In A Lighter Mood with Smartmatic's Cesar Flores

Cesar Flores was in a light mood. His face luminous and handsome as he was being grilled by Mr. Boy Abunda in the latter's talk show, The Bottom Line, late Sunday night.

Flores heads Smartmatic Asia Pacific, the company that's overseeing full automation of the country's elections touted to be the world's biggest automation undertaking. This cost the country a hefty PhP7.2 billion, probably a paltry amount in relation to the size of its voting population and the difficult logistics of fielding manpower and machines across the archipelago. We are, after all, a nation of 7,100 islands - and crossing land masses and seas has to cost more than just that.

When asked why we should trust the PCOS machines, he calmly replied, "PCOS is more accurate than the human eye." He also tweeted that "Manual counting is prone to honest or intentional mistakes." Is the system prone to manipulations? Can it be cheated? Like any computer system, it is! "But the system is built in a way that it can be audited. It can be cheated, but not without leaving a trail," he added.

What was their biggest mistake? "We weren't hard on implementing the testing procedures (we wanted) which is, testing and shading real ballots?" This was because they weren't allowed by the Comelec to print extra ballots as the country has a paranoia regarding these extra ballots! He shrugged and said, "This is part of the learning curve."

I was curiously caught with the way he replied to all these questions. He was emphatic, but polite; self-assured without being cocky, and we somehow felt we could trust him. In fact, we don't just trust him, we like him - a lot! We are not alone in this matter. Flores' 2 month old twitter account has a steadily growing following of 1,600! Actor Chris Evans ("Cellular", The Human Torch in "Fantastic Four" series) has less (688) and Ryan Reynolds ("The Proposal") has 8,400. Flores is fast becoming a well loved celebrity!

Is it true that he has a girlfriend in each country (he worked in)? The handsome Venezuelan didn't deny it, and said "I've had my fun." But he is the marrying kind. In 2007, he was about to get married to a Venezuelan girl. He offered, "She was lovely, and I cared about her, but our personalities wouldn't work." In fact, he even took her to El Nido (his favorite local holiday destination), but as fate would have it, "We broke up after that!"

How important is a woman in your life? "Very important. She is someone you share your goals with, your happiness and frustrations." He isn't dating, at the moment. In fact, he denies having a girlfriend right now mainly because he doesn't have the time to spare, what with the ongoing canvassing at the Congress. He seems to like the Filipinos as they make him "feel comfortable" but complained in jest that "politicians are a different breed."

When he wants to unwind, he visits Videoke bars and sings Frank Sinatra tunes (probably the cutest videoke singer this side of the universe - and I thought only lolos sing Sinatra these days), then gamely sang a line. When asked of a favorite country, he replied, "Germany. I lived there for 6 years." Thank Heavens, he didn't kiss ass and say the Philippines.

For someone who is constantly grilled by politicians, Flores' feathers isn't ruffled, in fact he gamely tweeted a few days ago, "I miss the Congress. I need the adrenaline rush!" And for someone who was on the unenviable hot seat, Flores has his cup of confidence spilling over. He explained, "We've had 4 years of preparation. We have the truth on our side, and we know we did a good job."

Why did Smartmatic get the job? He smiled, "We had a bid 30% below the budget."

He seems to genuinely like the Filipinos, but he underlined our gullibility to chismis (rumor-mongering). He added that, "Venezuelans love to gossip too, but here (in the Philippines), people believe in them." In my opinion, that can't be such a bad thing, I reckon, because it allows us to be vigilant. With all the midnight deals floating around, we need to sharpen our antenna and tune in our radars.

Would he do it (facilitate the Philippines' automation program in the next election) again? "In a heartbeat," he smiled. Now that is a man I CAN TRUST with my vote!

Who is a beautiful woman to you? "Julianne Moore!" (Mr. Flores, I kinda look like Ms. Moore! LOL)

What is a beautiful girl's name? "Sofia" (I'm having re-baptized next week! I'm getting bored with Catherine anyway.)

What are your thoughts about gays? "I am a liberalitarian. I believe in personal freedoms. I respect everybody's choice, as long as it contributes to the common good; as long as it has something to do with helping people."

Then Mr. Abunda waxes naughty and mines the gay man in him. What is the hardest part of your body? "My knee."

What is the longest part of your body? "My middle finger!" Then he corrected himself, lifted his leg and flexed his left foot to check it out, "Now that i think about it, it's my foot! It's a size 12!" Then Mr. Abunda added, "Big feet, big heart! That's what they say." Huh? Never heard that before.

We are all turning over a new leaf. Thus Noynoy Aquino's (a Presidentiable I didn't vote but will respect as my new President) installation as the Philippines' next President has to have ample credibility so that people can actually move on, and undo all the rust that GMA lovingly showered to the struggling Filipinos. Otherwise, we would, once again, be locked in constant debates and politicizing; something that our nation can't further stand.

It is with great honor that we have been served by a gentleman in Cesar Flores, someone whose respectability, trust-worthiness and competence is beyond question. It's such a bonus that he is such an eye candy too. He makes me wanna watch the nightly news more often!

Is he aware that he is good looking? "I was told that I am."

Hmmm. An honest man can be so sexy. You can hit me up when you feel lonely, Mr. Flores!. We can sing "My Way" together - all night! (Me fluttering my lashes) ;-> OMG!

Addendum:

Congratulations to The Bottom Line for a very entertaining show. Pertinent topical shows are more often boring. I had fun! Public Affairs Programs tend to forget that they do have to up the entertainment quotient as late night habits are prone to make people fall asleep! This was otherwise brainy, entertaining, no-holds-barred, although I'd have dealt more into Mr. Flores' past (He studied Economics and Sociology, but somehow got waylaid into the I.T. industry.) Can you please invite him over for a 2nd part?Pweety pwees!

Cesar Flores outdoors!

His machines work well!

Fellini's Nostalgic Ride in "Amarcord"

In 1973, at the age of 53, Italian master film maker Federico Fellini decided to take us on a nostalgic ride to the town of Rimini where he grew up. In a delectable blend of surreal,

farcical and baroque images, we are introduced to a bevy of colorful characters that populate this beloved 1930's town: sexually-curious Titta (the delightful Bruno Zanin), town bombshell Gradisca (the voluptuous Magali Noel), annotating lawyer (Luigi Rossi) who keeps breaking the fourth wall to chat with the audience, Titta's parents and mad uncle, the crazy motorcycle rider, the bossomy store keeper, and several other zany characters.

There isn't a well delineated structure in terms of plot, but Fellini lovingly places his characters like pawns on a chess board as homage to the people he once knew. Each has their place in this thoughtful piece of narrative.

My favorite scenes involve the playful Titta: his confession with a priest (where he debates with himself if he has to tell the priest of his "touching himself", deftly enumerating his sources of temptation; the scene where Titta finally gets the big-boobed store keeper to himself - see first photo above). There are more unforgettable images: the festive opening scene where puffballs are seen drifting across town; the foggy night; the wintery dance scene, the lunatic relative climbing a tree, the fascists marching into the town square, etc.

The film features a dynamic movement, though they don't necessarily follow a narrative string. Emotions are overtly expressed; there is a covert rhetoric in the characters' manner of delivery. These are hallmarks of the baroque movement, encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church from the 16th to the 18th century; and religiosity is evident in the character's way of living.

"Amarcord" aka "I Remember" is considered to be Fellini's most accessible film, and if anyone decides to start taking on the European Masters, this should be his first foray into Federico Fellinni's works. It won Oscar's Best Foreign Language in 1975.

The town bombshell Gradisca take s a lazy stroll with her friends.

Federico Fellini

Fellini with wife Giuletta

Beauty and the Briefcase - So Bad It's Good

It was one of those nights when I had to randomly pick a movie from my shelf. Light and fun. That's how the moment felt. Now, I have to say I never liked Hilary Duff when she was the teen queen. She was, to me, pudgy and self-absorbed. More importantly, she was pretty and blond. I'm just pretty. LOL

Now get this: In the film, Lane (Hilary Duff) is an ambitious writer who goes "undercover" to work at a financial firm. Her specific task is to get the low down on men in suits, men with ties, and briefcase-toting men. Her oh-so difficult job has her dating several, then she has to find love from the queue - then write about it! This rather preposterous mission will land her the cover story for Cosmopolitan Magazine!

A girl goes through all the nerve-wracking motion of landing a job at a male-dominated corporate world just to spy on the romantic proclivities of men? If I were that lucky to get my foot in the door, It's "Sayonara, Cosmo" - for real! The film wallows in its own realm of misreality! And if you can hurdle this ludicrous premise, you just might survive Hilary Duff 101.

The surprising fact was, I enjoyed the cluelessness of the story teller! In the film, they've created a checklist for a girl's potential mate: speaks with an accent, spontaneous, travels to exotic places, fashionable, etc. I can add more to the list: nice butt, plays basketball and looks good in shorts, looks like Matt Dallas ("Kyle XY"). Holy molly! Matt Dallas is actually in the movie, albeit as a laughably disposable character. Were the director and producer blind? That McMillian and Chris Carmack take the main cake while Matt Dallas gets the crumbs is injustice of universal proportion! In my book, Dallas should be Superman, Wolverine, Ethan Hunt, Jack Ryan, Danny Ocean, James Bond or errr... Peter North? ;->

Subsequently, most of the fun rests on how Lane (Duff's sprightly character) seems to move across the narrative trough unaffected! Duff maintains this sunshiny demeanor all through out, I was tempted to wear shades!

I finished the whole movie. I was close to getting disgusted with myself! Had a grin the size of Tulsa.

Some people call it guilty pleasures... when it's so bad, it's good!

Matt Dallas annihilates my speakers every time he speaks with his loud and low baritone! Makes me blush!

Chris Carmack: Music producer? Waiter? Conspicuously spurious British accent!

Jake Gyllenhaal Simmers as the Prince of Persia

Prince Dastan

I admit not expecting much from Mike Newell's "Prince of Persia". Another video game turns into another Hollywood blockbuster. Don't we just know the intelligence quotient of such films?

But I didn't wanna miss it for several reasons: foremost of which is Jake Gyllenhaal who plays Dastan - our Prince of Persia.

When orphan boy Dastan valiantly stands up against a brutal Persian soldier, the King decides to adopt him, duly making him "prince" alongside his 2 other royal brothers. He grows up happy, content, albeit a wee bit impulsive, but nevertheless loved by his royal family. When they get word that a neighboring kingdom is mass producing weapons of mass destruction (America, are you watching?) and selling them to an enemy kingdom, Persia decides to invade the aforementioned kingdom, ruled by a mystical princess "whose beauty is beyond compare" - Princess Tamina, played by current "it" girl, Gemma Arteron.

A magical dagger with the power to turn back time soon becomes everyone's raison d'etre as it allows manipulation of events - in the process, can even bring back the dead. When Dastan becomes a suspect for the death of the King, the prince turns to Princess Tamina (Arterton) for an alliance to somehow clear him off the dartardly accusation. Will they save the fate of mankind from total annihilation? Will they find love under the sun-soaked exoticism of royal Persia (Iran)? Will they be able to overpower the slithery Hassansin?

Though Dastan and Tamina's cat-and-mouse banters seem perfunctory, we soon found these flirtations quite fetching, to be honest. And who wouldn't flirt with a prince whose smile could melt an iceberg? The action scenes felt laborious, but the fluid dynamics of Dastan and Tamina's relationship is a joy to behold. I also find the endearing sibling relationship inspiring. Gyllenhaal seems eons away from the lovable boy-next-door Homer in his breakout film "October Sky" (1999) but we are tickled pink of his success. He deserves no less.

Despite the limitations of its story, "Prince of Persia" is far from being an apathetic Hollywood fare. It is an entertaining work altogether.

Jake checks his abs. He'll appear next in "Nailed" (with Jessica Biel and James Marsden) and "Love and Other Drugs" (with Anne Hathaway).

A Date With Ingmar Bergman - Summer Interlude

If you're feeling melancholic and under the weather, Ingmar Bergman isn't the answer to your blues. However, his 1951 "Summer Interlude" seems different from the Swedish film master's other ouvres.

Bergman is known for an influential body of work that deals with despair and sorrow. "Summer Interlude" (aka "Illicit Interlude") on the other hand recalls an Indian summer when a talented young ballerina Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) meets an infatuated university lad Henrik (Birger Malmsten) during their summer break. It is an introspective summer romance in the vein of "The Notebook" and "Dear John", albeit simplistically told. But in true Bergman fashion, tragedy soon catches up with our protagonists.

What stirs us is how Bergman tells his story in a straight forward manner. There is not much sentimentality in the way the scenes play out, I somehow wondered if such dry exposition would be able to sustain my interest. This, after all, isn't "Fanny and Alexander"(1982) or "Wild Strawberries" (1957). Though the story started out slow (an older Marie gets hold of Henrik's diary), the compelling romance - retold in a series of flashbacks - soon embraced us.

The lovers both exude dreamy countenance, and they're quite uninhibited with their emotions. Their frolic by the river or at the wild strawberry field depicts the raw charm of how incipient affections come about. Spectacular cinematography immensely helped in translating an atmosphere of frivolity and youthful exuberance - without much skin (though there were several scenes of Nilsson and Malmsten donning their swim suits). Unfortunately, some scenes appear a bit dated. To be fair, they would have been risky back in 1951. My minor gripe was the easy resolution of how Marie swiftly overcame her grief as the film drew to its conclusion. Sure, it had been more than a decade since the tragic incident, but the arc with which Marie swung from sulking to relief was too abrupt.

Lastly, the film made me want to celebrate the masterful beauty of its photography - this, despite limitations of technology in 1951. Almost 60 years later, Summer Interlude still overpowers with visual aptitude, specifically in comparison to many of our local films' "visual quality" (or the lack thereof), such mediocrity shamefully on display in our cineplexes!

Bravo to the master!

Ingmar Bergman

Baseball Jocks Do Full Frontal Glory in Gratuitous "City Without Baseball"

Here's one movie that will make all the manangs blush and drive all those penis-hunting film enthusiasts gaga. Forget the moribund neuron-challenged Pinoy peek-a-boo indies! Directors Lawrence Ah Mon and Scud's "City Without Baseball" lets it all hang out. Not with just a couple of guys but a whole baseball team of buff, ripped nude-happy hunks!

"City Without Baseball" tells the story of a team of baseball players in a "strange city where anything and everything can be found, but hardly anybody can tell you where to find a baseball" - Hong Kong. This team, in fact, is the only baseball players in this city state! It follows a couple of charismatic players - Chung (Leung Yu Chung), a part-time mechanic and very talented pitcher who has a weird relationship with a suicidal girl; Ron Heung (who looks like Korean Superstar Rain) is, on the other hand, coming to grips with his sexuality; something that he has to deal with fast before he loses his latest girlfriend. A coach from Taipei is flown in to help improve their chances of joining first-tier players like Japan and Korea. Their stories take the spotlight in this film oddity.

The actors portraying these fictional stories are real Hong Kong baseball jocks and the random stories are credited from the Hong Kong Baseball Association. These spectacular amateur actors even use their real names and more interestingly, bare their bodies in wild abandon. Many of the scenes teeter on homoeroticism and scenes are replete with nudity! Consider these - guys in all their naked glory playfully butt-slapping each other in misty shower halls, a player ordered by his coach to run the field does so buck naked - his family jewels bouncing everywhere; a guy teased to be the group's best "batter" strips to prove their claim - at a karaoke bar; and the opening scene has Chung frolicking the night seas in his birthday suit.

The stories are quite engrossing, you're bound to root for one of the characters. If the idea was to attract attention on Hong Kong's spectatorless sport(their diamond field doesn't have an audience stand nor a homerun wall), it may have failed miserably. The film carries a multilayered plot that deflects our attention from a coherent focus: love and fidelity, friendship; death, sexuality and overcoming the odds of losing in a sport that no one else is interested in. All those big words comprise a very tall order!

The raw actors are revelatory, not just in terms of being nude-happy (you don't have to pause that button to see a genitalia - it is everywhere, shot from frontal, rear, lateral and even from top views! It's a veritable feast of penises! Best of all, these good looking jocks appear with natural ease, you would wonder if they were actually professional actors! (The initial scenes write - "They are no actors. They are baseballers. They belong to the diamond.")

There is an artful gimmick that I find distracting: Every so often, a song is played for a particular scene. As the song ends, the name of their singers are flashed on-screen: e.g. Anita Mui (1963-2003), Leslie Cheung (1956-2003), and so on! Four more names were flashed in similar manner. If there's a pop culture reference relevant to the narrative on hand, it is lost on me! Otherwise, it only bolsters the randomness and unfocused vision of the 2 directors.

If the story feels cluttered, there is no denying the freshness and sincerity in them. It's just bonus that there's genitalia gloriously on display.

Too much bonus, in fact.

Ron Heung disrobes in countless occasions, and reminds me of Korean Superstar Rain. In the movie, he writes and sings his own songs!

Chung gets an invitation with death. (left) Even Coach John Tai does the full monty!

Jaws drop as, not just a couple of jocks flash the family jewels - but a whole team of real life athletes! This scene shows a brawl in the shower room while everyone is butt naked. How appendages flip flop!

Here Comes The Bride - Hilarity Gets a Brain

We've heard about the solar eclipse and the 5-vehicle pile up along Magnetic Hill - the one that culminated into a body-switching gaffe, a cinematic fiesta replete with some of local cinema's funniest scenes. A loud spinstery lawyer (Eugene Domingo) snags a young well-abused nanny's body (Tuesday Vargas). The nanny gets an old, wealthy invalid (Jaime Fabregas) who, in turn gets the able-bodied but very swishy beautician (John Lapus). The limp-wrist hits gold and gets the body of a virginal blushing bride-to-be (Angelica Panganiban) who acquires the body of affection-hungry, loud mouthed lady lawyer. If a tad too confusing, this comes into fluid retelling in Director Chris Martinez's able hands!

These bifurcating storylines enjoy freshly-cooked gags that work pretty well, considering the staple of highly intuitive actors that inhabit the characters. Angelica Panganiban is once again a revelation. She relishes her lividly gay persona with spirited brio. Her gay-speak deliveries are, in fact, pleasurable linguistic cadences, deliciously frivolous to inspire streetwise mimics. Yes, Angelica is even gayer than John Lapus in his pinkest moments! What a joy!

Eugene Domingo brandishes with lawyerly arrogance, but her heavy delivery soon gets tiresome. We do have to remind Ms. Domingo, one of our favorite comediennes, that eternally angry characters with inadequate character development can wear down her audience. After all, who wants to watch a constantly nagging woman on the silver screen! When her lawyer persona transforms into the Angelica's blushing bride-to-be, the result isn't seamless. In fact, she gets as awkward as when John Lapus becomes testosterone-charged Jaime Fabregas. But the scenes that require hunky Tom Rodriguez to kiss Domingo (who's supposedly Tom's gf) does make one shiver with uneasy pleasure. It's any girl's fantasy!

John Lapus works hard as wheel chair-bound Lolo Bien who suddenly acquires ambulatory legs and the sexual appetite of a younger man. He is less successful in his characterization (read: Lapus can't disguise himself as a straight guy). The parlorista switching body with Angelica becomes a gay man's vagary - for which flaming fag wouldn't party if he suddenly acquires Angelica's voluptuous body and luminous beauty - all at his disposal! What could be close to hitting the jackpot than marrying a sizzler that's Tom Rodriguez? A gay man could get dizzy with the salubrious possibilities!

"Here Comes The Bride" is funny cinema acquiring a brain!

Tom Rodriguez

Angelica Panganiban in her gay countenance faces a beefy audience.

Eugene Domingo takes the fast ride to her wedding!

Angelica and Tom - Perfect match, with or without solar eclipse!


P.S. The movie poster is distinctly similar to the Vince Vaughn comedy "Couples' Retreat". (See the poster in this blog's entry on "Couple's Retreat". - or click here - http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/d7f3acb8)