Ronald M. Rafer's "Gigolo" - Tens Years Back

Life hasn’t been a walk in the park for Julio (Mygz Molino) who, as a child, lived with a wicked stepmother who spared no affection for him. At last straw, he finally found the courage to runaway and live on the streets with other urchins. Fast forward to the present. Julio grows up an able bodied Romeo who, along with his friends (Maichel Fidelis and Jake Galeon), hang out in gyms and busy avenues to peddle his flesh to libidinous gay men. His girlfriend Margot (played by a girl who uses the ridiculous-sounding name “Kissy Babe Kisses”, believe it or not) doesn't mind. She herself is a prostitute.

One day, Julio overhears a story from Dominic (Christoff Ken), a gym guy with whom Julio is curiously drawn to, about Dominic’s mother Imelda (Carla Varga) who allegedly gave away her own child when she was younger. Why Dominic would unravel this to a complete stranger is stuff of legends. Anyway, Julio follows this lead and confronts Imelda. She was indeed the same mother who abandoned him. And she had been searching for him. They have a tearful reunion and vow never to be separated ever again. End of story?

Well, not quite. Julio comes home to find Margot battered and blue. Her last customer was Mr. Marquez (Rob Sy), an inveterate sadist. He gets his kicks torturing his girls. Julio vows to avenge Margot. He marches to the club where she works and finds the bald sadist. With great effect, he wears his hood and takes out his shiny knife, then bludgeons Mr. Marquez to his ultimate demise.

Next scene is a baffling testament to absurdity. The whole family: Julio and girlfriend Margot, mom Imelda and son Dominic walk the streets away from their house as they seek new glory under the sun. Yup, as easy as that. Murder completely erased from their timeline. Wide open smiles and bright inspired faces with no iota of guilt, grief or trepidation. Just how a fairy tale should be.

There has been a spate of entertainment writers and tabloid reporters who dabbled with Pink Indies. There’s Benny Andaya (“Tatlong Beses Isang Araw”), Sandy Es Mariano (last year’s “Jumbo Jericho”), and Ronald M. Rafer for “Gigolo”. Let’s not forget Ronald Carballo (“Pikit-Mata”). What’s the common denominator? Except for Carballo whose film we haven’t seen, each project is among the worst that Philippine Cinema has ever produced. In fact, giving these writers carte blanche to actually direct a film is several steps backward. Try 10 years! If this isn't a gargantuan slap on the face of Philippine Cinema, I don't know what is.

Rafer’s story telling technique is in desperate need of constitution. He tells his tales with barely any valid framework. Not only does he tell it in incongruent episodic clutter, he also resorts to spur-of-moment whims inserting narrative threads that do not belong to his story.

Let’s take the case of former Survivor Philippines’ Rob Sy and his protracted bed scene with the bar girl he hired to assault. Sy’s character could be absolutely stricken off because it dilutes the story of Julio and takes the focus away from the main characters. And it did. 

Rafer peppered his tepid story with its undeserved, unrelated and discrepant climax, but the character of Mr. Marquez is non-essential. He is disposable, and his presence puts emphasis to the movie’s randomness. Their scene which must have lasted a good 15 minutes involved an expendable, if not superfluous narrative string – a rape scene whose perpetrator humped away fully clothed! May medyas pa yata. :) How’s that for cinematic will or focus?

Rob Sy, Mahal, Maichel Fidelis and Ms. Carla Varga (Go figure!)

Rafer’s narrative exposition is painfully limited, and his scene transitions are very abrupt that one caterwauling scene briskly follows another head-splitting breakdown scene, then another “Magbabayad-ka-sa-ginawa-mo” scene. Carla Varga, who plays negligent mother Imelda, is a good example of Rafer’s very loose grip as director. Julio asks Imelda, “May anak kayo?” Then with no rhyme or reason, she bawls her heart out. They converse further. When Julio leaves, Imelda once again cries as though she just ate something awful.

TERRESTRIAL MYSTERY

Every scene with Carla Varga is executed with over-the-top melodrama, I half expected the Earth to open up and devour the actors for the noise they were generating. Moreover, I was befuddled why Varga is distinctively billed “Ms. Carla Varga”! Why the special title? Is she royalty in the league of Ms. Lea Salonga, Ms. Zsa Zsa Padilla, Ms. Lorna Tolentino or Ms. Eula Valdez? Is she an icon or hero? Is she vaguely popular? Raise your hand, children, if you know who she is. Is she young, vivacious and full of verve? Isn't she 55, or 65? Does she carry an enviable thespic prowess a la Nora Aunor, Bea Alonzo or Shamaine Centenera? Is she a personality of immense Helenic beauty? Mahal, is in fact, a more popular name than Carla Varga will ever be. Yet Mahal isn't billed “Ms. Mahal”. Mahal instead takes the film’s sidelight selling cigarettes at the bar entrance, with ribbon on her hair that's bigger than her head, screaming “Notice me! Notice me!” It’s woeful. We have a conundrum.

With all these peripatetic narrative detours, Julio’s story as “Gigolo” takes second fiddle. We are left out of Julio's kaleidoscopic world. Yes, there are more than half a dozen sex scenes, but some of them don’t even concern our protagonist. Rafer is taken to his “flights of ideas” leaving poor Mygz Molino disoriented in his own titular movie.  

Rafer further recruited some actors familiar in the genre for walk-on parts, as though he is cooking up chopsuey. Throw whatever he can into the brew to disguise the vacuity of his work. Brad Laurente awkwardly hams it up as a gayer-than-gay concupiscent queen bedding one of the guys. Jeremy Ian is likewise billed although I must have blinked and missed him.

Equal opportunity is a double edged sword. Anyone who dreams of directing can buy or borrow himself a camera and call himself a director with no heed for the filmic language or its artistic requisites. See any of G.A. Villafuerte's flicks to realize that the guy tells a single story in 15 of his films all told within 525,600 minutes. Repetition is supposed to turn into mastery, right? Not with Villafuerte, and in this case, Rafer, whose talents are limited to besting how to get worse than their last. In this country, even a secretary without any aptitude for governance can rise to become a Senator. That’s what makes this country great… and shitty.

Mygz Molino is Julio.

Note:

Please read our featured post on Cinema Bravo and why Web Criticism sometimes makes us nginig:
- http://makemeblush2.blogspot.com/2016/10/cinema-bravo-film-criticisms-execrable.html

Antonio Mercader's Galaw - Muddled Thoughts

As earlier promised, I am posting one of the most popular titles (based on page reads and number of visits from their "blank pages") for our hundreds of Pink Film readers. This was initially scheduled for a December 1, 2012 posting. Is this movie any good? I'd lie if I say it is. It features some of the hottest names in the genre. Director Angelo Mercader is a discombobulated soul at best. Read on.

STORY 

Simon (Glenn de Luna) braves Manila all the way from Gumaca, Quezon. Upon reaching the choleric byways of the city, Simon meets and makes a deal with Paolo (Brad Laurente) who sells stolen cellphones. You see, Simon needs to buy a new phone. Moreover, he's selling his brother's expensive necklace. Upon delivery of the gadget, Simon unknowingly accepts a "treat" from Paolo who offers a bottle of soda spiked with a sleeping pill. Simon succumbs to the scheme. When he wakes up, he's lying on the ground divested of a few things. He's lost his wallet, a pair of shoes, and the prized necklace. Amazingly, he gets to keep his cell phone which is an act of benevolence from the baddies, debah? Otherwise, Paolo must have missed the phone. Simon vows for vengeance - and he won't stop until he gets everything back.

Meanwhile, a third character named Jonathan (Jeff Luna) shows up in Paolo's house. Jonathan enjoys intimate moments with Paolo. He is also attracted to his young and handsome roommate (TJ Alonzo) who intermittently services him for a massage. Owing to their salubrious association, Jonathan becomes party to Paolo's schemes; the one who got Simon in trouble.

One day, Simon finds the boarding house owned by Paolo. He pretends he's someone else; a guy named Jake. And as though cast under a hypnotic spell, Paolo doesn't recognize Simon who becomes the new boarder. A case of Attention Deficit Disorder, perhaps? When the time was right, Simon eventually confronts Paolo, sequestering him inside a room, then threatening to annihilate the cell phone thief - with real loud, albeit vein-popping shouts - if he doesn't return the loot. Will Simon be able to retrieve the things he lost?

Director Angelo Mercader must have been in a fog when he conceived "Galaw" (Move) because almost every twist in his narrative is characterized by absurdity. There's Jeff Luna's Jonathan whose every move is dictated by his carnality so he drifts around fantasizing about his next sexual rendezvous. He doesn't do anything but lurk around Paolo's. Glenn de Luna, also known as Luigi Romero in gag-worthy Lucas Mercado flicks, mentions that he works for a call center. He was sent by his company to errr... sell a necklace? Buy a cell phone? Perform a shower scene? Gumaca is far just for mere showers.

"Nakita kitang pinapanood mo si Jake," Paolo tells Jonathan.

Which makes you think: Quezon must be a bustling metropolis teeming with call centers; something I wasn't aware of until now.

What's funnier is how Simon needed to travel to Manila just to buy a stolen phone so it suits him well to get bamboozled by the same seller. Don't they have cell phone shops in Gumaca that he had to endure 140 kilometers of travel, not to mention spend a considerable sum on bus fare? To exact his revenge, Simon needed to relocate and stay in Paolo's boarding house. Over a P20,000 necklace? There are less painful ways. He can report to the barangay, for starters. These narrative sketches don't add up at all.

Glenn de Luna headlines this astonishing piece. While he does a wee bit better than his previous flicks, these triumphs aren't much to crow about. In a scene when he finally confronts Brad/Paolo, he manhandles his beefy landlord. Laurente could easily flex his muscle because Glenn is several stones leaner, lighter than Brad. Yet the latter just stares at Glenn as though bitten and paralyzed by a venomous snake. The whole scene is truly a beholding piece of asininity.

TJ Alonzo, in his film debut, looks lost, but so would you if your character is a caricature of something that's hard to describe. What the heck is he doing here? I had been looking forward to seeing TJ on screen because, let's face it, this young man is quite a looker. But then his raison d'etre starts and ends when he starts canoodling with Jeff Luna for a massage session. When he begins kissing Luna all over his torso, you could see Alonzo trying hard not to land his kisses. He doesn't do well mimicking this. It was a painful watch. Poor boy!

If you consider it punishment to follow the story, your agony is further compounded by bad audio. You strain to hear some of the lines and you actually miss a few things. Director Mercader is too inept to clean his narrative as well as his film making skills. But what do you expect from a former setman of films like "Pasukob" (Ai Ai delas Alas, Rufa Mae Quinto). He probably got his on-the-job film making education from Wenn Deramas. And serously now, what can anyone learn from Deramas? Telling a story is a matter of common sense. And it's a a no-show here. This is why a little knowledge is dangerous. Because props men tend to believe that they can direct movies after mere observation.

What's a Pink Film without a shower scene, right? Glenn de Luna (as Simon/Jake soaps away like there's no tomorrow.

Paolo (Brad Laurente) senses something.

TJ's kisses land in midair.

Right after his bed scenes with TJ Alonzo, Jeff Luna is suddenly seen sharing his bed with Paolo. Did I miss a frame? Is the editor in the building?

Simon drinks a apiked cola.

Glenn de Luna formerly Luigi Romero

TJ Alonzo: Isn't he adorable?

TJ Alonzo in one of photographer Vic Fabe's best works. Visit his site at www.vicfabe.com. Mr. Fabe also has photo magazines bearing his name available at bookstores. Hmmm I may grab a copy soon if my BFF Kyle doesn't get his first. :)

Note:

Please read our featured post on Cinema Bravo and why Web Criticism isn't always about good writing:
- http://makemeblush2.blogspot.com/2016/10/cinema-bravo-film-criticisms-execrable.html

Darry dela Cruz's Midnight Temptation - Predictable Debauchery

Like clockwork, Jess (Jed Juico) leaves his sleeping wife (Lang Lopez) daily at the stroke of midnight. He works as a security guard for an undisclosed firm. But unknown to his wife, Jess diligently takes arcane detours to satisfy his craving for human bratwurst. He secretly meets his lover Rex (Brad Laurente), a hustler. Meanwhile, Jess’s wife has agenda of her own. As her hubby departs, she takes midnight showers, then meets her lesbian lover (KC Miller). By day, the married couple lives their conjugal lives like they sincerely care for each other. They even share intimate moments together.

One day, Jess starts having distressful dreams. In them, his lover and wife are seen canoodling with each other. It doesn't help that his colleague from work keeps warning him against marital neglect – and an impending break-up. This disconcerts him so that he finally decides to quit his job to avoid what seems to be the inevitable if he stayed. 

Jess tells Rex about this, but the latter's adamant: “Ako na lang ang gawin mong asawa. Ikaw lang ang nagmahal sa akin nang ganito… at ikaw lang ang hindi ko sinisingil.” Any closeted gay man with half a heart would be properly flattered, right? But Jess’ resolve is final. He takes his wife away - eloping like modern day Romeo and Juliet. Why they need to move away is beyond me. Meanwhile, the lesbian lover (earlier dumped by Lang) – who happens to be Rex’s obstinate landlady, knocks on Rex’s door. She has suddenly decided to bunk in with her troublesome tenant and “taste the meat” he’s constantly offering. “Dito na ako titira,” she barges in without much invitation. “At least, 'di ka na magbabayad pa ng renta… at libre ka pa ng pagkain,” she sweetens the deal. Then the lesbian landlady and the gay hustler lock lips and start rolling in the hay. Now tell me there are no happy-ever-afters in Darry dela Cruz’s flicks? So inspiring, debah? Weeh!

Director Darry Dela Cruz suddenly grows conscience and decides to do away with his penchant for random violence and mayhem. Thanks to Kenneth Montero's mind-shattering script, of course. This time around, Dela Cruz doesn't stab his protagonist nor poison them – or drown them at the kangkungan. So what better to fashion a new beginning by compelling an impromptu coupling between a dyke and a hustler. This way, everyone’s happy. Gusto n'ya happy kayo, debah?

There’s no denying the stark absence of credible emotion and motivation. The characters in Dela Cruz’s narrative joyously blur sexual orientation and gender preferences. Straight men suddenly fellate gay hustlers, and devoted housewives share their concupiscent bed with lesbian neighbors. Guilt and skepticism aren't a party to these indiscretions. There are no buts and ifs here. They just transpire with the bat of an eyelash and flick of a finger. Heck, our protagonists hardly show legitimate emotions for each other. The new age robots of Tokyo are capable of showing emotions more than these insipid souls. 

Brad Laurente is an enthusiastic actor, but he possesses awkward facial expressions that need artistic oversight. And enthusiasm doesn't translate to competence, making Laurente nothing but a beefy ham with a salami hanging between his legs. He probably knows the disposition of his hustling character by heart so when he offers himself to his landlady ("Baka gusto mo akong tikman."), you know that he means it. Outside this realm, Laurente grasps at straws.

Jed Juico does worse, and it doesn't help that his character is banal, while his dramatic chops are innocuous. Plus - how do you take someone seriously when he says: "May ka six (sex) daw na iba." The ladies in the cast are mere cosmetic afterthoughts in the story. Like most hybrid of Pink and straight Erotica, "Midnight Temptation" boasts of lots of back sides and pert (if dark brownish) nipples. 

Dela Cruz’s “Midnight Temptation” couldn’t help but provide the de rigueur shower scenes as well. Otherwise, he would probably lapse into virulent seizures. Or worse still, catatonic coma! But what can a film that barely runs for an hour expound in the midst of six shower scenes (Laurente, Juico and Lopez all have two bathroom scenes each)? 

Add to that is the real time filming of Lang cooking fried rice and fried eggs (yup, from start to finish); clipping her nails; washing clothes and hanging her laundry out to dry. It’s nothing more than a tutorial on how to consume fried eggs during breakfast. Why would any film maker linger on such mundane scenes? Were these expositions about boredom? Or about routine household work? Clearly, it's because he has nothing much to say, thus he stretches his cinematic palette with mundane scenes with no relevance to the story at hand. If you enjoy watching these domestic chores from start to finish – and a dash of Jed Juico’s fleeting full frontals (in its shriveled state, of course) – then you might consider this ouvre a masterpiece of Moron Cinema.

Like other cinematic pieces from the burgeoning Moron Cinema, logic is but a figment of narrative invention. And logic has long left the building since Dela Cruz and his cohorts plundered, pillaged and violated mainstream cinemas week after week. How low can this B-cinema go? These people have designed their artistic platitude integral to their banal desideratum. Should we laugh or cry? I get angry and I write about it.  

Vince Tan's Laro - Comedy Beyond Sex Comedy

Melos (Tofee Calma) is an ISO-certified egotistical, recently out-of-work, albeit flamboyantly swishy director who alienates everyone around him. He is why “cantankerous’ and “shrew” were coined. After having lost yet another account at an advertising firm, Melos finds himself out of people to oppress and “games” to play (thus the title) so he conjures one in the confines of his household.

In the said houselhold, Melos employs Aljur (James Pinca), the driver who moonlights as his gardener and masseur; and Dingdong (Brad Laurente), the houseboy (a former welder) who steadily dismisses his employer’s sexual advances. To concoct a story out of his employees, Melos invites Aljur’s estranged wife Bea (Irish Contreras) to work for him. Aljur and Bea have been married for 4 years, but after a financial debacle with Bea’s father, Aljur storms out of his marriage, departing Isabela and finding a job in Manila. The couple hasn’t seen each other in a year. Aljur is appalled working alongside Bea, but helpless with the turn of events. He has to live and stay with his wife who still has the hots for him. To further thicken the plot, Melos locates Dingdong’s girl friend Angelica (Jenaira Chu) who just finished her contract as a sales clerk at a mall, and is thus, unemployed. Melos offers her a job as housekeeper.

Now that all the characters have been accounted for, the willful director plots a sexual rigodon that would have married Bea seduce Brad, and have Angelica beguile the married Aljur. It’s a perfect scenario worth writing about, right? But little did Melos realize, that such couplings would, errr... “bend” in the most unforeseen manner.

Sex comedy is a rarely dealt cinematic genre mostly because local humor is mostly huddled by the lack of genuine comic ideas and inspired writing. Vince Tan’s “Laro” succeeds in the most unusual manner. It is funny when it shouldn’t be, and is even more hilarious in its technical proficiency. The writer tries hard to fill his story with too much verbal clutter, you do wonder which book of quotations he’s taken them from. This is the other spectrum of a drugged out Danny Zialcita, where everyone is equipped with a badly delivered repartee.

Let’s start with the opening scene at a conference room where a storyboard meeting is taking place. When a presentation displeases Melos, he conflagrates like a daft faggot, mouthing his English lines with ridiculous struggle, I seriously felt sad for the Queen’s language. When will directors learn a simple lesson? If your actor bleeds from his simple English lines, it’s wiser to have him deliver in Tagalog. Or you run the risk of having him dig himself a hole, while uncomfortably writhing in precarious splendor. When the English language sends your actors to anaphylactic shock, throw a lifevest of Tagalog phrases!

Tofee Calma has been in the business for more than a decade (“Divino: Anak ni Totoy Mola”, “Init ng Laman”, “Bawal”, “Magagandang Hayop”, “Paligayahin Mo Ako”, “Dalagang Dagat” – and no, he didn’t play the mermaid), but watching him perform on screen felt like he hasn’t learned much from his enviable resume (where he mostly played the leading man). It was painful to watch him and even more so listening to him. If you’ve always wondered if Calma – playing a homosexual director – is indeed gay, you would have your doubts here. That’s how bad he is as an actor. He is awkward and 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. When a character eventually quips, “You’re out of ritz” when it’s an easy “reach” – I had goose bumps! These are the personalities who populate the advertising world? Gosh, my yaya can enunciate better! It must have been all those years peeping through windows in my Speech and Drama classes! 

The film generously delivers the requisite nudities – both male and female; lots of them in fact! James Pinca, who registers strongly, enjoys half a dozen shower scenes. What would the Pink Film industry be like if shower scenes were discarded and banned altogether, can you imagine? It would be catastrophic! Each pink film would lose more than 50% of their running time. Shiver! Now back to Pinca; yes, he has several full monties, some in split-second flashes; others in more gratuitous displays. Unfortunately, Pinca’s promise in Vince Tan’s “Private Nights” dwindles into inevitable squander. He throws his lines like a 6 year old and his verbal cadence is almost always a uniform discourse. Pinca’s delivery feels like a dimension of emotionality starkly present in the most sublime experiences – like when buying pork chop! It is sad!

But – if Pinca is misguided by his non-directing director, Brad Laurente does even worse. In fact, Pinca becomes a luminous thespian beside Laurente whose declarative sentences are similar to his interrogative and exclamatory! His character – houseboy Dingdong (carelessly written “Dindong” at the credits) is constantly seduced by his employer Melos. Aljur keeps suggesting that he should take advantage of Melos’ indecent proposal. When it was Bea’s turn to seduce him, he gladly acquiesces with her warning: “Sige tanggihan mo ako, sisigaw ako!” When his girl friend joins him there, this displeased him. Why? The motivation of this character is so sketchy, I might as well benefit from counting the nails on my ceiling than trying to make sense from the narrative at hand!

Irish Contreras, looking heavier than when she was a Viva Hot Babe (see photo somewhere in this post for comparison), fills her character with a lot of – ugh – noise! She’s the scorned wife who’s eventually found her husband – miraculously! She appears in some full frontal scenes – including one where she shares the shower with Pinca. Jenaira Chu offers a mammarian peekaboo while she tries to seduce Pinca.

The lines spouted by the characters are a mere smokescreen of their emptiness. Try this one: “Katulong ka lang dito,” declares Angelica, then further says,”Ako, housekeeper!” I am glad she sees a thin line dividing the two terms. I don’t! In another scene, Melos accuses Dingdong: “Nakatikim ka lang ng bagong putahe, nagbago ka na!” But Dingdong hasn’t really changed. He still rebuffs his employer’s advances. Whatever change Melos is referring to must have been edited out? Or are the director and scriptwriter merely perplexed? There are ominous and repeated references to plants and animals: “Ang pusa kapag nakalingat, maghahanap ng iba!” Then there are allusions on “hilaw na langka”, “hilaw na papaya” and their “dagta”! Aren’t we getting too zoological and botanical? Fun!

There’s more: “Matuto kayong kumilatis ng ginto para ‘di kayo matanso!” Melos advises Bea and Angelica. But he himself was a victim of the boys’ deception, wasn’t he? Bea even describes her genitals as “nasusungkit sa putik” while Angelica’s was straight out of the “burak”. Ano daw? Doesn’t sungkit involve an elevated place? As far as I’m concerned, you wade in the mire; you don’t pick mud. Jos ko! The whole film is filled with such utter nonsense, scrounging the savoir vivre of “No Other Woman” this side of Pink Cinema. Some lines come too soon, like coitus interruptus: when Bea catches Angelica fiddling Aljur’s joystick, she retorts: “Ang galling n’yong mag patay malisya!” – even before they’re able to do just that! How can they feign innocence when they haven’t even seen her yet?

Jenaira Chu masters the "smoldering look". She has exactly similar poses in "Anton Tubero" and "Kubli".

Director Vince Tan has rechristened himself (a symbolic "rebirth" maybe?) , doing away with his old moniker – Neal “Buboy” Tan – the purveyor of dozens of B-exploitation flicks in the 90’s: “Kakaibang Karisma”, “Siya’y Nagdadalaga”, “Pilya”, “Campus Scandal”, “Shirley”, “Maldita”, “Kalabit”, “Puri”, “Check-Inn”, etc. Check those films shown in rundown cinemas in Quiapo, Baclaran, and elsewhere; they’re probably Neal Tan’s masterpieces! As Vince Tan, he has unfortunately fielded 3 flicks this year: “Anton Tubero”, “Private Nights” and “Laro”. Now tell me: how can someone with Tan’s “facility” keep churning out cinematic dregs while brilliant directors like Chris Martinez can only manage one and one-third (“Temptation Island”, “Gunaw” segment of “My Valentine Girls”)?

It is an unjust world.

James Pinca


James Pinca


Irish Contreras masters the art of devouring


Brad Laurente

Brad Laurente

Brad Laurente

Tofee Calma

Irish Contreras

Irish Contreras

Jenaira Chu