GA Villafuerte's Hardinero - Copying the Amateur Way

When gardener Mang Mario (Marco Ronquillo) had to leave his work to attend to his family in Iloilo, the De Veras find themselves in a deleterious situation! Holy molly! What will happen to the plants in the garden? Will they wither, wane and die a painful death? This disturbing scenario shakes this progressive family like it’s the apocalypse. It’s a good thing someone presents himself for the job – handsome Brando Chavez (John Canterbury) who’s in desperate need of employment to support his spouse.

STAGGERING SECRET

The De Veras comprise siblings Lance (Jonas Gruet), the family breadwinner; voluptuous and pouty Ana (Adriana Gomez) and nubile Cyrus (Kael Reyes). They treat hardworking Brando with due civility and gives him a day off in a week so he could visit his other-half. But the comely pulchritude of fair and soft spoken Brando isn’t lost on the siblings who soon develop considerable affection for our titular character. 

Fortunately, Brando is receptive to all forms of persuasion: men, women, gays – even mute maids! He soon fosters discreet and intimate relationships with every member of the household. But he has a secret that could shatter the world of the de Veras; an arcane mystery that shall change the shape of the universe as we know it. His “asawa” is a gorgeous guy named Nikko Guanzon (Paulo Henson) who spends all his time showering away grime brought by lassitude. What happens when the De Veras find out about this? Will the world perish in a matter of seconds? More importantly, will the script writer grow cerebral tissue inside his skull?.

Scriptwriter and Director GA Villafuerte once again fabricates a tale so mundane and out-and-out ridiculous I had to laugh all the way from the opening to the credits. He places tension on the fact that his protagonist lives with a guy as though it’s his employers’ concern. Didn’t Brando tell them that he has an “asawa”? Once the De Veras knew of his homosexual relationship, all hell breaks loose. Ana, so distraught, could only slap him several times: “Walang hiya ka. Sinungaling ka!”

But wait. Was Brando in an exclusive relationship with any of the siblings? Ana is, after all, in a coupling with Xyrus Arruejo whom Lance doesn’t favor. Villafuerte is so inept he can’t even build adequate tension to create an atmosphere of betrayal. Every sexual vignette doesn’t underline exclusive intimations, but mere playing around. Closeted Lance’s sole indiscretion was when he asked Brando, who subs as pool cleaner and masseur, for a massage that soon had the employer fellating his gardener ‘til kingdom come (no pun intended).

RATED SPG

Like many Pink Film directors, Villafuerte had to submit his actors to several shower scenes – something that’s probably genetically ingrained in the artistry (or lack thereof) of gay Pinoy directors because they can’t seem to do away with multiple shower scenes to tide over their gaunt narratives. Yes, Empress Crisaldo, Director Villafuerte peppers his celluloid dreams with enough backsides he might as well be ejaculating in his director’s chair.

EXECRABLE

The performances are considerably bad and, quite frankly, ghastly with Jonas Gruet exhibiting one of the hammiest depictions of a corporate boss. In a scene reminiscent of Crisaldo Pablo’s “Masukista” (with Joeffrey Javier playing the boss), Gruet tells off his incompetent employees with grated teeth, contorted facial muscles and wrinkly nose – it was painful to watch him finish a paragraph! Is he under medication? What happened to Gruet? Wasn't he a Repertory Philippines actor once upon a time in his long’ish life? Gruet is equipped with emotive affectations that distort his lips, nose and forehead as he delivers his lines. He wasn’t this bad in Del Mundo’s “Taksikab”. It’s probably the presence of Villafuerte that brings out the worse in his actors. And if you think Gruet is bad, try Marco Ronquillo who is ominously billed - “sa isang espesyal na pagganap”. Special it isn’t, that’s for sure. Ronquillo, who appears for 2 minutes or so, is intimidated with any line given to him so he appears petrified delivering his lines. He freezes in mid-sentence. The eggplants in our farm have more conviction looking like vegetables than Ronquillo depicting a gardener. Gawd!

Now how's our titular hardinero? John Canterbury looks mostly amused and willing to please. If he has emotive skills, this remains unclear since the character isn't really given much to sink his thespic teeth into. I am a bit distracted by his "man boobs", but other than that, who would complain about someone as good looking as Canterbury? Better to watch a handsome man in a bad movie than ogle at ugly beings in an execrable one, debah? (Wink, wink at Crisaldo Pablo!) Do we believe for a second that Canterbury's a gardener? If this were April Fool's, maybe.

Xyrus Arruejo returns and if you remember from my previous review of GA Villafuerte's "Kapa", I predicted that Villafuerte intends to gradually "peel" Arruejo's modesty, slowly but surely until he's left waving his family's jewels for the director. In "Hardinero", the goodlooking Xyrus has a bed scene with Adriana Gomez, who may need some time with the treadmill to shed off her lipid excrescences. They play lovers who keep their relationship a secret from "strict" Jonas. While Villafuerte succeeds to take Xyrus' shirt off, canoodling with Adriana in bed, we can probably expect that those shorts would eventually come off in the director's next flick called "Nympho" - a film that also took one day to complete principal photography. And you wonder why these movies look like grade school amateur movies?

COPYING

Villafuerte introduces a new talent, Paulo Henson who plays Nikko, Brando's "spouse". Henson registers strongly on screen so he could probably make it in this exploitative industry. But he'd be better off finding avenues outside Villafuerte's Mediocre Country. Did Henson do well with his lines? He didn't have any. His baptism of fire was but an arse-rich shower scene with Canterbury. Promising career, right?  

Finally, let me turn the spotlight once again to GA Villafuerte. In "Lihim ng mga Nympha", he copies an earlier flick called "Sa Piling ng mga Nympha" (2010) and didn't even acknowledge the latter. (Review for this comes out within the week.) Every scene and blocking is duplicated with utmost precision. :)

Furthermore, the intriguing concept in "Hardinero" has, in fact, been done earlier this year. In Miko Jacinto's "Salo", a closeted boss (Paolo Rivero) is in love with his stay-in driver (Kristoffer King) who's married - to a guy (Jeff Luna). Shown February this year, this similar narrative strain deserves to be given proper attribution for the blatant copying, right? Villafuerte turns the driver into a gardener. How imaginative. At least gardeners carry hoses that err "squirt" water, right? LOL

Did we expect Villafuerte to run his acknowledgement on this cinematic plagiarism? Unfortunately, GA Villafuerte is as inept with good manners as he is with his film making skills that it's beyond him to give credit where credit is due. Here's the irony, all of Villafuerte's remakes are far worse than their original copies. Yet we get to often read from his camp how he perceives his works as "another masterpiece". Aren't remakes suppose to improve the shortcomings of their predecessor? I'd probably hide in a cave if I were in his shoes. As I've said before, and I'll say it again now, the nerve!

No one requires manners in Mediocre Country.

Brando, the gardener, entertains his young employer Xyrus.

Xyrus watches Brando soaping away at the shower.

Brando offers a massage - with lotion, of course, to his boss Lance.

Lance (Jonas Gruet) turns the table around and errr... "services" his grateful gardener. Such enviable employer-employee relationship, right? 

John Canterbury (as Brando) and Adriana Gomez (as Ana)

Jonas Gruet (as Lance de Vera) and Kael Reyes (as Xyrus)

Xyrus Arruejo and Paulo Henson

Gardeners before and after Brando - Marco Ronquillo and Jayson Sampiano.

Adriana Gomez

Aeona Fuentes and Paulo Henson

Kael Reyes

John Canterbury in a male bikini pageant.

Note:

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

Three in One - Scatterbrain Confusion and Misdirection

Director Rene Cruz, Jr.’s “Three in One” is a gibberish gabfest that tries to veer away from the norm of Pinoy Indie-cum-exploitation flick. In fact, it deserves a trophy for not resorting to half a dozen male shower scenes (although there’s one with its female lead). To be honest, we’re so sick of this cheap ploy from unimaginative schmucks. What is the limit of one’s artistic talent if a film maker has 7 shower scenes in a movie that’s barely an hour long? This also clues you in on the sexual orientation of its director – that he isn’t a libidinous, salivating gay man (Paul Singh Cudail – check; GA Villafuerte – check) moonlighting as a clueless film maker so he could ogle at the shortcomings of his male leads. 

Why am I talking about the director’s sexual orientation? Simply put, in such genres, sexual orientation dictates the content and flavor of the film. It predicates on their priorities and leanings, not on their artistic capability. Having said that, let’s get into the heart of the story - if you could call it that.

Director Rene Cruz, Jr. plays the friend who gets cold feet after proposing to his girlfriend. He shares his scenes with Jo Regis.

Three disparate stories are woven together by two friends who hang out together in a third floor pad. For purposes of discussion, let’s call them Rene and Jo since these characters are not given names. Rene (Director Rene Cruz, Jr.) gives his chubbier buddy Jo (Jo Regis) a visit to discuss an exigent matter – he wants to get hitched to his girlfriend Beth. He’s been mulling over the idea for a year. He is 30 and is gainfully employed. He sold some stuff, even his prized Xbox, so he could finance the ring. But minutes after dropping the bomb to his friend, he shifts gears. Suddenly, he gets cold feet. “Bigla na lang… ayun, wala na! Ayoko na!” He is weighed down by his cloak of indecision. Jo decides to take the wheel of their conversation by telling his friend about the people he met at a resort in Laguna (a resort that his family owns).

One day, three rooms are reserved by different customers. The first room is occupied by newlyweds Bimbo and Hannah (Bench dela Torre and Tanya Morales). The couple goes at it like most honeymooners do. But it soon becomes evident that Bimbo, a vain and narcissistic hunk, is more concerned with his sexual needs. Hannah is frustrated. “Ako ang nanligaw sa kanya, ako ang nagyayang magpakasal. Sana minsan, ako naman ang asikasuhin nya,” complains Hannah to Dennis (Jonas Gruet), a stranger she meets at the resort restaurant.

The second room is booked by Dennis (Gruet), a freelance writer who finds himself alone in a different resort. His friends went to another. Dennis intends to make good use of his solitude by hooking up with single ladies in similar situation. He meets frustrated Hannah, but Bimbo finds them and Dennis gets hit on the face. He meets Sherry (Mia Henares), another frustrated wife who gets testy when Dennis asks what it is that’s troubling her. Dennis ends up with a big slap on the face. Finally, he finds Czarina (Barbara Chavez) who, like him, solitarily roams the resort looking for love. After a drinking spree and a minor stripping moment, Dennis gets puked on by the inebriated Czarina.

The third room has old couple Philip and Sherry (Enrique Joe and Mia Henares). They stay in separate beds and even a romp in the hay is as perfunctory as a morning dump. Unemployed Philip feels neglected by Sherry (a manager of a shop somewhere) who performs their conjugal coupling by the number. When he cajoles her with “Sex tayo?”, she nonchalantly disrobes on bed. Philip, all clothed, rides into the moment until Sherry asked with a “Matagal ka pa?” effectively ending their concupiscent rendezvous. They fight. Sherry sleeps while Philip wanks away his sexual frustrations. Sherry catches him so he walks out and joins a drinking party outside.

Bench dela Torre gets lead role in his 2nd film for 2012. He reminds me of the powerful screen charisma of  Pink Films' "it " boy Jeff Luna.

Now how do all these vignettes relate to Rene’s situation? The conceit here is high on philosophical gibberish, i.e. a lot of things could happen in a day, predicating on the ephemeral, temporal nature of things. Will this provide answers for Rene’s dilemma?

The film is divided by Chapter Titles: “Bimbo and Hannah”, “Dennis and Czarina”, “Philip and Sherry” – and subchapters: “Sa Isang Araw, Maraming Puwedeng Mangyari”, “Mabuhay ang Bagong Kasal”, “Ang Araw ng Hassle”, “Happily Ever After”, etc. but what’s clear is the scatterbrain storytelling that confuses the audience more than shedding light. In fact, it breaks grounds by doing a tackily edited “Groundhog Day” scenario, oft repeating scenes to piece the three stories together. These vignettes appear in episodic fashion between Rene and Jo’s protracted conversation that runs the gamut between amusing to weird. How else do you explain a topic about masturbation when the subject at hand is about Rene’s matrimonial Catch-22?

In this discordant thread, Rene and Jo discuss their first time (to self pleasure): one of them started at 13 years old and it lasted for a brisk minute; the other offers that he used sexy tabloids as inspiration; the exquisite use of baby oil; the technique of a good soap lather and a double-hand mash; dad’s porn video stash; one couldn’t masturbate standing up, etc. While the discussion could be interesting, it clearly departs from the narrative focus. Furthermore, you’re hard up hearing about the details because of the noisy “room tone”. This is a major problem in the film because most of the details are drowned out by noise. Getting the details (names, etc.) becomes utter punishment for someone like me who tries to make heads or tails of the story. How else could I share it for Blush, debah?

The two friends also discuss their sexual fantasies: Rene wants to do it with a mascot – and with someone afflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome (a neuropsychiatric disorder where a patient suffers with involuntary, albeit violent muscular and verbal tics). Jo bizarrely gets his kicks with Sitophilia (Sitophiles are turned on by food, but this can be through consumption, direct sexual contact with the food or simply by rolling around in it.) He wants steak all over his flabby protruding belly as his partner partakes on the slab of meat. (You don’t wonder why he’s pushing 250 pounds when even during sex, it’s food he’s thinking about.) Do these contribute to move the main story? Or to the arbitrary nature of things (that indeed, a lot of things could change within the day)?

Director Cruz coasts on a badly written script, unable to fully realize any of his three main vignettes. In fact, his scenes with Jo Regis is a tighter film making simply because this doesn't allow him greater level of difficulty in technique. They just stay in a room, talking it away like there's no tomorrow. Most of his lines with Regis are ad libs, thus you end up with scene fillers: "Putang ina", "ang labo mo", "ano ang punto mo", "ang weird"... just to tide over the incipient ideas and lines that eventually made it in the flick. While I am aware that it is important to distinguish the individual elements that comprise the 'design' of a narrative structure, you have to be able to seamlessly piece them together. Instead, his anecdotes are like pages of different uninteresting stories that don't contribute to the movement of the plot. Not legibly anyway. While credits rolled, he thanked his film school for "creating a monster". But from the looks of it, the school hasn't really taught him much. And that's really a lot of wasted finance. Don't tell me this is another DLSU film graduate? Oh dear. :) 

Mia Henares (Marimel Candelaria in real life) plays Sherry, Philip's wife. She's also seen in "Ang Lihim ng mga Nympha".

Jonas Gruet as freelance writer Dennis. This photo from Ian Felix Alquiros who seems to have mastered the art of photographing the male form.

Barbara Chavez (aka Vanessa Kate del Prado in real life): She sometimes looks like an inferior version of dancer Saicy Aguila.

Enrique Joe plays the sexually frustrated husband Philip.

This could be Tanya Morales playing Hannah. Got the photo (by way of deduction) from the theatrical poster of "Ang Lihim ng Mga Nympha".

There’s nothing worth discussing about the performances, but Rene Cruz and Jo Regis enjoy comfortable banter. It’s also evident that any hint of a script is characterized mostly by elementary sketches of gibberish. This is why we hear several (count it and you should have nothing less than a dozen): “Ano ba talaga ang punto mo”, “ang punto ko lang naman ay…”, “ano ba talaga ang ibig mong sabihin,” “tang ina… ang labo mo” - yet there’s no valid perspective anywhere near these redundant utterances. An example of this is: “Matanda ka na kasi tapos pag di ka mamatay, mas tatanda ka pa, eh sinong mag  aalaga sa ‘yo? “

Jonas Gruet does a perfunctrory Dennis, but it’s clear that his expletives are as benign as his thespic insight. He could have been a stronger presence had he invested on emotions more than the didactic nature of delivering lines. After all, he is the guy who gets punched, slapped and vomited on. A huge loophole in the story concerns his arrival in the resort. His friends went to a different place while he ended up in Carayan Resort (a place frequented by these indies and Pink Films). Cellphones exist in this day and age, don’t they? Can’t he drive himself to the other resort to join his friends? The rooms were supposedly reserved. What happened to the rooms reserved by his friends? Did he pay for them? Maybe his friends went to Boracay instead. It's possible you know. :)

Bench dela Torre packs a wallop where his cinematic presence is concerned. Now this is a guy who oozes with machismo and sexual charm, the proverbial “artistahin” not found in many of Crisaldo Pablo flicks who prefer his guys cachectic and “dugyutin”. Casting is imperative in a film like this because if the movie can’t offer much in content, the paying audience can at least feast their eyes on the pulchritude of its cast. Unfortunately, Bench dela Torre delivers like a duo-tone robot. His phrases are spewed in two pitches that are as tentative as reciting an alphabet. He could have benefitted from not opening his mouth at all. What did he “show”? You have to remember that this has a straight director, which means, there are no “labas-puwet” shower scenes here. Just tight bikini briefs. For that three-second peekaboo of his “shortcomings”, try GA Villafuerte's "Ang Lihim ng Mga Nympha" where Bench lies completely naked in a dimly lit room (oopps, I saw the mushroom head in its slumbering state) – the review will be posted here soon!

Among the girls, it’s Mia Henares who fares better, although not by much. She flaunts a frontal nudity (she takes off her towel in bed, showing everything) while Enrique Joe (who plays her husband Philip) is fully clothed, humping away until kingdom come. Did I say “come” Naughty me. :)

Barbara Chavez, billed "Barbie" in one of its three theatrical posters suffers from misdirection or the lack of it. I would have expected a little more from her since she has appeared in several film features this year ("Mga Lalake sa Balsa", etc.) Barbie epitomizes the sex nymphet common in the 90's - fair, petite, willing to show her mammaries, clueless. It's Tanya Morales that we could hardly find photographic materials of, although she was also in several flicks this year ("Ang Lihim ng mga Nympha", among others). While it's easy to google photos of the male cast, finding some for the female cast is like finding needle in a haystack. This only underlines the blatant shift of priorities of B-Cinema. Males have become the preferred commodity - and this is dictated by commerce and patronage. If only indie film makers of the genre would try harder, this resurgence of low budget flicks could be beneficial to a lot of parties, most especially the paying audience. 

But that's all wishful thinking.  

Bench horizontally enjoying the water.

Bench dela Torre as exquisitely photographed by Vic Fabe (above).

Director and actor Rene Cruz, Jr. and playful Mia Henares

Private Nights & Wanted: Male Boarders - Cursory Tales in Exploitative Flicks

Pink flicks are making hay! The lamentable fact is that these works don’t even try to deliver that untrodden narrative anymore. We’ve heard and seen these stories populated by fresh faces with talent that meander between sixes and sevens. But the “bone of contention” (no pun intended) lies in the way these characters are served like expendable meat on our cinematic platter.

Vince Tan’s “Private Nights” and Crisaldo Pablo’s “Wanted: Male Boarders” are as vacuous as they are exploitative. But one thing sets them apart from the dime-a-dozen gay-themed films these days: Both productions are topbilled by lead actors who aren’t just easy on the eyes - the former’s James Pinca and the latter’s Jakko/Nikko Jacinto, while obviously green, reveal adequately engaging performances, which makes watching Tan and Pablo’s befuddling homoerotic-fairyland flicks a bit more tolerable.

Pinca has the boy-next-door smoulder of JC de Vera. But in “Private Nights,” his promise is all but lost in the maze of his starrer’s beclouded story, cluttered further by Tan’s ineptness to tell a plausible tale. This makes his directorial debut, “Anton Tubero” apocryphal.

Story

Dave (Pinca) is forced to work as a macho dancer after he leaves the home of his elder sister and her abusive husband Diego (Tony Lapena). Despite his aversion to homosexuals, he could only find a “profession” peopled by gay men and horny women. Interestingly, he also ignores the lusty gay-bar owner (Hanni Miller) who has the hots for him.

Life gets easier for Dave after he accepts the invitation of co-dancer Alvin (Jonas Gruet) to live with him in his well-furnished condominium unit. As it turns out, his supposedly 24-year-old colleague (he looks much older) yearns for more than just his brotherly camaraderie. In fact, Alvin lives an affluent lifestyle with a sex-starved flight attendant-girlfriend, but he gets himself hired in the same bar just the same to get close to the object of his desire. Huh?

Dave later finds out about Lapena’s “real” sexual orientation by accident when he catches the latter throwing a jealousy-fueled hissy fit with his boytoy (Dustin Jose) in the gay bar Dave works in. Tan makes this revelation confounding, however, by splicing in a flashback scene showing Dave getting raped by Diego - a truly dumbfounding moment of storytelling lunacy.

The movie wants to explore the dynamics in and economics of the gay-bar business, but it doesn’t really go beyond the surface. 

It merely finds an excuse for its put-upon actors to dangle their assets and shortcomings for all the world (and the movie's director and producers) to see. This peripheral off-tangent perception makes for a mundane tale.

You’ll also see a few of these actors (Lapena, Gruet, Jose) in Archie del Mundo’s well-intentioned (and better-crafted) “Taksikab,” but here, they’re just as dreadful as their exploitative movie. Lapena plays a contravida to the hilt, showing no insight at all about his badder-than-the-gay-devil character. He barks his lines as he contorts his facial muscles with a never-fading sneer. Think Romy Diaz without the latter’s wisdom or villainy charisma.

HEADGEAR COUNTRY

We expected more from Gruet, who showed some promise in “Taksikab.” Here, he plays his “closeted” character in an overtly effete manner. Worse, he is as vapid as the lines he's tasked to deliver. It doesn’t help that he flaunts all sorts of headgears from beginning to end to conceal his expeditiously receding hairline (or broadening bald spot) - name it, you’ll see him in caps, hats, hoods, bonnets, bandanas, scarves, etc. If they stretched the movie’s running time a little longer, we wouldn’t have been surprised to see him wear a Jewish yarmulkes, a Muslim taqiyah, a pope’s mitre, a king’s crown, a beret, a bowler hat, a kepi, a fez, a karakul, a turban or a fedora.

We hope the promising Pinca learns from his costars’ “shortcomings,” because, as Gruet and Lapena very well demonstrate in “Private Nights,” an “actor” is only as good as his last movie.

James Pinca smoulders as Dave.

Jakko Jacinto is also wasted in Crisaldo Pablo’s pathetic, exploitative fleshfest, “Wanted: Male Boarders,” where he plays the good-looking straight guy, Alvin, who eventually falls for the charm (and generosity) of self-assured “bisexual” call-center agent, Nate (Joeffrey Javier), who lives with him in the boarding house owned by Pining (Chamyto Aguedan).

Freshman Alvin, who’s from Laguna, thought he hit the jackpot when he found a cheap bed space in the metropolis (P500 a month, with the use of electricity and water on the house - beat that). He unearths a bombshell when he discovers that in this particular boarding house, the tenants’ pastime is - sex (and with one another)! No, Virginia, Chamyto insists that they’re all straight or bisexual men who are just looking for an easy diversion to shake off their melancholy or domestic ennui - but who are they kidding?

What’s hard to deny is the fact that the movie is used by the “prolific” Pablo as another excuse to “showcase” his coterie of “compliant” kanto boys (Francis Sienes, Rusty Adonis, Joshua Domingo) and some hunky men (Brix Jimenez) in various stages of undress and sexual activity.

This time, Pablo aesthetically realizes more of his gay fantasies by letting one of the boys “play” with a papaya (it's good for a skin that's constantly stretching and retracting), or showing the talentless starlets as they tinker with their bells when they’re turned on by porn, or having the “hungry” Chamyto eat his lunch as the supposedly “homophobic” Alvin slow-strips for him, or getting all of the boys in the shower with Jacinto! Director Pablo loves to tintinnabulate their bells indeed.

Jakko Jacinto as fresh-faced Alvin.

Jakko Jacinto and Joeffrey Javier

Of course, the piece de resistance has to be the sexual catharsis of Alvin when he finally (and all-too-willingly) shares Nate’s bed. Brilliant, right? Pablo has always been prone to this unimaginative tack without even integrating a narrative history that makes such couplings believable. Remember best friends Joash and Sieg who turned into bed mates at the end of “Manong Konstru”? Remember the “Luv U Tol” segment of “Dose, Trese, Katorse” where, once again best friends Sieg and Gene end up shagging each other, all without prior hint of romantic attraction in the story? Pablo is so transfixed with this magical idea that guys would just shag each other at the blink of an eye. None of them makes sense - a luminous testament of its makers’ storytelling acumen.

In the film, Pablo shamelessly peddles a supplement called MS Tablet for Men which works into a guy's libido (like Viagra) which we all know has the veracity of believing that the Arroyos are an honest political clan. Everyone who takes the tablet gets too horned up, thus the boarders all engage in pleasuring themselves at all times from dawn until dusk.

Here, Pablo lazily utilizes the same music we've heard a million times from his other clunkers. Moreover, you find his actors stop in mid-sentence, flustered and dazed, as they wait for Pablo (or his assistants) to feed them with their lines.

Fortunately, like Pinca, Jakko Jacinto is not just another pretty face - he actually shows some promise, and one that needs to be realized by someone better-equipped than Pablo as a director. Jacinto looks self-conscious in front of the camera but he’s never awkward, so we hope he does something substantial the next time around - and, please, stay as far away from Pablo and his bromidic effort.

As for Javier, there’s nothing in his performance that gives him away as an English-speaking, call center-trained guy, but then again, what do you expect from these pink-themed yarn? The director always loved to populate his stories with call center agents (he must have done so in half a dozen flicks), yet he continually employs amateurs who can’t even work their way around simple English phrases. They’re mere fodder for homo-fantasia, and nothing about them is credible, except for the fact that they’re merely churned out to get (mostly ugly) men to display their tiny peckers - and effectively demonstrate Pablo’s hopelessness as a filmmaker.

Note:

Please read our featured post on Cinema Bravo and why we sometimes feel nginig about the state of Web Criticism in this country:
- http://makemeblush2.blogspot.com/2016/10/cinema-bravo-film-criticisms-execrable.html