Wenn Deramas' "Moron 5.2 The Transformation" - One Big Blooper

Albert, Isaac, Aristotle, Mozart and Michael Angelo (Luis Manzano, Billy Crawford, Marvin Agustin, DJ Durano and Matteo Guidicelli respectively) have grown up and gone “wiser” after graduating from high school. 

Albert (Manzano) takes up law, but is disenchanted by the course’s constant debates so he ends up selling hopia in Ongpin, pretending to be Chinese. Isaac (Crawford) seeks the limelight, doing auditions for roles he’s unlikely to get cast in: they want everything he isn't – thin, woman, child, ballerina, gay, etc. Aristotle (Agustin) dabbles into culinary, but his take on dishes are discrepant from his superiors’ (He serves paella for a “sinigang na tahong”). Mozart (Durano) manages a gym but ends up hurting his clients. And Michael Angelo (Guidicelli) recovers from an incident that has accidentally burned his face. His plastic surgeon has done wonders for his facial reconstruction (thus Moron 5’s Martin Escudero becomes Matteo Guidicelli).

On the home front, each of our protagonists has raised a family of his own, with beautiful wives (Yam Concepcion, Danita Paner, Nicki Valdez, Mylene Dizon) and smart bemedalled children (named Fidel, Macoy, Gloria, Corina) to boot. (Except Michael Angelo who shall serendipitously meet his princess.) Unfortunately, the children are embarrassed of their fathers’ bungling antics. “Sana ice cream na lang ako… para matunaw ako sa kahihiyan,” quips one of the kids. They’d rather hire strangers who shall pretend to be their fathers to attend their commencement ceremonies than be caught dead with their biological, albeit moronic fathers.

One night, while on a drinking spree, the quintet discovers what seems like a power-emitting object falling from the sky. After trying to retrieve it, they were struck by lightning – twice! Surviving from the catastrophe, the guys start to believe that this accident has transformed them into superheroes. And they've vowed to follow Peter Parker’s mantra (“With great power comes great responsibility.”) and help people in need. They've become invincible beings. Or have they?

Meanwhile, Beckie (John “Sweet” Lapus), the quintet’s former nemesis, has languished at the asylum. It’s been 7 years. His mental status exam has been deemed promising by his psychiatrist (Karla Estrada) who plans to discharge Beckie. But when asked what his name was, he replies, “Gretchen Barretto”. 

With his release deferred, Beckie plots to break out from the asylum. Without pulling a muscle – and the blundering help of his loony colleagues (Manuel Chua, Boom Labrusca) and a bollixed security guard (Chrome Cosio), they find themselves out of the mental institution. Together, they form Moron 5’s unlikely adversary. Will the evil forces succeed against our heroes? Guess.

Like its predecessor, the energy on display is quite stirring that the audience is left breathless from the film’s lightning pace and exuberant energy. There’s really no accounting for logic. With zippy speed of delivery, you aren't given enough time to think beyond the shallowest subject matters. 

Let’s take the case of one joke that lingered longer than it deserved: What time are the children’s dismissal from school? 3:15 or 3:16 PM? Getting the time right, as the joke would have you believe, spells a difference of “3 hours”? Or an hour? Hilarious, right? And if you bite the bullet, you must have noticed how this idiocy has been stretched for good measure until Deramas felt it served its comedic glory.

Perceived humor pulsates in similar fashion all throughout the movie. When Isaac cogitates, “Di ko maisip eh.” “May isip ba tayo?” Irony plays out effectively as this is reflective of the storyteller’s acumen. Is there an intelligent being behind the shenanigan? Cinema 8 was unnaturally quite. No laughters, no snickers, no slap on the lap - but then maybe it’s because there were just 5 of us inside the huge cinema. Where’s the usual Deramas crowd that loves to get dumb or dumber?

In this new era, slapstick absurdity a la Luciano Carlos seems misplaced. Have we moved forward into the new millennium? Is contemporary comedy really this vacuous? We seem to be stuck in the epoch of Pugo and Togo, Dolphy and Panchito, Babalu and Tange. At least the aforementioned have anchored their humor on comic situations instead of barren ideas. Moreover, constant references to Billy Crawford’s public disobedience, inebriation and transient incarceration smack of poor taste. Presinto, presinto, presinto. Crawford’s run-in with the law wasn't funny. It was't hip either. Otherwise, we might as well get uncontrollably drunk and maul a lady police officer – then we can all laugh about it, right? Hey, young punks! Let’s get drunk and smack a police man for harmless fun!

Why should people watch the movie? Their publicity drumbeaters proudly say, "Because the film teaches about family values." Isn't this a figment of fantasy? We have kids as young as 8 and 9 years old with doting, non-abusive fathers and seemingly contented mothers. Yet they'd rather denounce them, albeit very publicly, if I were to add, because they're stupid. Of course they had a change of heart when they realize that they're actually superheroes. But what values are we teaching our little ones? That love is conditional. We shall love our parents only if they're rich, successful or intelligent. The losers we shall cast away to the wind? I cringe at the thought of a society who accepts this line of thinking as valid measure of familial devotion. Have we forgotten the fifth commandment, that we "should honour thy father and thy mother"? This commandment is all encompassing and without a caveat. But just maybe, in Deramas' inane and fantastical world, elementary education doesn't have values education.

Were there even consequences for the children's cunning? Without them realizing that what they did was deplorable, these tykes shall grow up selfish pricks, opportunistic demons and greedy Philippine politicians. If I were their parents, I'd nip them in the bud and send them to Siberia, with Deramas as guardian, until they take real family values to heart.

Joy Viado’s role as Matteo Guidicelli’s romantic interest brings some comic moment. After all, Viado has mastered the art of self deprecation where her appearance is involved. Turning Viado into a romantic heroine is funny stuff, something that should have been realized early on by Emerson Reyes, the director of “MNL 143”, who huffed and puffed for the sake of artistic freedom when the Cinemalaya bigwigs balked at his idea to pair Viado with Allan Paule for a romantic drama; the conceit of arrogant rookie film makers who cannot be nudged to reconsider their stilted and pompous cinematic choices. Now wasn't that work forgettable? But I am digressing.  

Unlike other Wenn Deramas flicks, “Moron 5.2 The Transformation” doesn't have the requisite bloopers that get played at the closing credits. But this actually avoids redundancy. The whole movie is one big blooper.

Moron 5 and the Crying Lady - Apropos Titling & Boy Abunda' s Skewed Thoughts

As children, Albert, Isaac, Aris, Michael Angelo and Mozart (Luis Manzano, Billy Crawford, Marvin Agustin, Martin Escudero and DJ Durano respectively) have breezed through grade school with copious difficulty for them to finish the whole term in 8, instead of 6 years. Acquiring the scholastic competence of 8 year olds, the quintet becomes close friends, growing together and bungling things in wild abandon. But instead of suffering from their stolidity, they instead wreck havoc on others: their teachers, classmates, principal, and an effete classmate who’s infatuated with Albert. In fact, this gay classmate almost got blind.

A decade later, our protagonists have grown up still hurdling their final year of high school. One day, they crashed the wedding ceremonies of Becky Pamintuan (John Lapus) and in one inadvertent sweep, they’ve outed the transsexual bride to her unassuming Japanese lover Hiroshi. The groom dies on the spot. Hence, derided Becky plots her condign retribution. Hell hath no fury like a gay man scorned! Becky then sets the quintet up for the murder of her father (a sloppily organized crime scene) that eventually threw the guys in prison. How will our quintet extricate themselves from this predicament? Will they ever find justice – when even their folks want them incarcerated? Has Becky succeeded with her implacable schemes?

In what could be one of mainstream cinema’s silliest slapstick romp, Wenn Deramas’ “Moron 5 and the Crying Lady” succeeds to bring Pinoy comedy to lower depths of cinematic mediocrity. The brains behind this cinematic faux pas ought to be reminded that idle anatomical parts have a tendency to atrophy. In this case, there is luminous proof of vacuity of cerebral functions. So I am genuinely concerned for the mental health of Wenn Deramas and his co-script writer Mel Martinez-del Rosario. Have their brains shrunk and dwindled to the size of peanuts?

The energy on display in “Moron 5” is one of fervid stamina, the lines are delivered with enough ebullience you sometimes lose yourself in the precise cadence of their comic camaraderie. In fact, talent bristles and overflows in its cast, but for DJ Durano who’s eternally ill at ease with his humor. Why he keeps getting roles in comedy is always a painful watch. But while energy isn’t lacking in “Moron 5”, it’s the narrative content that’s grossly spare and deficient. This is Wenn Deramas at his most uncircumspect. The funny bones have been left somewhere in Burkina Faso, and if you don’t know where that is, try Gaborone – the capital of Botswana, which finds its way in a life-saving quiz show at the tail end of the story.

The narrative is sprinkled with inane gags that are too silly or senseless to relate, but I shall try. Like a prison riot that started because Isaac (Crawford) feels it’s unjust to eat a pinakbet without an okra. He wants his okra bad and he wants it on his prison tray. After all, okra has been dismissed and rudely ignored in “Bahay Kubo”. While shopping for second hand items, the quintet turns to the branded items: LV for Lou Veloso; Armani Pacquiao; Zara Geronimo; Gap by Annabel (Rama) and Nadia (Montenegro). Laughing already?

In another scene, the quintet line up and distribute lines to: "Ang susunod na eksena ay may rating na SPG. Patnubay at gabay ng magulang ang kinakailangan." Since when was this dour MTRCB reminder funny? When Mike's (Escudero) father asks him: "Tumakas ka?" He replies with a horribly cheesy and effete "Whatever!" What was that?

Among the supporting players, it's Jon Santos who plays his part to the hilt. Jon Santos mischievously essays Luis' mom Vilma Santos impersonating the Batangas Governor with moxie: "Are you sure you are ok alright? I am glad you're alright ok, son!" While he was rallying for Luis during the final duel, Santos goes all out with his Vilmaisms: "Si Val, si Val na walang malay!" Then he shouts: "My son is not a pig!" When reminded that it wasn't his line, he composes himself and quips, "Ay, sa kumare ko pala yun!" then continues with "Ding, ang bato!" You can't help but laugh at Santos' irreverence! He also underlines the hit-and-miss character of the film's humor.

Luis Manzano has found his footing in Deramas’ comedy thus he appears comfortable and watchable despite the puerile scenes he’s had to endure. He enjoys easy chemistry with Billy Crawford who appears too hefty, his flabby, protruding abdomen juts out like a Helium-full pillow. And he’s going to make his European comeback looking this pudgy? You just wonder. Marvin Agustin, while expectedly competent, seems misplaced in the company of his younger co-stars. In fact, this line up is as discrepant where age is concerned, you wouldn’t believe they were all in the same class together – unless there was an alternate universe, of course. Martin Escudero coasts on his past triumphs, intermittently interchanging his Michael Angelo character with his Remington (in “Zombadings”). This doesn’t bode well for a young upstart because we start to wonder if his earlier thespic success was indeed a “fluke”.

Clockwise from top left: Luis Manzano, Billy Crawford, DJ Durano, Martin Escudero, Marvin Agustin


John Lapus: made it tolerable.

John Lapus works hard as the vindictive Becky Pamintuan. In fact, he made this experience a tad more tolerable, but not by much. As the transsexual Becky, his turn has thrown the issue of transsexuals entering the Miss Universe pageant to the fore. More than ever, his scenes make it palpably choleric. Is it really enough that she was born with the "emotions of a woman trapped in a man's body" to make him a genuine member of the fairer sex? Whether his sexual orientation is that of one, his original anatomical make up will never make him a woman.

SOUR MOMENT

And let me digress. When Boy Abunda took it upon himself to vigorously expound and lecture on sexual re-assignments, gender identifications and orientations (as though he’s the only enlightened one about these topics) in last Sunday’s “The Buzz”, we found it unethical to actually impose his crooked thoughts on his audience. Moreover, it was disrespectful to the Binibining Pilipinas winners to have to ask their opinion about this matter when they knew his (and LGBT’s) stand on the issue. You do not refute the host of a show or you risk his good grace. That's common sense.

So Mr. Abunda, while you offered a disclaimer that your thoughts are not an imposition, lecturing about sexual orientation and gender identification left a bitter taste in the mouth. It was rude and your points were a fallacious clutter of gibberish desperation.

“Women have become presidents, black people who used to be sold in plazas have become Presidents of countries, and the UP Student Council President is a transsexual,” he emphasized. Stacking dissimilar milestones in maudlin fashion doesn't make a wrong point right! He espouses on equality and gets an off tangent notion that transsexuals should be conveniently equal, thus similar, to women? Gender classifications and sexual orientations have acquired a new age criteria, and these have become acceptable. There are men, there are women and there are homosexuals.

ALLOWING WOMEN IN MR. UNIVERSE?

But to say that men who have had gender re-assignments by way of an invasive procedure essentially become 100% females – thus should be eligible for a contest like Miss Universe – is just plain ludicrous. There are contests for men. Should we allow women then in Mr. Universe contests for the sake of equality? There are contests for gays. What should stop women from entering them if gays were allowed in women-only pageants? Proper things in proper places.

PAGING ABS CBN

It is an affront to the real females who possess a different internal make up: women have uterus, a pair of Fallopian tubes and ovaries, a cervix and a real vagina. Mr. Abunda wants to fit an oblong in square pegs. He lectures on national TV that squares and triangles and oblongs should be equal when, clearly, there's a reason why shapes are different from each other. The nerve, really. While I welcome liberal ideologies, ridiculous, albeit absurd liberties such as his should be declared as such. He postures as if he’s the only cognitive being when clearly, his motives are skewed. Why does ABS CBN allow this abominable practice? It was annoying!

How abominable? Try watching Wenn Deramas’ “Moron 5 and the Crying Lady”. That is how!

Posturing as LGBT's intellectual voice - a LADLAD representative in the future? Boy Abunda is so smart he lectures on national TV about gender reassignments and sexual orientation. You see, he's the only enlightened one.


Canadian Jenna Talackova, a 23 year old transexual who had her gender reassignment surgery at the age of 19 - wants to be part of Miss Universe pageant.

Joel Lamangan's Sigwa – Raging Storms and Troubled Souls

It took Dolly (Dawn Zuleuta) 35 years to return to the Philippines. Back then, she was a wide eyed optimist visiting her parent’s motherland for the first time. She also believed that well meaning people like her could fight a feeble system and change the world. Several years later, she has returned for a more compelling reason; one that took her back to that tumultuous era. In the early seventies, she hurriedly escaped the clutches of Martial Law quite scathed and dazed, leaving a daughter under the care of Azon (Gina Alajar). In the crossfire of warring ideologies, many have perished. Including her child, or so she thought. But a common friend recently tells her that the child is alive.

At the height of an oppressive dictatorship, young idealist Dolly (Megan Young) – a junior correspondent of a US magazine - is welcomed by a group of student activists who ushered her into the ideals of their advocacy. She meets student leader Oliver (Marvin Agustin) and his girlfriend Cita (Pauleen Luna); the persevering Azon (Lovi Poe) and the dependable Rading (Jay Aquitania); then there’s the restrained Eddie (Allen Dizon) with whom Dolly gets into a relationship. With adequate fervor and high-mindedness, the group soon finds themselves joining the underground movement bent on toppling an oppressive government.

But each member is deliberately captured. The ladies are raped; the guys are subjected to hellish tortures until their souls have all been beaten to a pulp, providing names and whereabouts of their other comrades. Meanwhile, Dolly’s been recovered by the authorities who have been informed that she’s an American citizen, giving her the privilege to abandon her group’s cause and fly back to America while everyone else faces a bleak future.

But 35 years have changed people. Dolly has chosen to live a solitary life. Oliver (Tirso Cruz III) has joined the government, acting as the presidential spokes person, while Cita (Oliver’s former girl friend, this time played by Zsa Zsa Padilla) has risen in the ranks of the left-leaning revolutionary group. She has in fact become their supreme leader. Dolly has required the help of Oliver, now in the position of finding people, to locate Azon (Gina Alajar) who was left with Dolly’s child at the height of the insurgency. Dolly’s pursuit has unraveled strife anchored by their past. Is her daughter still alive? Will she ever find her?

Joel Lamangan’s “Sigwa” (Storm) is a harrowing journey that follows the lives of student activists with ponderous tenacity. On the foreground is a mother’s search for her child, but it’s merely a device used to introduce us to the characters. Though compelling and thematically clamorous, the focus wavers from too much detail. This isochronous storytelling tends to provide a less cohesive work, denying the material to soar. That’s always the plight of a material with a multitude of climaxes, thus the story eventually plateaus. This is not saying that Lamangan’s “Sigwa” is an insignificant material. It in fact deserves to be seen and remembered.

Megan Young and Dawn Zulueta competently link the past and the future with honest portrayals as Dolly. Marvin Agustin delivers one of the most emotionally distressing depiction of a torture victim. While his tears trickle down his cheeks and he pleads for his life, you are punched in the gut by the scene’s realism. Tirso Cruz III, who plays the older Oliver, is equally treacherous as the cabinet secretary who’s had a change of heart. Gina Alajar, brilliant as ever, mines her veteran instinct to show the emotional groundwork of a mother who’s afraid to lose a child she’s nurtured as her own. I do have certain misgivings in Zsa Zsa Padilla’s portrayal. Maybe I’m too much weaned on her being the sophisticated lady that she is that it doesn’t seem right to see her carry guns and don sneakers, and tough talking like a revolutionary honcho. But she works hard for her part and it shows. Allen Dizon seems misplaced and looks awkward and ill at ease in many of his scenes, and the age gap between Megan’s Dolly and Dizon’s Eddie (he was planted by the military to spy and infiltrate the leftists) is a lumbering fact.

The torture and rape scenes feel sanitized. The sense of dread is somehow watered down by its careful staging. In my mind, there’s a need to stage a brutal scene – allow it to be ruthless and ferocious - to underline the horrors of an amoral military rule gone mad. Torture victims are scarred for life, and they don’t experience savagery with cotton candy ministrations. Despite its busy narrative, fragmented storytelling and its tendency for maudlinism, “Sigwa” is better realized than the indulgent “Ka Oryang” (which won Best Picture at the recent Cinema One – a truly despicable year for the festival).

A favorite scene is Dolly and Azon’s meeting. In this scene, the camera frames a troubled Azon – with Alajar in tremendous control – while the light from outside is casting shadows against her face. It was a deliberate form of visual poetry concocting a singular emotional moment that highlights Azon’s chagrined soul. Are there limits to what a mother would do to keep a daughter? Boundless.

Intellectualizing Romance in "The Red Shoes"

If you're a smart cookie raring to watch something that feeds your brain, you can't go wrong with Raul Jorolan's "The Red Shoes". I have to warn you though that all this intellectualizing can go overboard, so instead of charming its audience, it may just turn them off instead. But patience is a virtue, and I'd rather invest my patience on smart flicks like this one than the garbage of "Parisukat", "Pilantik", "Fidel" (in my book, the worst film to come out in 2010 - and an easy candidate for the decade's worst!), "Ben and Sam" and well, most of the films of Neal and Joven Tan, and Cris Pablo. While others compete for excellence, these aforementioned compete for pretension and mediocrity!

I watched "The Red Shoes" with my bff Kyle and my soul sister Iya (who 3 weeks ago swore off Tagalog films after watching "SpedHearts", "Pilantik" and "Fidel" - she claimed her brain actually shrunk by 50% - hahaha). We had to transfer from Galleria to Megamall coz the former pulled "The Red Shoes" out after just 2 days!

As the story would have it, Lucas (Marvin Agustin) stole a pair of Imelda Marcos' red shoes at the height of the 1986 Edsa Revolution - and attributed the misdeed in the name of justice and love! He eventually gave one shoe to his mother Chat (Liza Lorena) and the other to his childhood girlfriend Bettina (Nikki Gil). Chat refuses to move on 13 years after her husband Domingo (Tirso Cruz III) accidentally perished and got buried under the rubble of the Manila Film Center! She has visited 13 ispiritistas (seance) and spent a fortune on them for the hint of Domingo's whereabouts! In comes Madame Vange (Tessie Tomas), an Imelda Marcos impersonator who's believed to possess the power to get through souls of the departed. Meanwhile, another girl (Iwa Moto) is out to seduce Lucas. And the plot thickens.

The movie itself reminds me of the snappy dialogues of a Danny Zialcita film in his heyday where every character (from the yaya to the driver, from the tindera to the sidewalk bypasser) speaks with delicious cadence and syncopated spunk! I remembered bribing the family driver (with my meager school allowance) to wander around while my yaya and I would sneak inside Cubao movie houses. I was really too young to go on my own. But I relished on the sense of freedom. And the pleasures of the silver screen to an 8 year old child! Cinema was pure magic!

"The Red Shoes" wallows in metaphors and Jorolan peppers his narrative with smart food-for-thought and seemingly trivial fyi's - e.g. the top 3 cinematic bridges of New York; the body's pressure points; the sternocleidomastoids and deltoids and other muscular landmarks of the body (at some point, I was already raising my brows with annoyance; she SHOULD know her muscular system because she's a Physical Therapist. Otherwise she'd be an idiot, wouldn't she? But they were laying on the smarts overtime.)

There was this anecdote about Jose Rizal who lost one shoe at a river (and what he does with the other). This figured rather dramatically as the movie draws to its conclusion, and I appreciate how it drove the idea that even a single shoe has its worth!

Marvin and Nikki are charismatic actors, but there's something amiss from their pairing. It doesn't quite catch fire! This is not saying they did poorly because that would be an injustice. In fact, on their own, Marvin and Nikki delivered commendable performances that should alert the other smart filmmakers of their presence! Their chemistry on the other hand tips toward being lukewarm, and for lack of a more appropriate term, there is a degree of detachment, which is too bad since this is after all a romantic movie! I need to be swept off my feet when I watch a romantic film!

This observation should not deter its makers from producing more movies. Obviously, this is a very talented group of people who takes the time to put "brains" into their work. At a time like this where, 4 of the 5 local films that are being shown monthly turn out bad (read: exploitative brain-dead gay films), we need films like "The Red Shoes". It deserves my P160 and my patronage!

To the Galleria idiots who pulled out "The Red Shoes" after just 2 days of showing (while the appalling "Ben and Sam" and "Parisukat" stay on), SHAME ON YOU!

Compelling performance

Disconnection