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oggsmoggs
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Name: Oggie
Country: Philippines
Birthday: 9/15/1982
Gender: Male
Interests: Films, literature, music, and reading rape cases
Occupation: Student
Industry: Legal
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Yahoo:  oggsmoggs
Member Since:
7/18/2004
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| Jologs - Gilbert Perez
The screenplay for Filipino hit film Jologs won first prize in a contest initiated by film producer Star Cinema. The award-winning screenplay was supposedly darker, more biting than what we have now. Also, the screenplay was supposed to be directed by Jeffrey Jeturian, one of the country's leading directors. But like almost everything that lands on the laps of ABS-CBN and its film producing arm Star Cinema, it's bound to be rewrapped, repackaged, regurgitated faux-Hollywood style to please the millions of eager fans who'd be willing to let go of their hard-earned peso to get a glimpse of not one, but a whole stable, of these manufactured stars strut it out in the big screen. Luckily, the factory-manufactured film is light enough to enjoy, entertaining enough to withstand, and pretty enough to look at.
The film is a mixture of different storylines interweaving in a neighborhood coffeeshop. Literary misgivings abound this youth-oriented tale and despite the fact of it being labeled as fashionably original, nothing is really new with this teen flick. Ruben (John Prats) works as a cashier for the coffee shop, while struggling to find money for his schooling, money that he has to beg from his estranged rich father leading him to plan a small-time heist. Mando (Diether Ocampo) is the security guard for the cafe, who is also the understanding boyfriend to a japayuki (a dancer who works in Japan) who would leave both Mando and her infant to work abroad. Cher (Baron Geisler) is a transvestite who is chanced upon by mean and sinister cafe-owner Trigger (OneMig Bondoc). Iza (Assunta de Rossi) is loud and sexy and has a secret crush on super-religious student, who surprisingly, takes the independent woman for a date. Kulas (Vhong Navarro) is in love with taekwondo fighter and is ready with an engagement ring, but is unready for rejection. Lastly, Dino (Patrick Garcia) is former seminarian who is about to engage in premarital sex with his longtime girlfriend Faith (Jodie Sta. Maria).
There are too many plots in this youth-oriented flick - too many plots with very little to say. Screenwriter Ned Trespeces' solution to that is to replicate the oft-used Hollywood conceit, the interweaving storylines. The problem here is that despite the fact that these storylines and characters connect, the focal point is pretty much pointless. Why a cafe? Why an explosion? Like a true Filipino film, such had to be explained and in a revalatory scene leading to the expected climax, Trespeces does. It is that lack of confidence with his work or his acknowledgement that he has very little to say that keeps Jologs from standing out. The little stories are your typical angst-driven drivels that are just magnified a dozen times by witty filmmaking and overuse of visual gimmickry. True, there are very interesting moments in the film, but in a film that has to spend some more time with a multitude of other storylines, a few interesting moments will not make a truly good Filipino film. The filmmaking mimmicks of P. T. Anderson rather than the true master of ensemble filmmaking Robert Altman. The result stinks of gimmickry than real filmmaking. Replicating Anderson turned the film a dozen notches below Anderson's Magnolia, a far more liberating and adventurous piece of work. Funnily, Perez decided to end Jologs with a clear borrowing of Magnolia's song number - only this time the result is cheese and schmultz, instead of hairraising wonderment.
The filmmaking is very much standard but it's nice to imagine how Jeffrey Jeturian would handle the screenplay. He'd probably defend the original screenplay and keep Star Cinema's sugarcoating paws from morphing it off of its relevance. Jeturian's finest traits as a filmmaker is his utmost respect for his screenwriters. His opus Minsan Pa bore screenwriter Armando Lao's name above its title rather than the traditional way of labeling it as a director's work. If Jeturian did get a hold of this script (and yes, Jeturian is good with teens and non-actors), it would've probably been more relevant instead of being your everyday teen angst film the Philippines hasn't gotten rid of since the 80's. | | |
| Hinugot sa Langit - Ishmael Bernal
Ishmael Bernal's Hinugot sa Langit (Snatched from Heaven) is a very challenging film to watch. Right from the start, the audience is introduced with scenarios of complex problems pressed after other problems. The characters are drafted from your typical melodrama stereotypes. The center of the drama is Carmen Castro (Maricel Soriano), the impossibly patient victim of the screenwriter-created dilemmas. Revolving around Carmen's personage and dilemmas are other characters that are seemingly cut from traditionally established cinematic stereotypes. There is Stella (Amy Austria), the liberated and seemingly modern cousin of Carmen. Juling (Charito Solis) is Carmen's overly religious landlady, an avid member of a charismatic prayer group. Jerry (Al Tantay) and Bobby (Rowell Santiago), are the two men in Carmen's life, the former, an irresponsible playboy-gambler, the latter, a traditionalist who is stuck to his life plans. Hinugot sa Langit, in paper, sounds like your typical Filipino melodrama where histrionics and impossible scenarios abound, but fantastically, the film is far from that. Beautifully restrained, simple, and hardhitting, Hinugot sa Langit tackles a controversial topic with an uncontroversial control and a humanistic approach to a central character that has all the problems of the world to withstand.
During the first few minutes of the film, we are informed that Carmen is pregnant. Her cousin Stella scoffs and recommends abortion. The father of the child, Jerry, also recommends abortion. Her landlady, who is busy juggling her religious aims and her legal quarrel with the poor families illegally living in her land, suggests that she keeps the baby as killing it would be a sin against God. Carmen sees signs that would seemingly suggest an answer to her difficult decision. Her poor neighbors struggle for money to feed their children. She sees a physically malformed child vending goods outside the church. She loses her job at a financing company due to the struggling economy during that time.
Hinugot sa Langit may be branded as preachy and anti-abortion but in reality, while its focus is that controversial issue, Ishmael Bernal and screenwriter Amado Lacuesta, populates the film with sidestories that suggest a latter more pressing issue, which is societal hypocrisy. It just so happens that abortion is the most telling of issues. The Philippines being a prominently Catholic nation declares abortion as criminally and morally wrong yet funnily, the practice is unwrittenly accepted among women who are time-pressed with a decision. Such is the scenario here, Carmen is surrounded by suggestions of what to do but is left upon her own faculties in deciding. Each suggestion is clouded by a tinge of doubt. The characters surrounding her aren't naturally sure of their own lives. Stella is outwardly happy and wild but inwardly is insecure and lonely. Juling carries within herself an unerasable guilt which she tries to forget through her religious practices, forgetting that the world has deeper problems than her past. All the events and the characters have unnatural and seemingly impossible roots, but as a screenplay, as a dramatic film, Hinugot sa Langit works.
Thematically sound, Hinugot sa Langit also boasts of technical mastery. The music is sparse and controlled. Bernal foregoes the overorchestrated notion of what a drama should be and instead relies on his visuals and his actors talents to draw out emotions. The cinematography is simple but there are some very wonderful shots where the lighting, the blocking of the actors, and the framing, contribute to an impressive addition to Bernal's atmosphere of confusion and cynicism for this unsure Filipino society. The acting is very impressive. Maricel Soriano is wonderfully restrained, letting go of her usual histrionics for the more difficult style of acting that comes from what is felt within than what is outwardly presented. Charito Solis is a wonderful presence, and so is Amy Austria, who singlehandedly gives the film a lighthearted humor. ****1/2/***** | | |
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The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio - Jane Anderson
Last year's under-the-radar feel-good film The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is an adaptation of a biographical novel of the same title written by Terry Ryan. The novel mostly recounts how a 50's mom was able to raise ten children with the primary help of prizes won from literary and other skill contests. The source material is an excellent example of woman power especially during the 50's wherein beauty contestants would proudly declare that women can never make good presidents since women are presumably emotional and high strung. The film adaptation by Jane Anderson however, while an enjoyable piece of fuzzy fluff, degenerates into typical period drama, more appropriate in television rather than the big screen.
Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore) used to work for a publishing company with a promising career ahead of her. However, she married erstwhile crooner Kelly (Woody Harrelson) who, after a car accident, lost his ability to sing and was left to working as a machinist to provide food for his family. Kelly is dependent yet extremely proud. He spends his last few dollars at the liquor store without thinking that he will not be left any money for tomorrow's milk delivery. Evelyn, now a full-time housewife of a household of ten children, has mastered the art of contesting. Prizes arrive at the Ryan doorstep at the most dire of circumstances, saving the family from hunger and inevitable embarrassment. Understandably, Kelly becomes antagonistic of his wife's family-saving talents.
The only other Jane Anderson work I've seen is her segment in These Walls Could Talk 2. The segment, a period piece about two lesbians meeting at a bar and eventually ending up in a relationship, is particularly decent. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is Anderson's first feature film, a huge cross-over from her television and direct-to-video roots. Its direction is interestingly flat, with gushes of promise every once in a while. Anderson resorts to CGI distractions and other gimmickry (like making Evelyn Ryan the narrator plus the main character, using computer-manufactured doubles to create an illusion of two Julianne Moores in the picture) to keep the drama above the entrenched television-quality of the material. As flat as the direction is the obviousness of the intentions of Anderson. Her air of feminism blossoms in the atmosphere of the film and while I appreciate every bit of activism from filmmakers, I'd appreciate a bit of artistry in presentation. Her characters are drawn out in thick stereotypes. Evelyn is the well-loved mother who rarely gets mad and has the patience that would've instantly made her a saint. Kelly is the brooding, no-good father, who, while being pictured as loving and understanding, is still caricaturishly portrayed by Harrelson as the exact paper opposite of the perfect Evelyn. Even the sequencing gives the picture a quality bereft of purely and naturally emotional moments. The scenes are almost fantastically told, giving an air of a tall tale rather than a true story, without emotionality painted straight right there for all of the audience to see. In the end, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio feels lacking, shallow, and undeniably preachy. **/*****
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United 93 - Paul Greengrass
Months before Oliver Stone releases his 9/11 film World Trade Center, Paul Greengrass, helmer of such thrillers like Bloody Sunday and The Bourne Supremacy released United 93, the director's take on the only hi-jacked plane that supposedly never reached its destination. If anything, Stone has every reason to give his finished product a final look before unleashing it to the world because Greengrass' film is very good, distinctly honest and objective in as much as it can be objective.
On September 11 of that fateful year, four commercial planes were hi-jacked. Two of the planes went straight through the twin towers of the World Trade Center, leading to its untimely collapse. One landed and hit one side of the United States' military center, the Pentagon. The last plane, United Airlines 93, landed somewhere in Pennsylvania. Just after the tragic events, rumors spread on why United 93 just went streaming down the middle of nowhere. Supposedly, the United States military, alarmed by the seemingly planned hi-jacks and attacks on centers of American power, shot down the plane to prevent it from reaching whatever target it's supposed to hit. In Greengrass' film, the reason for the failure of the terrorist's plan was due to the reactions of the plane's passengers.
The film is tightly woven, and paced in supposed real time. It starts out with the scene of the terrorists praying to Allah, and preparing for the day ahead. Calm and assured, Greengrass paces the introductory sequences in clockwork assuredness. The pilots arrive, along with the stewardesses, chatting away, and giving tangential clues as to who they are and whom they will leave behind. I acknowledge the fact that Greengrass never really gave us to chance to know these people. As far as he was concerned, his characters are merely passengers of an ill-fated flight. They might be husbands, wives, mothers, students, or children in their lives outside that plane, but Greengrass never really delves into such, giving us undivided focus on what is to happen. Greengrass segues his airplane scenes to the the FAA, then to the military center, then to the respective airports' air traffic controllers. This balanced attention to detail is exquisite and gives Greengrass an opportunity to tell his story in real time without boring his audience to death.
The visuals are almost documentary-like. Greengrass utilizes hand-held cameras and more often than not, appreciates imperfect visual impulses rather than pitch-perfect glossy cinematography to detail his story. The result is mixed. There's certainly confusion in the air, when the more action-filled scenes are plastered in hand-held, almost masturbatory camera movements. However, when the film centers in frenzied dialogue (which the film is mostly concerned with), the visual style is effective. It creates an atmosphere of uneasiness.
What I really liked about United 93 is the fact that it does not draw emotions from extraordinary acts of courage and heroism. The psychological impulses and reactions of the passengers and crew of the hi-jacked plane are results of fear, of anger, of attacked pride, rather than nationalism or that oft-repeated notion of American pride. Their retaliation is not a result of dreams of glory, or even survival, but of animalistic vengeance, or perverted purges of passion. As much as the film's topic is of political value, the film is very apolitical. There is not a notion of anti-American sentiment or pro-Bush activism. Greengrass tells the events as it is, and as how he perceives them to be. Whatever communications of unreadiness of the American government, or the dilly-dallying of the presidency in its inaction is a result of the factual circumstances rather than of directorial leaning. Even the trespassers, the terrorists, are presented in a light of objective air. In the film, they are merely extremist Muslims, rather than political activists. Sure, they are presented as villains but such cannot be denied as human impulse dictates that one rallies for the ones denied of their rights - and in this film's case, it is the passengers of United Airlines 93. ****1/2/***** | | |
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