Something to Sing About

Ha Ha Ha (South Korea, 2010)

2011-05-31T16:21:00.003+08:00

Because last Saturday's drink up was strange. "Drinking down memory lane," a drunken text message, slurred across time (the flooding of memory) and space (physical, in a dingy, hole-in-a-wall home for soju drunks; the empty chair reserved for someone)---a text message which I had insisted was brilliant, and not much later, the succumbing of a dear (old) friend to my insisting and to lovelorn plot twists that is, was, or will be our lives.

And so, Hong Sang-soo's Ha Ha Ha as refrain, a breathing, stuttering drunk of a film that vibrates with wit, middle-aged bravery (that surfaces at the brink of toppling over), and endearing strangeness, like drunken kisses and pulling grass from the ground in a fit of anger.

Cute.

What a relief for a film to just ramble on about connections, great legs, and poetry. (A character in Oki's Movie, the film that followed Ha Ha Ha, said that he would like his film to be viewed as an experience similar to getting to know a person. That meaning may not be important. Ask aloud, What is the meaning of Ha Ha Ha? See?) The sharper ones will be mentally drawing charts and connecting dotty symbolism. The lucky ones will just pour another shot and laugh along with the end credits.

5/5

Sudkhet Salet Pet (Thailand, 2011)

2011-02-10T12:32:00.009+08:00

Sudkhet Salet Pet (สุดเขต สเลดเป็ด)

Director Reukchai Puangpetch

Starring Pae Arak Amornsupasiri (Slice), Khom Chuan Chuen, Koeti Aramboy (Hor Taew Tek 3), Tukkie Sudara Butrprom (First Love)

Pae Arak works his indie boy cred with awkward eccentric charm that when he first shows up and throws silly lines (at warp speed) at a security guard who slings back retorts with spitfire gusto, it's golden. Mindless golden. But who cares when the comic timing is this hyper good. The laughable loves make a lot of noise with the wit-slapstick combo, roaring through scenes like a string of sitcom segments but strangely enough, it never feels disjointed. Maybe it's the relaxed pace, the weightlessness of the film itself that disarms critic defenses and instead makes you root for these gang of losers no matter how obvious the ending is. It's also Pae Arak and his guitar and the mumblecore songs. But if there's one thing that's clear, Boy, Tukkie and Pae do make an interesting band, a little bit like early Magic Numbers with a dash of Aqua. Okay. So it might not work at all. ***

Photo from the film's Facebook Fanpage

Till My Heartaches End (Philippines, 2010)

2010-11-04T12:55:00.003+08:00

Dour, desperate, and painful to watch in some parts, Till My Heartaches End is Star Cinema's Halloween offering to Kimeralds: a 2-hour humorless drama about a relationship going through the motions of a breakup. And I loved it.

Film imitates the gossip headlines that have infested the grapevine for months, and if one were to read between the sobs during the movie's press conference, then this is the goodbye, the long last look of a couple that most of us watched grow up on national TV.

Jose Javier Reyes's bare, if sometimes lazy, direction fits the lifeless narrative. It's as if he is hesitant to tell the story of a man who wants more out of life and a woman who is content to stay quietly still. Kim Chiu's Agnes is fragile and neurotic; her slight frame trembles with every troubled tic, while Gerald Anderson is every bit the dashing lead whose looks equal his ambition. I sometimes wince at their sweetness in the various teleserye that they have starred in, but there's none of that here. Till My Heartaches End is a quiet, slow dissection. The excruciating repetition of arguments makes the impending crumble gloomier. Sadder. And as a fan of status quos, I felt for Agnes. (I'll understand if you un-Friend me from your Facebook.) The non-commercial end to such a commercial couple's movie could possibly be Star Cinema's bravest move this year.

There's no fast-forward button to a relationship whether it's beginning or ending. And Till My Heartaches End wallows in the uncertainty that keeps us up at night. Excuse me while I sob in the corner. 3/5

Bangkok Traffic Love Story (Thailand, 2009)

2010-08-04T13:50:00.003+08:00

My parents met on a train in the 1960s. After accidentally taking what he thought was a vacant seat, he chatted up mom and offered her boiled eggs, which made mom giggle. He was a soldier on vacation; she was a young social worker who had just moved to Manila. It's a story I got tired of hearing when I was a child. It's a story I long to hear now as a man in his mid-30s trying to make life work.

Impossible lovers transformed by what is possible, there's really nothing more comforting than that. Bangkok Traffic [Love] Story (Rod fai fah...Ma ha na ter) or BTS exploits the formula of mismatched characters finding love with charming agility, hastily moving from one hilarious encounter to another until Li, who sells solar cells, and Loong, a BTS Skytrain engineer who mostly works at night, end up in a planetarium where it is day and night at the same time.

Promoted to celebrate the BTS's 10th anniversary, the film is obsessed with motion: forward, sideways, backward, falling. And wouldn't it be great if we bump into someone to navigate the twists and turns with? Much like being on a train, the scenery changes fast; love and loneliness are fleeting emotions squished between holidays and stations. Oftentimes, the film feels like several stand-alone episodes strung together without much consideration of narrative coherence but I was having too much fun to mind the style.

I remember a friend, Luis Katigbak, once writing about how music transforms into something else when you're listening to it and traveling at the same time. There really is something about trains, about MRTs, MTRs or BTSs, that make you feel more alive than usual, more hopeful than you're allowed to.

My parents met on a train in the 1960s and I've often tried to recreate that moment in my head. Bangkok Traffic [Love] Story is a laid-back, honest, fun ride. It's a breezy commute. It's a possibility I wouldn't mind hopping on. 3/5

Hello My Love (Korea, 2009)

2010-06-03T13:49:00.004+08:00

Love is that queasy feeling in the stomach that only seems to be cured by alcohol: wine, soju and beer shaken and stirred until the queasiness turns to desperate sex. Judging from the trailer, "Hello My Love" was marketed as a light drama about a woman attempting to win her ex-fiancee back from his gay lover. It does aim for the silly but the result is quite upsetting.

Kim Ho-Jeong (Jo An) dishes advice to lovelorn callers in her radio program with heightened optimism, at times proclaiming that ether in the atmosphere allows lovers to communicate their affections across continents. Her fiancee Yoo Won-Jae (Min Seok) arrives from Paris with another man (Dennis Trillo look-alike Ryoo Sang-Wook, wa-pak!) and it doesn't take too long before she discovers the pair sweet dancing to La Mer. Ho-Jeong blackmails Won-Jae into dating her for a month after which he will decide who to be with.

The rest is difficult to watch.

"Hello My Love" is accidentally stirring. Ho-Jeong watching her ex running home in the rain, running home to be with another, running not walking, is a quick, quiet moment that firmly puts their recent past in the distant past. The film's clumsy comic timing only makes the entire affair more uncomfortable, her pleas more embarrassing. Out of respect for Ho-Jeong and Won-Jae's history, and a little out of pity for her shattered world, the trio agree to a (vague) threesome, the queasiness turning to quiet terror in my part.

In contrast to the other queer cinema releases from South Korea, including the sexually-charged "Frozen Flower" and the violently romantic "No Regrets," "Hello My Love" plays the safest. There's a trendy sheen (fashion, wine) on the surface, with not much emotional center, ending where the middle of the film should have been. The motivations and dissections are left in the dark and all we are left with is a dull, throbbing heartache. ***

You're Beautiful (Korea, 2009)

2010-03-19T14:35:00.005+08:00

If I haven't been updating my twitter or if you've noticed that I've been letting some crops wither over at Farmville, it is because I've been busy with work---which is a great cover-up for late night catching-up with the TV drama You're Beautiful, a surreal brew of Shakespearean set-ups, Korean idol culture, and catchy K-pop.

A boy band boy-bonding with a Twelfth Night twist, and if that wasn't enough, how about we throw in a bit of Sound of Music as well. You're Beautiful makes suspension of disbelief unbelievably difficult: pixie-ish Park Shin Hye is Go Mi Nyu, a novice (soon-to-be nun) who has to stand in for her twin brother Mi Nam for a slot in a popular boyband A.N.JELL. Mi Nam causes quite a stir at the boys' dormitory, which results in strange attractions, a bleeding forehead and some spitting action, all for laughs of course, and that's just two episodes in. But its the strangeness of overlapping styles that reel you in. Like I've mentioned again and again, the appetite to please is palpable. The hunger to do more than what is expected more so, that the final product becomes impossible to define.

You're Beautiful is also pays homage to South Korea's idol culture while lovingly poking fun at the rabid fan base (which I'm a part of) and controlling recording labels. Casting FT Island's Lee Hongki and C.N.Blue's Jung Yonghwa as members of the fictional idol group gives the performances the authenticity it needs. Hongki and Yonghwa, though physically fitting the idol mold, also debunk the myth that manufactured groups are without talent---musicality as instinct rather than adornment on full display in their respective groups' albums. After School's UEE is also game, hamming up the bitchy with flair.

But the best thing about this drama is the music. K-Pop has been a little boring since the vocoder trend started; turned out I was looking at the wrong place. A.N.JELL churns out good power pop, catchy and undeniably soaring. Jang Geunsuk's vocals are strong and tender at the edges, Hongki's contribution to the OST shows off quite powerful pipes, and the band version with boy-girl harmonies is just, uhm, angelic.

Someone make them a real band, please. ****

Blue Gate Crossing (Taiwan, 2002)

2010-02-23T17:29:00.004+08:00

Park Jin-Young or JYP is to be blamed for the inescapable "Nobody" by the Wonder Girls, and 2PM's brooding pop hit, "Again & Again." Actually it was Felice Tusi, a fellow contributor to allmusicjunkies.com, who brought my attention to JYP's secret to writing a string of hits.

Repetition.

Nobody, nobody but you. Again and again and again and again. Like a broken record that's record-breaking. If it weren't for the catchy hooks, it wouldn't be different from frustrated begging for belief. For loyalty.

Yee Chin-Yen's Blue Gate Crossing is brimming with questions repeated over and over by Zhang Shihao, a teenage boy (Wilson Chen/Chen Bo-Lin), but the answers are never kind. Confusion in love has never been this gorgeously realized, with all its awkward and clumsy interrogation. If I could, I would, question and question again and again. What is

childish comes across as frantic desperation. So what does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean?

There's rhythm in the words. There is dance in the gestures. Zhang Shihao wants to keep in beat with Ming Kerou (Kwai Lunmei) whether it's dancing, stomping on a note, or arguing. In his head, it's about timing. Moving as one to be one. Ming Kerou, on the other hand, wants to keep in step with someone else.

The film is busy with silence. The side glances and long last looks fill the space of a sparse script, but the silence is never languid. It oftentimes feels like Yee Chin-Yen is writing the perfect pop song. There's a hummable beat to Blue Gates Crossing's pacing, fluidly going through the motions of love and heartbreak. There is a pop hook to the words, which stick and stay with you. There is that butterfly-in-the-stomach warmth, that lingering last note as Ming Kerou watches Zhang Shihao's back, that killer lyric as the strings soar: I can't see myself, but I can always see you.

Nobody, nobody but you. *****

The Region 3 DVD has several extras including a Making-Of, Wilson Chen's trip to Hong Kong to promote the movie and interviews with the cast and director. No english subtitles on all the extras though.

20th Century Boys Part 2 (Japan, 2009)

2010-02-16T21:54:00.007+08:00

It's you and me against the world, baby.

The middle child of the most ambitious film trilogy in recent years---there's no use arguing with me on this one---moves so briskly that oftentimes I felt the need to come up for air, but I loved every stubbornly dense moment of it.

No, I haven't finished the manga because, for this one, I wanted to experience the head rush and the nitpicking of puzzle pieces. (If LOST is your thing and haven't given up on the parallel time-line mindfuck, then you'll have a hoot with this one.)

It's years after the New Year's Eve attack of 2000, and it's the kids' turn to figure out how to strike back against Friend and his creepily smiling followers. Time lines and lives intersect, what Donkey saw in the science lab is revealed, and a messiah rises from the dead. Reviews keep mentioning how the uninitiated will find it difficult to wade through layers of subplots and time jumps. I'm not filing this under For Manga Readers Only and won't stereotype a fantastic plot as convoluted or impossible to follow.

Some parts, I admit, are just too unbelievable. But the Pope's speech aside, 20th Century Boys is similar in texture, in whiffs of melancholia, to Stephen King's novel IT. There's something about the journey from childhood to adulthood that bites with bittersweet pangs. Contrasts become warm and fuzzy memories, and along with the memories come the longing. I began to wonder whatever happened to the kids I used to spend afternoons with playing until my knees were bruised and bleeding. Are they doing well and living comfortably? Have they turned into monsters? Fighters? And where is that kid now, the six year-old Thor who told stories to his friends everyday but now barely has time to write down his own thoughts? ****

Phobia 2 (Thailand, 2009)

2010-02-10T17:10:00.007+08:00

The sequel curse plagues Phobia 2 (ห้าแพร่ง/Ha Prang), not so much in direction as it does in composition, in the gaping silence between screams. A shame really because this is more surefooted than the original, driven by the horrors of road accidents and lurking mysteries that seduce and terrorize.

Seductive, that dark charm that lures us in, 4bia had plenty of. From the longing to connect in Ngao/Loneliness to the deliciously creepy miss en scene of a corpse in an empty plane in Teaw Bin 244/Flight 244, 4bia tickled and chewed on our imagination. Phobia 2, in keeping with the theme maybe, lost the ability to seduce with frights that drive by in a flash, as opposed to building up the creepy. Novice seems to be the most balanced in storytelling, with a weighty reveal that jolts. That last bit in the woods was difficult to watch---I knew how painful it would get but I couldn't help but watch it. This push and pull of terror and curiosity, though not as overwhelming as Loneliness, saves Novice from its "fantastic" end, (Geek Hint: Terry Brook's Sword of Shannara).

Ward has an interesting premise but falls short of actual surprise, with nothing much more to offer if you've seen the trailer.

Backpackers. Now, I'm a Songyos Sugmakanan fan and this man can do wonders with characterization, and can twist emotions as well as plots, but Backpackers is just…okay. He doesn't really add much to the zombie genre and the camera work is 28 Days Later familiar.

Salvage doesn't make much sense; the retribution was a little too much for just being a bitch. The scares are as obvious as the danger music, and I felt that the lead didn't really deliver. This could've been a great acting piece, but the lack of connection, of escalating desperation has made this difficult to get into.

In the End, I gather from the other reviews I've read, has become this installment's favorite segment. It is quite clever, and the four guys from 4bia's In the Middle, are still delivering the funnies. Marsha Wattanapanich is totally game playing herself---but not really her self---but the end feels forced, just so it could fit into the theme.

In the end, Phobia 2 does feel like driving past a car crash. Curiosity turns to fear. Fear turns to pity. And then you move to wherever you were headed to, driving away and forgetting. **

The Way We Are (Hong Kong, 2008)

2010-02-02T13:11:00.007+08:00

Tin Shui Wai. The City of Sadness. Towering housing projects rising like deadly spikes have replaced old fish ponds in the 1990s. And along with the Hong Kong workers that relocated to the city for the promise of jobs that never materialized due to poor city planning, come the continuing reports of unemployment, suicides, and gang wars among others.

The Way We Are, in contrast to whatever you may have read about Tin Shui Wai, is devastatingly boring.

The film revolves around the quiet, robotic lives of Mrs. Cheung (Bau Hei-Jing) and her teenage son Ka-On (Juno Leung). Ann Hui's steady eye sharply captures the daily routine of the mother as she works in the supermarket unpacking, weighing and packing durian fruits, then coming home to cook dinner and read the newspaper afterwards. The daily grind, routine upon routine, but without melodrama or even a hint of manipulated emotion. Since Mrs. Cheung only knows work (she has been working since 12 years old), there is no hatred over their status, which I was expecting.

At its heart, The Way We Are defies expectations by being involving in its objective simplicity. When Mrs. Cheung meets a new neighbor, an old lady who cooks, waits for the day to become night, then cooks again, the kindness Mrs. Cheung shows evolves from politeness to concern as their lives fall into a syncopated working-class rhythm.

There's an overwhelming feeling that something will go wrong but nothing ever does, and not in the way you expect it. Ka-On, who seems at the start to be lazy and useless, is simply just a good kid. Now, he's about to drug deal, no, he's about to bash some Christian kid's face in, hmm, maybe later. And the one dramatic high point, the one where the screaming and sobbing should be exploding, was dealt with humming subtlety: two friends on a bus silently weeping.

Hui once in awhile cuts the narrative to pictures of old Hong Kong. The way they were, with just a hint of nostalgia. People in Tin Shui Wai don't have the luxury of reminiscing, by choice it seems like it. It's just the way they are.

I've been so used to watching Johnnie To films shot in Hong Kong that the experience of watching The Way We Are was both unsettling and refreshing. The documentary-drama is naked of pretensions and surefooted in its narrative. I keep going back to that Juliana Hatfield lyric which perfectly captures the film's afterglow: Nothing's good and nothing's bad. Everything's just kind of sad. ****

Region 0 NTSC, DVD. HK$ 85 in HMV.

Waiting in the Dark (Japan, 2006)

2010-01-28T16:42:00.002+08:00

It's oh so quiet and oh so still. Director Daisuke Tengan continues to explore the eloquence of silence and the depth of gestures in "Waiting in the Dark" (Kurai Tokoro De Machiawase). Tengan, who penned the disquieting "Audition," knows all too well the weight of deliberate---okay, slow---storytelling and this mostly silent film is heavy with intriguing pauses.

Structured in three chapters, Michiru, Akihiro, Michiru and Akihiro, it explores the lives of a blind girl and outcast immigrant Akihiro and how their loneliness converge after the young man is suspected of murder and secretly hides in Michiru's house. Michiru first thinks it is her dead father haunting the house until she begins counting the loaves of bread. Understated is an understatement when Tengan lets even the simplest chore quietly unfurl but the sudden attack of memories---parallel point of views that complete a picture---make the silence necessary.

The situations are oftentimes questionable (Can she not smell him? And yeah, the guy is cute but a stranger invading your home is still a creepy idea) but it is undeniably fascinating to watch both tiptoe around each other's narrative until their pasts overlap. Wilson Chen (Chen Bo-lin) and Rena Tanaka (brooding, luminous) are eyecandies with a solid center, and admittedly, a huge part of my enjoyment of the film is appropriated to their simmering chemistry in this almost love story. ***

The HK version of the DVD costs only HK$35. No extra features.

Music has right to movies: Tokyo Sonata (Japan, 2008) and Swing Girls (Japan, 2004)

2010-01-21T16:10:00.007+08:00

Four independent movements, varying in mood, tempo, and secrets. It's a bittersweet symphony this life, so sings Richard Ashcroft, but bittersweet is too romantic. Knee-busting loneliness on a cellular level symphony, and because the family in Tokyo Sonata is painfully ordinary, it's impossible not too see how snugly the shoe fits. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa conducts with deliberate stillness; the same silent, steady style which made Kairo equally horrifying and heartbreaking. When the father practically loses everything in one day, and when each family member begin to stumble toward hope, or the mere idea of it, it becomes an exhilarating race. To the starting line. ***** (The Region 3 DVD has decent subtitles but is sorely lacking in extras.)

Feel good done right: convincingly silly, irrationally musical, with a relaxed awesomeness at the end. Swing Girls follows the Water Boys formula but the segment with the mushrooms and the wild boar makes the former the better comedy. Or maybe I just have a soft spot for big band swing. The film does bring back the (mam)moths in the stomach when music was just discovered. It's not a point in time; it's layers (emotions, excitement) that expand and melt into each other. The more you learned, the more you craved, the more you held on. The Region 3 DVD has a Making Of which showed how the girls, through blistered lips and tears, learned each of their instruments. It just made me love the film more. ****

When Timawa Meets Delgado (Philippines, 2007)

2010-01-18T14:45:00.004+08:00

Thanks to The Tioseco-Bohinc Film Series, which "picks up where Alexis Tioseco left off with his Fully Booked Screenings," we are once again given the rare opportunity to see and experience independent movies that Alexis believed showcased the best of Filipino film-making. Thanks too (with waving flags and fireworks) to TBFS curators Dodo Dayao, Oggs Cruz and Richard Bolisay for carrying on with the program and all the (selfless) hard work that went and will go into it. The least we can do is to attend the FREE screenings every second Sunday of the month. A full theater means this will go on. Forever. Or until independent cinema is shown in theaters to a full house. Or, forever.

Ray Gibraltar's When Timawa Meets Delgado is unconventionally nosy and furiously questioning as it investigates the boom of the nursing or health care profession in the Philippines. We are all too familiar with the whys (to escape poverty, to earn dollars) but it's the roundabout way of Gibraltar's narrative that slowly reveals the heart, the funnies, the pain of having a dream.

Following the film is a bit of a challenge at first; there are too many things going on, the quality (of the film) and point of views jump with an impatient itch. The movie itself is a patchwork of audio-visual presentations, documentaries, random footage and performance art.

This is where you stand back and tell yourself to relax. And trust the filmmaker.

In the Q & A that followed last Sunday's screening, Gibraltar humbly admitted that he put the film together as if he were cooking, instinctively. But there is obviously order in his madness.

When Timawa Meets Delgado are fragments of confessions that by the film's end reflects our own curious and desperate nature, with a healthy pinch of humor. It is everything (political, experimental, slice of life) and one thing (Delgado and Timawa's journey). It is jumping in on an ongoing dialogue. It is oftentimes how we think in our noisy worlds. And it is the uncomfortable silence when the noise dies down and the question that we tried to drown out is demanding an answer. *****

Tears of the Black Tiger (Thailand, 2000)

2010-01-15T13:59:00.008+08:00

Revisionist Western, maybe, but too stiff upper lippy. If anything, Tears of the Black Tiger is a bubbling soup of neon backdrops, dashing violence and easy laughs that reshapes the best of old Thai movies---or Asian films in general because we seem to share the penchant for gushing melodrama, wooden acting and cowboy-hybrid fetish.

I've seen this movie both drunk and sober and I highly recommend watching it in both state. Sober, director Wisit Sasanatieng's eye for ravishing visuals is breathtaking: The river littered with migraine-pink lotus flowers, the painted swirling sunset, the mansion and its rooms deliciously pink. The plot's simplicity is a necessity; it's Sasanatieng's vision that is allowed to flourish, to explode.

Drunken, it's a fucking hoot. This brought me back to afternoons spent as a child watching Pinoy westerns starring Lito Lapid, which more or less followed the same formula. Rich girl loves poor boy but poor boy a) loses family in a fire b) family is murdered c) family is murdered then house is set on fire. So poor boy grows up to be an outlaw but is pure at heart. Rich girl continues to pine for him but is already betrothed to a rich man or a man in uniform. And it all ends tragically but on a bittersweet note, sealed with a kiss on the forehead, and a solitary tear down a cheek.

Tears of the Black Tiger effortlessly pulls off refreshing a tired genre with intense artistry that is as playful as it is cinematic. The Region 1 DVD includes a featurette on the making of the film. The quality isn't good---I'm assuming it's a TV broadcast recording---but there's nothing like hearing (and seeing) Sasanatieng along with the cast and crew discuss both the technical and artistic aspects of the film. *****

And the Lovely Blog Award goes to...

2010-01-13T12:32:00.005+08:00

OMONA! I would like to thank Mark Hodgson of Black Hole Reviews for this lovely Lovely Blog Award with roses, and bitchy lace, and everything that would add up to a Judith Krantz novel cover. And yes, this means a lot to a wayward film blogger with an unhealthy obsession over Super Junior. Just the nudge I need to blog more regularly.

And now it's my turn to spread the loveliness. With geek-crazy attention to detail, photographic writing, Vulcan mind-meld worthy or oftentimes just plain lovely, stormy ideas, these blogs are who I want to be when I grow up.

The Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project. A photographic archive of decaying movie theaters accompanied by graceful travel writing.

On Movies, Job Hunting, Tarutaru Business and Other Banalities. Gaming, soundtracks, Asian movies, and the job hunting in between.

Piling Piling Pelikula. This man deserves a fan club and it already has a name: Dodo's Adoring Public. Movie reviews punk-rock to the core.

Asian Cinema-While on the Road. Extensive actors' profiles, soundtrack samples, and so much good information your brain will explode.

Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal. The one-stop for Thai film fans.

Nekoneko's Movie Litterbox. Monster movies and crazy comedies from Asia with candid- purrfect commentary.

Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill! Weird-fu! Friday's Best Pop Song Ever! DARNA!

Lilok Pelikula. Lessons from the School of Inattention. Ready to rumble? Philippine Cinema meets muscular writing. (Though I'm also loving Lilok's music entries.)

Black Hole DVD Reviews. Because everyone deserves some Ice Forest Explorer Barbarella nummyness.

Next year will be better, I swear!

2009-12-21T15:16:00.007+08:00

I'll just sneak this in.

Losing a writer and becoming the only one for an ad agency that is barely breathing, I have become the swamped thing. Though I may not have found the time to write or sketch a review of films that I have seen, it doesn't mean that I haven't seen a few good ones.

Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story is this year's guiltiest pleasure. It's not the best crafted romantic-comedy that I have seen---technically clumsy with an obvious lack of chemistry between the actors---but it is laugh-out-loud hilarious; tears spilled on the popcorn that was spilling.

I liked Bong Joon-ho's Mother better than Park Chan-Wook's Thirst, the former a gracefully-plotted drama with the one of the best opening and closing sequences that I have seen of all time. Thirst is PCW's most focused narrative work so far, but it lacks the emotional resonance of his earlier works, most prominently shown in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Will be posting more detailed reviews soon.

Side project! I've also been reviewing Asian albums for allmusicjunkies.com. Here's a rundown of the reviews I have written so far. (Excuse the editing and proofreading. The people behind the site are still improving it.)

August's Radiodrome
Nologo's Gravity
Super Junior's Sorry, Sorry
Scrubb's Best Of
SHINee's 2009, Year of Us

I will be going on my "early retirement" next year and will be focusing my efforts on our furniture shop. Looking forward to more time to write. The new year can't come soon enough.

Attack on the Pin-Up Boys (Korea, 2007)

2009-10-12T11:17:00.004+08:00

Soju, the Korean rice wine, and SuJu, or Super Junior, the largest boy band in the world, is a deadly combination. Attack on the Pin-Up Boys, produced mainly for Super Junior fans, which stars 12 of the 13 members, is a convincing comedy and a surprisingly energetic satire on fame. I was preparing myself for some mindless fun, hence the soju to make the experience more giddy. While the movie does deliver within (quite low) expectations---loads of slapstick, anime-quirky effects, and the SuJu boys in all their charming glory---it also goes beyond a fluff piece, dissecting both popularity and fandom.

Ugly truths so ugly it has to be funny.

When shit hits the face.

The movie begins with a series of attacks on popular pretty boys who get hit by shit on the face. Not for queasy stomachs, I tell you. At first, students are appalled. Until the victims become celebrities and three popular students from Neulparan High School---judo jock Kangin, dancer Heechul and school president Siwon (yes, their names remain unchanged)---race to get hit by shit. The Super Junior boys aren't exactly playing themselves but the meta-poking does add to the playful criticism of Korea's (or anywhere else's) idol culture. Kibum, the boy detective, ponders about the incidents and the reaction of the masses. Did the ordinary kids feel better that pretty boys or flower boys were being attacked in such a degrading manner? Was it general boredom with their own ordinary lives that made them react with such frenzy?

"When grown-ups say we have potential it only makes us more nervous."

It's also interesting to note that Super Junior is not your typical idol group. The boys that make up SuJu is a cross section of the male population: from the jock to the effeminate, from the scrawny to the overweight. Extraordinary circumstances (and hard work) have made them stars in their own right; Attack on the Pin-Up Boys also shows an insecure boy band while celebrating their differences. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook standout for their comedic timing, while the rest of the members all deliver a very natural performance.

The film doesn't aim to make a statement and it ends thoughtfully, with the desire of those who criticize fame to be famous.

Attack on the Pin-Up Boys is hilarious and super strange. The panda judo member, the Jedi school president and the cartoonish special effects all say that the movie is not to be taken seriously. But it's hard to ignore the undercurrent ugliness of it all.

Here's the prerequisite song and dance at the end, synchronized-dancing crazy Wonder Boy:

Kinatay (Philippines, 2009)

2009-10-06T13:23:00.004+08:00

Like Joseph Garcin in Jean Paul-Sartre's No Exit, Peping didn't realize that the room he was about to enter was hell. And when it dawned on him somewhere between buying balut and the ragged butchering, he couldn't---didn't---want to leave the safety of being in the dark.

Geography and malice are indiscernibles; the mind is in equal footing with matter. The dark, chaotic streets of Manila may as well be purgatory, twisting and squeezing the morality out of the film.

There are no surprises in Brillante Mendoza's parable of a young man's descent to something less human, but it is hypnotic. It is an experience, more than anything else.

This was supposed to be my shelter from the storm. Trapped in a mall while a typhoon drowned and destroyed Metro Manila, Kinatay became the dangerously perfect metaphor to the (perceived) pointlessness of it all.

Its blanket nihilism makes the film susceptible to both severe criticism and blind praises. It is an empty canvas.

A negative space.

Politics. Censorship. Arthouse experiment. A heart of darkness.

You decide.

A Consolidated List On How and Where To Help and What To Bring

2009-09-30T16:14:00.004+08:00

Photo: Erik de Castro/Reuters

There was no danger music to warn us. In a matter of hours, Metro Manila was flooded. There are still homes submerged. Family members still missing, and the death toll is still rising.

Please help if you can.

Reposting this from Facebook:

Sahana Disaster Management System is in need of IT volunteers. The system will be extremely helpful in case of future disasters. Send a message to sahana@kahelos.org.

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Courtesy of ABS-CBN News Online, assorted updates and advisories may be found here, and a list of class suspensions and cancelled events may be found here.
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Unless otherwise specified, all landline numbers are for Metro Manila and therefore require no dialing prefix if you are in that area. If you are outside Metro Manila, add 02 before the number, e.g., 02 XXX XXXX. If you are outside the Philippines, add 632 before the number, e.g., 632 XXX XXXX.

For mobile numbers, callers outside the Philippines should add 63 and drop the 0, e.g., 63XXX XXX XXXX instead of 0XXX XXX XXXX.

Emergency/Rescue OperationsPrivate citizens who would like to lend their motor boats, please call these numbers:

•912 5668
•911 1406
•912 2665
•911 5061
For those who can lend 4×4 trucks, please send them to Greenhills Shoppng Center Unimart Grocery to await deployment. Call this number for more information:

•0920 9072902
Honda Cars and Nissan Pangasinan offer towing services anywhere within the Metro Manila area.

•Hotline: 0922 850 4452
•Maricel: 0922 445 2242
•Arnold: 0922 899 7959
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ABS-CBN Typhoon Ondoy Hotline
•416 3641
Bureau of Fire Protection
•729 5166
•410 6254
•413 8859
•407 1230
•Region III (Central Luzon): (045) 963 4376
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)
All numbers are 24-hour hotlines.

•Disaster Relief Operations, Monitoring, and Information Center (DROMIC), DSWD-NCR: 488 3199
•Crisis Intervention Unit (CIU), DSWD-NCR: 733 8635
•Disaster Relief Operations, Monitoring and Information Center (DROMIC), DSWD-Central Office: 931 8101 to 05, local 506 or 951 7119
GMA Kapuso Hotline
•9811950 to 59
Jam 88.3
•631 8803
•Text JAM883your message to 2968
Meralco
•16211
•0917 559 2824
•0920 929 2824
Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA)
•136
•896 6000
National Capital Region Police Office (For rubber boat requests)
•838 3203
•838 3354
National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC)
Emergency Numbers

•912 5668
•911 1406
•912 2665
Help Hotlines

•911 5061
•734 2118
•734 2120
Office of Senator Dick Gordon
•0917 899 7898
•0938 444 BOYS (2697)
Office of Senator Manny Villar (For rescue dump trucks)
•0917 422 6800
•0917 241 4864
•0927 675 1981
Petron/San Miguel Corporation (For rescue helicopters)
•Lydia Ragasa: 0917 814 0655
Philippine Coast Guard
•527 6136
Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC)
•143
•527 0000
www.GMANews.tv on Facebook
•Post the names and addresses of people in need of immediate assistance.
Relief OperationsIf you are looking for a relief operations site in your immediate area, you may also check here or here. A handy map of donation drop-off points is available here.
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Government Agencies, Socio-civic Groups, and Media Outfits
AKBAYAN

To donate or volunteer, call:

•433 6933
•433 6831
Aquino-Roxas relief operations/Tulong Bayan
Jiggy Cruz sounded the call for relief goods collection and distribution on September 26 (Saturday) on Twitter.

Tulong Bayan hotlines for donations and volunteers are:

•913 7122
•913 6254
•913 3306
•0908 657 9998
•0939 363 3436
Donations can be brought to:

•Balay, Expo Centro, EDSA corner Gen. MacArthur St., Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City
•White Space, 2314 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati, City (care of Monique Villonco)
Ayala Foundation
Online donations may be coursed through the foundation.

Barangay San Antonio (Parañaque)
The barangay hall, which is located near Parañaque City Hall, will serve as a drop-off point. The address is Sta. Lucia St. corner San Pablo St., San Antonio Valley 1, Parañaque.

Caritas Manila
•563 9298
•563 9308
Relief goods can be sent to Caritas Manila Office at Jesus St., Pandacan, Manila (near Nagtahan Bridge).

Christ’s Commission Fellowship (CCF)–Ortigas
Please drop off donations at Room 402, St. Francis Square Bldg., Julia Vargas Ave., cor. Bank Drive, Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong City.

Couples for Christ (CFC)
•727 0682 to 87
•0919 363 4036
•0922 866 7191
•0922 254 2819
The CFC Center along Ortigas Avenue is now accepting donations in cash or in kind.

For those who wish to donate through bank deposit, you may do so via the Bank of the Philippines (BPI):

•Account Name: Couples for Christ Global Missions Inc.
•Account Number 3103-3055-85.
Citizens Disaster Response Center (CDRC)
•929 9820
•929 9822
Relief goods for typhoon victims may be delivered to 72-A Times St., West Triangle, Quezon City.

Corporate Network for Disaster Response (CNDR)
Per Noynoy Aquino, cash donations may deposited with the CNDR. The bank details are as follows:

•Account Number: 0031 0654 02
•Branch: Bank of the Philippine Islands Ayala-Paseo
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)
Each drop-off point for donations has its own contact persons.

Drop-off point 1

National Resource Operations Center, Chapel Road, Pasay City

•Francia Favian: 852 8081/0918 930 2356
Drop-off point 2

Disaster Resource Operations Monitoring and Information Center (DROMIC), DSWD Central Office, Quezon City

•Rey Martija or Imee Rose Castillo: 951 7119/951 2435
•Assistant Secretary Vilma Cabrera: 0918 9345625
Drop-off point 3

DSWD-NCR Office, San Rafael corner Legarda Streets, Quiapo, Manila.

•Director Thelsa P. Biolna or Director Delia Bauan: 734 8622/734 8642
Gawad Kalinga
A list of needed relief goods, as well as drop-off centers, is available here.

The guidelines for cash/check donations follow below:
Donations within the Philippines:

•Gawad Kalinga Philippine Peso Current Account 3101 0977 56 – BPI EDSA Greenhills
•Gawad Kalinga US$ Savings Account 3104 0162 34 (Swift code: BOPIPHMM) – BPI EDSA Greenhills
Should you need receipts, please fax your deposit slip to Delfin Mangona, Operation GK Walang Iwanan at 726 7405. Kindly indicate name of donor and contact number.
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Donations outside the Philippines:

For donations outside the Philippines, you can choose from the following :

ANCOP USA

You can send your checks to ANCOP USA, PO Box 10095, Torrance, CA 90505. Or go to http://www.ancopusa.org if you prefer to do it online via credit card.

AYALA FOUNDATION USA

You can issue checks payable to Ayala Foundation USA with project noted (Gawad Kalinga Ondoy Relief) and send to :

Ayala Foundation USA
255 Shoreline Drive, Suite 428
Redwood City, CA 94065
Tel. no. 1-650-598-3126
Fax No. 1-650-508-8898
Email info@af-usa.org

Or you can donate to Ayala Foundation USA via credit card by visiting this link.

In “choosing organization to receive the donation”, please choose “Gawad Kalinga-Community Infrastructure Program” for now. By September 29, (Tuesday), you will be able to choose “Gawad Kalinga-Relief”.

DONATE ONLINE AT www.gk1world.com

Click on this link. This facility can accept donations from all over the world.
GMA Kapuso Foundation
•981 1950 to 59
•982 7777, locals 9901/9904/9905
The foundation will accept cash/check, credit card, and in-kind donations. The office address is: 2/F GMA Kapuso Center, Samar St. cor. 11th Jamboree St. Diliman, Quezon City.

Hillsborough Village Chapel
Water, blankets, shoes, and clothes may be sent to Hillsborough Village Chapel in Muntinlupa City. These will go to families whose houses were washed out in the nearby sitios.

Kabataan Partylist
•0926 667 7163
•kabataanpartylist@gmail.com
Drop off donations or volunteer at 118-B Sct. Rallos St., Quezon City.

Manila Broadcasting Company (MBC)
•670 0666
•832 6117
MBC radio stations DZRH, 101.1 Yes! FM, and 90.7 Love Radio are accepting donations, such as bread, canned goods, clothes, and water. The drop-off point is at the MBC Building, Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City (beside Star City).

Marika Bouncers Cooperative
The c-op will accept donations starting September 28 (Monday), at 10 AM. Its office is located at 95 Malaya St., Malanday, Marikina.

Move for Chiz
Volunteers are asked to report to Bay Park Tent along Roxas Blvd in Manila. It is beside Max’s Restaurant and Diamond Hotel. They may also proceed to Gilas Minipark on Unang Hakbang St., Gilas, Quezon City.

MusikLokal Luzon Relief
•Warren Habaluyas: 0929 871 3488
•luzonrelief@gmail.com
Starting September 28 (Monday), donations can be brought to Renaissance Fitness Center, 2/F, Bramante Building, Renaissance Towers Ortigas, Meralco Avenue, Pasig City, from 9AM to 7PM.

Office of Senator Kiko Pangilinan
•Vina Vargas: 0917 808 1247
Donations may be sent to AGS Building Annex, 446 EDSA Guadalupe Viejo, Makati.

Office of the President
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has opened Malacañang to victims of Ondoy, according to this report. Heroes Hall will serve as the emergency center.

Operation Rainbow
•Zac Faelnar Camara: 468 7991
Operation Rainbow in Ayala Alabang Village accepts canned goods, ready-to-eat food, bottled water, ready-to-drink milk and juice, clothing, and blankets.

Our Lady of Pentecost Parish
•434 2397
•929 0665
Per Gabe Mercado, donations are very much welcome. The Parish is located at 12 F. Dela Rosa corner C. Salvador Sts., Loyola Heights, Quezon City.

Peace Retreat Movement
Please leave all donations at the Peace Retreat Movement (PRM) office: 2/F Room 72L, Christ the King (HS) Building on September 30 (Wednesday), by 12NN.

Relief Efforts for Pasig
•0916 494 5000
•0917 527 3616
Volunteers may proceed to Valle Verde 1 Village Park.

Relief Operations Center
•Ares: 0917 855 4935
•Rachel: 0918 924 1636
A relief operations center has been established at AGS Annex, #446 EDSA, Guadalupe Viejo (after PET Tower). Please call for more details.

Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS)
Rescued animals may be brought to the shelter located on Aurora Boulevard corner Katipunan Avenue.

Philippine Army Officers Ladies Club (PAOLC)
Relief items may be delivered to the GHQ gym at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, or to the Philippine Army Gym at Fort Bonifacio.

Philippine Daily Inquirer
•Megi Garcia: 897 8808 local 260
Donations in kind, such as instant noodles, canned goods, formula milk, blankets and clothes, are urgently needed.

These may be brought to the Inquirer office at 1098 Chino Roces Ave. corner Mascardo and Yague Streets, Makati City, or to any of its classified ads branches, or to any McDonald’s branch within Metro Manila.

Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC)
Contact the nearest chapter to find out how you can help.

To donate via SMS, please follow the instructions below:

•SMS: Text REDAMOUNT to 2899 (Globe) or 4483 (Smart)
•G-CASH (Globe subscribers only): Text DONATEAMOUNT4-digit M-PINREDCROSS to 2882.
As of this update, Globe and Smart have waived transaction fees for donations.

For cash, check, or in-kind donations, the guidelines are below. Please note that LBC and i-Remit Singapore will be waiving transaction fees for donations.

Cash or check

Please send cash or check donations to the PNRC National Headquarters in Manila. Checks should be made payable to The Philippine National Red Cross. We can also arrange for donation pick-up.

Bank Deposit

Account Name: The Phil. Nat’l. Red Cross

Metrobank

Port Area Branch
Peso Acct.: 151-3-041-63122-8
Dollar Acct.: 151-2-151-00218-2
Type of Acct. : SAVINGS
Swift Code: MBTC PH MM

Bank of the Philippine Islands

Port Area Branch
Peso Acct.: 4991-0010-99
Type of Account: CURRENT

Bank of the Philippine Islands

UN Branch
Dollar Acct.: 8114-0030-94
Type of Account: SAVINGS
Swift Code: BOPI PH MM

For your donations to be properly acknowledged, please fax the bank transaction slip to +63 2 527 0575 or +63 2 404 0979 with your name, address, and contact number.

Credit Card

Please fax the following information to 632 404 09 79 or 632 527 0575:

•Name of cardholder
•Billing address
•Contact numbers (landline and mobile)
•Credit card number
•Expiration date
•CCV2/ CVC2 (last three digits on the back of the credit card)
•Amount to be donated
In-Kind Donations

Local

Please send in-kind local donations to The Philippine National Red Cross–National Headquarters in Manila. We can also arrange for donation pick-up.

International

1.Send a letter of intent to donate to the PNRC
2.A letter of acceptance from PNRC shall be sent back to the donor
3.Immediately after shipping the goods, please send the (a) original Deed of Donation; (b) copy of packing list; and (c) original Airway Bill for air shipments or Bill of Lading for sea shipments to: The Philippine National Red Cross–National Headquarters c/o Secretary General Corazon Alma de Leon, Bonifacio Drive, Port Area, Manila 2803, Philippines.
The PNRC does not accept rotten, damaged, expired or decayed goods. Though we appreciate your generosity, the PNRC also discourages donations of old clothes as we have more than enough to go around.

Urgent needs

•Food items: Rice, noodles, canned goods, sugar, iodized salt, cooking oil, monggo beans, and potable water
•Medicines: Paracetamol, antibiotics, analgesic, oral rehydration salts, multivitamins, and medications to treat diarrhea
•Non-food items: Bath soaps, face towels, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, plastic mats, blankets, mosquito nets, jerry cans, water containers, water purification tablets, plastic sheetings, laundry soap, and shelter materials for house repair
For Mindanao-based donors without Paypal accounts, please get in touch with blogger Mindanaoan. Your donations will be forwarded to the Red Cross.

Radio Veritas
•925 7931 to 40
Relief goods can be brought to Radio Veritas at Veritas Tower, West Ave. corner EDSA, Quezon City.

Sagip Kapamilya
•413 2667
•416 0387
The address of Sagip Kapamilya is No. 13 Examiner Street, Quezon City. Please look for Ms. Girlie Aragon

Cash/check donations may be deposited in the Sagip Kapamilya account:

•Bank: Banco de Oro, Mother Ignacia branch
•Acct name: ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.
•Acct no.: 5630020111
Santuario de San Antonio Parish
Relief goods of all kinds are accepted. The parish is located along McKinley Road, in Forbes Park, Makati. Please contact JJ Yulo or Mike Yuson.

Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan Task Force Noah
Please drop off donations at Cervini Hall, Ateneo de Manila University.

TXTPower
TXTPower urges its members, supporters and friends abroad to make donations via Paypal.

One may also donate via SmartMoney (5577-5144-1866-7103) or G-Cash 0917-9751092. All donations coursed through TXTPower will be sent to the Philippine National Red Cross.

Victory
Victory Fort was the first to open its doors to families affected by Typhoon Ondoy last weekend.

Other Victory centers are now engaged in relief operations as well. For a complete list, please see this page.

World Vision Philippines
The donor service hotlines are:

•372 7777
•0917 866 4824
•Pam Millora: 0917 8623209
Donors and volunteers may go to World Vision Philippines headquarters at 389 Quezon Avenue corner West 6th St., Quezon City.

For cash and check donations, see the bank details as provided by Juan Miguel Lago on Twitter here and here.

Additional contact information:

•374 7618 to 28
•374 7660 (Fax)
•wv_phil@wvi.org
Schools, Colleges, and Universities
Assumption College San Lorenzo (Makati)
Please drop donations off at the guardhouse.

Assumption College Antipolo
Assumption Antipolo is also accepting donations. The school is located along Sumulong Highway, Antipolo, Rizal.

Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU)
The campus is now an open shelter and will take in refugees. Call 917 895 2792. Donations may also be dropped off at the MVP lobby.

Ateneo Grade School (AGS)
Rice, noodles, sardines, and drinking water are badly needed for Ondoy flood victims.

Please bring your donations to the AGS Social Involvement Office ASAP. Volunteers also needed to sort and pack food bags.

You may sign up at the GS Campus Ministry Office from 8am to 5pm on September 30 (Wednesday) and October 1 (Thursday).

Ateneo Law School
•899 7691 to 96
Donations and volunteers are needed. Ateneo Law School is located at 20 Rockwell Drive, Rockwell Center, Makati City.

De La Salle Santiago Zóbel (DLSZ)
•Angie Brazan: 09178597602
Starting September 28, 2009 (Monday), from 8AM to 6PM, DLSZ Typhoon Ondoy Relief Goods Collection Center will be accepting donations in kind. Monetary donations are also welcome. Please make cheques payable to De La Salle Zobel. Cash donations are discouraged.

Donors may pass through Gate 7 (Molave St.) to drop off donations at the Collection Center found at the Ground Floor of Gym 5 (Lower Grades area).

Teacher, staff, student, and parent volunteers to man the Collection Center are needed. Please text your contact details to Ms. Angie should you wish to volunteer.

De La Salle University Medical Center (DLSUMC)
•844 7832
•(046) 416 4531
Donations of canned goods, blankets, clothes, and water will be accepted. DLSUMC is located at Congressional Avenue, Dasmariñas, Cavite.

La Salle Greenhills
Donations can be dropped off at Gate 2 of the LSGH campus starting 9AM on September 27, 2009 (Sunday).

Per ageofbrillig, LSGH also has a booth for donations at Unimart in Greenhills Shopping Center.

Playschool International
Relief goods may be dropped off at Playschool International, 46 Ghana Street, Better Living, Parañaque. No cash, please.

Saint Pedro Poveda College
•Social Action Center: 631 8756 local 121
Poveda is now accepting donations of relief goods.

San Beda College of Arts and Sciences Student Council
The student council is accepting donations in cash or in kind. San Beda College is located at 638 Mendiola St., San Miguel, Manila.

Southville International School and Colleges
•825 6374
•820 8702
•820 8703
•829 1675
Southville is accepting donations of canned goods, packed noodles, clothes, drinking water, etc. at the Luxembourg Campus, which is located at Luxembourg St. corner Tropical Ave., BF Homes International, Las Piñas City.

University of Asia and the Pacific
UA&P is accepting donations. Donation booths are at Study Hall A.

You may also get in touch with Dae Lee, the Executive Vice President of the Student Exective Board at 0917 832 3533. Donations and volunteers are needed.

University of the Philippines Sigma Alpha Nu Sorority (Manila)
•0917 885 7188
•0917 665 9948
The sorority is collecting food, water and toiletries. You may drop them off at Unit 12-O One Adriatico Place, Ermita, Manila.

University of the Philippines Diliman College of Arts and Letters
•0929 6454102
CAL is accepting donations in cash and in kind.

University of the Philippines Diliman University Student Council
•Titus: 0917 800 1909
•Jose: 0927 305 6607
•Tin: 0915 490 6106
The council is is collecting food, clothing, and/or cash.

University of the Philippines Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Community Affairs
•928 2947
The office is accepting donations of relief goods.

Xavier School
Please bring donations to the Multipurpose Center (MPC), Xavier School, 64 Xavier Street, Greenhills, San Juan.

Commercial Establishments
7-11
All stores will serve as drop-off sites for donations.

Alabang Town Center
Please drop off donated goods with the concierge. For inquiries, please call 842 2782 or 772 1860.

ARANÁZ
Donations of any kind for Payatas communities affected by Ondoy will be accepted at ARANÁZ stores in Rockwell and Greenbelt.

Binalot (Greenbelt 1 branch)
•Tetchie Bundalian:0922 857 3277
Brainbeam Events, Inc.
•809 0244 (per this business listing)
Relief goods may be dropped off at the Brainbeam office: 2/F MB Aguirre Cornerhouse Building, 15 Pres. Ave corner Elizalde St., BF Homes, Parañaque (across the old Caltex in BF).

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
Canned goods, water, clothes, blankets, towels, medicine, and emergency supplies will be accepted in branches on behalf of the victims of Typhoon Ondoy starting September 28 (Monday) until Friday.

Fantastik! Manila
•729 0530
•501 7405
Please send donations to 5729 Calasanz St., Barangay Olympia, Makati City.

Jollibee
All stores will serve as drop-off sites for donations.

Luca
Donations can be sent via Luca branches in The Powerplant Mall, Shangri-La Mall, or Eastwood City.

Mail and More
Donations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy are accepted at all Mail and More outlets. The complete list of all outlets nationwide is available here.

Manor Superclub
Relief items will be accepted starting September 27 (Sunday) at 10AM. Manor Superclub is located in Eastwood City, Libis, Quezon City.

Ministop (Ibarra branch)
Food (non-perishable goods only), clothing, medicines, beds, pillows, blankets, and other emergency supplies can be dropped off at the Ministop store located on España cor. Blumentritt, Sampaloc, Manila.

Moonshine
Donations for victims in Marikina and Cainta can be sent to Moonshine in The Powerplant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati.

Myron’s Place
Myron’s Place in Greenbelt 5, Makati City, will accept relief goods.

Papemelroti
You may drop off relief goods, such as canned goods, milk, bottled water, and used clothes at any of the following Papemelroti branches:

•91 Roces Avenue
•Ali Mall Cubao
•SM City North EDSA
•SM Fairview
•SM Megamall
•Glorietta 3
•SM Centerpoint
•SM Southmall
No cash will be accepted.

Petron
All Petron gas stations will serve as collection points for relief goods.

The Powerplant Mall
Donations will be forwarded to the ABS-CBN Foundation. Please drop them off at the adminstration office, P1 level.

Redkimono
Redkimono will accept canned goods, bottled water, clothing for all ages, basic household items. You may find the contact information for the branch nearest you here.

Recreational Outdoor eXchange
•856 4638 to 39
•rox.cs@primergrp.com
ROX will accept relief goods for Typhoon Ondoy victims. The store address is B1 ROX Building, Bonifacio High Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.

Shell
All Shell gas stations will serve as collection points for relief goods.

SMART
Donations may be dropped off at the following SMART branches:

•SM Fairview
•SM North EDSA
•Gateway Mall Cubao
•Ali Mall Cubao
•SM Megamall
•SM Muntinlupa
Starbucks
All Starbucks stores are now accepting blankets, rice, bottled water, and instant noodles for the victims of Ondoy. These will be used to support The Ateneo Taskforce Ondoy.

TeamManila
TeamManila stores in Trinoma, Mall of Asia, Jupiter Bel-Air and Rockwell shall be accepting relief goods for distribution by Radio Veritas.

Total
All Total gas stations will serve as collection points for relief goods.

Unimart (Greenhills Shopping Center)
•721 0592
•721 1717
All cash and in-kind donations will be forwarded to La Salle Greenhills.

Vivere Suites
•771 7777
•771 0158
Vivere Suites will accept relief goods. The hotel is located at 5102 Bridgeway Ave., cor. Asean Drive, Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang, Muntinlupa City.

Private Citizens
Karen Ang
•0920 952 0900
Donations may be dropped off at 3 Kagandahan corner Kabutihan Streets, Kawilihan Village, Pasig. They will be forwarded to the Philippine National Red Cross.

Anne
•0915 285 4240
Relief goods from donors in southern Metro Manila are accepted.

Bianca
•412 3861
•0927 8436002
She will pick up donations from Greenhills/San Juan area. Donate food, medicine, or clothing.

Joseph Castillo
•0908 236 8999
•(032) 211 7111
He will send a 20-foot container to Manila and is looking for donations from Cebuanos. Please get in touch with him.

Kelly and Jodge
Relief goods will be accepted at Colonade Residences, Legaspi St. corner C. Palanca St., Makati City.

RJ Ledesma and friends
•0917-8131601
Please call to have your donations (relief goods only) picked up.

Gerald Lim and friends
•0918 979 1229
•0917 797 4098
•0932 699 1794
Donations on wheels! If you have donations to give, but no means of transport, please get in touch.

Colleen Manabat (Heartrio Prints)
She will accept donations of bottled water, canned goods, blankets, clothes, medicines from 9 AM to 6PM. Please drop them off at Stall 2, MGY Building, 2444 Sto. Entierro St., Sto. Cristo, Angeles City. She will forward the donations to Sagip Kapamilya (ABS-CBN Foundation).

Miriam Quiambao
Donations may be dropped off starting September 28 (Monday) at One Orchard Road Building in Eastwood City, Libis, Quezon City. Send a message via Twitter for more details.

Erica Paredes
•0917 474 1930
Donate bread, packed juice, sandwich fillings, and the like. You can help her make them, deliver your own sandwiches to her house, or help her distribute. Call for more details.

Omel Santos
•501 7405
•729 0530
Drop off donations at 5729 Calasanz St., Barangay Olympia, Makati City or call for pick up.

An Xiao
Artist An Xiao has set up a Kickstarter account to make it easy for anyone with an Amazon account to make a donation. She hopes to raise U.S.$500 by September 30 (Wednesday), 8:49AM EDT.

Vivere Suites 5102 Ridgeway Avenue, Fil-Invest Corporate City, Alabang, Muntinlupa City. Contact (+632-7717777) for inquiries or drop off at concierge area. Will accept relief goods.

Hello Schoolgirl (Korea, 2008)

2009-09-16T10:41:00.006+08:00

Can a film really be faulted for aiming to be beautiful?

Hello Schoolgirl (순정만화) is often blindingly so. The soft afternoon flares, the careful attention to fixing a flickering light bulb, the aerosol snow that melts a heart one floor down and later fills a lonely room; luminously lit and lilting moments that distract from the inelegant motions of lovers with significant age disparity.

Yeon-woo (Yoo Ji-tae) is a polite, 30-year old civil servant who falls for 17-year old high school student Soo-yeung (Lee Yeon-hee). Soo-yeung finds the doting, older man adorable and eventually yearns to take their relationship to a higher level. Over dinner, she blurts out that she never wants to grow up because all the adults in her life have turned into crouching cowards.

Director Ryu Jeong-ha approaches the film as an adult, creating beauty of out self-control, and yes, cowardice.

Yoo Ji-tae's Yeon-woo is what most of us have become in our thirties: complacent, easily pleased with kindness, and comfortable with his place in the society. Pleasures are enjoyed in moderation; love happens when it happens, and if it is from a distance, then so be it. There is no grand unraveling of the character. A joyfully quite ride on a bicycle, driven by Yoo Ji-tae's knack for simmering characterization, becomes the glorious race to the sunset. It's not much, but when was the last time you deliberately made time to look around around and like where you are? (Thank you, The Sundays.)

Exactly.

The other story switches the perspective: Yeon-woo's new colleague, Sook (Kang In), falls for a mysterious older woman, Kwon Ha-kyeong, who always carries an old film camera around. She enjoys the company of Sook, but she fears the coincidences that are too similar with her previous relationship. In contrast, this plot takes delight in the silliness that a youg man is willing to go through for courtship; the absence of pride in the name of love. Super Junior's Kang In (insert inaudible squeal) takes his popular backstage antics to film, making the rough, fumbling Sook frighteningly relatable.

I'm not familiar with the original webcomic by Kang Full, but Hello Schoolgirl is too beautiful for a controversial subject matter. Maybe that is the intention. The hand held cam show the underlying turmoil, but the surface has an untouchable sheen, celebrating the love, but burying the heartache.

Visit Hello Schoolgirl at Han Cinema.

Rating: 3.5

StSA: Love of Siam to be released on Region 1 DVD

2009-08-28T12:01:00.006+08:00

Thanks to Kevin for leaving a comment about the Region 1 DVD release of Love of Siam on my review of the film (which was written immediately after a viewing of the Director's Cut thus the emotional rambling).

A confession, Love of Siam is responsible for my exponentially growing love for Thai cinema. Equally devastating and buoyant, it is a deliberate drama about different aspects of love: familial, romantic, and to an extent, ascetic.

It is also one of the best depictions, if not the most emotionally accurate portrayal, of teen homosexuality. But this seems to have boxed the film into a convenient niche, which I think is a damn shame. The Region 1 DVD will be released by Strand Releasing, which is also distributing Bangkok Love Story, and Lino Brocka's Macho Dancer among others. It's the Theatrical Cut, and not the Director's Cut, that will be released. But I'm not complaining.

The Taiwan Special Edition English-subtitled release comes short in providing good subtitles. Grammatical errors, misspelled names; my copy also had a problem with the subtitle timing. A few lines flashed on the screen ahead of the dialogue and made it quite confusing: Why would Mew be asking Tong if he had already taken a bath? (A line that was supposed to be Sunee's, Tong's mom.) Kevin also pointed out an aspect ratio problem, which totally went over my head.

But it does provide a few extras for fans of the of the movie and the stars. Pchy Witwisit Hiranyawongkul's visit to Taiwan had no subtitles so I didn't get much of what was going on. The deleted scenes with the director's commentary have decent subs. Then there's the August Band mini-concert in Bangkok, in between Siam Discovery and Siam Center, which I quite liked.

Here's hoping Love of Siam sells well so we could have other Thai dramas on Region 1 DVD. It's a welcome glimmer of hope for us Thai cinema fans.

Dorm (Thailand, 2006)

2009-08-23T15:18:00.000+08:00

The kicked-up dirt, the caked mud on my leather shoes, and my rag-tag group---the overweight bully, the bespectacled math genius, the giggly volleyball players, the quiet Catholic that was me when I was in grade school---conquered after-school boredom with trips to dark corridors and empty classrooms. If we were feeling more daring than usual, we would go to the garden behind a Gothic, metal church where it was said the school's priests were buried. One time, we did see a ghostly figure, a thin old man who had ashen-gray skin, walking aimlessly around the garden. My friends screamed and ran, stumbling on rocks and shrubs. I was rooted to the ground. Because he had seen me. I remember my knees felt like buckling but I stood firm as the old man walked toward me. When he was less than a few feet away, he called out to me, "Hijo! Have you seen my nail cutter?" I shook my head, and suddenly ran away. I never told my friends that the old man was an almost senile priest.

Dorm (Dek Hor/เด็กหอ) is magical and horrifying this way. Horror with wide-eyed wonder, the kind that is an adventure shared with friends. Director Songyos Sugmakanan is a fantastic storyteller and starts the film with boyhood nostalgia quite similar to his early work along with other directors, Fan Chan, and Japanese thriller 20th Century Boys. Chatree (Charlie Trairat, also the lead of Fan Chan) is plucked from everything familiar and is sent to a boarding school where he is bullied by a gang of students. Songyos cloaks the dormitory in a mossy palette, giving it a more sinister, swampy feel as strange things begin to happen at night.

The frights are simple but ingeniously executed, and often aims to be evocative of childhood fears. The trips to the bathroom with every shadow stretched like clawed hands, the howling dogs, the school disciplinarian we imagined to be the devil incarnate (played delicately tethering to insanity by Thai veteran actress Chintara Sukapatana), the lock that seems to click into place by itself, unearthed forgotten jitters. Songyos doesn't aspire for grand. He is after our memory, and once the connection has been established, disbelief goes into suspended animation. I was a boy again wandering around corridors.

Horror turns to horrifying heartbreak when Chatree befriends Vichien (Michael Sirachuch Chientaworn), another loner who turns out to be a ghost. The hints were pretty obvious but the reveal was still a surprise, a reveal that was so unexpected and so refreshingly original that I gasped at both the anticipated plot twist and the surprising loneliness it meant.

Many would argue that Dorm isn't really a horror flick. Technically, it is. Horror in fiction is a disturbance in the human experience by supernatural forces. As a film, it does not go for the usual out-for-vengeance ghost with creaking bones. It may not frighten but it does horrify---seeing a friend die and decay is horrifying. Alienation, guilt, being unloved, more so.

With Dorm, Songyos attacks an old, familiar genre with such brutal grace that it is at once too beautiful and too painful to watch.

Rating: 5

Dorm (Dek Hor/เด็กหอ)
Directed by Songyos Sugmakanan (Fan Chan/Hormones)
Starring Charlie Trairat (Fan Chan/Hormones), Michael Sirachuch Chientaworn (Hormones), Chintara Sukapatana

Alternate poster to Buppah Rahtree 3.2

2009-08-18T10:41:00.003+08:00

Not really. But I thought this was very witty and cute. Fits the horror-comedy feel of the film.

Dear Galileo (Thailand, 2009)

2009-08-16T11:42:00.007+08:00

Dear Galileo,

Betcha never imagined while musing about the motions of bodies that you would centuries later inspire a film about two silly girls who blindly embark on a journey to the other side of the(ir) world with only your theory (of objects falling in uniform acceleration independent of their masses) and a couple of rocks to put that theory into a test to guide them through life-changing decisions.

Consequently, there is a lot of falling in this movie. It begins with best friends Noon (Jarinporn Joonkiat) and Cherry (Chutima Theepanarth) bungee jumping off a bridge to seal their no-fear pact to set off for Europe; Noon hopes to get over a heartbreak, and the other wants to prove her school's decision to expel her wrong. The girls agree to tour and work across Europe indefinitely, and this is where the film takes a familiar turn, at least when it comes to Philippine cinema.

We actually have coined a name for illegal immigrants/workers: TNT or tago ng tago (literally, in English, err, hide and hide), which just goes to show how "ordinary" this has become to the Filipino experience. The similarities of practice---the girls working in restaurants, the running from migration officers, the street-smartness of saving up cash sometimes by cheating or in the movie's case, slipping through the subway turnstile---made me smile. And a little sad.

What makes this film different though is the light-heartedness, the teen-flickness of treatment. This is not some gritty drama about illegal immigrant workers; it's a winsome fairytale that sometimes gets a little too precious. In the Paris subway, Noon hears a dark, handsome stranger speaking in Thai and stalks him. It turns out that the guy, Pisit, played by Ray MacDonald with refreshingly relaxed (read: adult) cynicism, has been living in Paris for quite some time and is staying in a commune with other immigrants and artists. But it's all very wholesome, kiddies.

Joonkiati and MacDonald have a delightful chemistry (though I'm a little uncomfortable with age gap) and are responsible for one of the genuinely warm moments of the film: in a sea of a busy crowd, Noon and Pisit raise placards with questions, written in Thai, that read Raise your hands if you can read this, and my favorite Raise your hands if you miss home. A few passersby raise their hands shyly, some more enthusiatically, all very naturally that I have a feeling that the scene was not staged.

The film is as saccharine as it sounds and mostly gets by with charm and giggling but director Nithiwat Tharatorn has an incandescent eye for capturing the overwhelming grandness and melancholy of Europe's old cities and architecture. His camerawork is also fascinating. His hand held shots has fierce immediacy that gets you into the heat of the panic, especially that bit in the subway where the camera follows the girls running from the police, shaky and stumbling, then blinding daylight. It left me breathless. And it's a sign that Thanatorn can make a great movie if he really puts his mind, and camera, to it.

So, dear, dear Galileo, your theory turned out to be simplified metaphor on the gravity of consequences that was barely carried through until the end of the film but you will be glad to hear that, from the sighs and gleeful laughter that filled the cinema, you're now quite popular with the kids and I'm quite certain that we'll be seeing girls all across Bangkok invoking your guidance and dropping stones off bridges.

In motion,
T.

Rating: 3/5

Dear Galileo (Nee Tam Galileo/หนีตามกาลิเลโอ)
Directed by Nithiwat Tharatorn (Fan Chan, Seasons Change)
Starring Pom Chutima Theepanarth (Hormones), Toey Jarinporn Joonkiat, Ray MacDonald (Fun Bar Karaoke)

Itenerary

2009-07-30T21:43:00.007+08:00

Blog holiday, Aha! Aha!
Lots of movies to catch, good times yeah?
Will be back in a week.

Hansel and Gretel (Korea, 2007)

2009-07-29T14:25:00.005+08:00

Creepy can be gorgeously dense. The house that traps adults and the forest that stands guard are thick with swamp-green shadows and murmuring. Hansel and Gretel (헨젤과 그레텔) is a visual feast of horrors and sweets; details, details, details make your eyes dart from one corner of the room to the other. Toys, gems, cupcakes, storybooks, that robot-printed couch that I would like to have, silhouettes on walls, and bunnies, lots and lots of bunnies. (And what's with all the carrots, what do they need such good eyesight for anyway? It must be bunnies!---Thank you Joss Whedon, and Anya, for now making me forever suspicious of rabbits.) The candied claustrophobia swells halfway into the movie when director Lim Pil-Seong shows us grandly the chasm that separates fantasy and reality.

Creepy can be cute. Very cute. Jin Ji-Hee is a precocious child actress who can go from nice to scary to weepy in a snap, but it is her voice that sends the tingle down my spine. Low and grainy, it is an otherworldly, underworldly sound. Hansel and Gretel plays at opposites with utter delight. The malicious eyes above the gap-toothed grin, the children toying with the adults, it reverses the roles in the grim fairytale. Three children who never age lure adults into their house and "audition" them to be their parents. Eun-soo (Cheon Jeong-myeong) crashes his car while arguing with his pregnant girlfriend over the phone. When he regains consciousness, he sees a girl in a red riding hood who leads him to her house where he can rest for the night. Eun-soo meets the other two children and the parents who seem shaken up. The following morning, Eun-soo sets for home but discovers that he couldn't get out of the forest's veiny grasp. The parents disappear. A new couple arrives.

Creepy can be unnerving. The film takes a chilling turn with the arrival of a religious fanatic who is too touchy with girls. The bad kind of touchy. The roles are once again reversed; morals shatter whatever was fantastical and macabre. Lim Pil-Seong inserts the back story of the children as the movie reaches its climax. The exposition runs a little longer than it should, taking some much needed tension away from the final act. The flashback was also quite difficult to watch---I had to look away a couple of times because, even if I quite like watching torture porn, I couldn't stomach watching a man beat a child lifeless.

Hansel and Gretel starts strong and keeps you enthralled until the resolution awkwardly rolls out, which I found a little too...X-men meets Fables. Yes, the mutants and the Vertigo comic, with the telekinesis and the power of the written word. Still, it's a movie that's easy to get lost in. Beguiling, rich like icing, and cruel like the real world.

Rating: 3.5

Hansel and Gretel (Hen-jel-gwa Geu-re-tel)
Directed by Lim Pil-Seong (Antarctic Journal)
Starring Cheon Jeong-myeong (The Aggressives), Eun Won-jae (Natural City), Sim Eun-kyung (Living Death), Jin Ji-hee (Cello), Park Hee-son (Love Talk)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

2009-07-20T13:42:00.008+08:00

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is stubbornly un-Hollywood. It is talky, quite presumptuous (characters, new ones and vaguely familiar ones, walk in and out without much less of an introduction), and the CGI, except for the wonder-filled action sequence at the opening, is mostly used for tone. TONE.

Coming from the mildly amusing but numbingly dull CGasm of Transformers 2, the new Potter film is like a breath of fresh air, but a chilling one at that. Director David Yates' palate remains saturated casting a more dream-like quality---a filmy hazyness, which usually means your eyes are glassy from smoking pot or you're straddling between waking and sleep---a nod to Alfonso Cuaron's atmospheric Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. There is always something sinister lurking behind the fog that envelopes the scenery, making the relationships more precious than they are.

And relationships is what the Half-Blood Prince is all about.

SPOILERISH NOW.

Harry and Dumbledore's have been handed the Luke Skywalker-Obi Wan Kenobi fate, albeit with quiet tenderness: Dumbledore lays a protective hand over Harry's chest, asking him to step back and hide during the movie's finale; Harry laying a hand over Dumbledore's still chest.

Under the stormy skies of Hogwarts, Ron, Hermione, Harry and Ginny go through the motions of their own stormy, passive-aggressive teenage love affairs. Yates reminds us that even with the impending gloom-and-doomyness, we are still watching kids who yearn and are quite desperate for some normalcy: love, popularity, a good laugh. I did not find the flirtation and the awkward confessions trivial at all; the darkness of the film only heightened every lovelorn sigh.

More calamitous than the love potion mix-up is Draco's internal conflict. Written as a bratty villain all through out the series, Draco finally went beyond playground bullying and faced the most difficult choice that anyone ever has to make in the Potter-verse. In the end, he couldn't muster the courage, or the malice, to kill Dumbledore. Snape, bound by the Unbreakable Vow made with Draco's mum, took Draco's place as murderer of Hogwarts' headmaster.

SPOILERISH NO MORE.

I read the book years ago and I remember it being quickly paced. Yates' deliberate pacing may turn-off some viewers who are used to blockbusterish hit-and-run storytelling but it does have its merits. Instead of the clunky and chunky expositions of the book, we get a series of well-plotted reveals that build up. The mood, if a little monotonous, is also consistent all through out and successfully digs its grimy claws into one's psyche. There's that Empire Strikes Back heaviness that is quite difficult to shake off, and the movie's coda shows no effort in clearing the skies.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban still is the best installment but Half-Blood Prince comes a close second, with love among the ruins as the greatest magic of them all.

Rating: 3.5

The Film Club: A Memoir (Twelve, 2008)

2009-07-16T12:44:00.001+08:00

"I want you to watch three movies a week with me. I pick them. It's the only education you're going to get."

After a series of conversations with friends on "the art" of watching movies, I come across The Film Club, a memoir by film critic and writer David Gilmour. He chronicles the three years he spent with his son, who dropped out of school, watching movies three times a week. Parenting and films make a combination that's too ideal, too sappy at least to a cynical eye---no, thankfully not a sequel to Tuesdays With Morrie---but David's candid prose shows it as it is, a father's love is awkward, and an awkward, second-guessing kind of love is more fascinating only because it is all too familiar. It's what great movies are about; it's why we stare at the ceiling on sleepless night. The father-son relationship that David draws at the beginning is naturally strange and detached, with nothing much in common, no actual emotional anchor, drifting rudderless. And then the movies arrive.

The film club begins with Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows. David explains, "I figured it was a good way to slide into European art films, which I knew were going to bore him until he learned how to watch them. It's like learning a variation on regular grammar." I loved the thought process that went behind every film he showed his son, Jesse.

If love is a mixtape, then David carefully prepared his with films; movies that became dialogues on morality and romance, cinematography that evoked buried regrets, acting tics that magnified the meaning of gestures, and plots that hinted at possible futures. Ranging from the thoughtful violence of Akira Kurosawa's Ran to the self-destructive fireworks of the documentary Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry, from the talky Annie Hall to the quiet musing of Chungking Express, Jesse was exposed to varying degrees of artistry and failures, of crucial movements in film history as well as guilty pleasures that resonated with sheer entertainment above vision or message.

The memoir's most urgent pleasure comes from David's contagious love for cinema and his critical eye that taught Jesse, and the readers of the memoir as well, how to deconstruct a scene or read meaning in frame compositions without sounding stiff (like I just did) and hifalutin. "Watch out for this scene," David usually goes and as fan of movies myself, I had to dig out dusty VHS tapes or DVDs so I could go along for the ride down Film 101. The writing is irresistible this way.

But at its heart, The Film Club is about a father who is learning to let go of his son, and a son finally realizing his place in the scheme of things turbulent and heartbreaking. The movies in between gave David and Jesse a common ground---a bubble, so to speak---where they could figure out what to do next together. The figuring out part turned out to be the best part in both their lives.

I could have finished the book in one sitting but this is the type to savor. And I assure you, you'll probably be popping Kurosawa's Ran or may be even Verhoeven's Showgirls in your player anytime soon.

Rating: 4

Here they are, the Gilmour Boys.

Antique (Korea, 2008)

2009-07-08T13:46:00.004+08:00

Sweet, light, dusted with quirk and coated with candy cane colors, Antique is a gentle reminder that life is meant to be devoured, bitter chunks and all.

Director Min Gyoo-dong who directed one of the more intriguing Korean high school horror films Memento Mori---where a painful sexual awakening comes face to face with both social monster and vengeful ghost---continues his exploration of gender by adapting popular Japanese manga Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga.

Gone are the gothic and heavy with foreboding doom claustrophobia of Memento Mori. Antique, if anything, glows. It glows by contrast: trauma versus joy, sweet versus bitter, while delicious colors overlap and swirl to the riff of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with a sinister undertone.

The movie opens with an awkward confession, Min Sun-Woo (Kim Jae-Wook) admits with much difficulty his liking for Kim Jin-Hyuk (Joo Ji-Hoon). Jin-Hyuk more than turns Sun-Woo down, he smashes a cake on Sun-Woo's face while yelling his disgust.

Years later, Jin-Hyuk puts up a patisserie called Antique and hires Sun-Woo to be his pastry chef. The rest of his staff, a retired boxing champ and Jin-Hyuk's childhood friend and bodyguard---are all bewildered why he opened Antique when cakes in particular make him vomit. For those who haven't read the manga or haven't seen the Japanese series, the reveal is a surprise, one that takes the movie to a darker place, which is still sprinkled with the fantastic: shadow hands that choke manifest a memory that was too traumatizing for Jin-Hyuk to remember.

After Jin-Hyuk rejected Sun-Woo in high school, Sun-Woo has become the opposite of his stuttering past: a Prada-snug love magnet that no man, gay or straight, could resist. Except, of course, for Jin-Hyuk.

Homosexuality is played with flirtatious sweetness all through out with a dash of magic. It's a refreshing approach with no hint of irony and wonderfully free of guilt or tragedy. Joo Ji-Hoon of Princess Hours sheds his refined affectation for the hot-tempered Jin-Hyuk. His comedic timing is ruggedly perfect; the consuming burden of pretending to be happy for his staff and his family never leaves his eyes. (Ji-Hoon was recently convicted of illegal drug use. He was given a suspended jail term and community service. More information about this here.) Kim Jae-Wook of Coffee Prince plays Sun-woo with refinement and grace, and delightfully counters Ji-Hoon's brusque, manly manners with subtle but tender gestures.

Musical numbers, comedy, sexual tension, murder, and cakes, lots and lots of cakes. Antique can be faulted for juggling too many quirks and styles, but it is Min Gyu-dong's unexpected visual hiccups---women in the flour, a boxing ring covered with flowers, a fist fight with a shadow creature---that makes this film explosively sensual while propelling the mystery and plot. It's definitely tricky but Gyu-dong's instincts are spot on. In Park Chan-Wook's I'm a Cyborg but That's OK, the absurd, hallucinatory vignettes often distract from the storytelling and made the mundane more mundane; cool ideas that accidentally became the movie. Here, it is played to heighten the sensation, to make senses more tangible: Seduction in the women rolling in the powdery sugar, Fear in the drawer that sprung out of a child's chest.

Above the din of ecstatic imagination and your own grumbling stomach---have a slice of cake or ice cream within reach, it will come in handy---Antique's coda casually serves a palatable food for thought: Take the sweet with the bitter, the acidic, the spice but never forget the icing on top.

Rating: 5

ANTIQUE 서양골동양과자점 앤티크
Directed by Min Gyu-Dong
Starring Joo Ji-Hoon, Kim Jae-Wook, Yoo Ah-In, Choi Ji-Ho

Visit Hancinema for more Antique goodness. Below is Love is by FT Island MV from Antique.

Requiems and cake

2009-07-06T12:38:00.001+08:00

Menggay had a face like a doll; those Drew Barrymore eyes could easily light up even the most dreadful study groups, usually Natural Science 1 or Social Science, geology and philosophers. She was very easy to get along with, and she was one of those friends in college I don't remember being introduced to because we had shared too many stories, notes, and giggles. She passed away two months ago from complications during child birth. The baby survived.

GeneticFreak, or Addison was one of the fierce posters over in Comic Kolektor Philippines. It was a forum that I, along with 3 other comic book geeks, put up to build a community of comic book readers in the Philippines. Addie was old school and he knew his stuff. Arguing with him over writers, artists and movies was always fun because his point of view never waivered. He loved The Wrestler to bits and wanted Mickey Rourke to win Best Actor. He passed away last Sunday due to pancreatitis.

Just this morning, W sent me a text message about a friend's husband's passing.

I was watching the Korean movie Antique last night with W. It's a fun film with lots of quirks. It's about a man who put up a patisserie even if cakes make him vomit. It's about varying degrees of love and the varying distances we go to to forget. It's about how we cover the bitter with the sweet, and make joyous moments, because they are so few and far between, even sweeter by indulging our sweet tooth.

It was around 1 a.m. when I sneaked out to the kitchen and devoured a chocolate truffle ice cream. Bitter. Sweet. And grateful.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008)

2009-06-29T13:41:00.011+08:00

Because the status was not quo, Joss Whedon, in the middle of the WGA strike last year proved the studio yuppie scum wrong, that, no, money does not make a show brilliant, and that, yes, writers do. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog could very well be the best single episode TV show that wasn't on TV. A 43-minute musical initially produced exclusively for Internet distribution, Joss Whedon self-produced, directed and composed the music with the help of brothers Zack and Jed Whedon and actress Maurissa Tancharoen.

With my freeze ray I will stop the world,

With my freeze ray I will find the time to find the words to

Tell you how how you make make me feel...
- Dr. Horrible

Dr. Horrible, played with geek-buckling precision by Neil Patrick Harris, is a wannabe super villain who video blogs, replies to sent-in emails, and reveals his master plan to rule the world and win over laundromat girl of his dreams Penny (Felicia Day who played the potential and later on slayer Vi in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) through songs. When he receives a response to his application from the Evil League of Evil, he sets to motion his plan to steal the final ingredient to make his freeze ray work---a freeze ray that would freeze time and stop the pain so he could finally confess his love. Aww.

Much like everything else in the Whedonverse, things don't go according to plan. Horrible was successful in stealing the wonderflonium but he also accidentally introduced Captain Hammer (wonderfully hammy Nathan Fillon), his nemesis, the Superman to his Brainiac, to Penny.

The Buffy musical Once More, with Feeling, episode six of the gloomy sixth season is arguably the show's finest hour; I am obviously biased since I named this blog after Buffy's confessional number. A demon descends upon Sunnydale and binds the town and its inhabitants to a spell that made everyone sing and dance...to death. Best kept secrets were sung out loud, silly, oftentimes funny, and ultimately existential. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a more typical musical with songs for soliloquy. The songs this time around are catchier (but shorter, damn!) and the counterpoint vocals of Harris and Day in the exceptional My Eyes---which chronicles a downfall and a falling for someone, helplessly getting smitten beside helplessly fulfilling an evil destiny---packs a contrasting emotional punch that celebrated musical-movies Dreamgirls, Rent or Chicago can only dream of, err, packing.

The musical format keeps things whimsical, a sonic bubble that seemingly contained the plot in comic booky fantasy fulfillment territory. But this is no doubt a Joss Whedon story and if there's one thing that he is a genius at it's the slap-in-the-face, punch-in-the-nose, kick-in-the-shin, drive-a-stake-through-the-heart ending; Whedon cruelly reveals his last card just when you feel the worst has happened.

The last 3 seconds of Dr. Horrible has rightfully earned a degree in Horribleness; a silence and a blank stare that continues to haunt me.

I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s filled with filth and lies
but it’s plain to see evil inside of me
is on the rise.
- Dr. Horrible

Fate versus free will seems to be a constant in the Whedonverse. Buffy accepted hers (fate) even if it meant a short lifespan; Angel went against his monstrous nature (free will) but only because he rebelled against his vampire fate.

Dr. Horrible at the start was obviously not meant for supervillainy. He declined a grudge match with Johnny Snow because there were children at a park and his ultimate secret weapon's main purpose was to stop time for confession's sake. Even when he was one click away from killing Captain Hammer, he hesitated.

It was crazy random happenstance.

It seems like no matter what he did, Horrible was destined to join the Evil League of Evil. It was his fate to be a villain. Whedon's characters continue to be caught in situations that dictate their roles in the world. He seems to be saying that there is no real good or evil; it's the circumstances that make us, that ultimately define us.

Hero. Villain. Sidekick. Victim. We are everyone at one point in our lives. It's beyond our hands.

Rating: 5

Get Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog here.
The commentary is equally sing-alongy.

Thaw your cold hearts with this preview.

Independencia (Philippines, 2009)

2009-06-18T01:46:00.004+08:00

Independencia plays like Cocteau Twins' Blue Bell Knoll, form and pattern are forefront while the rest---actors, dialogue, chickens---drift like ambient noise, the swirling layers of synthesizers if you will that wall the experience within the confines of cinema. Independencia aims to capture the cinematic style of the period it depicts, here, the 35 mm films shot entirely in sound stages during the American occupation in the 1900s.

Free Form: A short rambling on history and why Jose Nepomuceno and co. are probably throwing a party in filmmaker heaven

The first picture with sound reached the Philippines in 1910, and in 1912, New York and Hollywood film companies started putting up offices in Manila to distribute films. The lukewarm reception led two American entrepreneurs to make a film about Jose Rizal's execution. With the curiosity of the Filipino audience piqued, Jose Nepomuceno produced the first Filipino movie, Dalagang Bukid, in 1919, which was based on a highly popular zarzuela piece by Hermogenes Ilagan and Leon Ignacio.

The U.S. colonial government then had already been using films for propaganda (in the guise of education and information dissemination) and locally-produced films---early film producers included American businessmen and local politicians---were only allowed to tackle "safe" issues of reconciliation among classes, religiosity and repentance, themes that prevailed in zarzuelas and theater. Ironically, the people who encouraged the Filipino film industry to grow were also the same people who limited its growth by setting rigid rules on expression.

The 35 mm film was a haunting reminder of our colonial past.

Independencia took that format, and the history that came along with it, and squashed the years of silence that the 35 mm format represented. Premiering in the Philippines on Independence Day makes the realization even more poignant.

I have only seen Japanese World War II propaganda films shot in 35 mm (courtesy of the Filipinas Heritage Library) but I could deduct that director Raya Martin celebrated and challenged both format and form. Independencia is stunning, a black and white magic eye that draws you with hypnotic visuals---look closely and details surface. And just as you get used to the shadowy reverie, Martin slaps you with sex and that clever bit of dialogue spoken to the audience. Apichatpongian in the dreamy texture of the jungle, and in the reveal of the darker side of nature reminescent of the tiger shaman in Tropical Malady, what Independencia lacks in momentum it makes up for with seductive mystery.

Raya Martin, whether consciously or not, has handed the 35 mm film back to the hands of early film makers Julian Manansala, Nepumoceno and everyone else who attempted to say something, say anything, but weren't given the chance to capture it on film. Pretty heroic stuff in my book.

Prisoners of Pattern: Thoreau and why that Robots in Disguise song never left my head.

A mother and son run to the woods to live deliberately, to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. The struggle for independence from the American colonial government is mere context to a romantic existential exploration of the absurdity of the concept of freedom. The family (along with the viewers) is plucked from everything familiar and is thrown into a disorienting tangle of trees, shrubs and rivers where they thrive in an illusion of freedom---the jungle itself is a prison of patterns and cycles, the world outside it more so.

Martin seems to say that freedom is not liberum arbitium where we can do as we please even if we are isolated from the rest of society and where values are insignificant to decisions made. In the jungle, there are no societal norms existing, but the values the family holds dear from folklore to, yes, their concept of freedom, is immutable, cultivated from the society of which they were a part of.

The crucial decision that the child makes at the end was dictated by the values he learned from his brief life with his parents.

Could our own values restrict our freedom? (Yes. Hello, Board of Censors.) Or does it dictate what we are free to do? Freedom and responsibility seem to be entwined; there is no freedom from being responsible for one's action. It's a cycle.

Keep moving, keep doing, keep breathing, stay living. Robots in Disguise's Cycle Song in a loop in my head while I am writing this. The mechanical absurdity of patterns, the "unfairness" of the world. Independencia is unabashedly arthouse in form but its thoughtful encounter with the absurd, whether mustached or veined leaf, is all too candidly angsty.

And just because I am free to declare this: It is fucking brilliant.

Rating: 5

Independencia (2009) Directed by Raya Martin
Produced by Arleen Cuevas
Starring Tetchie Agbayani, Sid Lucero, Assunta de Rossi, Mika Aguilos

Links consulted on history of Philippine cinema:

History of Philippine Cinema by Arsenio Boots Bautista via National Commission for Culture and the Arts
Philippine Journeys: History of Philippine Cinema

Independence Day Viewing: Sabongero and Independencia premiere

2009-06-12T01:40:00.003+08:00

Happy Independence Day, Philippines!

62nd Cannes International Film Festival entries Sabongero, directed by Janice Perez, Official Selection to the Short Film Corner, and Raya Martin's Independencia, an entry in Un Certain Regard, will premiere later today at the 14th French Film Festival, Shang Cineplex 3. Serbis by this year's Cannes Best Director Brillante Mendoza will also be shown...Kinatay won't be having its premiere, unfortunately, and this article gives us a clue why.

Yay, freedom! The irony is lost on the Board of Censors, obviously.

Here's the screening schedule for the remaining three days of the festival:

June 12, Friday
Manong Maong and Anino - 12:30 p.m.
Sabongero - 3:00 p.m.
Serbis - 5:30 p.m.
Independencia - 8:00 p.m.

June 13, Saturday
Ridicule - 12:30 p.m.
Dix-Sept Fois Cecile Cassard - 3:00 p.m.
L ‘Esquive - 5:30 p.m.
Flandres - 8:00 p.m.

June 14, Sunday
Un Secret - 12:30pm
Jean de la Fontaine - 3:00 p.m.
Les Quatre Cent Coups - 5:30 p.m.
Van Gogh - 8:00 p.m.

Kita-kits!

Fan Chan (Thailand, 2003)

2009-06-05T18:57:00.002+08:00

Rating: 4

Aww escapes your lips, unaware like a sigh, and there's no fighting it. Fan Chan (แฟนฉัน) disarms with its sharp eye for gauzy details making the childhood nostalgia surface like a rubber ball bobbing up and down, foolishly playful among the debris of adult apprehension. You want to stay here in the land of rubber bands and Gumamela soups where freedom's just another word for kung fu role play.

Many have attempted to bottle childhood but have done so by skipping the dirt that a bicycle kicks up or the sourness of the sweat. Some mistake melodrama for meaning and riddle the innocence with tragic awakenings. But there is no concern for meaning when school is out and you're 8 years old and about to dive into a river butt naked.

Fan Chan is cleverly simple: a young man, Jeab, learns about the wedding of Noi Nah, a childhood friend---a playground sweetheart---and goes back to their last weeks together before they separated ways. The six young screenwriters/directors who debut with this film have the riffs of memory perfected; a Thai pop song is the chirpy time machine to a small town in Thailand in the 1980s. Jeab (Charlie Trairat) and Noi Nah (Focus Jirakul) have been friends since birth, have fathers who are rival barbers and mothers who are best friends. Jeab wakes up late for school everyday, and everyday, Jeab and his father would chase the bus on a bike midway to school. On the bus, he meets an all-boy gang led by the school bully Jack (Chaleumpol Tikumpornteerawong) who constantly poked fun at Jeab and Noi Nah's closeness. Boys will be boys and Jeab was made to choose between playing Chinese Garter (or rubber band jump-rope according to Wikipedia) with Noi Nah or foot ball with Jack and his gang.

The film's English title, My Girl, is quite a turn-off because it reminded me of that Home Alone kid's movie of the same title, the one where it was all cuddly cute until he died. From bee stings, thank you very much. Fan Chan in contrast is unsentimental, which I think is a very, very brave move. Bittersweet is as far as it goes, that accidentally romantic rubber band bit at the end is quite a heartbreaker but as the grown up Jeab confesses, he got over it quickly...why, hello kite.

I am amazed at the similarity of experience; I played the same rubber band games and "brewed" the same nasty flower stew---I even tried the slimy soup at one point, not at all good--- and in a palpable way I was recollecting my own sweat-stained childhood down the tiny but heavily crowded streets of Sampaloc, Manila. Fan Chan is not about the plot, it is a celebration of days running wild with laughter, of the kind of recklessness that only comes with innocence. It deliberately meanders around endless afternoons of playing and bruising (much like My Neighbor Totoro's wide-eyed treks into the forest). And discovering new ways to have fun which, really, childhood is all about.

Minutes after the movie had finished, I began to wonder when I started fearing falling down flat on my face When did making mistakes stop being fun, when did letting go become so difficult?

Look everybody, no hands!

A song from the Fan Chan OST. Technicolor synth-pop, aw yeah.

รักคือฝันไป - Ost.fanchan

Kaleldo (Philippines, 2006)

2009-06-01T18:55:00.006+08:00

Directed by Brillante Mendoza
Starring Johnny Delgado, Cherry Pie Picache, Angel Aquino, Juliana Palermo, Criselda Volks, Alan Paule

Rating: 4

Where Pampanga in Brillante Mendoza's first full-length feature, Masahista, is parched and metallic in its visual aftertaste, here in Kaleldo, it is magic realistic, the landscape and the elements anchored to the passion and secrets of three women. Set ten years after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo which buried the province of Pampanga under lahar, Kaleldo (Summer Heat) follows the lives of sisters Jesusa (Picache), Lourdes (Aquino) and Grace (Palermo) under the watchful eyes of patriarch Mang Rudy (Delgado) who is struggling to revive the family's woodcarving business. The names of the sisters establish the kind of religiosity that Mang Rudy observes, reflected in the way he demands obedience from his children who are ruled by emotional motivations which the movie reveals through snippets spanning three summers, pinned down by three elements as metaphors: Wind, Fire, Water.

Angin (wind) is Grace, the newly-wed and the youngest of the three who follows her whims to wherever it takes her as long as it takes her far from her mama's boy husband, Conrad. She detests having to leave her ancestral home for her in-laws' plastic-covered living room but tradition forces her to tame her rebellion as she slowly, against her will, settles down. Api (fire) is Lourdes, the middle child who appears to keep it all together. She is married to Andy (Paule) who on the surface is a meek, spineless man but is a sadist in bed and even more violently monstrous when angered. Lourdes sleeps with a bank manager to get her father's loan approved, to catastrophic repercussions. Andy beats her and Mang Rudy suffers a stroke. Danum (water) is Jess, quietly-serving, self-sacrificing, silently-drowning. As tradition dictates, being the eldest has appointed Jess as her father's caretaker but her taking on various jobs to help make ends meet for the family has prompted her to ask her lover Rowena (Volks) to watch over Mang Rudy. Jess and Lourdes argue over Rowena's contribution to the household; Mang Rudy puts his mighty foot down and declares that if Rowena is the reason for the tension between the sisters then she has to leave.

The parallelisms are sometimes too obvious: the wind as fickle temperament, fire as destructive rage and the sexuality of water when superimposed against lesbian lovemaking. Mendoza cuts his narratives with graceful shots of these elements---his arthouse leanings a little too contrived---but when it does work, the result is a brilliant cohesion of atmosphere and narrative.

The chapter on Fire is the richest of the three because it explores not just the element's destructive nature but also its cleansing and transforming attributes. Andy, to show his remorse with what he had done to Lourdes and as an act of repentance, takes part in the self-flagellation ritual held during maleldo (Mahal na Araw or Holy Week) while Lourdes who is secretly watching from a tricycle gets a spattering of (repentent) blood. Right from the start of the chapter, Mendoza has been showing us droplets of blood staining and blooming in water and he neatly ties this up with a scene of Lourdes washing the bloodied shirt of Andy, the final act of forgiving and forgiveness between the married couple.

Kaleldo continues Mendoza's ode to Pampanga and the families struggling within its dying soil. His love for the culture is palpable, the language and the food, the industries and the deeply-rooted cultural tics are framed against wildly vibrant skies, tangible worship at its most picturesque. On the surface, Kaleldo is a beautifully-shot family drama. Mendoza's storytelling can be confusing at first as he purposely veers away from conventional melodrama, and his visual metaphors have the tendency to distract. But once you get used to the movie's rhythm, then, just like the change of seasons, you'll welcome the varying textures and colors of the passing of time.

Batanes (Philippines, 2007)

2009-05-26T15:02:00.001+08:00

RATING: 3

Batanes is a cinematographer's movie and Monchie Redoble has a carefully wandering eye. In Masahista, his camera sweeps above a series of boxy rooms like a predator surveying a landscape of twisted bodies, here, it contemplates, detached. Batanes itself is overwhelmingly rich and Redoble does a great job of letting the intimate details of the vast landscape surface. The depth is felt more than seen; the sea always threatens to flood, the land sharp and jagged. Glorious, yes, but also untouchable. And the characters caught in a cycle of love and loss seem insignificant against the force of nature, which, in its heart, is what Batanes is all about.

Batanes is at the tip of the Philippine peninsula and is regularly rocked by storms which limits the flights that enter the province. Up to the present, there are only hints of modernity in the Philippines' smallest province, electricity continues to be intermitent, and its locals, the Ivatan, are at the constant mercy of nature's temper. Coming from the outside, Pam (Iza Calzado) is at first thrilled at the quaintness of life in Batanes when she moves in with her husband Rico (Joem Bascon) who spends most of his screen time lecturing Pam about the sea and her moods. When the sea does begin acting like the jealous lover that Rico portrayed it to be and claims Rico's life, Pam begins to open herself up to nature's incalculable pattern. Redoble consistently frames the actors as small counterpoints to the landscape or the sore thumb sticking out from the encompassing palm of the ocean.

Directors Adolfo Alix Jr. and John David Hukom also look to the weather for storytelling beats; the plot moves along as nature changes colors, which is a little too obvious for my taste. The sea taketh and giveth, and oh how it giveth in the form of Ken Zhu, my favorite F4 from the Taiwanese TV drama Meteor Garden. Unfortunately, this is when the movie drastically stumbles.

As a character study, the film does succeed in creating an engaging albeit sullen lead. The movie is at its best when it is following Pam around the island as she struggles to accept the fate of her husband by understanding the random jurisdiction of the sea to the point where she almost drowns in her desire to fathom what her husband's last thoughts were. The very pagan approach to mourning---conversing with nature instead of praying to God; nature's will instead of God's will---is a welcome point of view that's quite far from the conventions of popular cinema. This thoughtfully-paced introspective journey is cut short when the sea washes ashore an unconsciousness and wounded Taiwanese man who will ignite once more Pam's darkening heart. I get it, love is a force of nature in itself, so powerful that it punctures the movie's delicate atmosphere as it rushes clumsily to a happy ending. The relationship isn't given enough time to blossom considering that both Pam and Kao (Ken Zhu) are still in the process of coping with huge losses, a husband for Pam, and a family left behind in Taiwan for Kao.

Directors Alix Jr. and Hukom seem to be more interested in telling the story of Pam and the sea more than Pam and Kao's which feels more going-through-the-motions than a possibly more provocative love-among-the-ruined angle (which, years later, Alix Jr. brilliantly achieves with the incandescently heartbreaking Daybreak).

Or maybe, by glossing over the romance, Batanes acknowledges how insignificantly small we all are, how petty our heartbreaks, how trite our daily rituals, compared to the divine madness of nature's whim.

Directed by Adolfo Alix Jr. and John David Hukom
Written by Arah Badayos
Starring Iza Calzado, Ken Zhu, Sid Lucero, Joem Bascon

Cannes Surfing: Brillante Mendoza is Best Director

2009-05-25T09:58:00.006+08:00

Director Terry Gilliam (L) congratulates Filipino director Brillante Mendoza for winning the Best Director award for the film "Kinatay" at the award ceremony for the 62nd Cannes Film Festival May 24, 2009. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

Awyeah! Kinatay ang kalaban! Heh.

I hope our country celebrates this as much as the Pacquiao victory, because, in a sense, this a bigger feat. Brillante Mendoza was up against heavyweights Lars Von Trier, Ang Lee, Alain Resnais, Pedro Almodovar, and Park Chan-Wook among others.

CANNES, France (AFP) — Brillante Mendoza of the Philippines on Sunday picked up the best director prize at the Cannes film festival for his dark movie "Kinatay".

"Kinatay" (meaning "massacre") notably features corrupt cops hacking a prostitute to pieces with blunt kitchen knives.

Mendoza, at Cannes for the second year running, again split the critics, drawing both hisses and applause for "Kinatay".

Last year's "Serbis" was set in a Manila porn-theatre with long close-ups of festering boils and overflowing toilets, as well as the poverty and distress on the streets.

Still determined to portray the social reality around him, Mendoza in "Kinatay" traces 24 hours in the day of a trainee policeman, happily beginning with his wedding in the morning to close with the young man's first outing at night with a band of corrupt colleagues.

To his surprise, fear and anguish, they pick up a prostitute accused of betrayal and wind up torturing, raping, killing and hacking her before disposing of the body parts across Manila.

"This is not just entertainment, these kinds of stories are real," Mendoza said at Cannes.

Last year was the first time since 1984 the Philippines had a film competing for the top prize at Cannes, the Palme d'Or.

Wise Kwai has posted a more in-depth entry on Mendoza's win including links to list of winners.

Claire Rosemberg rounds up the other Asian winners among them Park Chan-Wook (in photo) and Lou Ye:

CANNES, France (AFP) — Asia's dark and disturbing movies scooped Cannes kudos on Sunday, with awards for cult directors from China and Korea, as well as controversial Filipino auteur Brillante Mendoza.
At Cannes with a blood-and-gore tale about vampire love titled "Thirst", South Korea's Park Chan-wook jointly won the festival's Jury Prize, taking home his second trophy from the festival after "Old Boy" in 2004.
A torrid and unexpectedly graphic gay love movie from China, "Spring Fever", won best screenplay for outlawed director Lou Ye.
And Mendoza, one of the most divisive directors at the 12-day movie bonanza, got the best director prize for a gritty look at violence in "Kinatay", which means massacre and shows the slow butchering of a prostitute into pieces with blunt kitchen knives.
"I know opinions are divided on my movies," Mendoza said after picking up his prize. "I was expecting it."
Mendoza faced a barrage of criticism from some quarters at Cannes at his first showing last year with "Serbis", which was set in a Manila porn-theatre with long close-ups of festering boils and overflowing toilets.
Both films background Manila's poor, with "Kinatay" chronicling a day in the life of a young police officer that begins with his wedding and closes with his involvement in the rape, murder and hacking into pieces of a prostitute.
"This is not just entertainment, these kinds of stories are real," Mendoza said.
Park's priest-turned-vampire suffers cruelly in the movie, from inner demons and physical ills, but picking up his award at the red-carpet ceremony the film-maker in contrast said:
"I think I still have a long way to go to be a true artist because I still don't know about the pain of creation. I only know about the joy of creation."
Park, who describes his rivers-of-blood tale as a "scandalous vampire melodrama," shows a good-Samaritan priest caught in an ethical quagmire after being turned into a vampire by a mysterious blood transfusion.
Lusting not only after blood but after a childhood friend's wife -- who turns into a vampire too -- the priest is drawn into crime while seeking redemption as he soars through windows to rooftops in search of life-saving blood supplies.
On a different note, outlawed China film-maker Lou said the Cannes award could contribute to greater freedom for cinema in China.
"I hope young directors will be free and will be independent enough to make their films," he said after scooping the prize.
Lou shot his movie in secret over two months in Nanjing city after censors slapped a five-year ban on him in 2006 for bringing "Summer Palace" to Cannes that year without official approval.
That too was a steamy love tale set around the sensitive issue of the pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen.
The point of "Spring Fever" was to portray individual emotions rather than social problems, he told AFP this week.
"The individual is more important than the group, but the last time the Chinese talked about individuals was back in the 1920s," he said.

StSA: I would trade my mother

2009-05-22T13:46:00.007+08:00

Oooh, like a lazy afternoon breeze, oooh, the trombone forgets it's a trombone and swoons and uncharacteristically sways, oooh, and the bitter begins to drip: I'm going on a date tonight to try to fall out of love with you/ I know, I know this is a crime but I don't know what else to do.

But like honey. Tracyanne Campbell, Camera Obscura's lead vocalist, can't help the girlish swagger of her voice. Her delicate vibrato betrays her oftentimes stern eyes; a little out of breath, a little begrudgingly as she weighs and acknowledges her downfall make the desperation of forgetting someone the sweetest thing.

Oooh, even Paul Simon is in on the conspiracy, oooh, memories are mobile like phantom footfalls behind your ear, oooh, memories on loop, like space folding, we end up where we started.

"The Sweetest Thing" is the second track on Camera Obscura's new album, My Maudlin Career. Where the band only hinted at 60s pop fetish in their previous album, Let's Get Out of This Country, here, they give in and they've brought along with them some of the most sparkling melodies of indie pop, and the sparkling-est among them is "The Sweetest Thing." Lucidly romantic---the string and horn sections are on a murderous mission to steal your heart---the inflection is not merely catchy, it echoes and fills the room long after the song has finished playing.

Oooh, I would trade my mother just to hear you sing.

I would never trade my mother for anything (I think. Hi, mom!) so this is just brilliant. Heartbreakingly funny, to put it quite seriously, but also frighteningly sweet. Trading a life, we've all heard that. Your mom in exchange for loving from a distance then, which defies logic, emotion and even religion. Which love is in our heads, beastly, secretly brewing plans under the wayward sunshine of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover."

Tracyanne, I'm ready to be heartbroken.

Korean Trailer for Yam Laranas' The Echo

2009-05-21T16:12:00.006+08:00

Whatever happened to The Echo? I saw the US trailer some time last year but it apparently never saw a theatrical release. Unfortunate really since this was a rare opportunity for a Filipino director to go mainstream in the US.

The Echo is a remake of Yam Laranas' own movie, Sigaw, which was a modest hit in the Philippines but was highly praised by both critics and fans of the horror genre. Iza Calzado, who played the ghost in the original version, got to reprise her role in the US remake. We finally get to see glimpses of her in this new trailer.

The Korean version reveals less of the story and, as Beyondhollywood pointed out, goes for a more mysteriously sinister atmosphere.

Still no word of a local release though.

Via Beyondhollywood. The US version of the trailer can also be found on this site.

Cannes Surfing: Raya Martin films receive highest marks?

2009-05-20T15:02:00.007+08:00

I'm uncertain if this is an officially tally or simply a list of ratings from critics.

According to the blog Micropsia (which is entirely in Spanish, thank you Google Translate), Independencia has so far received the highest grade for the Un Certain Regard category. Raya Martin's other film (co-directed with Adolfo Alix Jr.), Maynila, is also leading the Out of Competition set.

Here are the rankings (From Micropsia).

Un Certain Regard
"Independencia" (8,55) - 9 votos
"Police, adjective" (8,50) - 4 votos
"Irene" (7,83) - 6 votos
"Tales From the Folden Age" (7,00) - 2 votos
"Father Of My Children" (6,75) - 4 votos
"Air Doll" (6,44) - 9 votos
"Mother" (6,285) - 7 votos
"Nobody Knows About the Persian Cats" (5,25) - 4 votos
"Tzar" (1,50) - 2 votos

Out of Competition
"Manila" (6,66) - 3 votos
"Up" (6,18) - 11 votos
"Ne te retourne pas" (5,50) - 6 votos
"Jaffa" (4,50) - 2 votos
"Agora" (3,33) - 3 votos

In Competition
"Vincere" (8,29) - 7 votos
"Vengeance" (7,45) - 11 votos
"Fish Tank" (6,33) - 6 votos
"Kinatay" (6,18) - 11 votos
"Los abrazos rotos" (6,00) - 9 votos
"Bright Star" (5,86) - 7 votos
"Un prophete" (5,83) - 12 votos
"Taking Woodstock" (5,18) - 11 votos
"Thirst" (4,60) - 10 votos
"Spring Fever" (4,18) - 11 votos
"Looking For Eric" (4,00) - 6 votos
"Antichrist" (3,36) - 11 votos

Go here for the breakdown of Independencia's ranking. Kinatay also ranked well considering the reviews it got.

Thanks to Dick Dick who left a comment here.

Death Bell 고死: 피의 중간고사 (2008)

2009-05-20T13:28:00.004+08:00

Killer exams, literally. Students and teachers race to solve puzzles in this breakneck-paced torture royale.

Rating: 3

Picture glossy torture porn Saw but with high school students and it's enough to make one squirm uncomfortably. Death Bell doesn't hold back with the set-up of violence about to committed but thankfully isn't compelled to dwell on the details. Still, this is not as safe as Whispering Corridors, and it cleanly slays any of the earlier Korean horror movies set in a private high school, a genre that seems to have disappeared until Death Bell came along.

The first 30 minutes deliberately mislead: Kang Yi-na (K-Pop singer Nam Gyu-ri) dreams of being chased down by zombies while another student seems to be going crazy. This all takes place on the week of their midterms and the teachers are blaming it all on the stress of studying. Immediately after the test, the top twenty students are asked to participate in an exhibition class along with another exclusive school.

On the day of the special class, the top student disappears. Before the class could even start, a disembodied voice announces over the PA the real killer test: Solve the puzzle or a student dies. The classroom TV flickers on showing a student trapped inside an enclosed aquarium that is slowly filling up with water.

Death Bell is the directorial debut of music video director Chang, the Nine Inch Nails hip macabre clearly shows his roots. Familiarity with the short form also gives Chang a good pacing instinct. Once the death bell rings announcing a new test, the lights flicker, the shadows stretch, the unseeable shock in glimpses: a flash of silver, a door shatters.

But the MV-esque skittish quick edits does annoy sometimes. For the fans of this genre, Takashi Miike's unflinchingly at-your-face slicing and dicing that approaches journalistic factualness in Audition is still the holy grail of torture, his Ichi the Killer still the sovereign of whimsical torment.

Death Bell is simply too trendy to be scary.

The student murders also do not have the resonance of grief that saturates cult-classic Battle Royale. And though the violence is not overtly graphic, Chang's lack of concern for the characters does make the polished torture pornographic.

고死: 피의 중간고사 (Death Bell)
Directed by Chang
Starring Lee Beom-soo, Yeon Jeong-hee, Kim Beum

Photos via HanCinema

Cannes Surfing: INDEPENDENCIA reviews round-up (Updated 5/22)

2009-05-19T13:13:00.005+08:00

Sid Lucero and Alessandra De Rossi on the set of Independencia
via Concentrated Nonsense

Shot entirely in the studio, Independencia ambitiously aims to capture the cinematic style of the period it depicts. This is the second installment of director Raya Martin's visual speculation of life through different eras of revolutions in Philippine history.

I will be updating this post as soon as the reviews come in (or until I finish my copywriting work on cardiac arrhythmia; the deadline is giving me palpitations).

Howard Feinstein of Screen Daily doesn't seem to keen on the dramatics: "Generically, Independencia is as melodramatic as they come. Besides the family narrative and the acting style, the music, as lovely as it is, is continuous, insistent, and frequently mournful, with horns, guitar, flute, violin, and cello accompanying or anticipating every element of what little plot exists." Feinstein also singles out the slow pacing of the film, "On account of Martin’s political and formal strategies, most screen time is taken up by the routines of rural life and drastic changes in the weather. We are saved from boredom by the one character telling stories to the others, most of them based on mythology and superstition, and some fine sound effects, most notably the ongoing, high-volume sounds of insects and the river. True to the genre, nothing ends well."

UPDATE 5/20: Via Southeast Asian Film Studies Institute. GQ praises Independencia's texture and Martin's point of view: "The filmmaker in question, Raya Martin, is a new name to me, but if his earlier movies are anything like this one, Guy Maddin has a prize pupil to be proud of. The evocativeness of Independencia is all in Martin’s decision to shoot it in the style of a pre-Griffith silent movie, when nobody knew that film had any purpose except mimicking a theater’s proscenium arch. If that didn’t make it clear we’re watching a fable of the Phillipines’ past, the final image wouldn’t be nearly as wrenching—or as pointed. Beyond that, all I can say is that I’ll be at Martin’s next one with bells on."

Matt Bochenski of Little White Lies (one of the best movie websites out there, I'm a huge fan) wonderfully gets it: "Deliberately theatrical and old-fashioned, Independencia is a richly metaphorical, allusive collision of history, mythology and cultural memory. Full of long takes and stylized close ups, but sizzling beneath with raw-knuckled sexuality, it’s occasionally hard work but is hugely rewarding."

Variety also writes a lukewarm review of Raya Martin and Adolfo Alix Jr.'s Maynila.

UPDATE 5/22: From the auteurs' The Saga of a Guerilla in the Philippines: "Martin easily conjures an atmosphere of modest, supple dreaminess—not an ounce of pretension exists in the film despite its stylistic conceit—but in the face of the location work of someone like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Independencia's chill vibe is welcome but seems easy. More importance is placed on the surreal naturalism of the film's beautifully painted matte backgrounds than any sort of human or story presence, and while Martin's natural sense of space gives everything on camera its due, I wish there were more on camera than the splendor of a studio production."

Cannes Surfing: Kinatay reviews round-up (Updated 5/22)

2009-05-18T10:52:00.010+08:00

Brillante Mendoza continues to polarize critics with Kinatay to no surprise.

"Filipino director Brillante Mendoza emerged as an intriguing talent at last year's Cannes with Serbis, a portrait of a fading porn cinema in Manila. Kinatay, screening in Competition, is infinitely darker but an equally strong depiction of modern-day life in the former American colony that some are comparing to Gasper Noe's Irreversible," says Sukhdev Sandhu in his review over at Telegraph UK. He sums it up as a "a fiercely moral and horribly unforgettable denunciation of societal corruption."

Screen Daily's Mike Goodridge praises the movie's visceral style, "Mendoza’s deliberate pace which feels leisurely in the first 20 minutes of normality becomes tortuously effective as Peping makes the descent into horror and is faced with the terrifying dilemma of what to do. The audience, should it be willing to do so, makes the same descent and Mendoza asks his viewers to consider what they themselves would do in the same situation." Overall, Kinatay is "well-made by Mendoza and more coherent than last year’s Serbis, it will nevertheless be hard for even the most adventurous arthouse audiences to stomach."

In contrast, Roger Ebert's blog shreds it to pieces: "Here is a film that forces me to apologize to Vincent Gallo for calling "The Brown Bunny" the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival." And to the critics who (will) champion Kinatay's vision, Ebert has this to say: "There will be critics who fancy themselves theoreticians, who will defend this unbearable experience, and lecture those plebeians like me who missed the whole Idea. I will remain serene while my ignorance is excoriated. I am a human being with relatively reasonable tastes. And in that role, not in the role of film critic, I declare that there may not be ten people in the world who will buy a ticket to this movie and feel the money was well spent." Read the entire review for the full context.

Variety's Jay Weissberg criticizes Mendoza's approach to the graphic violence saying "the graphic nature of the presentation is so coldly matter-of-fact and overtly in-your-face that auds are unlikely to feel anything other than anger at being subjected to such unnecessary scenes. It's not that the helmer takes any glee in the sadism, but the nightmarish quality he captures is merely vile, without a deeper sense of the scene's horror." But Weissberg does praise the technical improvement over Serbis, "On a purely technical level "Kinatay" impresses, especially in the first quarter. D.p. Odyssey Flores shoots each scene from a variety of angles, as if the camera itself had an urgent need to understand where characters are in space and in relation to their surroundings."

Video of the the movie's Press conference, photocall, and more here.

Now, I really want to see Kinatay. I liked Masahista, Kaleldo and Tirador. I have yet to watch Serbis uncut (will this ever be locally released on DVD?). I wonder when this will be shown here or if its threatical showing will be as kinatay as Serbis.

UPDATE 5/19: Wise Kwai has links to more reviews on Kinatay, including updates on other Asian movies competing in the event. Also check out Kong Rithdee's page (of Bangkok Post) who is blogging from Cannes. Via TFJ

UPDATE 5/22: the auteurs' notebook seems to like Kinatay (didactic shots aside): "But, as with Mendoza’s previous film Serbis, the rest of the movie is given as a handheld dedication to space—there, a porno theater, here, a sinister, anonymous police van traveling great distances at night for the purpose of terrible things, and later a torture house. But it is a space of obscurity, of uncertainty in a morally certain situation, and so the space, covered and run over again and again by the roving camera, takes on an abstraction nearly outside the story itself. A palette of sleek grays makes a death grip on this film that started—again, didactically—in daylight with a marriage, and Kinatay’s immersion into nightfall stands strong, splendidly, as independent force."

Cannes Surfing: Kinatay, Independencia, stunning Shu Qi

2009-05-15T13:02:00.007+08:00

Kinatay movie still via indieWIRE

Wise Kwai of Thai Film Journal recently posted updates on the growing buzz surrounding some of the Asian films in the Cannes Film Festival, which includes a link to Asian Alliance, a feature on Brillante Mendoza among others. Here's a snippet:

But with the three movies going to the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, it's not hard to argue that filmmakers from the Philippines occupy the vanguard of a new wave of Southeast Asian moviemaking.

Director Brillante Mendoza's dark drama "Kinatay" (the word means "butchered" in Tagalog) is one of 20 movies chosen to compete for the Palme d'Or, making "Dante" (his nickname) the first Filipino director ever to descend on the Croissette two years in a row.

Next, "Manila" -- co-directed by Adolfo Alix, Jr., and Raya Martin -- is one of just six movies chosen for a Cannes special screening. And Martin's "Independencia" fills out the Filipino trifecta as one of 20 movies included in the festival's Un Certain Regard section celebrating "young talent, innovative and audacious works."

Mendoza's encore at Cannes is all the more remarkable for the speed with which he pulled it off. Just as with "Serbis" -- which he shot digitally starting last March 21 and finished in time for Cannes 2008 -- "Kinatay" (a.k.a. "The Execution of P" and "Chop Chop") also was shot in no time at all; and for under $100,000.

"I work best when I'm under pressure and doing everything at once," Mendoza told The Hollywood Reporter over the phone from just outside a Manila editing room the day after he learned he'd been invited back to Cannes.

Though the story had been brewing ever since a ghastly murder by ex-military killers hit Filipino newspapers in 2004, Mendoza and "Serbis" writer Armando Lao didn't finish the "Kinatay" script until late January and began shooting "early," at the end of February. "It feels great to be doing it again," Mendoza said.

Producer Ferdinand Lapuz, Mendoza and French executive producer Didier Costet (who also backed "Serbis") always planned to take the film -- which stars former Miss Philippines, Maria Isabel Lopez -- to Cannes; but the morning after the film was accepted, Lapuz admitted: "I didn't even know it was finished!"

Focused, lean and mean is the Mendoza message. No actor on his set is allowed to take up bread-and-butter work on TV soaps until Mendoza's finished with him or her.

"With these films, we can't make back our money in the home market, so I don't encourage my directors to transfer to 35 millimeter from digital until we have the festival invitation in hand," Lapuz said on the phone from Manila, thrilled to be a part of the experiment.

To compare with the guerrilla production of Kinatay, the article also discusses a Thai film outfit's approach to producing Ong Bak.

More good news for Kinatay from THR. The film has been picked up by German sales outfit The Match Factory for international sales/release. Learn more about it here.

Independencia director Raya Martin posted on his twitpic three poster studies of his film. To see the official international poster, head on to sister-blog KOREAN BUG or visit the director's visual blog Mr. Madlangbayan. You may follow him on twitter here.

Both Brillante Mendoza and Raya Martin were also mentioned in New York magazine's article Cannes 2009: Your Questions Answered. Here's question #3:

3. Where will the next new wave come from?

Cannes is invariably ground zero for tomorrow’s world-cinema hot spot. Two years ago, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won the Palme d’Or, solidifying a Romanian film renaissance that began two years before that with The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. This year could well herald an international breakthrough for Filipino cinema. Brillante Mendoza, who provoked more than a few walkouts last year with Serbis, about a family-run porn theater, is back with the serial-killer film Kinatay, and there are two other movies from the Philippines in the official selection, one directed by and the other co-directed by a 25-year-old prodigy named Raya Martin.

Festival de Cannes has officialy opened and its official site has a video showing the highlights of the opening ceremony. Taiwanese actress Shu Qui is a part of this year's jury and she is just STUNNING.

Via Zimbio

Here's hoping our films do well at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Say it with me now: Yes, we Cannes! (Argh. Sorry, couldn't help it.)

Double Take: Makoto Shinkai's 5 Centimeters Per Second, Voices of a Distant Star

2009-05-14T11:37:00.002+08:00

Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru
(5 Centimeters per Second)
2007

Rating: 4.5

We never really know when it begins. Was it that walk home? The accidental nudge? That careless smile when you said something stupid? 5 Centimeters Per Second: A chain of short stories about their distance begins with this innocent confusion; love’s uneasy butterflies, and ends with a bewildered long last look back.

Director Makoto Shinkai—whose storytelling is so slyly unassuming that you don’t notice your heart breaking—takes his time to tell the story of Takaki Tono in three breathtakingly animated segments. It’s tempting to spill the all too simple plotline, but no matter how predictable it may seem, it is Takaki’s journey that matter. From attempting to outrun the passing of time. To falling between the gap of the memories of the girl he once loved. He still loves. To accepting the changes that distance brings.

But the main attraction here is the animation. I have simply never seen anything this beautiful. Everyday details fill the screen, luminous and poetic in its context, with one particular rocket launch that made space and distance so painfully palpable.

Shinkai says that “the title 5 Centimeters Per Second comes from the speed at which cherry blossoms petals fall, petals being a metaphorical representation of humans, reminiscent of the slowness of life and how people often start together but slowly drift into their separate ways.”

All too simple. All too graceful.

Hoshi No Koe
(Voices of a Distant Star)
2002

Rating: 3

Mikako and Noboru, almost high school sweethearts, are separated by warring worlds. Mikako is drafted to the UN Space Army and flies her mecha into space, across the universe, while Noboru is left to brood in all the old familiar places. She continues to reach out to him, sending emails that at first took months to reach Noboru. The farther the armada jumped across galaxies, the longer it took to reach him on Earth, spanning years. Mikako remains a 15 year old girl; Noboru, as dictated by the twin paradox, ages in Earth years and by the middle of the story has turned 24.

Running around 30 minutes, Makoto Shinkai’s early exploration of distance is utterly heartbreaking. The ambiguous ending only made it worse: Was it Mikako’s loneliness that caused the hallucinations? Were the aliens (Tarsians) empaths, feeding on the crews’ longing to go home? And just before I can even begin to figure out what was happening, an attack is launched and the young Mikako and the older (and far, far away) Noboru begin a wishful soliloquy occurring at the same time, finishing each other’s thoughts, light years bridged for a few seconds.

And then. I am left drifting.

Voices of a Distant Star is too heavy with details and subtleties, and storylines that deserve more attention. Shinkai simply asks too much from his viewers and this mood fuck is all I got from the ride. This feels more like an exercise on themes; some more deeply explored in 5 Centimeters per Second, specifically the Cosmonaut segment. What it is is this—a battering of beginnings, snapshots of solitude, internal and interstellar battles, and loose ends of what ifs and what could never be.

All under half an hour.

Review: Star Trek (2009)

2009-05-13T13:48:00.006+08:00

This is how JJ Abrams directs the new Star Trek movie: Cameras 1 and 4, evasive maneuvers! Star Trek dismisses its philosophical leanings in favor of jittery editing, muscular heroics, and sex appeal.

Rating: 3

Star Trek is Gene Roddenberry's Utopia, an idealistic interpretation of an intergalactic republic of the future where alien civilizations peacefully co-exist under the United Federation of Planets and policed by Starfleet officers who are more philosophers than a military force. Roddenberry insisted on humanoid alien life-forms that had unique cultures, he would have none of the horrors of the apocalyptic science fiction that portrayed aliens as grotesque creatures. The universe he created followed Starfleet's General Order #1, the Prime Directive, which states that there can be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations, both of the future and the past in cases of anomalies in the time-space continuum.

Star Trek was never a fun series to begin with. Sure, there were spaceships and phasers (set most of time to stun) and Andorians (insert blue balls joke), but the series---The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise---were exploratory in nature, National Geographic in space. The series highlights were rarely action-packed.

TOS' The City on the Edge of Forever and TNG's The Inner Light indulged in arguments that would define Star Trek and its movie reincarnations: logic versus emotions, culture versus technology, survival versus integrity.

The new Star Trek movie reboots the old-fashioned, thinking-man's science fiction title into a "fun, watchable" jittery-edited, explosion-filled space adventure. It IS fun, no doubt about it. The space battles and action are spectacular, and breathtaking in some parts---the opening was gloriously composed, the small band of escape pods against the surface of a sun (or was it a star going supernova?) is reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica's journalistic eye in framing the frightening vastness of space.

Director JJ Abrams borrows from his own time-jumping series LOST to create an alternate reality where James T. Kirk is a bad-ass and Spock has no qualms about making out in public. It's quite a clever way for Abrams to unload decades worth of familiarity with characters and to rewrite the Star Trek timeline.

But a "fun, watchable" Star Trek doesn't make a good Star Trek. The franchise was rebooted the Michael Bay way (loud and expensive) and doesn't set it apart much from Transformers or Iron Man. Props to The Dark Knight for being stubbornly dark and meandering. I was disheartened to see Star Trek dismiss its philosophical leanings in favor of ADD editing (thanks, Dodo), blockbuster-y heroics, and sex appeal.

I used to love the arguments that would follow the viewing of a Star Trek movie or episode. Did Captain Janeway follow the prime directive? Did the Borgs have the right to survive? I didn't feel the need to even discuss the new movie apart from the Uhura and Spock kissing scenes.

Star Trek was home for a lot of nerds and geeks. It was one of the few sci-fic fantasy adventures where mental and verbal dexterity were favored over brute strength and perfect symmetry. Not anymore.

There's no more coffee in this nebula.

Review: Ded na Si Lolo (2009)

2009-05-11T11:49:00.004+08:00

Rating: 4

Three hundred years as a Spanish colony followed by roughly 40 years under American rule then World War II, which obliterated the physical monuments of a struggling national identity and almost crushed the spirit of a revolution-fatigued people shouldn't leave us wondering why we Filipinos have a fractured culture. Where else can you find devout Christianity and paganism co-exist in a meta-religion that equally believes in the Sto. Nino and the superstitions that dictate luck or misfortune?

Make mine a fractured culture, I say, and Ded na si Lolo is a testament to the perfection of the imperfection of Filipino culture.

Director Soxie Topacio wears his love for theater on his sleeves giving Ded na Si Lolo a cohesive structure that resembles a play. The first act introduces the five siblings and how they deal with their father's death: with over-the-top melodrama flair until one reaches (the ecstasy of) asphyxia. Joonee, the second youngest, played by the invincible Roderick Paulate, casually explains to his confused nephew that they are a family for tele-drama. Dramatics as expression. Out loud is the new loud, the only loud the family knows.

The melodrama comes into full play during the week-long wake as the siblings confront long-buried issues of rivalry and family secrets but always wisely rolling with the funny. If there's one thing that truly defines us Filipinos, it's our extraordinary sense of humor. We laugh-at and laugh-with instinctively; whatever the circumstances. Coping mechanism would be the cliche. A mutated funny gene would be cool.

A huge part of the comedy in Ded na Si Lolo is the long list of superstitions observed during a wake. No bathing. No sweeping the floors. Snipping the rosary that is wrapped around the dead's hand to break the cycle of deaths in the family. No soup-based food during the wake. And the list goes on and on. More than the superstitions, it was absurdly amusing how the family rationalized the traditions and worked their way around them.

The cast's comedic timing were spot on and one could expect nothing less from such an insanely talented cast. Old-schoolers Manilyn Reynes and Roderick Paulate effortlessly deliver most of the laughs; Paulate's baklang parlorista is greatly missed and just watching him deliver his trademark comedy already makes the movie worth watching.

Ded na Si Lolo is furiously loud, and is unashamed to be. It's simply how we celebrate life. It's how we pay tribute to love among family; it's how we tell stories of our dearly departed. It's how we say hello and say goodbye, with a chuckle under our beaths.

It's who we are, fractures and all.

Ded na Si Lolo
Directed by Soxie Topacio
Starring Dick Israel, Elizabeth Oropesa, Gina Alajar, Manilyn Reynes, Roderick Paulate, Perla Bautista, Rainier Castillo

Dialogue: Last Year at Marienbad

2009-05-08T13:15:00.006+08:00

Snippets of a conversation on movies with Dodo Dayao, my cinema guru, which turned into casual musings over L'Année dernière à Marienbad, a French film directed by Alain Resnais.

T: Mon-Rak Transistor got sadder after each song. Pen-Ek is a genius.

Recent viewing of WKW's Happy Together, that Tony Leung sobbing into the tape recorder bit, smoke got in my eyes.

And speaking of WKW, I just saw Last Year at Marienbad yesterday. The first hour reminded me of Chungking Express.

D: Resnais is great, him and Antonioni are probably WKW's most pervasive influences. Marienbad is just beautiful and I agree with the Chungking parallels. Hiroshima Mon Amour, meanwhile, is the germ that fed In the Mood for Love. That one's a must, too. Moreso than Marienbad , if you ask me. You can feel Resnais' presence all throughout Eternal Sunshine, too....

T: Thanks, Do. Was postponing Hiroshima Mon Amour for next week but it looks like I'll watch it this weekend. Perfect din kasi I'm recently obsessing over Marguerite Duras. Romance novels for rainy nights.

D: Been meaning to check out Duras after watching Hiroshima pero never got around to it , I should go do so . . .and maybe give Hiroshima and Marienbad a spin, its been awhile and I haven't written anything about them . . .of course, I haven't written anything about any movies I've seen for a looong while.

T: Duras' books are getting the new edition treatment, I saw a copy of The North China Lover in Fully Booked. Loved the writing in Marienbad, repetitive, verse, chorus, verse. Napaka-sonorous kahit yung English translation. And I hear the script of Hiroshima is even better!

D: Will go check out The North China Lover sa Fully Booked. The Marienbad script was pretty controversial when it came out and it's still very polarizing among film critics, to this day. Pero tama, I think the Hiroshima script is more poignant and emotive. As for Resnais, I'm hunting for his Je t'aime Je t'aime, a time travel story that's the possible inspiration for Eternal Sunshine.

T: Haven't properly read up on Marienbad. Really? I quite loved the structure. It's like your prisoner metaphor, going around in circles in his cell until he discovers escape. Solipsism that sings.

And the house is like Chungking Mansion in Chungking Express---the walls move, the rooms remain silent because they choose to, like Tony Leung's apartment (and towels) crying. Ganda ng anthropomorphism nya.

But Marienbad does require a particular mood from its viewer. And patience. :D

D: Marienbad does require a certain degree of immersion - - - but not more or less than the immersion Tsai Ming Liang requires, I think - - - but it's a mindfuck all the same. It's also one of those canon films that are ultimately more interesting than the rest because it constantly gets argued over. I have a professor who fell in love with it after... watching it the first time . . .without subtitles. And no, he doesn't speak French.

I like that - - solipsism that sings. And that prisoner metaphor is actually in full effect right now in my life. . .ika nga, live!

Review: Queens of Langkasuka (Thailand, 2008)

2009-05-06T13:53:00.002+08:00

Rating: 4

Queens of Langkasuka is as greedy as the sea-faring pirates that threaten to destroy Queen Hijau's walled fortress. "Overwhelming" rightfully describes the set pieces. From the heavily ornate throne room to a cluster of straw huts in a fishing village, the attention to detail is obssessive-compulsive exhaustive; there are engravings within engravings. The Malay-influenced costumes, Langkasuka being an ancient Malay Hindu kingdom, are equally rich in material and curiosity, which constantly threatens to swallow the more inexperienced actors whole. It is of no surprise then that the popular casual opinion of the movie is "stunning."

But stunning doesn't go well with meandering. Not only do the story lines haphazardly weave in and out and intertwine in its effort to flesh out several subplots, the film's tone is also difficult to pin down. Queens of Langkasuka is greedy in a sense that it aims to be a lot of things all at once: a nation's struggle for survival, a love story, a fantastic battle of a dueling master and student through the mastery of the Force, err, Du Lum, and a Pirates of the Carribean-esque adventure in search of a lost treasure/weapon.

So here's where I contradict myself: I irrevocably loved Queens of Langkasuka.

For all its gaudy grandeur and elephantine plot manipulations, I thoroughly enjoyed this old-fashioned fantasy tale of good versus evil, sorcery versus cannons, women versus men. Combining Asian mythology and unfettered CGI fetish, albeit cartoonish and flat at times, Queens of Langkasuka is truly a hybrid of old world (instinctive as opposed to logical) storytelling and glossy movie making.

There are moments of eye-popping brilliance when imagination and technology seamlessly combine, mostly seen in the climactic battle at the end. I got goosebumps from watching the Queen's army of makeshift hangliders dive like aerial bombers toward the pirate ship armada, which is wonderfully reminiscent of a scene from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The battle of the aquamen (the Du Lum is quite similar to comic superhero Aquaman's power) was also something to behold; the whales rising from the sea was cleanly executed and looked amazingly real.

The more immediate pleasure of watching Queens of Langkasuka is watching some of Thailand's more popular actors give in to fantasy kitsch acting. Ubiquitous actor Ananda Everingham (Shutter) sheds his dramatic actor persona and is properly swashbuckling sinewy as Pari, the young sea gypsy who is torn between the light and dark influence of Du Lum. Dan Chupong (Dynamite Warrior) who plays the royal bodyguard provides most of the action with his mix of muay thai and Malay martial arts, while Tik Jedsaporn Pholdee brings his swoony lakorn presence as Prince Pahung, a prince of an ally nation who is betrothed to Princess Ungu (Anna Ris). It is the women of the cast who deliver the weakest performances seemingly overpowered by the humongous sets. Back from a 10-year hiatus, veteran actress Jarunee Suksawat comes off as stiff more than regal and most of the time lacks the ferocity of a queen desperately defending her kingdom.

Queens of Langkasuka is a greedy project and wants to have it all. But one can expect nothing less from a staggeringly ambitious movie that in its heart simply aims to entertain the socks off its viewers for a full 2 hours. Entertained, and enthralled, I was.

Queens of Langkasuka
ปืนใหญ่จอมสลัด (Puen yai jom salad)
Directed by Nonzee Nimibutr (Nang Nak)
Written by Win Lyovarin
Starring Jarunee Suksawat, Ananda Everingham (Shutter, Ploy), Dan Chupong (Dynamite Warrior), Tik Jedsaporn Pholdee (Iron Ladies, Dang Bireley's and Yong Gangsters), Sorapong Chatree (Ong Bak 2), Winai Kriabutr (Nang Nak)
www.queensoflangkasuka.com

FIGHTING FIT: Fireball, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-04T13:55:00.004+08:00

As the nation gloriously reeled from another Pacquiao victory, I took it upon myself to stretch the adrenaline rush. I was midway to the sofa, a cold beer in hand, when Pacquiao knocked the living daylights out of Hatton. It was one of those rare moments when I consciously indulged in a national experience that was quite macho and it was over even before I had a sip (gulp?) from my macho beer. I wanted more action. I wanted broken bones. I wanted blood. Grr.

Fireball ( ท้า/ชน), sans subtitles, makes a winning case that action---high kicks, knuckle-busting punches---speaks louder than words. The plot is quite easy to follow, though reading the synopsis ahead can help a great deal. Director Thanakorn Pongsuwan is committed to the lean, but surprisingly meaty in characterization, storytelling and makes no apologies to the brutality of the action. Fireball, the game, is more than a hybrid of muay thai and basketball. The inhuman, feral skills on display is simply superheroic in nature.

Pongsuwan's action scenes make the violence of Watchmen look like child's play. The sequence where Tai (Preeti Bank Barameeanan) and his ragtag team goes up against thick-necked roids with metal pipes could arguably be the only segment where basketball and muay thai are equally combined to a thrilling, visceral effect. Though I would sometimes hope that the camera would pull out so I could see full-body shots of the action, the tight shots and quick cut-to-cuts do make me feel like I am a part of the action. Oftentimes, I would duck (and spill my beer) while screaming Foul! to the screen.

The short vignettes that peek into the lives of the players are insightful enough to make the characters easy to sympathize with, making the tragic moments a little more emotional than one expects in an all-out action flick. And though language is a significant barrier to a fuller appreciation of Fireball, the defiance in the violence---passionate, breathtaking---is as tangible as any scripted dialogue and saves the movie from a hollow, forgettable existence. Here's hoping for a Region 1 release.

Rating: 3

And speaking of forgettable, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, with all its loud explosions and serviceable special effects, lacks the power to surprise. Good thing I grabbed a cup of coffee before I walked in the cinema. The first 30 minutes were promising enough. It was great to see Daniel Henny's Agent Zero in action, all sinewy and deadly. I'm not a fan of the Deadpool character but after following his relaunch during Marvel's Secret Invasion event, I understood why he was a fan favorite; he's the crazy, accidentally funny assassin underdog whose unpredictable nature makes him one of the more engaging anti-heroes. We only see hints of Wade Wilson/Deadpool's comic characterization here, and the ending of the movie totally messes up the character.

Wolverine is to Marvel as Batman is to DC. And if you're a comic book reader, you're kind of tired (well, I am) of seeing him everywhere; he has four ongoing titles, he is in all 3 of the 4 (?) X-men books, he is occasionally in the New Avengers. The movie doesn't offer anything new to Logan's much explored history; Victor Creed (Sabretooth) who is revealed right from the outset as Wolverine's brother in Marvel's movie universe is difficult to buy because the character was portrayed as a mumbling, dim-witted opponent in the first X-Men movie.

It is undeniable though that Hugh Jackman is the perfect Wolverine, a rare casting coup and second only to the late Christopher Reeve's Superman. So watch it for Jackman and the amazing Liev Schreiber. Watch it if you want to see Gambit throw kinetic cards (which he does only once). Watch it if you want to see younger versions of Professor Xavier, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Toad and Dust. Otherwise, you're better off watching X-Men 2 again.

Rating: 2

Review: Pssst...T.2. (2009)

2009-04-28T14:10:00.007+08:00

Pssst...T.2.
Directed by Chito Roño
Starring Maricel Soriano

Rating: 2.5

Roño pulls a Shyamalan in the last installment of his horror trilogy. What T2 lacks in scare, it makes up for with ambition.

I'm rarely surprised by commercial Filipino movies mostly because of its penchant to play it safe. T.2. stands out from the rest of the recent releases mainly because it took a huge risk with its portrayal of two worlds colliding---our reality and one more fantastic---and though it stumbles in the end, the movie does represent something of importance and that which is sorely lacking in commercial cinema: ambition.

T2 opens grandly. A boy is out in the field looking for his pet goat when all of a sudden an aircraft appears from above and the field dissolves into a runway as the distant mountains transform into a majestic city, something similar to the cityscape in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The movie then follows determined Save an Orphan volunteer Claire, played by the invincible Maricel Soriano, protect a child who appears to be chased by a group of engkanto (elementals). The showdown takes place in T.2., a dilapidated tenement whose center is the gateway to the world of the elementals.

Chito Roño is at his best setting up genuinely creepy scenes in the superstitious-heavy air of the countryside, more effectively displayed in his previous effort, Sukob. Without the glaring lights and noises of the city, the elementals felt more menacing. I was also hoping that T.2. would dwell more on the intriguing occurrences that took place when the elementals' world overlapped with ours; a shipping liner (?) cruising down a tiny river is one of the movie's visual coup.

But even before the screams are delivered, T.2. reveals its secret: the child Claire is protecting is a half-breed (half-faerie, half-human) and the elementals are rallying their (stoic, rotting green) troops to help convince the child to choose to live in the Elemental City. I felt duped that I was misled to believe that this was a horror movie; it's the Shyamalan syndrome, when the dénouement makes everything less spectacular, like turning on the fluorescent lamp in a dark room, all the shadows disappear and the phantom you suspected standing in the corner was just a play of light.

Still, I admire Roño for going where no other local horror movie has gone before and for going against the expectations set by his previous movies. Hopefully, his ambitions will lead to better reveals in the future.

TRAILERS: Sabongero and Manila

2009-04-24T22:51:00.010+08:00

SABONGERO
a Project Kaleidoscope Production
© Cebu, Philippines 2009
Official Selection to the Short Film Corner - Film Festival de Cannes 2009

Written and Directed by Janice Y. Perez
Produced by Ruel Antipuesto and Janice Y. Perez
Director of Photography: Ruel Antipuesto
Starring: Patskie Abing, Anbern Rodis, Reo Felia, Ranz Andri Medina, Frank Tagalog
Official Site: http://sabongeromovie.multiply.com/

MANILA
Film Festival de Cannes 2009

Directed by Adolfo Alix, Jr. and Raya Martin
Bicycle Pictures and MJM Production
Written by Ramon Sarmiento and Adolfo Alix, Jr.
Executive Producers: Piolo Jose Pascual and Edgar Mangahas
Producer: Arleen Cuevas
Associate Line Producer: Maxie Evangelista III
Director of Photography: Albert Banzon
Production Designer: Digo Ricio
Editors: Jay Halili and Aleks Castaneda
Music: Radioactive Sago Project
Sound Design: Ditoy Aguila

Cast: Piolo Pascual, Rosanna Roces, Jay Manalo, Alessandra de Rossi

Manila trailer via Pixelated Popcorn

Four Filipino Films at Cannes 2009

2009-04-24T12:48:00.008+08:00

This is definitely great news for the flailing Philippine cinema. Here's hoping that our government takes notice and starts supporting local film makers, heading toward something similar to what the Koreans have accomplished. (Go read Kim Hyung-jin's speech at the Audiovisual Industry Seminar held in Geneva for some insight on the Korean Wave.)

And that the big two (Star Cinema and GMA Films) begin producing actual movies.

*Slaps face awake*

Here's an excerpt from an article that came out in the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

Four Filipino films have been included in the official lineup of the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival, a first for the country.
This “historic” development was confirmed by three filmmakers whose films were chosen as entries in the world’s premier movie festival that will take place on May 13-14 in the French coastal city.

Three independent films made it to the Official Selection, in three different categories: Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay (The Execution of P)” in the Main Competition; Raya Martin’s “Independencia” in the Un Certain Regard section; and Raya Martin and Adolfo Alix Jr.’s “Manila” in the Special Screenings category.

“Sabongero,” by Filipino-American Janice Y. Perez, was selected for the Short Film Corner.

There were unconfirmed reports that Filipino films would also compete in the fest’s parallel section, the Directors’ Fortnight, as in the past two years.

“It’s an exciting year for the Philippines,” said Mendoza, who added that the inclusion of the four entries bode well for local cinema.

Mendoza is staging a comeback in the Main Competition, after his entry “Serbis” stirred controversy last year.

“Kinatay,” his entry this year is “equally controversial” and delves into the world of hitmen who cut up the bodies of their victims, said Mendoza. The film features Coco Martin, John Regala, Julio Diaz, Jhong Hilario, Lauren Novero and Maria Isabel Lopez.

“I believe it’s the first time for an Asian filmmaker to submit entries in the Main Competition for two consecutive years. US filmmaker Joel Coen also had back-to-back entries in the competition in 2000 and 2001,” Mendoza told the Inquirer.

Does Mendoza consider his return to the competition a way to vindicate himself after last year’s intrigues and negative reviews?

“I feel no pressure. I try not to worry about those things and I only focus on making my film,” he said.

Also of interest are Park Chan-Wook's vampire movie, Thirst, Bong Joon-ho's Mother, which also marks the comeback of actor Won Bin, and Pen-Ek Rathanurang's Nymph, the latter two both up for Un Certain Regard.

Trailers:

Via Philippine Daily Inquirer, Korean Bug

Review: The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela (2008)

2009-04-22T15:31:00.012+08:00

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela
Directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson
Starring Raquela Rios, Stefan Schaefer

Rating: 4.5

A bittersweet heroic journey of a Filipino transvestite from the slums of Cebu to the streets of Paris that cleverly blurs fantasy and biting reality.

Raquela personifies the stereotypical Filipino transvestite: excessively made-up, amusingly flirty, dangerously promiscuous, with a brightly shining heart of gold. She earns money for her family and dreams of visiting Paris one day. It was painful to watch all the cliché come to play in the first part of the movie. Director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson's point of view is unapologetic; there is no escape from the third world poverty (resources, ignorance) that barricades Raquela's world, vivid in her thoughts and shaky on the screen. But it is this Western eye that would later on transform Raquela's experiences into a modern myth. With a news-feature documentary style, the plot that is mostly fiction achingly breathes with a stubborn but tired heart, a heart that's all too familiar for the local audience that it makes it nearly impossible to tell apart which is real and which is not. Raquela is real and the journey she goes through, from zero to hero, might as well be.

In laying out the monomyth, Joseph Campbell, in The Hero of a Thousand Faces, studies the fundamental structure of a hero's journey: A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. Raquela's call to adventure---"A blunder–apparently the merest chance–reveals an unsuspected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood"---happens when she joins an internet porn site that specializes on lady boys, which is owned by Michael Ardilo (Stefan Schaefer), an American staying in New York. Raquela, who is lively and witty in speech, exceeds the company's expectation so much so that even the site's Thai counterpart have heard of her success.

Raquela's supernatural aid comes when she befriends Valerie on the internet, a lady boy who is based in Iceland who offers Raquela the opportunity to work in Reykjavik. When Michael hears about this, he promises her a rendezvous in Paris. The first threshold Raquela had to cross was the HIV test. Here, she begins her transformation into someone more self-aware, which equips her with the necessary "inner strength" to survive the cold landscape of Iceland.

Valerie brings Raquela to the fish factory where she works; for Raquela it meant the opportunity to permanently stay in Iceland. It is in her small apartment in Reykjavik, among her new flea market clothes, where she changes. A butterfly emerging from her cocoon, so to speak, more flamboyant and stylish than ever but also more cautious. In a very intimate scene, as her visa expires and Raquela prepares to meet Michael in Paris, she confesses to the camera, with her mascara smeared down her cheeks, that she is not a gold-digger and merely wants an alternate way to improving her life.

In Paris, Raquela discovers that Michael (woman, or in this case, man as temptation) was not the man who would sweep her off her feet. Michael, a stereotype of the ugly American in philosophy and manners, was ominously demanding but did rightfully blurt out (before leaving for Amsterdam) that Raquela, it seemed, would enjoy Paris more if she were by herself. And she did.

At once apotheosis and ultimate boon, Raquela---she who used to desperately wait for some phantom knight-in-shining-armor in airports---relished in her independence, sashaying down the streets, sipping coffee in cafes, watching an Audrey Hepburn movie, in the city of her dreams.

Back in Cebu, she reveals the amazing truth about Queen Raquela: that she was borne of royal blood but a jealous stepmother had given her away to a poor farming family and now that she is aware of her royal lineage, she is doing everything in her power to reclaim the life she was supposed to lead.

The really amazing thing is that the fairy tale she tells herself is no grander than her own journey from the slums to Paris. She may have left a queen but came back a Queen, as master of two worlds ("Because of the boon or due to his experience, the hero may now perceive both the divine and human worlds.") who has conquered armies of discrimination. In the movie's end, as Raquela and her friends gossip the night away with a sprawling view of the city below them, I would like to imagine that she is surveying her kingdom. And that she is dreaming where to go to next.

Links:

Official movie website: queenraquelathemovie.com
Alternative Film Guide interview with Olaf de Fleur Johannesson
Wikipedia: The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Review: Les Chansons d'amour (2007)

2009-04-21T12:17:00.008+08:00

Les Chansons d'amour
Directed by Christophe Honoré (Dans Paris)
Starring Louis Garrel (The Dreamers), Ludivine Sagnier (Swimming Pool, Girl Cut in Two), Chiara Mastroianni (Paris, Je t'aime)

Rating: 4.5

A French musical that transcends love, gender and death set to sparkling indie pop. Nouvelle-Vague Cinema has never been this enchanting.

When a fashionable threesome breaks into a song under the streetlights and puddled alleys of Paris, magic happens. If The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is the inspiration then Les Chansons d'amour is the celebration, casual in its grace and involving in its meditative melancholy.

Ismaël Bénoliel, played by the effervescent Louis Garrel, contemplates love, loss and the possibility of happiness in three acts. "The Departure" shows the youthful trio of Ismaël, his girlfriend Julie (the always stunning Sagnier) and Alice (Clotilde Hesme) in bed and down the streets, ecstatic yet harboring insecurities with and within the simmering complications of their relationship. Tragedy strikes without warning, in the middle of a smoky love song, leading to "The Absence," where Ismaël grieves and unexpectedly finds solace in Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringue), a young university student who smells like the sea.

Even if it is a musical, there is nothing theatrical about Les Chansons d'amour. Christophe Honoré shifts from understated to crisp realism to surreal structures seamlessly; his nod to the French New Wave of the 60s and to the unique devices of Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy among others have infused the film with a strangely dreamy riff, fantastic and achingly corporeal at the same time. The characters break into song when reality is too much; the angst resurface when the singing gets too dreamy. This push and pull keeps the pacing fast, and along with Honoré's succinct writing, Les Chansons d'amour is that rare French romantic drama that doesn't leave space for atmospheric silence.

In the third act, "The Return," the agony and the ecstasy of the singing take center stage. In what could be the best balcony scene since Romeo and Juliet, Ismaël finally gives in to the possibility of love even if it meant a second death to the relationship that tragically ended. Louis Garrel and Grégoire Leprince-Ringue have an endearing chemistry that is authentically eager and comforting. With Honoré's precise direction, the blossoming homosexual relationship is refreshingly low-key even if it is controversial in nature considering Erwann's adolescence. Les Chansons d'amour ends with Leprince-Ringue's character, breathless from a kiss, pleading: Love me less but love me a long time. Beautiful, non?

Even with the moral gravity of themes, Les Chansons d'amour is uncompromisingly romantic with love songs silly, needy, hesitant, and wider than a mile, sung in the most romantic city on Earth. What more could you ask for?

Les Chansons d'amour trailer:

Review: G.P. 506 (2008)

2009-04-17T14:29:00.005+08:00

G.P. 506 aka The Guard Post
Directed by Kong Su-Chang (R-Point)
Starring Jeon Ho-Jin, Cho Hyun-Jae

Rating: 3.5

Fiercely gory military horror/pychological thriller set in a remote guard post along South Korea's demilitarized zone, which chronicles the spread of a mysterious virus that turns infected soldiers insanely violent . I want more zombies.

Turn to John Carpenter's remake of The Thing for high-pitched paranoia, the kind that eats your insides; a slow but sure consumption that is more torture than attack in a desolate, lonely terrain. G.P. 506 strives for this gnawing fear. And almost succeeds.

The guard posts along Korea's DMZ are brooding relics of the Cold War frozen in a dark past. Heavily armored, armed and self-contained, it is prison-like in its demeanor; some of even the bravest soldiers are told to have gone mad from the severe discipline it decrees. And this is what the film suggests in its disquieting opening. A group of soldiers break into Guard Post 506 and find its walls splattered with blood. The guard post is a maze of sharp corners and metal piping and it takes a few moments before they find its occupants strewn across the floor of a large sleeping quarter, limbs scattered, skulls cracked open. A man holding an axe stands in the middle of the room, drenched in blood and laughing.

Sergeant Major Noh Seong-Gyu (Jeon Ho-Jin) later arrives to investigate the deaths, he is given 10 hours or until 6 a.m. to gather evidence. Comparing the corpses with the number of soldiers stationed in the GP, he discovers that one more man is missing. After a thorough search which further heightens the dungeon-dark intricacy of the post, his team finds a soldier who identifies himself as 1st Lt. Yoo (Koreanovela star Cho Hyun-Jae), the son of the army chief and the head of GP 506.

Part detective-mystery, GP 506 reveals through chopped-up flashbacks several versions of what really took place. As Noh puts pieces of the puzzle together, new versions surface and can be confusing at times. This also dampens the momentum of the investigation, which just goes back and forth particular incidents in the past, some redundant to what has been already revealed. A tighter editing and a more focused storytelling could have propelled the movie to new, suspensful heights.

The nature of the virus is also unclear. It turned one into a zombie, another had a craving for raw flesh, while most have clusters of abscesses and become violently murderous. A nitpick really since Kong Su-Chang focused more on the growing paranoia that divided the ranks. As the present and the past collide, Noh's team begins to implode. Each one of them had the symptoms but the heirarchy was still in place; it was a matter of letting the virus run its grotesque course, allowing the senior officers decide who gets to live or killing each other of. There are great moments of desperate tenderness seen through an unflinching critical eye that weighs the inhuman discipline that the military demands from its soldiers while serving in the GPs.

Then, there is the gore, oh how it sings! Commitment or simply fascination, Kong's carnage is sticky. It's on the floor, on the shirt, on the walls, dripping and splattered. The texture is syrupy, the feral frenzy---that bit with a soldier progressively pounding his own hand with a metal pipe---dizzying. G.P. 506 may be inferior to Kong's previous movie, the army vampire horror R-Point, but it still imposingly commands. Looking away is the easy part. The unsettling sadness echoing in the guard posts may be more difficult to forget.

American Idol Goes to the Movies

2009-04-16T12:15:00.009+08:00

If you see me walking around today with bruises on my face, don't panic. I fell on the remote control a couple of times from brain deadness. Alas, even Quentin Tarantino's all-powerful pointy chin (the night's mentor) has no effect on the bland and blank-faced top 7 finalists of American Idol. A quick rundown of song choices, which might put you to sleep, so clear your desk of any sharp objects:

Allison Iraheta, "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from Armageddon. She seemed a little lost in the orchestral arrangement and the pitch was way too low that she kept tucking her chin in. Sorry, obsessed with chins today. Predictable song choice, David Wipe-That-Smirk-Off-Your-Face did it better. My song choice for Allison: "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton (Awyeah!) from movie of the same title, Blondie version from the album Hunter.
Anoop Desai, "Everything I Do (I Do It for You) from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Tarantino's shifty eyes says it all, COVER YOUR EARS NOW! Another wide-eyed puppy performance. He has a great tone and all but the runs didn't hide the fact that this is a Bryan Adam's ballad. First bruise of the night. My song choice for Anoop: Anything not Bryan Adams. Maybe "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal from Batman Forever. Or "Change the World" from Phenomenon.
Adam Lambert, "Born to be Wild" from Easy Rider. Thank you, Adam, from being your old, screechy self. Relatively great performance. Freak on, alright. Simon said the entire thing felt too Rocky Horror Picture Show. Which Adam took as a compliment. My song choice for Adam: "20th Century Boy" by T. Rex from 20th Century Boys. Do foreign-language films count? I would love to see him go all emo on this one. Hmm. Maybe not.
Matt Giraud, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" from Don Juan DeMarco. I never really really really got this song. And I'm guessing I'm not the only one. He starts off nicely but ends with contradicting runs. Quite a mess, unfortunately, since I like this guy. I'm guessing he'll be voted out later. My song choice for Matt: "Til I Hear It From You" by Gin Blossoms from the movie Empire Records.
Danny Gokey, "Endless Love" from Endless Love. Ehem. Not as painful an experience as I thought it would be. But it made me sleepy. And bored. So bored that I began to hurt myself just for fun. My song choice for Danny: "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney from the James Bond movie, Live and Let Die. Or "I'm a Soul Man" from The Blues Brothers.
Kris Allen, "Falling Slowly" from Once. No, he wasn't singing about the ratings of American Idol, silly. It's falling quite fast. But I agree with Tarantino, Kris, for all his boyish melt-me-I'm-butter-You're-the-bread cuteness (obviously getting hungry at this point), was the only contestant who took the theme to heart, in other words, everyone else's song choices frakking sucked. Kris can't compare to Glen Hansard's soaring, pain-drenched vocals but he did sing it with enough tenderness that it worked. Worked on me quite a lot. My song choice for Kris: "I Can See Clearly" from Cool Runnings. Just to sell the Jason Mraz vibe he's got going.
Lil Rounds, "The Rose" from The Rose. Lil strikes back! And fails. She was defending her song choice, that she went all gospel and R&B with the arrangement, but Simon goes, "But it's a Bette Midler song." Simon for the win! Lil should really go tonight. My song choice for Lil: "Son of a Preacher Man" from Pulp Fiction. A little nod to Quentin's reservoir of patience with the kids.

Review: Coming Soon (Thailand, 2008)

2009-04-15T13:23:00.007+08:00

โปรแกรมหน้า วิญญาณอาฆาต
Coming Soon
Directed by Sophon Sakdaphisit
Starring Chantavit Ter Dhanasevi, Vorakarn Punch Rojjanavatchra

Coming Soon is compellingly bland. A movie within movie, the meta is unimposing but wonderfully palpable; the experience sells stronger than the fright.

Chen (Ter Chantavit) and Peoll, who work as Cineplex projectors, record preview copies of "coming soon" movies for film pirates. But the movie "Vengeful Spirit" strikes back when the reel villain, Chaba, crosses over to the real world. First time director, Sophon Sakdaphisit, who co-wrote Thai horror hits Shutter and Alone, should have drawn a stronger contrast between the two movies that went beyond set design and costumes. Perhaps the danger music that cues the scare should have been limited to "Vengeful Spirit" to set it apart from the actual movie, the real dark alleyways and dimly lit apartments where ghosts creep up on you menacingly quiet. As it is, I was more interested to see "Vengeful Spirit" in its entirety. Chaba is the witch of our nightmares, with piercing eyes, ratty gray hair and a dead leg that she drags when she walks; the creaking floorboards and the heavy weight of her crooked foot lagging along is what I would imagine to be the sound of a corpse being dragged to a shadowy corner.

For all its predictable set-ups and flat macabre, Coming Soon is surprisingly engrossing. The actors are relatable; boyish Ter Chantavit easily gains our sympathy as the man torn between making a living from piracy and the ex-boyfriend (husband?) who struggles to be a better person. The movie-within-a-movie idea is also carried out without much pretention, making it more involving and real for the audience; the merchandising of the film---posters, streamers, popcorn buckets---are characters themselves in the movie. I can only imagine what it must've felt like to be a moviegoer, to see the cineplex you're comfortably seated in become the setting of a horror movie that shares the same posters as the one you're watching. (I bought a DVD---loved the packaging---for my collection and borrowed a fansub for the English subtitles.)

Coming Soon is also about making movies. If Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on independent film-making, then Coming Soon carries the scar left by the rigid Thai censors. The cut scene of "Vengeful Spirit" holds the secret to unlocking the mystery of Chaba's haunting, possibly a metaphor for all the stories left untold.

The real horror now is this: Who knows how many more turning-points, revelations and point of views are left to be forgotten on the cutting-room floor?

3/5

DVD Short Cuts: Friendship, Me...Myself

2009-04-13T10:02:00.016+08:00

เฟรนด์ชิพ เธอกับฉัน Friendship
Directed by Chatchai Naksuriya
Starring Mario Maurer (The Love of Siam), Apinya "Saipan" Sakuljaroensuk (Ploy)
2008

Coming-of-age gone awry with impossibly soap opera-ish finish. Former high school friends meet up and set reunion. One of them, a TV producer, reminisce about his first love whom he hasn't heard from since high school ended. The flashbacks are infused with energy; Maurer, Sakuljaroensuk, and the rest of the kids enthusiastically attack their roles and more than makes up for the limp writing and stilted lines. But director Naksuriya appears confused with the over-all tone of the movie. It is both teen rom-com and heavy melodrama, awkwardly slicing the film in two parts. Think High School Musical with a more tragic An Affair to Remember ending. The movie worked best when it meandered and winsomely captured the aimless after-school afternoons spent with friends and the casual adventures in between. With extensive making-of featurette. 2/5

ขอให้รักจงเจริญ Me...Myself
Directed by Pongpat Wachirabunjong
Starring Ananda Everingham (Shutter), Chayanan Manomaisantiphap
2007

After being beaten up by thieves, a man staggers down a dark road and gets hit by a car. Ohm, the woman driving the car, brings the stranger to the hospital and is forced to give him shelter when he wakes up with amnesia. She decides to call him Tan, after the name on the pendant around his neck. Ananda Everingham gives Tan the fragile vulnerability of a man trying to recall his past while falling in love with his present. He is eager to please Ohm and later on becomes the reliable center of Ohm's life. Tan's memories come back in mysterious flashes, vividly colorful and blaring. When Tan's memories surface, the mystery of why he was wandering down the road revealed, it is surprisingly crushing. There are hints of his identity (the movie poster reveals too much) scattered all over the movie---Tan's too graceful gestures, his fascination with lipstick---but Everingham and Manomaisantiphap's chemistry works so well that one can't help but cheer on for the blossoming relationship to succeed. The ending is a little too drawn out; even first-time director Wachirabunjong seems hesitant to give up on the wonderfully fleshed out characters of Tan and Ohm. Still, reality and logic get its way and I couldn't ask for a better resolution. Or lack thereof. The Thai DVD release blurs Everingham's "nude" scene which quite distracts. 3/5

Pchy returns favor

2009-04-12T22:29:00.012+08:00

After Mario Maurer made an appearance in the first major concert of August Band, it's now Witwisit "Pchy" Hiranyawongkul's turn to wish Mario luck on his new movie Buppah Rahtree 3.1: Rahtree Reborn. What, no hug?

With The Love of Siam still having legs in the festival circuit two years after its initial release (recently shown at the 27th San Francisco Asian American Film Festival last March), it's no wonder that the Pchy/Mario or Mew/Tong team-up continues to illicit screams from girls and confused boys alike. And a few thirty-somethings, too. Heh.

Pchy was last seen in the lakorn Sai Sueb Delivery and continues to perform with his band, August. Mario, the one first thought of more likely to succeed, seems to be making bad movie decisions while being in the middle of a messy lawsuit against ex-manager Coco. His follow-up to The Love of Siam, Friendship, bombed at the box office and was panned by critics across the board. I've seen it, and I agree with the negative reviews, to put it kindly. Buppah Rahtree 3.1: Rahtree Reborn, which opened last Saturday, appears like another disappointment.

Links:

Video of Pchy's appearance in Buppah Rahtree 3.1 press launch here.
Wise Kwai's Buppah Rahtree 3.1: Rahtree Reborn review here.

Via Super MARIO MAURER

Review: Departures (2008)

2009-04-12T02:09:00.013+08:00

おくりびと
Okuribito (Departures)
Directed by Yojiro Takita
Starring Masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Ryoko Hirosue

We talk to our dead during a wake. We converse with them as if the dearly departed could reply back. Oftentimes, we answer for them.

Oftentimes, we like to pretend that the dead are only asleep and it's crucial that they look that way.

The Japanese encoffinment ritual that is the heart of Departures is the most affectionate gesture I have ever seen on screen. It is graceful yet precise; concealing the difficult task of cleaning and disrobing the dead with a hypnotic, almost celebratory dance, knees firmly tucked under, arms rising and falling and fingers fluttering. Fussing like a mother; rigid like a father. Playful like a child. The bereaved family watches closely and become part of the corpse's transformation, from a cold, empty shell to a familiar face that they've woken up to or watched fall asleep in the years that have passed.

As a child, I used to watch my mother suit up for work and I've only remembered recently how I have memorized her morning routine: the perfume behind the ears before anything else, the skirt that she carefully smooths out, the watch, her only jewelry, that she gingerly clicks into place. Watching the encoffinment ceremony feels like watching someone go through his daily ritual one last time.

In refined, thoughtful strokes, Departures paints different scenarios of last goodbyes with such unpredictability in the details that it feels painfully real. The ceremonies do tend to end in tears (quiet, howling) but it's the subtle change in atmosphere---the slightest tics of recognition and submission to fate on the faces of husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters and lovers, and the wistful look of committing to memory the contours and the imperfection that once loved them back---that director Yojiro Takita carefully captures with polite elegance.

Much like us unfamiliar with the Japanese cermony, Daigo is the outsider, the watchful eye that is slowly drawn into a career of encoffinment. Played brilliantly by Masahari Motoki, who first thought of filming Departures ten years ago after reading the memoir of an enconffinment master, Daigo is an awkward mess of insecurity and unfulfilled dreams. Recognizing his own limitation in playing the cello, he and his wife Mika (the luminous Ryoko Hirosue) move back to Yamagata to look for a new job. He stumbles upon an ad on "Assisting Departures" and thinking that it was a travel agency opening, applies for it.

His introduction to corpses is a gag but as he is drawn deeper into the refined precision of the ritual, almost similar to the fret play on the cello, Daigo unravels into his own person and confronts memories he has been running away from all his life.

I'm forgiving the movie for its singular, obviously-staged montage (Who plays cello in a rice field? Even the kurosagi seem to be bothered by it.) because as a joyfully heartbreaking whole, Departures is one of those rare movies that transforms into a shared experience. The movie poses through images difficult questions about life and death, contemplates the answers, and leaves it to us mull over. It's loose structure gives the string of encounters breathing space, making room for Daigo's own personal battles, his struggle to remember his estranged father's face, the quiet brevity it requires. And what I love most, for all its thematic weight, is the movie's light footed humor, most of the time rolling with the funny down its melancholic twists. Unpretentious, the humble film that could, Departures wistfully offers us the gift of how to say goodbye.

(And yes, it is better than any of the 5 nominees for Best Picture in this year's Oscar race.)

5/5

Review: Hormones (Thailand, 2008)

2009-04-11T18:45:00.009+08:00

ปิดเทอมใหญ่ หัวใจว้าวุ่น
Pidtermyai huajai wawoon (Hormones)
Directed by Songyos Sugmakanan (Dorm)
Starring Ter Chantawit (Coming Soon), Charlie Trairat (Dorm), Sirachuch Chienthaworn, Sora Aoi

Hormones smells like teen spirit: sweaty, giddy, nervous. It's close to impossible not to get carried away with the film's electrifying youthfulness, and for us thirtysomethings, it's a nostalgic replay of days being wild, wild equals the abandon to make mistakes.

Director Singyos Sugmakanan knows the addictive riffs of young love all to well. Whether it's competing with a friend to get a girl's number, obsessing over a pop star, confessing love to a popular girl at school or contemplating cheating, Sugmakanan cleverly balances tenderness with shameless stupidity, the guy thing and the girl thing pinned down without the complexeties of melodrama.

Pu (Charlie Trairat) and Mai (Sirachuch Chienthaworn), dickheads for hearthrobs, fall at the same time for Nana (Ungsumalynn Sirapatsakmetha), a plump former schoolmate who has blossomed into a sweet, shy stunner. Both compete for her number, both fall quite hard. (There's a scene where Nana cuts her finger from opening a soda can and Mai, out of instinct, sucks the blood from her finger, wraps a band-aid around it and draws a heart on the blood stain. My adult mind was taken aback by the relaxed sensuality; my overworked memory understood but could no longer grasp such innocence.)

Oh Lek (Best Supporting Actress winner Focus Jirakul) is obsessing over Taiwanese singer Didi (Lu Ting Wei), obsessing so much that she picks up Chinese language lessons just so she could understand the lyrics to his songs. Though the weakest plot of the four when it comes to character growth, it does paint the loneliest kind of love, completely loyal, completely unconditional, and utterly impossible.

Bespectacled class geek Jo (Ratchu Surachalas) is in love with popular girl Cee (Chutima Teepanat) and resorts to mimicking a scene from Love Actually to confess his love, to which Cee replies, "That's not how it works." Really? I liked this the most---stubbornly molding reality to be as picturesque as fiction myself---the reality check that separates the hormones from growing pains.

And finally, the most adult of the bunch shows the endearing Chantawit "Ter" Thanasawee as Hern, a boyfriend who is tempted to cheat on his girlfriend Nuan (Thaniya Ummaritchoti) when he meets Japanese tourist Aoi (Japanes adult AV star Sora Aoi). I can already hear my girlfriends drawing the line but, it's really a guy thing. A momentary lapse is all it is. (Hides from under the table and waves white flag.)

Hormones rages with muscular verve, seamlessly cutting from one story to the next, to the tune of catchy, guitar-driven Thai pop. It only slows down when Sugmakanan attempts to wrap a bow around the fairytale ending of the fangirl storyline but still manages to finish with determined optimism that only comes with youth.

In the end, most characters are running toward a brand new chapter in their lives while some take a step back, content at the way things were, teen spirit in all its awkward glory.

4/5

Review: The Unseeable (Thailand, 2006)

2009-04-07T13:11:00.012+08:00

เปนชู้กับผี
Pen Choo Kub Pee (The Unseeable)
Directed by Wisit Sasanatieng
Starring Suporntip Chuangrangsri, Tassawan Seneewongse, Siraphan Wattanajinda

"All seeable things are alike; each unseeable thing is unseeable in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy

Old-fashioned fear is organic in the hands of flashy Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng. Organic like reflex memory, the groaning shadows and fleeting shapes of things that go bump in the dark that make your heart skip a beat. Organic like cautionary tales, cob-webbed ghouls and pale, clawed hands that pull you into the darkness when you've been disobedient. Organic like love, the heart of darkness that pushes us to do foolish things that later come back. Oh, and do they come back.

The Unseeable is thick with ghosts, so thick it's impossible not to beathe in the dusty, musty smells of locked closets and abandoned rooms heavy with beauty. And of course, secrets. The attention to detail poured over to recreate the romantic 1930s is obssesive compulsive accurate. The looming high roofs, the ornate doors and tapestry, the grandly spacious rooms that echo the glory of Hollywood, a nostalgic lushness that at first seduces a young pregnant woman, Nualjin (Siraphun Wattanajinda), who is in search of temporary lodging while she looks for her missing husband. Madame Somchit, played with Gothic glee by Tassawan Seneewongse, is the grim caretaker who sternly forbids any trips to the main house where the mysterious widow, Runjuan (Supornthip Choungrangsee) lives.

The labyrinthine gardens and hallways beckon Nualjin out of her room and into the maddeningly crowded night. With only a low-burning oil lamp throwing, stretching, and distorting shadows, the unseeable surfaces.

There is macabre magic at work in Wisit Sasanatieng's frames. The ghosts are barely visible; glimpses above Nualjin's shoulder, a pale hand reaching out for moldy offerings from the mouth of a jar or a thorny shrub, a half naked man sitting on the roof, crawling down the walls---blink and you miss it. But if you do see it---them---the shivers go down the spine like mad.

Scripted by Kongkiat Khomsiri who also wrote Art of the Devil II, The Unseeable reveals itself like a mystery-thriller with bits and pieces of flashback that get less and less scary as it reaches the end, a twist that is not much of a surprise but still deftly, err, executed. What the script lacks in sophistication Sasanatieng makes up for with dazzlingly claustrophobic camera pans and a precise eye for capturing the slightest ghostly gesture, which has made the unseeable desperation and montrosity of a past that haunts deliriously cinematic.

Old-fashioned fear is organic, the haunted houses of our youth that we occassionaly visit in our nightmares. Organic like the quickening of the pulse when the street lights go out and we are walking alone in the dark. Organic like a lamp burning out. Organic like not turning off the lights after watching The Unseeable.

4/5

Stumbled upon Leo Tolstoy quote here, SEED Magazine article on Dark matter.
More photos and a review here, Coffee Coffee and More Coffee.

Review: Best of Times (Thailand, 2009)

2009-04-02T14:27:00.016+08:00

Best of Times
(Kwaam Jam San..Dtae Rak Chan Yaao)
Directed by Youngyooth Thongkonthun (Iron Ladies)
Starring Arak Amornsupasiri (Body sob 19), Yarinda Bunnag

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. ~Michel de Montaigne

Memory is a whimsical beast. It surfaces without warning, submerges without a sound as if it never made ripples. Memories being unique to a person, we can assume that we own them, that we can subject them to bend to our will, chronologically sorted and easily pulled out as needed.

Keng (Arak Amornsupasiri) is a snobbish, awkward veterinarian who never got over his first love, Fai (Yarinda Bunnag), who married and later got divorced to his best friend. Keng pretends that he doesn't remember her when she stumbles into his clinic carrying an injured dog.

Kind and eternally compassionate Fai can't forget her ex-husband and secretly wishes that they would get back together soon. But she also remembers Keng, the once shy, admonishing high school kid who had recorded a love mix for her, and is now showing her the kind of affection and attention that her ex-husband couldn't give.

Sompit and Jamrat met at a computer club for the elderly. Eventhough her family doesn't agree with her blossoming relationship with Jamrat, Sampit flees to Chumporn to be with the man she loves; she insists on staying with Jamrat even if her family is relocating to the U.S. But Jamrat, due to an illness, is slowly losing his memory. He will soon forget every memory he holds dear. Pretty soon, he wouldn't even recognize Sampit.

Best of Times is a thoughtful, lighthearted examination of memory and its ironies. Director Amornsupasiri is in no rush to tell a story and there is a languid, relaxed flow to the mistakes and realizations that the characters make along the way. Beyond a logical progression from point A to point B, Best of Times is fattened with moments that make each character more endearing----Fai rushing off to a bookstore to buy her ex-husband's missing DragonBallZ vol. 18 manga but ends up getting the entire set because the books weren't sold individually; Keng pretending to be asleep and secretly smiling when droplets of water from Fai's newly washed hair trickle down his cheeks---moments not exactly integral to moving the story forward but in themselves are memories waiting to be kept.

The movie also keeps it real as much as possible and veers from romantic-comedy predictability right from the outset. Fai and Keng make an odd couple; they never really become comfortable with each other's company with Fai still attempting, maybe even faking, to move on from her divorce. And I like it that the movie leaves it at that, with one still unable to forget and the other quite willing to never forget and continue waiting.

If there is a weakness to the movie, it is the contrived metaphors (the tree, the goldfish) that weigh down Sampit and Jamrat's story, the almost too obvious emotional anchors that cue the melodrama (of which I am not immune to because I admittedly had to pretend to clean my glasses when I was really quickly wiping off tears).

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I liked Best of Times more than I should. Memory is triggered randomly and the DragonBallZ manga bit hit too close to home. Out of nowhere, with one hand freezing from holding a soda and the other half-buried in a popcorn bucket, there it was, this thing I thought I had forgotten.

If there's one thing that the movie is successful at it is making us remember that the past is as fluid as the future and that all we can do when it does rear its head---nostlagic, regretful, or whimsical---is sit back and enjoy the view.

4/5

Official website: www.kwamjumsan.com
Trailer:

Wabi-Sabi Art: Motion, picture, and not at all edible

2009-04-01T23:17:00.005+08:00

Now will you look at that.

I think I actually can feel my heart slowing down from all the peace and goodwill that the swirly water is creating.

Japanese artist Shinichi Maruyama is creating waves with his midair photography of colliding black ink and water; giddy, graceful and incoherently magical at the point of convergence.

I can look at this for hours.

To look at more of Maruyama's work or to order prints, visit his official site.

Via: urlesque

Review: Sundo (2009)

2009-03-31T14:42:00.011+08:00

Sundo
Directed by Topel Lee
Starring Robin Padilla, Rhian Ramos, Sunshine Dizon

You can feel the cold creeping in and squeezing your windpipes. You are Louella (Sunshine Dizon) getting soaked in the rain, shoes sticky with mud, as you watch your father's skeleton stumble out of its coffin clumsily dropped by cemetery caretakers. You are Baguio, sprawling, eternally cold and gray like a blanket hiding a corpse.

Director Topel Lee and cinematographer J. A. Tadena transform the usually cheery Baguio into a brooding, opaque hell where houses seem to shiver in the cold. Bathed in muted palettes of browns and steel, the fluorescent light seems alien, a fragile glow that the dark is hungry to devour, while the ghosts, ang mga sundo, lurk in the mist-like shadows.

The noun "sundo" has no direct English translation: it is a person---a close relative, a sweetheart---who picks you up from school or work with the specific purpose of making sure you get home safely, ie. My sundo (boyfriend or parent) has arrived. As a verb, sundo means to pick someone up (from school or work). In the movie, Romano (Robin Padilla) sees dead people, but these are ghosts with a mission, to be the sundo, the guide of the dying from this life to the after life. In effect, every appearance of a ghost is an omen of death.

Romano and childhood friend Louella drive down to the city with his sister, the blind Isabel (Rhian Ramos), to find a cure for her ailment, along with a few companions. Romano dreams about an accident that kills them all but wakes up in time to prevent it from happening. He suddenly hears a baby crying and as he steps out of the vehicle, he realizes that they are surrounded by ghosts. They were meant to die and now their sundo have arrived.

Sundo is a movie severely split in two. The first half is moody, atmospheric, and genuinely dead cold; its claustrophobic static can be felt at the back of the neck. The second half, which begins right after the should-have-been accident, is commercial Hollywood that is too reminscent of Final Destination.

What a damn shame.

There could be higher forces at work here and Lee does his best to keep the brooding tone, but the gimicky accidents (being blinded by flying embers from your favorite isaw stand) are laughably scripted and clumsily executed with not enough B-movie gusto that they turn out flat. And boring.

There's a twist in the movie's last few minutes that almost saves the movie from predictability but it is carried out in exactly the same way that Ouija (Topel's previous horror genre effort) ended, with someone being pulled into the darkness.

Is it just me or was that last echoing scream a cry of frustration?

3/5

Thai Pop: August Band, Lula, scrubb

2009-03-30T18:06:00.003+08:00

Standing at the corner of the iconic DJ Siam in Siam Square, I judged a record by its cover. Much like life, music is also like a box of chocolates (though I'm always hoping to have a sampling of the bittersweet kind). So I chose a couple of Thai pop albums based purely on packaging design---I had only two standards, quirky and clean---and as soon as I got back to Manila, I did the old Rolling Stone perception versus reality thing in my busy head.

August, "Radiodrome"

Perception: I'm quite familiar with the band but not their music outside The Love of Siam OST (which I was very lucky to still get a copy of). So. Adorkable tweens on the cover, a gazillion of them. The geekyness of the toys had me at hello. Someone looks like he's having too much fun with a nekkid mannequin. Also, a giant bison head. These kids are nuts. Yay! I'm expecting circus music with a flourish of marching band stomping. Inside flap design though is more normal. Love the coat of arms against pink. Or maybe I just love pink. There's also a wall of black and white photos of the children at work. Serious and sane. Pchy Hiranyawongkul is still cute. Where's Mario Maurer? I've been duped!
Reality: It's actually a pretty good album. I'm digging the retro, vibe of the horn section that swings and sways in disco inferno on the fast tracks and subtly melancholic on the ballads, almost Bacarachian. First single "Sunshine" (track 8) is undeniably one of the happiest tunes I've ever heard with rise and dips in the verses that catapult the clap-along chorus to soaring heights. "Radio" cleverly blends an RnB groove with 70s dance floor lite riff. The acoustic romps are more straightforward pop songs but are equally melodic and contagious. Having 5 vocalists, August keeps the singing textured and nuanced. I don't know if the CD represents the technical musicality of the band; the live performances I've seen are a little sloppy. Still, August is a young band, literally, and they have quite enough time to catch up and match the brilliant production of Radiorome.

Lula, "Urban Lullabies"

Perception: Delicate inks, a splash of pastel watercolors. Rainbows and flying fishes. Where are the unicorns? It's got quite a nice cover. Nice really describes it. It's clean and very girly; it's just how I imagined my bedroom would look like when I was 10 years old. The inside flap shows more fine inks: a birdcage (maybe for the flying fish?), a piano and guitar. It's all very, err, nice. I'm guessing Jewel singing about unicorns and castles (but the latter I would never find out because I don't speak Thai).

Reality: Wow. I love her voice. Lula sounds just like Frente's Angie Hart, high and delicate with a pleasant echoing ring when she reaches the high notes. And it's folksy bossanova! Her album sounds like it was released by Minty Fresh, an independent outfit that has an ear for twee pop. Urban Lullabies is perfect for driving, which I played yesterday on the way back to the city. It has a consistently relaxed lilt like toes tiptoeing on a piano. She also occasionally dips into jazz, which proves to be the perfect counterpoint to the light guitar strumming, the saxophone adding a sonorous depth to the mostly airy arrangement.

scrubb, "Chood Lek"
scrubb's myspace site

Perception: Me and adorkable guys, we're tight like this (crosses fingers). I love the "green" packaging---clean lines, a little techno---and the urban indie look of band. The CD flaps fold out to...a pop-up cut out of the two members at the center while the side flaps can be tucked under the bottom flap and voila: the Swiss Alps! I was telling myself that even if the music seriously sucked and sounded like cows yodeling, it would still be worth it.

Reality: Chood Lek is a Best of compilation from Thawachpol "Muey" Wongboonsiri and Torpong "Ball" Chantabuppha's previous three albums. The faint hooks reminds me of Kings of Convenience with a more Britpop influence (more The Las than Coldplay) in the anthemic choruses. Their lastfm page says that they will be touring with QFlure (Gun Lae Gun, Radio Edit, LoS OST) in Australia and I'm not not surprised at the international acclaim of the band. Most of their songs are slow burners, bittersweet (yes!) melodies with an infectious center and there's a tenderness to it that is telling me learn Thai, now.

Review: Meat Grinder (Thailand, 2009)

2009-03-27T12:21:00.015+08:00

Meat Grinder
Directed by Tiwa Moeithaisong Starring Mai Charoenpura (Suriyothai), Rattanaballang Tohsawat (Bangkok Love Story)

A movie about slicing and dicing is sliced and diced by the Thai censors, how's that for parallelism?

Whether Tiwa Moeithaisong intended it to be or not, Meat Grinder has become a crash test dummy for the new Thailand motion picture ratings and can't be helped but seen as an allegory to the viewing experience: As the landlord and his thugs slurp down Bus' noodles and devour the bits and pieces of human meatballs, I am also served a severely and clumsily hacked movie, which refrained me from digesting the narrative as a coherent whole. (I was also out of my comfort zone, watching a movie for the first time in Bangkok in the plush Siam Paragon multiplex on a chair that stubbornly pulled back at what should be a relaxing angle but only made me feel like I was about to fall backwards every time my cringe reflexes were, err, cringing away.)

Meat Grinder is about a lot of things---violence begets violence, the tumultous Thai communist uprisings which I hoped the movie pursued more to add more dimension to the period's climate, violence as escape (and lucrative business) for the women in this movie---but these all feel incidental to the main attraction, the deliciously graphic hunting and gathering of human meat and the calculated food preparation.

Mai Charoenpura as Bus goes about her killing spree with stoic determination that it becomes more chilling. And cool. She even out-classes Uma Thurman's The Bride (Kill Bill) when Bus kitchen kung-fus her three abusers with knives and cleavers or whatever she could grab in her dank kitchen, whacking heads like they were yielding watermelons, driving hooks through screaming mouths, slicing arms casually as if she were about to serve Christmas ham. Admittedly, even for someone like me who has a taste for gore fests, I had to look away when she drove a nail down in all ten fingertips of one of her victims. Shot up close, the rusty nail pierced and cracked the quivering fingernail painfully slow, which is reminiscent of Choi Min-Sik's dentistry work with a hammer in Park Chan Wook's Old Boy and the gradual torture in Takashi Miike's Ôdishon.

Unfortunately, Meat Grinder's narrative is as choppy as its violence. The Thai censors is partially to blame but Moeithaisong is also at fault, resorting occasionally to execution over substance. There are just too many styles employed---from scratchy old-film wash-out colors to black and white to quick cut-to-cuts---resulting to a disjointed storytelling and a tone that is impossible to define, which is my biggest issue with the movie.

Outside the political context of censorship, Meat Grinder, as a movie, is without depth. There are signs that the director struggled to inject it with meaning but the cycle of violence as an emotional center or theme is a beaten-up, predictable purpose. Soylent Green existed in an apocalyptic what-if context; The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and Titus made cannibalism the ultimate penance. In Meat Grinder, we never feel the weight of commiting the act. Was Bus supposed to be excused because she was mad? Was Bus' lover not even mortified or even the slightest bit morally shaken after seeing the slaughterhouse?

In this respect, Meat Grinder is torture porn. Frustratingly so because it could have been so much more. There's not much to chew on really.

3/5

Further Reading:

Wise Kwai's Meat Grinder review.
Wise Kwai on he Thailand ratings system.

Blog Holiday Aha! Aha!

2009-03-19T10:58:00.008+08:00

The only true currency in this bankrupt world... is what you share with someone else when you're uncool. - Lester Bangs, Almost Famous (2000)

Here's the sitch dear Scoobies: the economy's down, advertising budgets have been cut by 40%, and my stylish yet affordable boots' soles are getting worn down from all the waking to save on taxi fare.

So I say to myself, T, do your part in helping the world economy and go on a holiday. Spend, drink, and be Mary.

See you in a week.

Until then, as the famous caption after each movie trailer shown in Philippine theaters (in the 1980s) read: Relax, see a movie!

insert expletive here

2009-03-18T09:57:00.008+08:00

Censors board vs UP over permits
By Bayani San Diego Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer

TWO GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) and the University of the Philippines (UP), are at loggerheads.

In a letter sent to UP president Emerlinda R. Roman on Feb. 17, board chair Marissa Laguardia expressed concern over “the public and commercial exhibition of films in the UP Film [Institute] that have no corresponding permits.”

Some of these films, Laguardia said in the letter, were shown in UP “despite the fact that they had been classified by the [board] as unfit for public exhibition.”

Commercial

Laguardia pointed out that these films were shown “not for educational purposes but clearly for commercial exhibition … [and were] made available to the public at a cost between P150 to P250 per person.”

Laguardia reiterated that Presidential Decree No. 1986 “prohibits the public and commercial exhibition of films without a permit from the board.”

She added that Republic Act No. 9500 or the UP Charter of 2008 “doesn’t exempt UP or the UP Film [Institute] from the jurisdiction of the MTRCB.”

Academic freedom

Responding to Laguardia’s letter, UP vice president for legal affairs Theodore O. Te on March 2 requested the MTRCB for copies of the “reports” on the alleged screenings of films without permits, as well as on the commercial screenings that charged P150 to P250 per ticket.

In his reply, Te stressed that the UP Film Center and UP Film Institute “are integral parts of the academic and educational purposes of the University and … covered by academic freedom guaranteed not only by RA 9500, but also by the Constitution.”

Te said the request for “specific details and not general imputations” was being made “so we may also investigate these alleged violations.”

MTRCB member Mario Hernando told the Inquirer that during the tenure of chair Armida Siguion-Reyna, the MTRCB identified these venues as “censorship-free”: Cultural Center of the Philippines, embassies, and University of the Philippines.

--------------------------------

Without the U.P. Film Center, I wouldn't have been able to see the works of Ishmael Bernal, Mike de Leon and Lino Brocka on the widescreen, the way it was intended to be: larger than life visual celebrations and experiments of and about life.

Just recently, it has been host to uncut showings of gay-centric movies that are more often than not erotic in nature. I have not seen any of these so I cannot comment on the explicitness of the films.

But does it really matter?

U.P is (and of course I could be wrong) the only place left in the country where one can grow up in an environment that is closest to the concept of academic freedom. Back in the 1990s, our Creative Writing professors encouraged us, no, begged us to live without fear, to enjoy the freedom the university offered because the "outside world" will neither be as tolerant nor welcoming to public displays of expression.

Sadly, they were right.

Now, this freedom that students have enjoyed since 1908 is in danger. A question posed against the U.P. Film Center is a question posed against what the University of the Philippines stands for.