Z for Zloppy

Fabulouzzz

I too could emphasize my dizappointment with how Joel Lamangan could actually make a film that is roughly run-of-the-mill. It amazes me how his mediocrity can still surprise people. I Love Dreamguyz has queasy visualz to begin with, followed through with a grubby story progression. The film is like choking during orgazm ‘in reverse’ while in a coma. Someone should wake them up az they are likely having a dizorder called sleep apnea. They might drown in their own saliva. If this is what the audience might have dreamed for, then so be it. And if you snooze midway, there is still the Z factor offered as a bargain.

I Love Dreamguyz is about a group of young guys who aspires to be dancers in Japan. The group is composed of five cheeky gym buff guys, having different life stories to tell - in snippets. The group leader is Rico (Marco Morales) which I could remember has no character backbone. His presence only intensifies when Jake (Jay-L Dizon) becomes close to him. Jake has a live-in partner Jenny (Niña Jose). Alvin (Sherwin Ordonez) is the beloved of the flamboyant gay talent manager Didi (Jao Mapa). Even if the story segues to Didi’s intolerable gayness and networking scam sub-conflicts, Jake is the heart of the story. He is likened by Rico who has no story to tell but has a wang to show. The other two guys are like opposing magnets. Benjo (Miggy Valdez) is the battered son while Michael (Mhyco Aquino) is the hotheaded gigolo.

I could not question the lust factor between Rico and Jake after the premise has been laid (no pun intended). Just like the concept in the product life cycle, Lamangan is quite deliberate in hauling out all possible carnality without further notice. It has been a franchise all along and the two young guys having sex with each other, not once but a couple times do matter for his vision. The sequence is not anymore relevant and substantial. The insistence might be somewhere in the decline point and so Lamangan might be avoiding any possible risk. Its shoddy production is the unyielding proof that it is near to extinction and for now, he could only milk the cow.

If this could be a trend, then what could have I Love Dreamguyz instilled in the present state of Philippine Cinema? The truth is that, a prolific director like Joel Lamangan will always embark on catering the sweet hot-dogged spaghetti the majority would delightfully consume. Would anyone have a problem with that? There will be hecklers for that matter and I assume it is no two-way channel. Lamangan has static visions and it appears in the film. But at least the film has someone who could still be honed in the dramatic genre. She could fake decency and might as well get well-rounded roles if the franchise turns obsolete. She is none other than Niña Jose.

I Love Dreamguyz could be the expected downfall of a mainstream veteran director. The film appears to be an extremely poor mise-en-scene home-made video like production. Despite the negativity, Joel Lamangan still makes films and makes even more. He might have an easy rapport with the majority perceived in the commercial success of Walang Kawala and Heavenly Touch. But for people having exotic tastes and bigotry, he will always be a failure. But he has strengths which I could affirm; he is an actor’s director. But I have issues with the tawdriness and smudgy qualities he has for now. He is expected to come up with a better output. I hope a good sleep could do the fixing – no nightmares, hopefully.

.

.
Charlie Koon's Rating:

Wet Dreams May Come

Sweety Tweety

Come being the veiled operative, the arrival of mainstream movie veteran Joel Lamangan into the indie arena with his seminal (pun unintended) work Walang Kawala has left many a moviegoer tightened to the coil and ready to be cloyed by the subsequent votive designs of a master of populist directing. His pseudo-sophomore work Heavenly Touch (Fuschia not included) has all the makings of a crowd pleaser, with the crowd being mostly homosexual men, and the pleasure being solidified and assembled on a conveyer belt of contemporary gay-themed flicks whose production rate can be likened to China-bred teddy bears. If the demand is indeed related to the implacable concupiscence of a predominantly male audience, then the supply has little reason of abating.

The movie centers on the lives of robust young men working as masseurs in the seedy but ostensibly clean “Heavenly Touch” spa run by the perpetually fan-wielding and diminutive Mama Orange (Jim Pebanco) and his tyrannical not-so-campy masculine counterpart Sir Tong (Jeffrey Santos). Their able-bodied employees are displayed like vacuous dolls behind a glass pane, and like the industry that prides itself on the dispensability of its human resource, Sir Tong does not hesitate to discipline his nubile wards with casual fatality. Though a more sensitive dimension is conveyed through a romantic dynamic between the two, the portrayal of Sir Tong and Mama Orange in the movie is a fascinating reflection of the sexual politics that predominates among gay Filipinos. To summarize, effeminates are seen as weaklings, with predictable desires and informidable but amusing personalities, while bisexual mustache-clad men are imposing, albeit malicious, assholes, but ultimately more desirable. Of course the crucifix of seduction is planted on the masseurs themselves, hard-up and fresh-cheeked detachables that cater to a more primal logic conveniently stored in every ticket-payer this side of the pink district. This is the very essence of Lamangan’s cinematic language, he practically wrote it, the sweet and universal poetry of the shirtless male constitution. Though true poetry is of a more rarefied ilk, Lamangan makes no apologies in giving the public exactly what they asked for, and that is something you can bring straight to the bank. He employed them all, along with some of his favorites, the scandal king Paolo Serrano, the frontal nudity king Marco Morales, the monotonic and awkward king of the moment, Mr. Lakan male pageant winner Joash Balejado. Throw in a pair of clichéd queens predictably acted by Paolo Rivero and that other gay guy giving away expensive merchandise and you have a full house. And that is exactly what Lamangan intends to achieve. It may be an iffy gamble but his delving into a more concentrated target market may reveal more than his artistic experimental proclivities. The fact that he is able to make such movies, release them with no perceived trammeling from the ratings board, and have them run for more than a week is sheer evidence of his considerable hold on the industry. The power is there, and perhaps the patronage, but does Lamangan have what it takes to elevate his work to a higher tier, more than Mano Po 3000 uberload or Manay Po 10? Does he care? The fact that he endeavored to tread on this side of the river implies that he does. And he knows well enough how tricky the river bends.

Inevitably Lamangan’s Heavenly Touch will be compared to others of its flock, to the Chionglo and perhaps even the Brocka films that virtually created the genre. The subject matter itself is almost identical to Brillante Mendoza’s Masahista though that is where the similarity ends. The two films represent two different schools of thought, Lamangan’s plot-driven traditional film-making (though not without its surprises carefully calibrated to shock the jaded moviegoer) and Mendoza’s stylistic exhibitionism rank with fancy angles and sprawling particularities. The latter being buffeted with shiny trophies and pretty plaques, mostly international, while the former being more accessible to the masses, the divergence hints a wobbling diversity within contemporary Philippine cinema. Hopefully it will not be inimical to the industry as a whole. While some things are changing, Lamangan’s socio-political expressionism that teeters on the edge of redundant melodrama underscores his reliance on recurrent themes and cookie-cutter archetypes that are not always redeemed by his talent for characterization. He mixes it up a bit and breaks some of the rules, but in the end his intrinsic almost perfunctory desire to placate the audience is indomitable. He even made two hot guys fall in love, placing them on a bus bound for a golden world of reciprocal passion and resolved conflicts, a certified wet dream both timeless and meretricious. It is a mollified version of his previous indie adventure, cherry-topped with a happy ending that eluded a disappointed swarm of romantics. Even the weak female archetype in the person of Irma Adlawan, the powerless mother-spectator, was content in the end, despite watching her only son evanesce indefinitely with a man-whore. It’s ingratiating to be sure, but if I were asked who among the current Filipino directors society should cryogenically freeze for the sake of our culture’s posterity, I would personally elect Joel Lamangan as one of my top choices. Embedded in his DNA are the desires and weaknesses of an entire nation, an organic admonition to the future Philippine stock. If that’s not worth preserving, I don’t know what is.

Written by: Alex Milla (Guest Critic)

Loose Ends

Awe-some...

From the title alone, one might know what one should expect from the film. It has a lot of loopholes within the story and it could have been a deception on a higher level of understanding with what they have done with the story transition. Butas has three points of view. It tries to create a moralistic or perceptive dilemma in the minds of the audience. Each point of view represents one argument which is in grave contrast to the others. Anyway, this style is used to push the viewer to choose the one that is the closest to reality. I think in that sense it might be adequate. But in Butas, it is rather a machination on how they would keep up the twist of the story and a bit careless with its usage. I am not contented with how it turned out.

Butas (Loophole) is a film by Alejandro Ramos that tackles a forbidden affair of a married sluttish girl named Maya (Gwen Garci) and an equally promiscuous police officer named Virgo (Marco Morales). They meet in an abandoned house not far from the city and undertake the forbidden act of sexual congress. Little did they know that Maya’s husband Jake (Allen Dizon) is nearby waiting for an opportunity to kill the lover of his wife.

The first part of the story is tolerable as it conveys the point of view of Jake. He clinches at the ceiling of the house looking at all the lascivious doings of the two. The second point of view takes place from a video taken of the act. It shows much of the flaws in the film as this could have tricked the audience in so many ways. I don’t want to elaborate on this matter as this could easily give away the twists of the story. Anyway, the twist is nothing compelling or even groundbreaking. It lacks the basic necessity in weaving sequences where it must appear cohesively even in having different points of view. Not unless the director himself did that on purpose, hence altering the characterizations of the characters is part of the twist.

I am not also convinced on how everything has taken place in the climax of the film. Maya’s character was drugged by Virgo and could have easily loosened up. But she did at one point have the physical stamina to stand up and deliver all those stupid lines and commit something awful. It is very tacky in so many ways. And also, there are lots of jump cuts and blur sequences in the movie. Did the MTRCB have something to do with this?

The acting of the three main characters is passable. Both Garci and Morales (Walang Kawala) have already been undressed in their previous films that I saw. It is also apparent that Garci and Dizon could be the sexy loveteam indie films as they too are the couple in the erotic film Room 213. Butas could have been made for easy bucks. The various points of view Ramos has explored in the film are not ideal. Once it is woven in the film, you will see a lot of holes in it.

There are lots of excuses nowadays in film making. It is really confusing. But I am sure that once a film makes money, they could make another film. Hopefully they make a well made film, not necessarily circumventing the bareness or even the sexual activities. I understand that these are the facts of life.

Charlie Koon's Rating: