching (as Ashlee) and Lexi Fernandez (as Chloe)