Not Another Manileño-Kids-Trooping-to-a-Party Video

Styling note: put everyone in a blazer and they’ll look instantly cool and slick. Charot.

Turn It Well
Artist: Up Dharma Down
Director: Caloy Soliongco
Cast: Paul Diaz, Dee Jae Paeste, Gino Jose, Martin Antunez, Haizel Fernando
2012

I love Up Dharma Down. I love their music, and in their latest video, “Turn It Well,” I love Armi Millare’s mannish get-up and cropped hair paired with pokpok-red lipstick and nails. Don’t you hesitate. See us, be it, and turn it well. Ganda.

What I don’t love, however, is the video. I mean, it’s not horrible, but it’s so unsurprising and uninspired and, I hate to use the term, hipster. Up Dharma Down’s great music certainly deserves better videos. But then again, it’s just a music video, no use getting an aneurysm over it.

Slumdawg Reformist

Slumdog Millionaire, Manila-style.

Not Giving In
Artist: Rudimental feat. John Newman and Alex Clare
Director: Josh Cole
Cast: Allen Añas, Tugo Cunanan, Ereson Catipon, Arsell Dela Cruz
2012

Rudimental‘s music video, “Not Giving In,” has much in common with Dangerous Minds, Music of the Heart, City of God, even Sister Act and all those other inspirational movies that goad the youth to choose art over drugs and violence, that reaffirm creativity as the path to freedom from one’s sordid political and economic chains. It begins with two brothers in the Manila slums, borne to a degenerate father and an abused mother. The two (happily) subsist on petty thievery, an inseparable tag team of sorts.

The Privileged Teen Fashionista Fantasy

Our young and fashionable protagonist at the PNR. Train passenger? Or train wreck?

12:51
Artist: Krissy and Ericka
Director: Nani Naguit
Cast: Krissy and Ericka Villongco, George Schulze
2012

It was my first time to encounter Krissy and Ericka last night. Apparently they’ve been around for a few years. My first impression was “pangalan pa lang konyita na,” but that’s just plain mean and judgmental, so sinarili ko na lang muna. For a few seconds. Kasi naman, one of them is a freshman pala at Yoopee Dillimahn while the other’s still studying at Saint Pahl Cahllege of Pahsiehg. And one of them’s akshally going to Brrahcay tomorrow. Sakit sa tenga, teh.

Third World Snack

Magpi-pillow ka na nga lang, yung manipis pa?

Thin Pillows
Oishi
2012

Oishi Philippines came out recently with a new variant of Pillows. The original heftier Pillows had very working-class Pinoy flavors: choco, cheese and ube. Alam na ang market. Parang dirty ice cream lang na de-kariton.

Pero iba ang branding nitong Thin Pillows. Choco-hazelnut–taray, parang Nutella lang. Thin wafers with oats–wow, healthy lifestyle. Kulang na lang yoga instructor. At sun-filled studio with hardwood floors and bay windows. Sosyal. Ang yaman. At in fairness, masarap naman.

Genre’s Not Dead

Love and hate are as intimately intertwined as Rhian and Aljur here.

My Kontrabida Girl
Director: Jade Castro
Cast: Rhian Ramos, Aljur Abrenica, Bea Binene, Jake Vargas, Bella Flores, Enzo Pineda, Chariz Solomon, Kevin Santos, Sef Cadayona, Ken Chan, Bela Padilla, Gwen Zamora
2012 

Do not be fooled by its deceptively accessible surface, enhanced by the parade of delicious biceps thanks to Aljur Abrenica, Enzo Pineda et. al. You may think you’re just watching another run-of-the-mill boy-meets-girl story (well, to some extent that’s what it is) but who would’ve thought that GMA Films would come up with a romantic comedy that’s not plain fluff? 

The Myth of Cinemalaya and the Myth of the Artist

Cinemalaya--was it really ever free? Lest we forget, it's a Cojuangco grant, not a universal right.

After a firestorm of criticism regarding the disqualification of MNL 143 on the basis of poor casting, the opinion that Cinemalaya heads should be ashamed is a pretty unanimous one. Lawyer and film critic Oggs Cruz, who resigned from the selection committee in protest, argues rightly that the prerogative of casting is “within the ambit of the creative freedom provided to a filmmaker who is making [a film] as an independent artist and not as a hired craftsman.”

Simply put, the organizers deserve to be criticized for striking a pose of “freedom,” but operationalizing the opposite. Independent spirit that is not. To trully allow filmmakers the freedom to put forward their own ideas necessarily entails that they also be allowed to calculate their own risks, wager their own gambles, and as screenwriter Raymond Lee says, “make their own mistakes.”

Skin Deep

Racy, racist or classist?

Bela Padilla cover
The Bikini Issue, March 2012
FHM Philippines
Summit Media
2012

In view of the Bela Padilla FHM cover controversy, one thing is supremely obvious: ang galing ng marketing ng Summit Media. Surely something this big and this obvious was no mere accident. This had to be done on purpose. “For the record,” admits FHM Philippines on its Facebook page, “we were never able to print any copy that had the original cover. We pulled the cover image before it hit the printing press.” In short, tons of publicity at no extra cost, not a single print issue wasted. Not that the Philippines’ top-selling magazine title needed any more help, but props to the publisher for its excellent marketing sense. But let’s not dwell on that.

The outrage over the “racist” cover reeks of 1., a selective eye on issues, and 2., an enchantment with the politically correct. As if saying, “sure, you’re a vulgar magazine, but you can’t be THAT vulgar!” Where do we draw the line, and how?

The New Conservative

The gospel of Star Cinema: people start to openly want sex only because they're brokenhearted.

Unofficially Yours
Director: Cathy Garcia Molina
Cast: John Lloyd Cruz, Angel Locsin, Boom Labrusca, Edgar Allan Guzman, Tetchie Agbayani, K Brosas
2012

I can’t say I didn’t enjoy Unofficially Yours. Because I did. An enjoyment, however, that went nothing beyond the purely escapist pleasure of being in a darkened cinema by yourself for two hours, away from nagging office deadlines, obscenely increasing gas and power rates and other daily burdens that, unfortunately, are officially ours.

The film seemed promising, topbilled by two of the best actors of their generation and directed by Star Cinema’s resident auteur. Many were raving. The moviehouse I saw it in was still pretty packed. And yet, in spite of all that it had going for it, I found the film ultimately unremarkable.

Bato Bato sa Langit, ang Tamaan Bakla

Remington: pretty boy, or predatory gay?

Zombadings as a study of why, and how to promote gay killings
Michael David C. Tan
Outrage Magazine
2011

Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington
Director: Jade Castro
Cast: Martin Escudero, Kerbie Zamora, Lauren Young, Roderick Paulate, Janice de Belen, John Regala
2011

What is most troublesome about Michael David C. Tan’s open letter is his claim that “LGBT advocates do not exist because we want to be tolerated – we actually already are.”  This is far from the truth.

Zombadings 1 reminds us that, as Tan rightly (and ironically) describes, we live in a world where homosexuals are killed for being gay, where homosexuals are pressured to act “straight” in order to gain employment, where trannies are ridiculed and barred from certain establishments, where reproductive health and divorce remain a highly contested topic, where same-sex union is still perceived as a lost cause even by the nation’s only gay political party.

Everybody Needs a Shipwreck Once in a While

Careful, careful now. Alam mo namang mahirap ma-achieve ang golden tan.

Temptation Island
Director: Chris Martinez
Cast: Marian Rivera, Heart Evangelista, Lovi Poe, Solenn Heussaff, Rufa Mae Quinto, Aljur Abrenica, Tom Rodriguez, Mikael Daez, John Lapus
2011

Temptation Island
Director: Joey Gosiengfiao
Cast: Dina Bonnevie, Azenith Briones, Jennifer Cortez, Bambi Arambulo, Deborah Sun
1980

Wherever you go, in any Pinoy barkada with a sizable bakla/babaeng bakla percentage, one has probably heard overenthusiastic recommendations of Joey Gosiengfiao’s 1980 film Temptation Island, whether in the form of discreetly swapped VCDs and DVDs (rare kung orig) or the more common “uy bakla pakopya naman ng torrent mo.” Blurt out in the presence of any gay urbanite “Rub a dub dub” and someone will finish the line, “two bitches in a tub.”