Darry dela Cruz's Malasado - Watered Down and Overeasy

Levi (AR de Castro) and Pete (Zander Cruz) are close friends. They’re supportive of each other’s needs. They even share a single bed in an apartment. Pete is particularly vulnerable. He’s desperately in love with Lorie (Adriana Gomez), the girl next door. He claims he’d do “anything” for the girl. But what he doesn't know is that his friend Levi and Lorie are already a couple. Levi is particularly disconcerted with the situation. But there’s more to this choleric situation than meets the eye. Levi is in fact harboring affection for Pete. Aren't we confused yet? J And he couldn't control this cantankerous proclivity.

One night, while Pete is heavily inebriated and stuporous, Levi gets the chance to have his way with Pete’s considerable bulges. As his friend sleeps, Levi’s hands – and tongue - wander where they shouldn't  Pete thought this was just a vivid wet dream involving Lorie. Meanwhile, Levi is remorseful – and drawn to his friend more than ever. After all, you can’t get enough of a good thing, debah?

Pete eventually learns of his friend’s attraction for him. As a favor to the accommodating Lorie, Pete agrees for a “romp on the hay” with friend Levi. This would put him in good stead with the schemy Lorie, right? But situation turns sour when Pete couldn't deal with what happened. One night, he smothers Levi in his sleep. What happens to lovestruck Levi? Would love or justice prevail?

Adriana Gomez

Director Darry dela Cruz’s “Malasado” presents ferociously anatomosing emotional entanglements which are tests of patience and sanity. But we do realize what he’s driving at. He desperately needs to show his male protagonists in various couplings. Come hell or high water, these protagonists need to get it on. Unfortunately, Director Dela Cruz and his scriptwriter Kenneth Montero are too inept for logical exposition. In fact, a simple story becomes too big a hurdle for this team (which includes Cleo Paglinawan). The skill and technical know-how are blatantly wanting so we experience some of the driest scenography ever to grace the silver screen.

To accentuate tension, Dela Cruz gets his actors to either smoke endlessly over dissonant music – or he gets them drunk! Though canned music is pretty much avoided, a monotonous piano strain is employed instead, but the melodic tone isn't even compatible with most of the scenes being played. The setting is mostly confined to interiors: a swimming pool, a shower room, and a couple of nondescript exterior shots. In short, Dela Cruz’s follow through with Moron Cinema is inspiring, I ought to freight him some trophies for consistency. Yes, honey, we are scraping the bottom here.

Ike Sadiasa and Jerome Pineda appear as the exceedingly heedful neighbors whose mindfulness oversteps boundaries. One of the challenges to hurdle here is how to get through its inaudible sound. The lines are hardly intelligible because of a noisy room tone and the choppy sound. Parang poor signal, 'kuya. What’s worse is how unaffectingly robotic these actors are. There is not a single valid emotion in all of its short running time. Dela Cruz is particularly fond of close ups and panning shots of gargantuan crotches. In fact, while Zander and AR sleep with nothing but "very" tight and "very" skimpy briefs, it suddenly feels like a Bulging Briefs Contest. It made me blush! These shots are oft repeated ad nauseam! I might as well infer that Dela Cruz is taking a masteral thesis on “Protuberant Appendageal Objects”. I could swear there were restless hamsters underneath their bikini briefs. Peksman. Very interesting, debah?

The film had its commercial run September 5th of 2012 so it passed by without people realizing it was even showing. That, to me, is good news. We all should realize which flicks deserve patronage, and which ones don't. 

DUBIOUS ARTISTRY

Curiously, fair skinned Zander and AR possess agnate features, they might as well be brothers. It took me a while to differentiate these two noobs, adding to the difficulty of understanding what exactly is going on in Dela Cruz’s muddled plot ministrations. But then why look for plot? This isn't exactly high art. It isn't even medium art. And saying that it is art in its lowest embodiment bestows it the privilege of suggesting low-levels of shrewd artistry. There’s nothing of that here. If anything, it’s artistry is akin to its title: “Malasado” – half-baked, over easy, amateur, true to form. What we do have is an incipient conceit of how straight men behave if they were homosexuals. That is a huge "if". All gibberish illusion.  

Paul Singh Cudail's Ang Jowa - Vicious Cycle

Don and Orlando (Zander Olivarez and Miguel Alcantara respectively) share a lot of things: a home and a job at the bank. They also share a bed. One thing they don’t share is Annie (Jessica Ruiz), Don’s girl friend of several years. But Orlando doesn’t know about her. What’s worse, Don intends to leave Orlando to start a family with Annie. When he finally does, Don is inconsolable. However, life with Annie is tough. After all, Don resigned from his job – and Annie is eternally unemployed. With bills piling up and rent’s long overdue, Don turns to Orlando who’s only too willing to lend a hand in exchange for sexual favors. While Orlando has pretty much acquiesced to a shared relationship, Annie is kept in the dark. The latter, in fact, is getting suspicious about her husband’s hushed calls and clipped replies. Where does Don get their rent money? Where does her “husband” spend his overnight soirees? 

As it comes to pass, Orlando starts demanding more attention from Don who jumps from one concupiscent bed to the next. What’s a guy to do? In fact, does he have enough stamina for his two lovers? And if this dilemma wasn’t enough, Don further harbors intermittent sexual thrills with Betty (Adriana Gomez), Orlando’s childhood friend – who frequently visits him.  Plot thickens when Betty inadvertently gets pregnant. But all hell breaks loose when Annie discovers Don’s relationship with Orlando. On the other side of this sexual chain is Betty who doesn’t know that Orlando has hatched plans to adopt the child once she gives birth. Meanwhile, “wife” Annie has decided to walk out of Don. Will Orlando get the child that shall “seal” his coupling with Don? What happens to Betty?  

Orlando (Miguel Alcantara, right) espouses about contractual relationships to lover Don (Zander Olivarez, left).

More than ever, director Paul Singh Cudail shows that his ineptitude towards a narrative craft knows no boundaries. And he valiantly succeeds outdoing this exquisite “talent”. To process a scene, for example, he keeps harping at a redundant situation that repeats like a broken record – those darn miscalls and hushed phone conversations that are too loud to ignore. Thus, this becomes an oft-repeated source of altercation among the characters: Orlando decries these calls, so does Annie. They occur in every location of their limited scenography: living room, stairs, bedroom, which kinda reminds me of Zig Dulay’s “Huling Halik” where constant phone calls become a nauseating source of tension between protagonists. At some point, these get hilarious and you end up, slapping your thigh with an ebullient “Na naman…? (Again)” Though it should underline the artistic limitations of Cudail who writes his scripts, it’s just one piece of this baffling, albeit shoddy puzzle.

Logic is impugned in several persuasions. When a couple starts planning their lives together, they usually consider the economics that go it. In Cudail’s “Ang Jowa”, they bury their heads in the sand. Don resigns from his job at the bank to join Annie who couldn’t find work. As if that wasn’t enough, Don also leaves his benefactor – the one who supplies all the dough. Hasn’t it crossed his dimwitty cerebrum that money is needed to pay the rent; feed another person; buy soap and toothpaste? When Annie finds out about her husband’s homosexual affair, Orlando tries to convince Annie with an asinine, “Dapat nga matuwa ka kasi ako ang kahati mo, hindi babae.” In my rule book, anyone who shares the affection and engages in sexual calisthenics with my boyfriend/husband is a competitor, thus needs to be annihilated! Relationships and emotional proprietorship have boundaries of their own. In fact, biting on another person’s apple is forbidden.

SPOILERS

As one of the purveyors of the “Moron Cinema” (cheap productions shot in a few days; poorly conceived narratives; domestic settings usually set within the confines of a house), Cudail makes a fallacy out of the aphorism that goes “experience is the best teacher”. How many films has Cudail completed within the last two years or so? Yet you hear lines dictated to his actors. At a dinner table, you hear someone order his cast, “O kumain na kayo!” When there’s food in front of you, you don’t need twats dictating such mundane instructions, do you? You munch, you chew, you masticate – then you throw your make-believe lines. In another protracted scene, you find Annie waiting for Don, and this gets intercut with Don and Orlando sharing fervid copulation. But this isn’t even the issue, what drives you mad is how these scenes are repeated half a dozen times to stretch its running time. I could have pinched the singit of its editor for failing to do his job well, as he allows Annie to wait for Godot.

Don (Zander Olivarez) and Annie (Jessica Ruiz) post-coitus: That darn cell phone!

When Don and Orlando hear about pregnant Betty’s death (she slipped and bled to death), the camera pans at the couple and we find “no discernable emotional reaction” emanating from Don, Betty’s lover and the father of the child. For Don, it was just quotidian dispatch. No need for grief, astonishment or dismay. How’s that for emotional investment? This takes me to its lead – Zander Olivarez. He is stocky, and on cursory glance, looks muscle-bound. Aside from the obvious extra pound of muscle, Zander doesn’t have much emotive skill. In fact, he coasts with a single expression. His moment of inspiration comes when he is made to scuffle in bed with his partners, and he isn’t shy judiciously showing off his backside. He slouches when he should be sitting comfortably, occasionally flexing his arms to bulk up his biceps, triceps, brachialis and even his deltoids. If fact, his muscles could run a gamut of emotional discourse more than Zander himself.

Miguel Alcantara, a protégé of the current queen of mediocre cinema G.A. Villafuerte, tries his luck with real drama. Unfortunately, he doesn’t succeed either. You could see that he tries hard, but for now, this doesn’t suffice. And I couldn’t even bequeath an “A for effort”. Though his conveyance is palpable, he looks like he’s in pain. Not emotionally; more like from toothache or that pulsating pustule inside the nose. “Anong akala mo sa relationship natin, contractual?” He would vividly dispatch with flaring nostrils. The good news? Alcantara registers well on screen, and when he’s earnest enough with his craft, there should be a huge window for improvement.

The ladies are mostly forgettable. They either display bland affect or an irritating display of waylaid theatrics, like when Jessica Ruiz (who sometimes shares an uncanny resemblance with Vice Ganda) cries and all of her facial contortions don’t amount to much. In a scene involving Sally Grefaldo, a character named Tita Lily (the bearer of the bad news regarding Betty’s demise), you find this wrinkly lady cry her hearts out. The camera closely pans to her contorted face. She huffs and haws; she makes singhot, and makes garalgal her voice – yet in her abstruse heartache and convoluted affliction, she isn’t able to shed a single tear! It always bothers me to see someone cry – without tears! Maybe Tita Lily has lachrymal obstruction? Let’s rush her to the eye surgeon for a dacryocystorhinostomy - fast!

The sex scenes are few and far between, and if it's what you're after, you would then have to bury yourself in a bed of frustration. The men mostly show their backsides while the ladies pop out their nipples - perfect for a night of red wine and a generous dash of patience.

Despite these rebarbative situations, you hardly feel the compulsion to care. You’re made acutely aware that the emotional width and breadth of Cudail’s little story spans the four corners of his little rooms, and thus are ill-equipped to expand to the realm of insight. I would suggest a more productive career. Maybe he has green thumbs; farming or gardening could be a better option? Or maybe he can grow camote better than he can assemble a cinematic narrative? Surely, there must be something he could do better than direct films.

Don and Annie: There was never a mention of a wedding, yet they refer to each other as husband and wife.

Don (Zander Olivarez) canoodles with Betty (Adriana Gomez) 

Zander Olivarez postures with a slouch.

Olivarez: Whos' the muscle man? :)

Miguel Alcantara as loan officer Orlando

Adriana Gomez as Betty, Orlando's childhood friend. Gomez looks lost in "Ang Jowa".

Kubli - An Impressionable Romance

As children, Raffy and Marco were inseparable, living their facile existence in the backroads of Masbate. Marco was there when Raffy’s mother passed away, and Raffy saved Marco from drowning. They share an irrefutable bond way beyond kinship. But when they turned 14, Marco (whose family owns the resort grounds where Raffy’s impoverished family dwells) had to move to Manila to pursue his education. As a token of their friendship, Marco left his friend a pair of pigeons and a ring.

Years later, we find a grown up Raffy (Johnron Tanada) working as a “magkakawayan” (bamboo cutter) earning a paltry P5 a bamboo stick. Unfortunately, bamboo sticks are dwindling. He’s trying to save some money for a Manila education that he plans to pursue unaware that Marco (Eugene Tejada) has finally come home. The latter doesn’t have plans of staying though. The family resort has fallen to neglect and isn’t earning anymore. Selling the place seems the better option. When they finally meet, their camaraderie is rekindled. They make up for lost time by spending all their time together. That’s when the ugly head of idle chatter starts churning out rumors? Sebastian (Dustin Jose), Raffy’s older brother, isn’t amused. Are Raffy and Marco an item? The whole town seems to think so. What happens when Marco departs?

Saving a friend the second time around.

Director Paul Singh Cudail’s sophomore effort rambles with a good number of incipient narrative strains that are mostly left hanging once executed, making rudiments of stories that are never fully realized or completed. To name a few: the loss of Raffy’s piggy bank; Sebastian’s seeming interest for Joyce (Marco’s erstwhile childhood sweetheart); Sebastian’s gay lover (who’s migrating to the US). Cudail fills his narrative palette with so much unnecessary details leaving an inchoate story that’s disorganized, random and confused. In short, Cudail is too perplexed, he’s simply lost in his own gibberish (yup, he wrote the screenplay).

A lot of things don’t make sense. When Marco finally arrives, he was too lazy to seek his friend out, you’d have to surmise his indifference. Yes, he did ask Raffy’s brother to inform Marco, but he couldn’t even visit Raffy home when the latter fails to show up? He knew where he lives. What kept him from springing a surprise?

In the course of the story, the character of Joyce (Jenaira Chu, “Anton Tubero”) shows up. She’s supposedly Marco’s girl friend. Yet Marco wouldn’t even visit her. You’d wonder if Marco was suffering from a form of disability. Their relationship is tenuous since Marco’s Manila sojourn seemed to have rendered him incommunicado for 5 years or so. When Marco finally reunites with Joyce, she cries her crocodile tears; offers her brownish nipples, before proceeding to cry again, thereby brushing off further sexual activity. That's the gist of their coupling. But why was she crying? It didn’t even seem real. What’s clear to me is the fact that they weren’t able to pursue a relationship the whole time Marco was away – and 5 years is a long time to pine for someone who doesn’t even lift a finger to correspond! Even a married person could already legally file for abandonment. Is Masbate too remote for a phone signal? Too desolate for a mailman to deliver letters to? There are a million excuses when you don't want to, right? Maybe we’re back in the 60’s when SMS wasn’t even a figment of the imagination. Such recondite endeavor! LOL

Brothers Raffy (Johnron Tanada) and Sebastian (Dustin Jose).


Dustin Jose (as Sebastian) cries, Jeremy Ian (as Joey) enjoys the falls.

When tongues started wagging about Raffy and Marco’s relationship, Sebastian was livid! He roared at Raffy, as though the latter just ingested a semen-tinged coffee: “Bakla ka ba?” (Are you gay?) Why was he so aversed to the idea. But early in the film, a scene had Sebastian bidding a gay lover goodbye. Is this a case of the thief despising the other thief? He wanted to join his benefactor so much he even stole his brother’s piggy bank - and he kept it for the next five years! In another scene where Joyce once again sheds tears, he runs after her. In another, he gazes at the heart broken Joyce who, once again, exercises her lachrymal capability to the hilt. And when she cried, he did so too! What the heck is happening here? This is getting too ominous. Is he suddenly in love with Joyce? This wasn’t even an issue until Marco’s homecoming, was it? Sebastian never had a relationship with Joyce, but with a gay benefactor! What makes him think he can start one upon Marco's return? Pieces don't fit!

To fulfill the raison d’etre of the film, Cudail had to pepper his work with a whole dash of frontal nudity. He even employed two anonymous guys bathing together (time it: it's close to 2 minutes), soaping away their privates in wild abandon. They were so good at it you’d think there was grime and sludge that needed scruffing off their penises. The main question should be: Who the heck were they? They didn’t figure into the story at all. Cudail’s acute sense of storytelling just suffered a low bat mentality, is all.

A completely unrelated character named Joey (Jeremy Ian) was roped in to perform yet another full frontal bathing scene. More than once, you’re thrown into rabid disorientation because these were characters absolutely unrelated to the story at hand! Did I blink and miss a scene that ushered these unknown characters to the fore? Cudail, in his consummate ineptness couldn't even write anything in his script to make these bathing guys’ presence be of legible consequence to the story. Basta. They were there to soap away their peckers. Period. What’s even funnier is, Jeremy Ian (in a 3 minute bathing scene) had to take off his undersized briefs then use it as body sponge. Inspired, right? I was tempted to head home and donate my unused loofa for the poor guy. But then he might ignore me. He was so intent on cleaning himself, he was almost levitating while scrubbing.

You would think Cudail would learn a thing or two after “Sulot” (his directorial debut). Instead, he is so helpless he can’t even gouge out and maneuver a semblance of emotion from his borderline actors. In the scene where Sebastian’s gay benefactor was saying goodbye, Cudail assigns this poor guy with a two kilometer monologue: “Dadalhin kita sa America. Doon, tayo’y magsasama. Lahat gagawin ko kasi mahal kita. Hintayin mo lang ako babalikan kita.” If it felt like poetry, the delivery was even more so - sans any hint of emotion. With his face on cam, you’d notice his stiff and restless pauses as though there were lines he couldn’t read from an idiot board (how appropriate) pasted on the walls. Watching a toadstool grow flowers is probably a more gratifying option than watching this guy dig himself a hole. What’s curious is, he didn’t even need to say all those things because his character was so disposable. He’s gone after the scene and never to be seen again, thank heavens.

CRYING GAME

Johnron Tanada once again delivers a one-note performance that awkwardly verges on the woe-is-me school of acting. He mopes around like the biggest loser in all of Masbate, and he even weeps like a girl. This is probably not his entire fault, but this experience is a testament that unguided actors are ultimately brought down by a bad script, poor direction and absence of that salient ingredient called talent. Do you know how many times Tanada had to weep for his scenes? He’d outcry the girls in “Mara Clara” that’s for sure. Ditto Eugene Tejada. Even Dustin Jose had to weep twice, and Jenaira Chu in all but one scene! It’s a behemoth crying festival, and in not a single scene was I brought to tears. The emotions on show were as hollow and insubstantial as Kris Aquino’s crying scenes from last December’s “Dalaw”. Opps, sorry, I meant her frightened look which seemed like she’s about to cry. Her “scared look” had been haunting me for years now. I could swear I’d wake up in the middle of the night with a tiyanak suddenly mumbling, “What’s shu-lit, mama? What’s shik-shik, mama!” I am just petrified.

Eugene Tejada, in his very first movie after winning that Bikini Contest, needs lessons in elocution, delivery and emotional urgency. He spoke his lines like a 12 year old boy, about to be circumcised: “Bawiin mo ang sinabi mo. Mabibigo ka lang!” It was inexplicable. I expected better from him. He has a strong register on camera, but comes off with a tentative affect every time he opens his mouth. But there’s hope, I’m sure. This is just his first full length feature. Did he flash his perky wand? He did (though it wasn't so errr "perky"), in a peek-a-boo sideway scene shot behind the cracks on the wall. But don’t wink, you might miss his mushroom. LOL

Johnron Tanada

Spoilers

A 5-years later epilogue closes the story. Raffy and Marco are seen arriving in their barrio, fully decked in white. They’re now nurses joining a medical mission. This scenario allows them the closure the narrative requires. Raffy reunites with brother Sebastian - who looks exactly the same. In fact, he hasn’t removed his earing for half a decade, I was sure it had grown roots! How could Raffy end up as a nurse when it was never shown that he even finished elementary or high school? All he did in his earlier scenes was cut bamboo. Nothing else! Am I being asked again a “degree of imagination”? Even leaps of faith have to be deserved!

BURDEN OF THE STORY

The humdinger in Cudail’s “Kubli” (Hidden) really lies in how the structure of the story leads us to our protagonists’ burdens. Thing is, it felt like they weren’t even attracted with each other until the rumors eventually got to them. The suppositions were mere inventions of the idle mind, yet these suggestions were too vigorous, they’re left with no option but to believe them. "Ay, bakla pala kami" because the whole barrio said so! How else would you explicate the fact that Marco wasn’t even all that interested to see his old friend upon his arrival?

If you were harboring affection for someone you haven’t seen in five years, wouldn’t you even seek him out? Is it probably reticence? Or mere disinterest? But of course, Marco and Raffy had to be gullible. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a second Paul Singh Cudail film which has so far shown his genius in other masterpieces like “Tiyo Pablo” and the soon released “Maligalig”. How can such dubious aptitude proliferate into more projects? Neil Tan (who has had a face-saving rechristening, he’s now a Vince Tan directing “Private Nights”) and Joven Tan come to mind. And there’s the king of mediocre, Crisaldo Pablo, a living proof that proudly defies the adage, “Experience is the best teacher.”

Fact is, “Moron Cinema” breeds like wild insects because there’s a market for them. This is the cinema that willingly foregoes reasonable narrative in exchange of penile showcases! There are plenty of patrons who love moronic clutter; it’s a simple equation really. People believe their own amour-propre even when it’s as clear as day that the only artistry they patronize is the artistry of seeing flashes of male genitalia. Now, there’s probably pleasure to be had in that, but let’s not deceive ourselves and say a film deserves a 5/5 rating simply because it had 5 guys generously flashing 5 genitalias. Then we rationalize in the most florid, sophisticated English the false virtues of these films (“Kape Barako”, “Tarima”, “Santuaryo”, “Pulupot”, “Bayaw”, “Quicktrip”, etc.) It’s like believing that the well loved Anne Curtis is a great singer because she owns a CD (“Annebisyosa”) that tops the best selling list! Let’s not be hypocrites and let’s call a spade a spade. If you are disinclined doing so, then allow others the freedom to do so.

Eugene Tejada


Dustin Jose


Jeremy Ian