Diane Ventura's TheRapist - Living with the Other

After being accused of rape, Alex (Marco Morales) attends a psychotherapy session with a psychiatrist (Cherie Gil) who listens to her client’s impassioned defense. He recalls the incident that transpired. He met Shar, the alleged victim, at a frat party. But a few drinks later, Alex is in a bedroom with Shar. Things happened. 

 Alex insists it was consensual, and bemoans this double standard against men. The shrink concedes and says it is indeed “discriminatory and prejudiced”. Before long, Alex is assured by the doctor - “You’re not a bad person.”

She opens up saying that her profession actually contributes to the abuse because “probing into the psyche of another person is a (form of) violation.” The session ends. But as Alex walks out of the room, we realize that Alex was never in the room. Door closes, and we see a sign that reads: "Dr. Alex Laney."

"TheRapist", as titles go, is a clever word play descriptive of the theme. Director Diane Ventura's psychological drama indubitably justifies how a good story doesn’t require protracted screen time to tell a thought-provoking tale. Like her main feature "Mulat", she tackles urgent psychological issues; i.e. schizophrenia and psychological abuse. Both Gil and Morales shine in this provocative short, a fully realized cinematic achievement.

Marco Morales, Cherie Gil, and director Diane Ventura

Marco invites you to his boudoir.

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


#Therapist   #cheriegil   #marcomorales

Gabby Fernandez's "Mana" - The Stalling Game

News of Doña Concha Villareal’s worsening illness is spreading like wildfire across the sugarcane plantations of a quaint town in Negros Occidental. The once invincible matriarch (Fides Cuyugan-Asencio) of the Villareal clan is in fact confined to her sick bed, spitting blood, spending her waking hours wailing from excruciating pain. This has been a familiar scenario in the last couple of years. Fearing her impending demise, her children rush home. A salient matter needs to be settled soon before it’s too late. But everyone seems to be stalling.  

Rolly (Jaime Fabregas), the eldest, refuses to take the cudgels of the clan’s dilemma. He has been overseeing the hacienda’s operations for the past two decades. Meanwhile, Sandra (Cherie Gil) takes a sabbatical from her world travels to see her mother. 

Her twin Lino (Mark Gil) has taken to the booze to dull out bothersome visions. Mike (Ricky Davao), on a hectic campaign trail for the town’s mayoralty, is taking advantage of the choleric situation to gain publicity (or sympathy) before a concerned electorate. Half-sister Ces (Tetchie Agbayani), tasked to take care of the ailing matriarch, is on the throes of giving up her chores. Successful interior designer Bernie (Epy Quizon) takes his sweet time to head back home which he abandoned a few years ago. 

But time is ripe; they need to gather around to deal with a precarious situation - the bequeathing of a legacy, a family secret that would redefine the influential clan’s role, not to mention turn their briskly dwindling influence around, in a town steeped with tradition, political undertone and superstition.  

   

Director Gabby Fernandez deftly captures the old-world grandeur of a diminishing oligarchy as he endeavors to examine the intricate mechanics in an upper class family, once mighty and beloved. After the demise of its patriarch, Don Manuel (Leo Rialp), the Villareals' clout is gradually fading. Fernandez wastes no time recreating the delectable world of haciendas and sakadas, taking his viewers to this near-forgotten era of feudal lords and subservient tillers.

The film benefits from the glossy camera work and the perfect setting, allowing the viewers a glimpse of that glorious era of sugar barons and their rolling fields of greens. If you're familiar with those century old mansions of Silay and the surrounding communes of Talisay, then you know what a treat it is to have them "captured" on film. The opening scene alone is a virtual "slide show" framing the story of this once powerful clan, now a spasmic cluster of souls who just want to break free from a seemingly stifling family tradition.

On point of performance, Cherie Gil is a breath of fresh air amidst a flurry of downbeat characters caught in their own personal upheavals. Unlike every one else, she seems to be the only one genuinely happy to see her siblings again which is odd. True, these are some of the most competent actors in the business, but the complete thespic plenary tilts towards being heavy handed, an artifice designed by the story teller. Is this pre-meditated, considering how the story eventually unravels in the end? Maybe so. But something in the narrative structure suffers. When the magútud find themselves in a quandary, over something that is never revealed until the last 15 minutes of the story, they puff away in cigarette heaven. It was becoming droll. As earlier mentioned, most of the allegory stalls, giving us the impression that this narrative buffering has something more explosive than the death of the matriarch. Mostly though, it's a long painful wait.

The impasse in the story is dragged down by its glacially paced retelling. In fact, 40 minutes into the story, nothing was happening. The plot was headed nowhere and the story arc seem to have flatlined. The characters spoke in riddles and the requisite confrontations soon turn into awkwardly blocked theatricalities that eventually bored the shite out of me. At this point, I was tapping my heels impatiently. One hour and 15 minutes later, I was still looking for clues. What was the darn conflict? Why were there images of pernicious evil - church manangs cloaked in black; cryptic writings on the wall ("You promised you would make it easy for your mother..."); a dog with shifting color and luminous eyes; a child who speaks to an apparition; voices in the wind, etc. Is this moving beyond the legal implications of primogeniture?

Assimilating the concept of the aswang ("shapeshifters") with the realm of the hacienda-owning Visayan upper class is a savory affair. After all, the region is replete with folkloric creatures like the blood-sucking sigbin, the night-prowling wakwaks, the cigar-smoking Agta (left), the fire-spewing santelmo, the ungo, etc. The regions of Luzon aren't this rich, are they?

Trouble is, a certain degree of urgency is vital when you're laying down "monsters" on your cinematic platter. You don't get the necessary effect based on mood or atmosphere alone. The dramatic showdown, i.e. the confrontation scene, felt too wayward and misplaced because, frankly, the audience's window of attention or interest has long passed on and expired. When the siblings are finally standing in front of their dying mother's sickbed, I couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief. It was high time to move the story, instead of forever stalling it for a rousing, albeit explosive climax that didn't quite arrive. When Fides finally feeds Cherie the monster's stone (think Darna passing on her "bato" - her stone amulet - to a successor), the scene settled into one lukewarm tableau. Uh, okay, that was the inheritance. Right. Next, please.

They all wait!

And they wait again!

Old world charm of the affluent Negrense.

Emmanuel Palo's A Moment in Time - Charm and Romantic Blunders

The first time Patrick (Coco Martin) sets his eyes on Jillian (Julia Montes) during a train ride, he couldn’t take his eyes off the cautious lass. But getting her name and meeting her were a different matter. The pretty lady is reticent with her associations, keeping mostly to her limited social circle. All she wants is to continue her studies in Amsterdam and forget a rather nebulous past.

Patrick pursues Jillian, painting her likeness on public walls and serenading the girl in her school. With such persistence, Jillian eventually gives in to Patrick’s unabashed romanticism. But unknown to Patrick, Jillian’s past isn’t so isolated from his. The young lad and his sister Mai (Ella Cruz) were orphaned three years ago when their Qatar-bound mother (Zsa zsa Padilla) was run over by a car.

What happens when Patrick finally strings their perplexing past? Will he be as gracious as his courting ways? More importantly, will he be magnanimous?

Emmanuel Palo’s “A Moment in Time” makes a cinematic discourse on the nature of love and its aptitude to exculpate fatal blunders of the past. Coating his artistic canvas with cotton candy scenography, the film is as charming as its leads. Coco Martin, after a sketchy turn in Jerome Pobocan’s “Born to Love You”, succeeds with an imprudent, if disproportionate delineation of a grieving man who pulls out all the stops to woo a dismissive girl who, it turns out, has demons of her own.

It’s refreshing to see a relaxed Coco Martin far from the teeth-gnawing rigor of melodrama. He embellishes his performance with pizzazz, imbuing the screen with wide grins and even a delightful song (Orange and Lemons’ “Umuwi Ka Na Baby”) and dance (oohlala!) scene. Julia Montes displays her considerable gravitas in a performance that becomes one of the greatest suffering heroines of the silver screen. She befittingly complements Martin’s charismatic romcom hero.

The plot is predictable at times, and there are occasional annoying strains in its narrative formation; i.e. once successful in their romantic pursuit, they always end up turning away. It’s a head scratcher really, but formula is what gives the genre its hustle.

It could have been an interesting dissertation following its earlier premise: What indeed is the face of love? But this strain gets forfeited in the narrative ruble. We don't expect mainstream cinema to go further than cursory glimpses beyond philosophical musings.

Plot contrivances are inherent in local romcoms. Regardless, “A Moment in Time” is a harmless entertainment fodder that rightfully bestows a feather in the adorably lisping Coco Martin’s romcom cup. 

As for Julia Montes, this German-Pinay beauty proves to her audience that her irrefutable boobtube success in the teleserye “Walang Hanggan” is no fluke. After all, it’s hard to argue with a full crowd who riddles the cinema atmosphere with romantic giggles. Let’s forget for a few minutes that getting a Schengen visa for a European sojourn isn't as easy – or as cheap as a P180,000 bank deposit - as they’d have you believe. 

Coco Martin bikes around Amsterdam's scenic countryside.

Julia Montes as Jillian Linden: stricken with guilt.

Coco Martin  as Patrick becomes a full-fledged romcom hero. 

Dante Nico Garcia's Madaling Araw, Mahabang Gabi - Tales of the Drunken Stupor

Local residents and foreign visitors converge in a bar in Palawan’s Cuyo Island on the eve of All Soul’s Day. A band plays its raucous number as music slices through the lull of the night. The place comes alive when the bar owner’s daughter (Angelica Panganiban) arrives clearly inebriated, and offers every one free drinks. But wait, the town is also celebrating the feast of “Pangangaluluwa” (a traditional welcome to All Soul’s Day). The feast would have revelers move from house to house, singing verses that threaten to steal from the living and offer them to the dead (usually livestock like chicken, eggs, and even pigs). The bar owner’s daughter offers P10,000 - and herself for a night of pleasure - to the one who presents the best loot before the night is over. Every soul in the restaurant soon scatters around. This opens a venue to introduce a bevy of characters.

An aging father (Buboy Garovillo) teams up with a skeptical guitarist (Rocco Nacino) to steal and collect coconut crabs. But all the father desires is a guitar lesson – so he could impress his daughter. A French tourist (DJ David Callum) enlists the help of the waiter (Alchris Galura) to find the anonymous girl (Glaiza de Castro) with whom he’s had a one-night stand. A couple of dope heads (Kean Cipriano and Edgar Allan Guzman) bump into a sophisticated cougar (Cherie Gil) who’s rushing for her rendezvous with her lover, her best friend’s husband. An effete, but virginal waiter (Dominic Roco) runs after a group of customers who sneaks away from their bill – with the help of the band’s lead singer (Karel Marquez). A band member (Tutti Karingal) along with an Indian national (Eric Tai) decides to steal a valuable painting in a rural bank, disarming the security guard (Lou Veloso) in the process. Problem is, the painting is nowhere found. A disparaged Cosplayer (Bojong Fernandez) takes the likeness of anime’ personality Krisma to prove his worth to his gang (Regine Angeles, et.al.)

Director Dante Nico Garcia’s “Madaling Araw, Mahabang Gabi” is a cornucopia of situational sketches replete with extraneous narrative elements that are too disparate to piece together. Most of the strains are fashioned like tepid pseudo-comedies without commensurate punch lines. In fact, Garcia peppers his ouvre with loads of characters too eccentric to root for. He weaves them without much empathy. Like "kwentong lasing", these are easily discardable anecdotes with their unretentive preponderance. 

Angelica Panganiban, one of the industry's most prolific actresses, makes a grave career misstep, depicting herself like some beerhouse airhead hosting an episode of "Banana Split". The difference being: this one's several times morose and capricious. In fact, whoever fashions this like some high profile comedy deserves to be sent to some dungeon and locked 'til eternity. The unamusing strains remind me of Adolf Alix's "D' Survivors" where hilarity of situation is limited within the cast members. Let's not go far: the director's 2009 flick "Oh! My Girl! (A Laugh Story)" starring Judy Anne Santos and Ogie Alcasid was painfully ludicrous - and one of the decade's worst. Garcia just doesn't have the comedic flair - nor the insightful cinematic acumen that allows his movie goers to sit back and enjoy. He instead peppers his canvas with a dizzying array of  elements believing somehow that "more is better". He is able to gather a great number of stars who fails to parlay an iota of gravitas because... well, each of their narrative milieu is ridiculous.

Cherie Gil, for example, makes her career's most graceless and embarrassing cameo. Her scenes with Edgar Allan Guzman and Kean Cipriano have the augury akin to a pig sty. It was like a chapter straight out of a bad acting workshop exercise with personalities who couldn't generate chemistry nor a sense of authenticity. Likewise, Dominic Roco appears in one of his worst performances. His virginal gay waiter drips with cardboard caricature, and it doesn't help that his narrative strain with Karel Marquez is a cauldron of fallacy. Which waiter tells his customer, "Baka ma reprimand ka ng dad mo?" Huh? And in which universe do you get a line like, "Kaya ka bakla, kasi 'di ka pa nakakatikim ng babae?" You mean gay men should sleep with a woman first to corroborate the obvious? I'd have thought there were easier, albeit less painful ways of knowing for sure. Someone's overthinking the uncomplicated. Why did Karel and Dominic end up shagging each other? There was nothing in the narrative that could readily validate this twist. The list of these head scratchers are a plenty. And I've never seen these actors in their worst. What a waste!

Glaiza de Castro's story with the Frenchman was curiously more complete than the other stories. Yet in its form, we see the most glaring weakness of the writer. He fabricates melodrama crisscrossing serendipitous romance and tragedy. Why was it so hard to find Glaiza? It wasn't like she migrated to Sorbonne or Belize or somewhere exotic for the wandering Frenchman. All he had to do was retrace his itinerary. Go back to Sabang and ask the boatmen about this nameless girl. Surely, the one and only Vietnamese Restaurant in Vietville could have identified and located the girl who lived just a block away. And why nameless? Was it a secret, otherwise national security is put at risk? Search me. Was the Frenchman mute that he couldn't ask her name? More importantly, wasn't that miscarriage scene too unnaturally concocted? I thought I was daydreaming, watching a continuation of Coco Martin and Julia Montes' "Walang Hanggan".

"Madaling Araw, Mahabang Gabi" is as directionless as its busy poster, and as vague and unfocused as it's ambiguous title. For some strange conceit, Garcia won't even name his characters, further alienating his audience. How else does one relate to anonymous characters? Such ploy could have worked if your film making skill was sufficient; not when you're frittering away in your exposition. The writer and director badly needs a moment to contemplate career changes for his own good. Fielding ones' story with high profile names doesn't necessarily make a great movie - and this flick is a testament to that. 

Why are directors of GMA's "Survivor" reality show horrible film makers? Is it in their diet? Are they subconsciously programmed to be borderline directors? Or do the GMA executives have an affinity towards mediocre talent? 

The part where Bojong Fernandez dresses up into his favorite lady anime character was particularly agonizing. His psychobabble about dressing up and homosexual tendencies were mere ramblings of a scatterbrain with nothing worth saying. These diarrheic ideations were so expendable, you could have stricken out his character and lose nothing to move the film. All I could think of was how my cinema entrance could have been spent better as donation to a children's charity. Not like this. I wanted to scoop out the director, tie him upside down on a tree until he comes to his senses. Stay away from a movie camera. Do something more fruitful. Plant a sineguelas maybe. Volunteer to join the missionaries who travel to Djibouti. Anything but making movies. Do not waste the moviegoers' hard earned money. Please!

Inebriated

A religious girl falls under the spell of the wandering Frenchman.

A French traveler is looking for an anonymous girl. How can he not know her  name? She went  with him to visit the Underground River, not to mention their salubrious lay in the hay.

Karel Marquez and Dominic Roco play out their invalid situational discourse. Unfortunately, not a single moment was credible.

Kean flirts with Cherie where the latter is looked down (by Edgar Allan Guzman) like some shriveled prune.

Bojong Fernandez hams it up: "Hindi ako bakla!"

Posing for posterity.

Angelica Panganiban

Cherie Gil's career embarrassment

Glaiza de Castro

Rocco Nacino plays the homophobic guitar player

David Callum

DJ and model David Callum plays a wandering Frenchman

Regine Angeles

Dominic Roco

My Kontrabida Girl - Romance in Quirky Strokes

Isabel Reyes (Rhian Ramos) is the country’s favorite kontrabida. She embodies the acid tongued, duplicitous screen villain whose sophisticated beauty is as acuminous as her deceptively dainty curves.

What’s more, she abides by her notoriety – her slaps are as malevolent as her lines and she makes life hell for her co-stars. People in the street abhor her Dominique (her teleserye persona) with passion. Blind dates refuse to see her, making her hopelessly single and peerless.

One day, a destitute man prodigiously saves her from getting run over by a speeding vehicle. Such random act of kindness from a stranger becomes an epiphany for Isabel. The heavens open into a new day, and she metamorphoses into a changed woman. But this has grave consequence to her work. Ferocious and cruel Dominique dissipates into a heedful creature that can no longer pull a good old fashioned slap! What’s a searing villain without it? She has to get her mojo back – and fast!

With steadfast diligence, Isabel enlists the help of the legendary Vixens of Mean: Cherie Gil, Maritoni Fernandez and Gladys Reyes who refer her to the iconic villaness Bella Flores! This leads her to revisit her native Palawan searching for the one person who caused her sheer misery when she was a young girl – a boy named Chris Bernal (Aljur Abrenica). Bullied as a young girl, Isabel found in Chris a steady comforting presence. But one crucial night at a talent contest, Chris flusteringly stood her up. He never saw him again.

Isabel travels back to her hometown in Palawan and serendipitously finds Hotel Marot, a rundown guesthouse owned by Chris Bernal’s family! But Chris is indigent. He has relegated the management of the hotel to his wicked aunt Marot (Odette Khan) who wastes no time reminding him how much she has dispensed to keep the place afloat. Moreover, they need to come up with P50,000 at the end of the month or they lose the hotel for good. What’s a guy to do? Chris with all his physical endowments hasn't even finished school and has descended as his own hotel’s errand boy and gardener.

One fateful day, Isabel meets Chris again. Sparks fly - that much is clear, but our protagonist is there for a reason; she has a mission to fulfill. To bring down Chris Bernal! And regain the malignity that has since forsaken her. “To put enmity between the man and the woman,” declares a Biblical phrase. Heads will roll, right?

Isabel gradually plots to destroy not just Chris but everyone and everything that matters to him: the legacy of his parents, his friends, his love life (Chris has two “accidental” girl friends), his cunning Aunt Marot and cousin Rob, and his relationship with Joyce (Chris’ younger sister). But the best laid plans are no match to an intrepid heart. In delectable stages of affection, Chris and Isabel couldn’t help themselves as they eventually fall for each other. What becomes of Isabel’s errr “cactus heart”? Will she forge ahead with her plans of retribution? Will she ever get her “asim” back”?

Director Jade Castro playfully weaves a light hearted and lithe narrative that belies the dark past of the characters (bullying, abuse, parental death, poverty). The film, at the very least, is a boisterous acknowledgement to the resilience of the human spirit! Life can still be fun despite the odds and the heartaches!

Rhian Ramos comes into her own as the conflicted, but previously cantankerous villain. Though occasionally tentative in her grasp of her character, Ramos inhabits Isabel with flirtatious grace and obsequious sophistication. It’s hard not to root for her crafty shenanigans. In fact, when she goes mano-a-mano with Tita Marot at the dining table, I was livid with amusement. “Kayo pala ang nag ma-manage nito. Kumuha ba kayo ng Business Management? Para kasi syang napabayaan lang!” I was snickering from my seat all the way to the bomb shelters of Syria. And when you’re up against the formidable Odette Khan, with her protruding gaze and venomous countenance, you better hold your ground or you’re minced meat! When Isabel finally drops her trademark line: “No one tries to sampal me!” I was ready to holler, clap and whistle with glee! Having survived Miss Khan without looking dugyutin is in itself a notable rite of passage. These are moments of pure cinematic bliss indeed!

Aljur Abrenica gets lucky this time. Director Castro and co-writer Aloy Adlawan effectively play to the actor’s distinctive weaknesses. His hammy countenance is written in his character. His inclination for bad English delivery is further employed to build his character, one who hasn’t finished his education due to poverty. As a consequence, Aljur’s Chris Bernal becomes a sufficient protagonist. It isn't a stretch when a singer portrays the role of a singer, or when a priest performs the role of a priest, right?

This doesn’t mean we believe Aljur has improved and shied away from his trademark “wooden” ways. In fact, Abrenica is as hammy as ever. Those who say otherwise is afflicted with a myopic vision that's easily remedied by a consult with an Ophthalmologist.

Abrenica's performing proclivity is exemplified by a few scenes. When younger sister Joyce (Bea Binene) starts to ask “hypothetically” about romantic relationships, he blurts, “Kahit hippopotamus pa yan. Bawal pa rin!” We were looking from side to side to find the verve and fun that we obviously missed, but they were nowhere. When a customer asks Chris his opinion about a pot of plants, he stammers with a tepid: “Because p-ppplowers are nice like you, ma’am!” He need not accentuate the jologs veneer because even that delivery sounded too flat for amusement.

Abrenica inconveniently lacks insight. As gorgeously delectable as he looks onscreen, Aljur is a vacuous canvas, beautiful to look at, but nothing more than a pretty exhibit in a room. This is a curiosity because he wasn’t this pedestrian in Maryo J. delos Reyes’ “Nandito Ako… Nagmamahal sa Yo” (his first film under Regal Films, 2009). What happened to the promising young actor who would become “Machete”?

Some scenes needed cleaner execution. Let’s take Aljur and Rhian’s quasi-tango which is painfully executed. The moves are shot in episodic cuts; the dips and turns rough and graceless. There should be flow to the dance of affection, but there’s nothing there but the staged claps of the local folks who all looked bored! What about that messy and slipshod Awards Night? It reminded me of the campy Awards Night in the original “Temptation Island” – that was 32 darn years ago! Despite these flaws, there’s fun to be had in Isabel’s journey back home.

Though “My Kontrabida Girl” isn’t as solid as Jade Castro’s previous works (“Zombadings”, “My Big Love”, “Endo”), the upbeat performance of its cast, the undeniable energy, the kinetic pace and tongue in cheek humor will ultimately win you over. “The Road” has ushered an era of renaissance of sorts for GMA, and I am nothing less than ecstatic! The film has artistically clobbered the horrendous “Corazon Ang Unang Aswang” as they come to a head. After years of banal movie projects, GMA has finally found its mojo back!

Derrick Monasterio and Julie Anne San Jose sing Janno Gibbs' ode to affection, "Ang Aking Puso". The music video, though sparse, is an engaging watch.




Aljur Abrenica and Rhian Ramos

Bea Binene and Jake Vargas as young lovers Joyce and Poy.


Ever clueless posterboy of masculine beauty.


Chris' wacky friends get punked into doing the full monty. They then discover their "shortcomings" going viral in one of the film's hilarious scenes.