(These reviews originally appeared in Letterboxd, and have been slightly modified for use on this site.)
Taya (Roman Perez Jr., 2021)
"Cute ka pa naman, kaso tanga ka lang."
A young man who is horny on main 24/7/365 makes a lot of very stupid decisions in a film that kind of ejaculates prematurely around 20 minutes in, segueing into a pointless sequence of events before going back to the plot (in equally idiotic fashion) and ending in something that, I'll be honest, I kinda liked. There may be something in there about how higher education does not guarantee financial security and how this unfair disadvantage leads people to hustle and get into shady shit, but nothing goes anywhere.
The character writing in this film is non-existent; people are reduced to one or two things and nothing else, Horny student boy is horny. Chinese mob boss wants money. Girl who guy (eventually) wants (they're interchangeable lol) has no motivation, and horny boy loves her because... he's horny? His hugot-ish flashback of her is like 60% sex scenes lol. Finally, final girl really loves anal.
The main "love" story in this is based on a post sex conversation talking about hometowns and other garbage that ultimately has no chemistry and doesn't make the romance believable in any capacity. Also, the preceding sex act, thanks to what looks like runny Ludy's Peanut Butter, looks like something out of 2 Girls 1 Cup. Have fun with that mental image. As the protagonist escapes his surroundings to start over (how'd he get the money? could he financially sustain that lifestyle?) the proceedings escalate into a subplot that would be a movie on its own, but is nevertheless crammed in as the movie's second act.
That's one of the biggest problems with the film: it feels like three or four movies crammed into 90 minutes, each with their own ideas and plots. The sad thing is that some of these films within a film would have panned out better had it they been done as standalone features. In this case, everything feels overstuffed. The soundtrack is fire, though. Seek that out if you have the time.
Shoot Shoot! Di ko Siya Titigilan (Al Tantay, 2021)
The original Shoot-Shoot, a song off Andrew E's album Krispy Na, Kreamy Pa, is about a hypersexual, controlling, manipulative partner who doesn't want his wife to go on vacation because that would mean his little general won't get action for a month. In the song, he brags that when she gets back, he'll skip all the foreplay and go straight to fucking, not stopping even when she comes. The pleasure is all his and his alone. If you are somehow disgusted by that description, well congrats, you are a normal functioning human being. As for the film based on the song, it isn't as distasteful as the song but for the most part it shares the same spirit.
Andrew E plays Jack, an aspiring actor who gets a big role playing a billionaire. He doesn't look like a conventional billionaire so I initially questioned the logic behind his casting, but he does look like a high roller who walks into Resorts World or something and bets millions of pesos, so what do I know, right? While rehearsing one of his billionaire lines, he is overheard by his neighbor and mistaken for a real billionaire. Hijinks ensue.
Now to be fair, it's not quite as wretched as Tantay's other recent films, though that is still a relative term (cue 54 year old Andrew E enthusiastically caressing 21 year old AJ Raval's chest with his lips) and thanks to not relying solely on disgusting infidelity as comedy, some of the (still crass) jokes pop out more. I can see some titos enjoying this as long as they are brain dead and not thinking about the movie too much.
And also to be fair, the main story does portray some social issues that grow even more relevant as the divide between rich and poor grows ever more wider. It shows us how much the idea of money and capital has enslaved common folk, in that 1) their attitudes change towards the perception of someone with a higher social status 2) they are lured to waste away their money via gambling thanks to unscrupulous individuals, I mean for example how many middle class folks do you see in casinos? 3) said individuals are closely attached to local government officials (and said government officials are not held liable for their collusion) and 4) these financially strapped individuals rely on singular saviors to help bail them out of their financial situation, which is never a tenable course of action.
The film ends with a police-ex-machina, using the state apparatus to resolve the central conflict without much fuss, instead of the film using the opportunity to have the people band together and fight. It's an Al Tantay film, I kinda expected comedic fisticuffs in the third act.
All in all, meh. You can always find worse in the Vivamax library, but you can watch better films there too. Also, I wonder if all this is just a cinematic manifestation of a middle aged crisis.
(And as an aside, the gambler dudes' reason for assassinating Jack is because they have no electricity. So why did they suddenly have electricity literally the day after, before any payments have been made? Do they have a generator lying around?)
Paraluman (Yam Laranas, 2021)
Writing a good, believable romance is HARD. One needs to have two characters with good chemistry, a relationship that progresses naturally, and a premise that doesn't feel contrived. Unfortunately, Yam Laranas' Paraluman fails all three criteria: a joyless, tepid affair that is as unsexy as it is boring.
As with Death of a Girlfriend, the film seems to prefer portraying female leads as lusty (yet virginal!) characters, draped mostly in slinky nightgowns that fall off the nipple. I'm not sure if that's Laranas' preference, or something mandated by Viva to enhance sex appeal. Either way, it maxes out the creep factor by several orders of magnitude.
The relationship between Jao Mapa and Rhen Escano's characters lacks anything remotely romantic, more often than not resembling a bad porno instead of a sexy drama. The fact that he is technically her landlord (and way older) is itself a more than a bit skeevy. They apparently bond together via computer tutorial sessions, which is ridiculous considering Youtube has tons of videos, for free. Maybe it's not that ridiculous, come to think of it, if their goal was not to learn C++, but to learn the ways of the D instead.
I'll go ahead and excuse myself for that horrible joke.
Okay I'm back. What's even more egregious is the ending, where the dude narcs on himself, goes to prison for a few years, THEN goes back and meets with his now totally legal age girlfriend, with what looks like the full support of his (I assume) ex-wife? Okay I guess? There's a whiff of a sideplot as well that shows that the wife is not a very good administrator or government official, and perhaps someone more pedantic than me can draw out something more substantial from the source material, but in this case, it isn't worth it.
69 + 1 (Darryl Yap, 2021)
Darryl Yap seems to have mastered a very specific art of gimmick-based storytelling, where he uses controversy and shock value (or at least, the threat of such things) to peddle ideas that (to be honest), aren't as smart as Yap probably thinks they are. Despite scorn from audiences, evidently seen in most of the reviews on letterboxd, that approach seems to be paying dividends anyway, with most of his films ranking at the top of Vivamax's movie list on the week of their release. This is the movie equivalent of a shitpost - deliberately triggering to some, composed mainly of filler and mostly devoid of meaningful content, but still enjoyable to a significant chunk of people.
Or maybe I'm completely missing some nebulous point here. Well go ahead! Have at it legitimate film critics! Plumb those depths, fist that rectum all the way to the elbow.
This is not about a polyamorous relationship, and it's barely a "lesbian film" either - the film looks like it was written by a man whose only concept of lesbians is from lesbian porn (and not the kind that's geared towards lesbians, either) - a Kechiche-ian filmmaking sensibility as fresh as an unwashed perineum. By the end of the movie, the hetero couple delivers the film's patented Darryl Yap Hugot Message of the Week (TM) and it solves all of the lesbian couple's problems. Hooray I guess.
If you are not looking for anything particularly enlightening and want to ogle at girls or something, well you're in for a treat, which is to say sure you could either watch this or just skim pornhub, you do you, don't let me tell you what to do.
I have not yet slept in 30 hours watching these films and I am way too tired for this lol. Good night.
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