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.

The Piolitical Landscape

In the midst of globalization, can love be this picture-perfect?

Love Me Again (Land Down Under)
Director: Rory B. Quintos
Cast: Piolo Pascual, Angel Locsin
2008

One cannot write about Rory Quintos’ Love Me Again (Land Down Under) without reviewing Piolo’s abs. Those yummy hunks of toasted brown pandesal—sarap gawing agahan—are practically the film’s centerpiece. Forgive the bias, I may exaggerate a bit, but seriously, Piolo’s abs are like the film’s visual motif or something. If you’re not seeing the actual six-pack onscreen, you see it in the form of Bukidnon’s rolling mountain ranges or Australia’s dry but sensuous dunes, the rippling backdrop to the lovers’ narrative.

This isn’t just cheap body worship doing the talking. It could be, partly, but all things considered, Love Me Again is essentially about fetishism anyway. We might as well be blunt about it.