Glamour Card

Bi-U-tiful!

Jun Lana’s first attempt in the mainstream arena in the horror film Mag-ingat ka sa... Kulam has been derided in my review. In his new film Tarot, I could now feel that he has now returned in his better form. Not as a faerie that would cast magical spells that play with our senses on the supernatural aspects of our society but as a real fabulist. After all, it is his passion and the typewriter back then could be his supernatural tool into the invention of his stories. Tarot could be a little tricky with its plot and stiff twists; yet it still deserves to be seen.

The lady Gambit of the hour is played by a reel and real enchantress, Marian Rivera. She plays the dazzling Cara who has a tragic and mystifying past. The film starts with a flashback when Mount Pinatubo erupted and the young and naïve Cara has foreseen this in the tarot cards of her grandmother played by the legendary Gloria Romero. On New Year’s Eve, Cara feels she is being called by the whispery cards. As she lays it down, she manifests the knowledge that tragic events will happen.

The film is about fortunetelling. Ironically, the film cancels out the word fortune, and speaks. A few months back, I had my first tarot card reading session given by a lady who looks quite typical for her eerie profession. She introduces her craft more as psychotherapy. She prohibits questions that will be regarding health and death. I think it’s quite disreputable for her to tackle those things so it is really something to avoid. I am astounded that two films I have recently seen have tackled the misfortune. The other film is Ang Manghuhula by Paolo Herras. I could have bashed both films for their irregularities and being quite negligent with the repercussions it could get across to the viewers. But I assure you, both films have squeezed in other elements to make them realistic, imaginative and entertaining.

Years have passed; Cara decides to climb a mountain with his fiancé Miguel played by Dennis Trillo. They are lost in the forest side of the mountain and decide to stay in a cave for the night. When Cara wakes up, Miguel is nowhere to be found. Weeks have passed; there is no news of Miguel. Cara decides to get hold of the tarot cards of her grandmother to know where he is.

Cara seems to be highly intuitive with the things around her and this could be a great benefit on her part. I think, even without the tarot cards, you could see in her dazzling eyes the wisdom she has manifested. I think she might do a better acting foray in the horror genre like the role as Nieves in the Shake Rattle and Roll X than flaunting her comedic prowess in Desperadas 2 and even a hysterical drama stint in One True Love. But in Tarot, she has proven again that she shines. This could be a genre she is at home with and has saturated all the excesses of the melodramatic acting.

Tarot could be your next DVD purchase and could be relished for its worth especially if you crave for audience-oriented horror thrills. This film has been sprinkled with conflicts and twists, similiar to your well-liked flavored popcorn. But sometimes flavored writing needs some buffing up and polishing despite a contentment whether between the filmmaker and the studio or with the filmmaker himself. Still, it is every man to his taste. But my intuition says, Jun Lana’s writing is in best form in Sa Pusod ng Dagat by Marilou Diaz-Abaya.


Charlie Koon's Rating:

Men in Trees

Good boy Bad boy

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” - Henry David Thoreau

Desperate men are the most interesting species of men, at least in the theatrical sensibility. Usually dominated by a hard-boiled adrocentrist and suitcasey predisposition, normally tuned men are so difficult to capture in a colorful point of view, if they are captured at all, without the color reverting to a shade of gay futility. Apart from the sacrosanct movies of Fernando Poe and the like, men who have successfully summoned themselves in order to slay towering white handkerchiefs with womanish heads, the sheer absence of a good dude flick has the industry scrounging for fresh mojo. Astig is shrewd to fill the void, helmed by GB Sampedro and produced by the Queen of Men himself Boy Abunda, the debut of this TV oriented fraternity has the audience dashing for a second run.

The movie itself is cut into four slightly intertwining episodes, almost-Amores in its rendering but still accessibly linear thanks to Charliebebs Gohetia’s editing. The gruff and unsilken demonstration of filth and testosterone is predictable enough. These men are out to survive. The streets are rough and they have to be rougher, a survivalist mentality that permeates through the film’s entirety. But as the bricks start to crumble, the unfolding somewhat effortlessly belies the staunch but artificial rigor of the permanent Man along with his preciously defended manhood. Inevitably the latter becomes another pawnable item of the city’s vicious and voluptuous grinding.

It was refreshing to see a few mainstream actors in the process of actual thespianism. The dirty-tongued Dennis Trillo was robust and multi-faceted enough to stand as the definitive paragon of the stubborn boyness that unravels under the weight of his own dire consequences. Young men are most difficult to effectively characterize under normal circumstances without coming off as formulaic. Their desires are boxed and predictable, their reaction times calculatedly similar. The stereotypes of the weak and the strong are too two-dimensional to employ in any meaty portrayal. In this movie the addition and intimation of male emotion paradoxically adds strength to the characters. It’s always the tension of feeling that kills them in the end. A strong man is the suffering man, amusing to watch and terrific to behold in its fetish proportionality.

Aside from Trillo’s irrepressible brio and Sid Lucero’s obstinacy, the middle two episodes as presented by Edgar Allan Guzman and Arnold Reyes showed more of the despondent man, bedfellows of hard living and everything in between hard things. To relinquish one’s penetrative role as bleatingly portrayed by Guzman in the fluid-ridden movie house is a prime example of a sacrifice done on the strain of a family’s common hunger. Crying and nakedness are rampant, and the women aren’t so bad at it either. Add a few sprinklings of the occasional ill-placed but good-intentioned famous person’s cameo and you have a collective acting ordeal that could possibly surprise the mainstream observer but may casually bore the jaded indie activist. Certainly this movie is not Cinemalaya’s most cerebral, perhaps a mock symbolism of masculinity itself, but the primal grace is evident enough to enthuse. Ultimately, it is a reflection of how far humans can go and how scared we are of the predator from the bottom of the tree.

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Written by: Alex Milla (Guest Critic)

Scare Tactics

What a cute doll... :)

When a writer gradually tries a path in film directing, more so directing his own writing, I am certain that the director will deliver a well-written story over anything else. Jun Lana is nonetheless an acclaimed writer. I am not doubtful that his story has a good plot. There are inconceivable twists coalesced within the story. It is skillfully crafted with less abrupt contrivances. Mag-ingat ka sa... Kulam is an efficiently written horror film with a dash of dramatic overtones. This fine material fits well for a versatile actress like Judy Ann Santos. Despite the film’s adequacy in writing, good production value and favorable performances from Judy Ann Santos and Dennis Trillo; the film’s execution is unpromising. The film might be a success to most of the people who have seen it. On my part, I did not perceive any visionary schemes for it to appear exceptional.

Mira (Judy Ann Santos) remarkably survives a car accident. But she suffers the loss of memory. Strange things start to happen at their house. Even her husband Paul (Dennis Trillo) seems unwary with Mira’s intuition that something eerie is going on. He believes that it is a result of the traumatic accident. It is also revealed that Mira is not close with her blind daughter Sophie (Sharlene San Pedro). She makes an effort to be close to her daughter but she is constantly distracted with the mysterious things recurring upon her. One day, she was visited by her business partner Dave (TJ Trinidad). Dave admitted that they had an affair in the past. He confessed a secret only the two of them knew. With his assertion to uncover Mira’s past, she discovers more than she must not be aware of her true being.

Kulam is a result of malevolent incantations by witches and sorcerers alike. Its fusion in Philippine Culture is undoubtedly good material for film exploration, dissection and even exploitation. However, Mag-ingat ka sa... Kulam only scratches the surface of this fascinating world of witchcraft and sorcery. It resorted to familiar chants in gibberish dialect, maladroit representations of warlocks, and unflattering undertones of native myths, customs and rituals. Even the depiction of the evil spirit is not justified. I am certain that even in the point of view of a writer and director; he must have achieved a vision that accurately illustrates the evil spirit. It certainly makes an effort to use prosthetics so it’s deliberated that the spirit must look horrible, but why? Are there clues for us audience to understand even on the basic level why on earth she appears like that? She looks like a leper, or did she acquire any skin disease of some sort? Or is it just for the sake of making a horror scenario creepier? An obvious prognosis for this delineation will entirely make an audience jump from their seats. Okay, for a horror film to sell, the wicked spirit has to be frightening. Evil usually equals scary ugly. It’s an interesting point though. Mag-ingat ka sa... Kulam makes the mistake of jejune characterization, especially for the horror persona they have shown. But for a writer-director, the sin is twofold.

Another thing, there are spooky circumstances in the film that is terrifying but has not hinted any just rationalization. A tuft of hair in blood is found in the cabinet. Is a person’s head bumped on that sturdy piece of furniture? The water in the bathtub boils and the evil spirit emerged. Even her hair is falling apart, implying that the spirit had cancer. It is spine-chilling but it has no purpose. It leaves empty scares. Even the suppose to be promising story in its essential level is made to clutter with the film’s strive to bring about horror and a disturbing atmosphere without giving thoughts of its intention. Witchcraft is so vague and films have no purpose to conceal a story’s progression. The film could be indicted of contriving the plot if found not adequate in its motivation of the characters.

Santos still has the imperative charisma an actress must possess. It definitely shows in the jam-packed theatre, despite the fact that the ticket rates are costly (roughly two hundred bucks). She did very well in her portrayal even though some parts were inexcusably dubbed (Regal do it in their films on purpose). Trillo as her leading man is quite a relief and a surprise. They make a good pairing and I would love to see them again in future films, possibly in a drama feature. I have said it in the past that I am not a TV guy, but I am dumbfounded with Neil’s (Mart Escudero) role in the film. Is he the male evil spirit? Or is he the newest heartthrob sensation in showbiz? And yeah, I have been acquainted with Kris Bernal in her ‘tomboy’ role in Loving You. She might have done a delightful stint in that film so she had a role in this movie even though her character is uncalled for.

Mag-ingat ka sa... Kulam has been backed-up by a good production company that is why their output is nearly well-made technically. The film’s story is cleverly made on the very basic level. Its crucial element in fusing witchcraft rituals is delightful but it is clear that it only dwells on an atmosphere we are accustomed and supposed to believe in. Lana’s recent work has relied on sound cues to mangle our breath with scary enchantments. The story’s twists are quite fine; praising it exclusively on its own is well deserved by Lana. But I will not buy the evil spirit inspiration because it is merely a fixation for horrible things to look more horrible. The film also lacks good execution in elevating horror without being overshadowed by emotional cues from its musical scoring. Its subject matter on its own is creepy and only a clear vision is the tool to make this material work in a film’s standpoint.

Kulam is graded A by the Cinema Evaluation Board


Charlie Koon's Rating:

Goes with the Flow

Oh Prince Charming, where art thou? ü

Venice. Savona. Rome. Pisa. Barcelona. Tunisia. Genoa. Napoli. Palma de Mallorca. Florence. Marseilles. These foreign places are used as backdrops for the film’s setting. That’s a bit generous for around two hundred bucks price admission. I.T.A.L.Y. (I Trust and Love You) is a plushy film, sustained by its splendid technical execution, and has a story that approaches a lighter touch on real-life drama. The fact that I had a nice time watching this film, viewing it is not in any way insulting.

I was sure that from the moment the opening credits are revealed, this is a lavish film production. Its rich visuals are engaging; appealing to be a good film appetizer. I rarely see local films that make tremendous efforts for such opening credits. Actually, I am as well cautious not to be overwhelmed with its grandiose setting and supposed to be impressive technicalities without giving complete attention to the film story/script. I appreciate Senedy Que’s clever writing approach and prudence in handling tailor-fitted characters. The story goes on as it is suppose to with minor understandable flaws.

Eager to meet her destiny, Destiny (Jolina Magdangal) seeks advice from a dubious fortune-teller for possible signs about the man in her dream. The fortune-teller vehemently gives her three vague and ludicrous signs that her prince charming will manifest. She notifies everything in her slum book. Along came a job offering for a cruise ship as a housekeeper, which without hesitation, she grabs due to financial problems. On her voyage, she willfully searches for the ‘destiny guy’ amongst the ship crew and passengers. Then she meets Paolo, (Dennis Trillo) a handsome mysterious guy that manifests two of the supposed signs. The last one - she will have to glance first at Paolo’s butt!

Let’s not kid ourselves; this film is made to entertain. It is evident with the director’s strides in technical excellence. With our country’s current financial instability, some people go to movie houses not to think, but to be amused and relaxed. But personally and in principle, I prefer thinking. On the contrary, an entertainment film such as I.T.A.L.Y. is rather a good form of diversion, a sort of stabilizer. I.T.A.L.Y. in consideration is smartly handled and its technical proficiency is enough reason to admire it. But I am daunted with the film’s appeal though. Even if I liked it, (I think the film is cute) there is a lesser audience as compared to most recent romcom flicks. Has it lost the hypnotic charisma it should possess and has somewhat transformed into a piece shameful trash an inevitability in formula films, hence the caustic indignation from most film critics. We want films to evolve, not to produce a static mold that the viewers will never be tired of. It does not exist. A movie must cater to the changing demography? Not quite. But I have something to say, Jolina Magdangal is in the industry for more than fifteen years. She has not yet shed off her virginal, uncorrupted, undefiled image.

Trillo has most of the dramatic sequences in the film and his acting is quite pleasing. He still manifests the matinee idol appeal expected from him. There is an undertoned love angle in the film between Rhian Ramos and Mark Herras. Ramos as Phoebe is inherently beautiful – she somewhat resembles the French actress Roxanne Mesquida. Herras fits his character well. The farce comedy element in the film relies heavily on pop culture parody and to some extent used slapstick for humorous effect. Eugene Domingo as Lovely and Rufa Mae Quinto as Stella excelled in this department. Their good command in shambles and travestry is not insulting even if it is nonsensical (on Stella’s part). As long as you like comedy, and you laughed your hearts out, their performance must be equally lauded for their precision. And yeah, I caught myself laughing for silly matters – forgive me.

I personally commend films which know a lot about film development. I.T.A.L.Y. is technically superior. It is diverse in musical scoring. The sound design is splendid (hardly ever seen dubbed parts). The story is unique with its proud demeanor in adopting farce comedy alongside the romantic overtones. Objectively speaking, the director Mark Reyes nailed it. But their main star, Magdangal, has her appeal diminished and was overshadowed by her contemporaries. She must rationalize the true essence of being an actress which involves higher risks. I sense that it is not mainly the producers or Magdangal’s manager that prevents her from developing roles in more robust direction, rather Jolina Magdangal alone. So, better watch out.


Charlie Koon's Rating: